Dave in Green

OK, after a little research, I found a pdf document on the MAC website (link here) that lists all MAC individual awards over the years. It shows that the MAC Defensive POY has only been awarded since 1997. The only two players to ever win both that and POY were Bonzi Wells in 1998 and Chris Kaman in 2003. Of course, both went on to have pretty good NBA careers. So, yes, it's possible.

I think that Zeke has a shot at POY. Then again, I thought that Coach Dambrot had a chance at COY last season. But, seriously, Zeke is compiling some amazing offensive numbers to go along with his well-established defensive reputation. His current MAC field goal percentage of 75.9 at the halfway point of the conference season is pretty stunning. The simple description of the POY award is that it goes to "the most outstanding player." I'd like to see the instructions the MAC gives to voters to consider in the selection process. I don't know that there's anything more that Zeke could do other than what he's already doing. It's rare that an elite defensive player also has such a high level of offensive performance in his senior season. It could easily be argued that Zeke's total impact on both defense AND offense this season is greater than that of Cooper or any other player in the MAC.

Seth Davis is one of the AP top 25 voters. He shared the votes he sent in today in a tweet. Since tweets are limited in number of characters, he had to break it up into multiple tweets. The last tweet was for positions 16-25. He voted for Akron as #25 in the AP top 25. So Akron should at least show up under "others receiving votes" in this week's AP top 25.

NBC Sports: Keith Dambrot’s Akron Zips nation’s hottest team with 13 straight wins

I wonder if Coach Bowden is making any effort to recruit in Louisiana? A really interesting New York Times front page sports story today-- In Louisiana's River Towns, a Flow of Talent -- they talk about HS football in southern Louisiana being the equivalent of the SEC. They point out that Louisiana has more players per capita in the NFL than any other state. They take it so seriously that high schools begin spring training in January. But the real kicker in the story comes nears the end: Interstate 10 provides recruiters easy access to these football-rich high schools, where players are encouraged to participate in multiple sports to enhance their athleticism. On Thursday, Doc Gamble, an assistant at Can't State in Ohio, visited West St. John, which hopes to have eight players sign scholarships this week. Once, Gamble said, he thought one or two high schools in this fertile crescent of Louisiana were worth recruiting. Now, he said, “it’s like 28 schools.”

Many thanks for all those links, Zach. I'd seen some but not all of those stories. I really liked the comment about Zeke in the BustingBrackets.com story: Led by do-everything senior center Zeke Marshall, one of college basketball’s most unheralded great players .....

Maybe Nance grew up believing that NEO winters were the worst. Maybe he was weak on geography, and thought the weather would be nicer out west in Wyoming.

Both of the calls on Chauncey looked pretty weak. Chauncey looked genuinely amazed that he was called for those two fouls. So he may have taken his venting at the refs to the bench. Just generally speaking about Chauncey, the only time I recall anyone questioning his offense was when he was missing shots while trying to play through the knee injury. Otherwise, he's a proven scorer. If a healthy Chauncey gets reduced PT, it's more likely related to defense.

The Zips peaked at #34 on Pomeroy Jan. 10 after beating WMU, then dropped after beating but not destroying some of our weaker MAC opponents while teams ranked behind the Zips had more impressive wins over higher level opponents.

Zips move up after the Kitty roadkill: #42 Pomeroy #42 BPI #52 RPI

I just made a post based on a bad stat in the story I linked to, so I'm editing it. The Zips missed 25 shots in the game, not 15. They had 11 offensive rebounds, so there were 14 shots where they didn't have a second chance, not 4. Not quite as stunning, but still really excellent.

I had to go to a family dinner immediately after the game, and all I could think about during the dinner was what I wanted to say on ZN.o. And now that I'm at the keyboard, I'm almost speechless. All I can say is that I love this Zips team. I really do. I've been following basketball longer than most of you reading this have been alive. I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I know how hard success is to achieve, and how quickly it can all fall apart. This team has already faced a lot of adversity this season. But they never give up. They keep coming back. If one or two or three players are off in any given game, one or two or three other players step up and fill the gap. It's exceptional and extraordinary to have the longest current winning streak in college basketball. Everyone should savor this moment because most college basketball fans will never see their team accomplish this in 100 years. We Zips fans are all so very fortunate that we have an outstanding head coach and coaching staff who have slowly been building up the team to accomplish something like this. It's a great time to be a Zips fan.

