Dave in Green

I keep re-reading this post looking for some acknowledgement of the 17-game winning streak, the votes in the AP and Coaches polls, the inclusion on bubble watches. But it appears that there's not a shred of recognition that the Zips are showing any sign of progress, which is really nothing more than movement toward a goal. Really, it's OK for even the worst pessimists to acknowledge signs of progress without surrendering their fundamental belief that it's all going to fall apart in the end.

Good educational story from Seth Davis: Debunking Selection Sunday's biggest myths

Wow.

@GoZips, if Jake is up to 6-8 and can play (and guard) the 2, 3 and 4 positions with the kind of intensity he's shown to date, then he may end up getting as many hugs as this guy:

@BirdZip, one thing to consider is that a better seed is not always better. Sometimes a worse seed will put you up against a team that you match up better against. Having said that, I still think there's an outside shot at a #11 seed if the Zips run the table including the MAC conference championship game. Should we be good enough to enter the NCAA tournament on a 24-game winning streak with 3 wins over sweet 16 darling OU, including on the road and at a neutral site, I believe the selection committe would look favorably on the Zips' 3-month undefeated body of work from Dec. 18, 2012 through March 16, 2013. Again, we're talking long shots, but it's possible. The only way to do it is take it one game at a time, which the Zips players are doing a good job of staying focused on right now.

It's not just Purdue's RPI that counts. The Zips would also get a share of Big Ten RPI love: RPI = (WP * 0.25) + (OWP * 0.50) + (OOWP * 0.25) where WP is Winning Percentage, OWP is Opponents' Winning Percentage and OOWP is Opponents' Opponents' Winning Percentage If you consider that each conference ends up with a .500 won-lost record within conference play, then what really counts is playing an opponent from a conference that has a great OOC winning percentage. The way to game that system is to schedule a beatable team from a conference with a great OOC winning percentage, and beat them on the road. That way you capture a nice piece of that conference's OOWP. The top 5 conference won-lost OOC records this season are: 1. Big East (151-34) 2. Big Ten (121-31) 3. Mountain West (87-26) 4. Atlantic Coast (114-37) 5. Big 12 (88-32)

I think Coach Dambrot will surprise us with the starting lineup.

Correct, Coastal Carolina is the only loss that the selection committee will see as bad, and it was the first D-I game of the season. The Zips were ranked slightly higher than Detroit when the two teams played. But Detroit's homecourt advantage offset that, so the spread was listed as 0.0. If the selection committee were to put their most powerful microscope on the Coastal Carolina loss (which they won't), here's what they'd see: * Leading rebounder and 2nd leading scorer (Tree) did not play. * 3rd leading rebounder and 4th leading scorer (Harney) did not play. * Assists leader, 3rd leading scorer and team leader (Abreu) playing at half speed in his first game back from a serious high ankle sprain that took several more weeks to heal. * Starting forward (Gilliam at the time) scoring 1 point while limping on a recently torn meniscus that soon required surgery. * Due to the above, 43% of PT was by freshmen in their first Zips game against a D-I opponent, and 38% by true freshmen who had never faced a D-I opponent. Some will call that making excuses. I call it making oneself aware of all the extenuating circumstances. The players are not machines and the contests are not video games. They're real people with real injuries that hurt their performance no matter how hard they try to do well. Outside of the totally inexperienced freshmen, the performance of only 3 players -- 2 experienced seniors and 1 semi-experienced sophomore -- was unaffected by injuries. The lack of healthy, experienced players on the floor in that game was greater than any other Zips game I can recall since I've been following them.

@BirdZip, Zips fans may consider Detroit a bad loss. But the NCAA selection committee will not. They do not see losses to top 100 teams on the road as "bad," and Detroit's RPI is currently #63. The selection committee will only look at it as a missed opportunity for Akron to prove itself with a quality road win, which the committee values highly.

@Big Zip, I recently spent some time talking basketball with a nice gentleman named Marc Smith, who is the newly appointed academic coordinator for mens basketball and track at UA. He was previously head coach at Millikin, and is a pretty savvy guy. After talking with him for awhile, I'm confident that the Zips are in good hands when it comes to academic compliance.

If everyone was fired for making a mistake, we'd all be unemployed.

As expected, the Zips are now getting noted in Memphis stories: Memphis (23-3, 12-0 Conference USA) recorded its 17th straight victory, tying Akron for the longest winning streak in the nation.

