Dave in Green

It's ridiculous to claim that LeBron has no effect on Zips recruiting, and it's ridiculous to claim that LeBron is the primary reason why recruits choose UA. Reality almost always lies somewhere between the most extreme opposing opinions. I believe that LeBron's connection with Coach Dambrot and UA has some effect on recruits -- some more than others. I don't claim to know how much because I don't really know. I also don't know why any Zips fan would be opposed to any legal recruiting edge that helps attract higher level talent to UA, no matter how small that advantage might be.

All I care about is that Coach Dambrot has publicly stated on many occasions that LeBron has helped the Zips in many different ways. As far as whether or not a specific recruit selected UA over another school because of the LeBron connection, that would be up to one of the Zips' recruits to make public. Nyles Evans has made it public knowledge that LeBron is his favorite pro athlete. You'd have to ask him if that made a difference in choosing UA over Middle Tennessee and other teams that were recruiting him.

Are we measuring maturity by chronological age or by general behavior on ZipsNation? Either way, count me in. Zeke is a special person who deserves a special send-off like this. I want to tell him how much I've enjoyed watching him grow into a great college basketball player, and that I'll become a big fan of whichever NBA team is smart enough to draft him. Many thanks for providing us with this opportunity.

@GoZips, you are so right. The MAC rule may not prohibit intra-conference transfers, but it sure does inhibit them. The NCAA rule says players have a 5-year window to complete 4 years of eligibility. In addition to taking away a year of athletic scholarship in the first year of an intra-conference transfer, the MAC rule also takes away a year of eligibility, leaving only 3. I guess that makes it the Bubba for 3 Rule.

OK, first of all, the NCAA allows each of its member conferences to make its own intra-conference transfer rules. Next, I found a copy of the recently revised (January 29, 2013) MAC intra-conference transfer rule on the Buffalo website: So what GoZips says apparently only applies during the first season after a transfer from one MAC school to another. Other conferences have different rules. Link to PDF document on Buffalo website

Adding to the mystery, USFL director Fred Biletnikoff is not responding to e-mails from The Pigskin Report.

Right, the MAC gets 25% credit for Michael Cox no matter how you cut it. The Big Ten gets the other 75%, as Cox transferred to UMass from the University of Michigan for his senior season to prove he could be a starter for an FBS team, and UMass has only been in the MAC for one season.

So the MAC only gets 50% credit for the UMass player?

@ZachTheZip scores. Here's a little more on Hill at this link. And here's a nice story on Wheeler.

I appreciate learning anything new about Zips basketball, even if it's not about a guaranteed stud starter. You never know when another guy like Jonas Stalyga is going to show up to entertain us at the JAR with his can't-miss warmup shooting.

If he's on scholarship, Anonymous would go at the top of the alphabetical list.

Technically, the recruiting class is never 100% locked in until 13 scholarship players are all registered for the fall semester and show up for practice. Below is the current situation on scholarships based on everything I've heard to date. The only way another scholarship player gets added is to subtract one of these. Since Coach Dambrot has said Diggs has a 95% chance of returning, he still has to be looking at adding someone in the 5% case that Diggs doesn't return. He also has to be prepared if Ibitayo considers transferring due to thinking he isn't going to get as much playing time as he wants. Stuff happens, as we Zips fans know all too well. 1. Betancourt 2. Cheatham 3. Diggs 4. Evans 5. Forsythe 6. Gladden 7. Harney 8. Ibitayo 9. Jackson 10. Johnson 11. Kretzer 12. McAdams 13. Treadwell

Yes, Trickett gets to play immediately, and he gets to play for two more years. Pretty unusual situation. He's also reported to be visiting WVU and USF in addition to Auburn.

At 6-3, 185 pounds, no wonder he looks skinny! I'm sure it's happened before, but I can't ever recall seeing a college football player graduating academically from one school and still having two full years of athletic eligibility. Apparently he's visiting Auburn, so he has his sights set high on where he wants to play.

Sounds as if Zeke has made a good impression in Pre-Draft Camp judging by this tweet from Coach John Lucas: I went back over a few months of Coach Lucas tweets, and he only rarely pays a compliment like that to one of the many HS, college and pro players who take part in the various camps he runs in Texas and around the country. Twitter Link.

City League Hoops visited UA and made Zeke their first player interview prior to the 2013 NBA Draft. They posted the interview with the following lead-in: @GP1 will be interested to learn that the interview produced the definitive quote directly from Zeke on how he didn't really start loving basketball until last year, just as GameChngr44 has been telling the media and Zips fans who've spoken with her: Link here.

Isaiah Johnson was ranked Top Rebounder of all the many HS basketball players from 8 different states that Rick Bolus watched play all season, according to this March 29 Bolus E-Mail Blast.

Good call, Dr Z. The #2 MAC player selected in the draft is Brian Winters. He's the 72nd player selected, and goes to the New York Jets.

Coach Dambrot would be dour even if he believed that Abreu would be found not guilty of any crime for the simple reason that Abreu's teammates, his coaches, UA and Zips fans have already suffered their punishment. Even if Abreu is found totally innocent and clears his name, the position he put himself in crushed the Zips' post-season hopes. No matter what happens now, that can never be reversed. Just thinking about it makes me feel dour.

@ZachTheZip, you nailed it. And you can bet if it happens that Coach Bowden will do a great job of leveraging it in his recruiting.

@OU Dude, check the date of the post you were replying to. It was referencing the 2011-2012 season, not the recently completed 2012-2013 season.

Initial reports are almost always full of gaps, misinterpretations and outright errors. We still don't have the whole story on exactly what went down. More facts will come out during the trial.

I always thought the NCAA was the sole arbiter of transfer rules. But the NCAA Transfer Guide says: So it may be possible that MAC transfer rules are different from other conferences. But I can't find a copy of the MAC rule book.

@ZachTheZip, good find. Not a big surprise. Justice was obviously recruited for his 3-point shooting in HS. He might have stuck around as a low-minute bench player on previous Zips teams, as Nick Goddard did. But it takes a lot more than that to make it as a contributor at the level the Zips are now playing. If Justice picks the right team, he could still have a productive college career. I wish him the best of luck.

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