Mid-Major Madness

Midway through the MAC conference season (8 games played and 8 to go), Zeke now leads the MAC in field goal shooting at 75.9% (41 of 54). He's hitting better than 3 of every 4 shots from the field. I'm not sure if any player has ever been able to do this for an entire conference season in any conference.

There are still a few games going on that could affect the Zips' RPI somewhat. But so far tonight, the Zips' win plus other results (Oklahoma State over Kansas, etc.) has resulted in the Zips jumping up to #53 and ahead of St. Mary's at #61. So the Zips are now the 3rd highest ranked home team behind Belmont and Wichita State. That plus the longest current winning streak in the country should help the Zips get a good opponent and a prime TV game.

Those were OU fans filing out. There were quite a few at the JAR, and we waved bye-bye to them as they started filing out after realizing their Kitties were not going to be able to stage a comeback against a superior team. Not many Zips fans left early.

Stats can never tell the whole story. But the more detailed the stats, the more of the story they tell. Under the heading of a picture being worth a thousand words, much of what was said above is clearly illustrated in Zeke's detailed foul charts.

Zeke is down from last season's average of 2.8 fouls per game to 2.5 so far this season. His sophomore season was the worst at 3.4.

Catching with arms appropriately extended should be pretty teachable at the college level.

I don't break it down into individual players, or even backcourt vs. frontcourt. This is, plain and simple, teamwork vs. teamwork. The team that plays together the best is going to win. It's not about who starts and who comes off the bench. It's not about who gets the most minutes. It's not about who has the most points or rebounds. It's every player doing what's best for the team every minute they're on the floor. It's that extra effort by a guard to snag a rebound away from a bunch of taller forwards, that extra pass to find the player who's a little more open for the shot. It's all the little things that set a team playing together apart from a bunch of talented individual players. I think the Zips are starting to buy into this, and if they do, they're going to keep winning.

Andy Katz predicting Akron-Iona TV game.

@TPSjugglerdude, one of the many areas where Zeke has improved this season is learning how to cope with a swarm of players collapsing on him when he gets the ball inside. Zeke has learned to avoid holding on to the ball or trying to dribble under these conditions, where it used to get frequently poked away, and has been quicker to either shoot or pass back out to an open man. The result is that his turnover rate has improved 25% from 1.6 per game last season to a current 1.2 per game. By comparison, highly rated centers Jeff Withey of Kansas and Cody Zeller of Indiana are averaging 1.7 and 1.8 turnovers per game respectively.

Zeke's stock is rising on NBADraft.net. Today, in evaluating mid-major players, they note that Zeke is ranked in the top 10 in NCAA Player Efficency Rating (PER): The 7 footer is currently averaging 12.6ppg and 6.7rpg, while shooting 68% from the field. He had major Division one offers but passed to stay at home. He will get a fair look from the NBA and could end up being a Joel Anthony type player. PER is a good overall measurement as it sums up all of a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance. I just checked the latest PER rankings on ESPN, and Zeke is listed at #10. I'll add PER next time I update Zeke's national rankings.

Thanks for making your point clearer to me. Of course I understand that there are a lot of different things that could be happening that wouldn't necessarily show up in the stats. That's why I said that there wasn't a lot different in the stats from previous games instead of making a blanket statement that there wasn't much different in a game I hadn't watched. I prefer both seeing games with my own eyes and looking at the stats for a more complete picture than limiting myself to one or the other. YMMV.

Wrong. This is what happens when ESPN posts an erroneous play by play with Forsythe's points being given to BGSU, making the game appear much closer than it was. Looking at the corrected play by play, it's clear that the Zips were in control all the way.