@Big Zip, you make a lot of good points about teams in stronger conferences having weaker OOC schedules and teams in weaker conferences needing to have stronger OOC schedules to raise their SOS and RPI, if only for the benefit of the NCAA selection committee. The Zips made a good effort to raise their OOC SOS this season. RPI Forecast currently ranks Akron's OOC SOS at #70, and projects that it will be #54 at the end of the regular season. This is up from previous seasons, and a good move forward. But it doesn't tell the whole story. Considering the Zips took Oklahoma State into overtime on a neutral court without 2/3rds of its starting front line (Tree and Nick, the 1st and 3rd leading rebounders and 2nd and 4th leading scorers), it's not unreasonable to speculate that at full strength they would have been able to pull off the upset and advance to facing Tennessee instead of NC-Asheville. It's also reasonable to speculate that if the Zips at full strength could knock off Oklahoma State, they would have also had a reasonable chance to beat Tennessee and advance to playing North Carolina State instead of Penn State. This would have resulted in an even higher OOC SOS -- likely well into the top 50 in the country. I think we all agree that the Zips need a strong top 50 OOC SOS every season in order to take the next step up. The loss to Coastal Carolina will be seen as bad even though Tree and Nick were missing, Rico was at the start of a weeks-long recovery from a serious high ankle sprain, Chauncey was playing on an injured knee that would require surgery, and the Zips were playing true freshmen long minutes in their first ever D-I games. The loss to Detroit was certainly a missed opportunity. But it would not be seen by the selection committee as a "bad loss" because the Titans are a top 100 team (currently #63 RPI), and it was a road game. It was a lost opportunity at getting a quality win on the road, which the selection committee really likes. As far as scheduling teams like Duke and Kansas, they generally avoid tough and feisty mid-majors lacking nationally recognized credentials. They get their SOS and RPI from their conferences and from OOC games against teams with national reputations. The Zips are getting there, but haven't quite arrived. So I think when we look at all these finer details, it's fair to say that the Zips basketball program continues to improve in almost every area where it's been criticized in the past. As long as the program keeps moving forward, that's all I can ask for. There may be setbacks along the way, but the overall trend is definitely up.

Please go back and read my post a little more carefully. It states exactly what I'm comfortable saying and explains exactly why. It would be inappropriate for me to expand on what I've already said.

His job.

@fargobison, thanks for the scouting report. The Zips have a lot of experience going up against deliberate half-court offenses this season, so the Bison won't catch them by surprise. @LZip, all I do is navigate to websites with quality data like KenPom and read his charts. No expertise in analytics is required to quote someone else's numbers.

That stinks. Add it to the list: Q gone, Tree and Nick miss the first 3 games, Rico's high ankle sprain, Chauncey's knee, and now this.

Since when are having a clue and being fair prerequisites for posting on internet forums? But seriously, people who are actually in the loop and have access to factual details are usually in that position because they've demonstrated an ability to honor confidential information. Without breaking any confidences, I'll just say that everything I've heard from reliable sources who do not post on ZN.o but who are close to the situation tends to tell a similar general story -- that Mr. Tressel is performing well in his current UA assignments, and that it would not be surprising to see him rise in the executive ranks.

Bad news on the NDSU game pace. Pomeroy ranks the Bison #343 in adjusted tempo. To give you an idea from teams the Zips have played this season, Princeton has a slightly faster tempo at #341, while Western Michigan, at #347, has the slowest tempo in the country. This is going to look a lot like a MAC West game, but with more talented players.

Yep, and what they have to say matches up pretty well with what most have been saying on this forum: Akron [21-4 (12-0), RPI: 49, SOS: 170] The Zips have a similar profile to Belmont, in that they have a bunch of victories, one good win over Middle Tennessee, and a couple of truly questionable losses. Unfortunately, Akron's nonconference schedule doesn't hold a candle to Belmont's, so the Zips' SOS and RPI don't quite have the same punch. This is a bit of a long shot, one that probably requires Akron to win out, including wins over North Dakota State and at Ohio in their next two games. But a long shot is still a shot. The only questionable part of that evaluation is "a couple of truly questionable losses." Coastal Carolina, for sure. But losing to Oklahoma State on a neutral court and road losses to Creighton and Detroit are hardly "truly questionable." Even Detroit is a top 100 team (currently #65 RPI).

NDSU started off 15-3 in their first 18 games and built up a good RPI, losing only to #1 Indiana, #13 Minnesota and Green Bay. Then they lost leading scorer (15.222 ppg) Taylor Braun, a 6-7 junior, to an injury and have gone 5-4 in the 9 games since, with their RPI falling below the Zips. Pomeroy still has them ranked #59, not far below the #50 Zips. They're #113 in adjusted offense (Zips are #62) and #33 in adjusted defense (Zips are #50). This will be the 3rd highest ranked defense the Zips have faced this season behind only Oklahoma State and Middle Tennessee. Their offensive number would be better had they not lost their leading scorer. While it would have been a tougher matchup against the Bison at full strength, they're still good enough that the Zips will not be able to sleepwalk through this game.

St. Louis was just ahead of the Zips in the Coaches Poll. Beating VCU will move them further ahead. We would have been closer to a top 25 spot if St. Louis had lost.

@HS Stripes, we are in total agreement. Win 2 at the Q and all the talk about at large bids becomes superfluous. To keep it real simple: W2@Q

@skip-zip, a Zips win in Athens would be counted as a good win as long as the Kitties cooperate by upsetting Belmont on the road and latch on to some of Belmont's RPI goodness. It's the whole body of work that counts, and a Zips win over NDSU win at the JAR would also add a little weight to the Zips' resume. No single win and no single loss gets the job done with the selection committee. It's all about the "body of work." As I've said many times, the Zips need all the stars to align on this one. The odds are against it. But as long as we expect the Zips not to ever give up trying, we shouldn't give up on the Zips' possibilities, however remote.

@HS Stripes, please feel free to go back and look at every post I've made on this subject. I've never once said there was a good chance that the Zips would get an at large bid. I've always contended that the Zips have a small chance, and they still do. Even Lunardi agrees that there's a small chance. I only object when it appears that someone might be equating a small chance with no chance. That may have been misinterpreted as me arguing that there was a good chance. Misinterpretations are common on internet forums. I may have misinterpreted your position as being overly negative. If so, I apologize. We're all probably pretty close in our positions, with the exception of the extreme optimists and the extreme pessimists.