Dave in Green

Good to see that none of the Zips had to play extra long minutes in the BGSU game. They should have plenty of energy and adrenaline left for Saturday.

Zips vs. MAC West in Regular Season 2011-2012: 6-0 2010-2011: 4-2 2009-2010: 5-1 2008-2009: 5-1 2007-2008: 3-3 2006-2007: 5-1 2005-2006: 5-1 2004-2005: 3-3 2003-2004: 2-4

Just got home from a nice anniversary dinner with my wife. I thought I'd be checking the score on my cell phone. But I'm happy to say that my wife got all of my attention during the game, and I got home just in time to see the final score. Looking at the game flow, it appears that the Zips didn't really start taking control until about 2 minutes left in the first half. They also allowed BGSU to get back into the game midway through the second half. Then again, I'd better not put too much faith in the play-by-play posted on ESPN, as they still credit Forsythe's 8 points to BGSU, and show the Zips losing, 60-63. Oh well. I see that Zeke didn't get a block, but was 7-9 from the field. So his offensive stats continue to grow at a high level. Zeke and Pat combined were 11-15 from the field. Tree continued his high level of play with 5-10 from the field and 11 rebounds. And Rico was 3-5 on 3-pointers with 6 assists and just 1 turnover. On the other hand, Melo had 3 turnovers in backup time. So just from looking at the stats, there wasn't a lot different from most of the recent games. The Zips have done what they needed to do to set up the OU game as the time for the whole team to play together at a higher level.

@JSF, looking at the shortened link more closely, I see now that it's a Twitter-generated link and not a masked link. Here's what Twitter has to say: "Twitter uses the t.co domain as part of a service to protect users from harmful activity ....." With that in mind, I don't have the concern I would about masked links that could lead to riskier sites. Sorry about the false alarm.

@zen, I don't see anything at all out of place with your suggestion to include a quote or two from an article along with the link. Many posters already do that.

I thought CBS Sports was going to acknowledge Cooper's ability to commit technical fouls. He finished #3 in the country in number of technicals last season and is currently #2 this season.

Getting back on topic here, Zeke continues to move up in various national offensive statistical rankings: #1: Zeke remains the nation's leader in free throw rate @ 100.8. #2: Zeke remains #2 in floor percentage @ 69.8. #4: Zeke has moved up from #5 to #4 in field goal percentage @ 68.4. #7: Zeke has moved up from #8 to #7 in true shooting percentage @ 69.3. #7: Zeke has moved up from #9 to #7 in effective field goal percentage @ 68.8. #16: Zeke has moved up from #23 to #16 in offensive rating @ 129.9. On the defensive end, after 15 blocks in the last 2 games, Zeke is #4 in block percentage (15.4) and #5 in both total blocks (73) and blocks per game (3.8).

@Zip Watcher, I don't distrust JSF, who's been a longtime contributor here. I distrust masked links in general, and there's really no need for them when there's an unmasked Insert Link feature right here on the forum. I agree with @zen that masked links should be discouraged. @zen, I can understand penalizing a forum member for posting unrelated, unwanted links, i.e. spam. But I don't understand the purpose of discouraging the posting of on-topic links of interest to many forum members. Copyright law does not allow for data on one website to be freely copied and posted in full on another website. The best way to share this data with those who might find it of interest is to post a link. I'm glad that ZN.o encourages this.

Try hovering your cursor over the link in the first post and tell me what site you'd be going to. As Wikipedia describes: "TinyURL is a URL shortening service, a web service that provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs." If you get redirected to a mystery location, you may not end up where you want to go.

Yes, thanks. I like that better because I like to see the actual site address I'm going to before clicking on links.

Oregon star running back LaMichael James posted a 4.45 in the 40 at the 2012 NFL Combine.

Breitbart has released a list of the best player on every college team, from #1 Michigan to #347 Grambling, and includes their national ranking for each player. The Zips are ranked #52, and Zeke is listed as UA's best player and the #16 best player in the country right behind Kansas star Ben McLemore at #15.

Found some background on Richaun Holmes. He played last season at Moraine Valley Community College, earning National Junior College Athletic Association Division II All-American honors. Holmes led the country in shot-blocking with a total of 169, averaging 5.6 per game. He also averaged 18.4 points on 62% field goal shooting -- fourth-best in the nation -- and 78% from the free throw line. He nearly averaged a double-double with 9.2 rebounds per game. Pretty impressive junior college performer whose shot-blocking ability is carrying over to DI.

Best story yet. Headline: Akron wins without Twitter-inspired jerseys Lead paragraph: I think every school in the country should consult Akron for future marketing efforts. Myron Medcalf ESPN Blog

In his latest blog, Ken Pomeroy uses the EMU-NIU debacle as a starting point for a statistical analysis of how much defense can affect 3-point shooting percentage. While he generally believes that defenses have little control over opponents’ 3-point percentage, he does acknowledge that Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and his former assistant, EMU's Rob Murphy, run defenses that may somewhat affect 3-point percentage.

I do like the emphasis on the Z. It's an uncommon letter in college basketball team names. The only association that pops into my head is the Zona nickname adopted by the University of Arizona. Used in creative ways, Z could easily become a simple and unique identifier for the Zips in the same way that X is associated with Xavier.

@RootforRoo44, that's hilarious! I know you're too smart to advocate taking a chance on an NCAA penalty for the Zips, maybe not this year but maybe next year or the year after, for a freaking uniform design that the NCAA has ruled not acceptable. Seriously, I know that you and every other Zips fan reading this knows that when you weigh all the pros and cons of deliberately thumbing your nose at the NCAA over a trivial issue, there's only one rational conclusion. But it's entertaining on a sports forum to throw out irrational scenarios for chuckles.

All I was able to find was a podcast from some guy who said that ESPN decided at the last minute to put the announcement off a week. At this hour on Monday night, it's pretty obvious it's not going to happen today. Hey, it's the last year of BracketBusters, anyway. It's not like they have to be serious about it or anything. It will allow time for the UA-OU results to sink in.

UA could be the Boise State of the Big East.

I have just picked myself off of the floor after discovering a fact about this game that absolutely blows my mind: BGSU has a player who's ranked ahead of Zeke in a national shot blocking category! Really. I kid you not. Zeke is currently #5 in the country in blocks, blocks per game and block percentage. But he's #2 in the MAC in one of those categories. BGSU has an obscure 6-8, 214-pound sophomore forward by the name of Richaun Holmes. He only plays about 18 minutes per game. He's #19 nationally in blocks and #16 in blocks per game due to only playing short minutes. But in block percentage -- the percentage of shots a player blocks while he's on the floor -- Holmes is #2 in the country. He only scores about 5 points per game, but he shoots better than 60% from the field. He's also a decent rebounder. But the big deal is that he blocks a larger percentage of shots while he's on the floor than Zeke. I've never even heard of this guy before stumbling across this stat. I hope the Zips are aware of this.

Have you already forgotten that the NCAA made Tree and Harney sit out the first three games of the season for a clerical error? How did that work out for the Zips?

Ken Pomeroy has named the SFA loss to Northwestern State as his #1 Craziest Comeback of the Week: 1) Northwestern State (1.8%) over Stephen F. Austin. (Saturday) Stephen F. was in line to be one of just three one-loss teams nationally, but they failed to protect a 57-50 lead with 2:38 remaining. On the final five possessions of the game, the Demons outscored the Lumberjacks 11-0 to win 61-57 [70].

There's quantity of depth and then there's quality of depth.

CBS Sports has taken notice.

Ha! I usually pay closer attention to my edits. That one sure came out wrong.