Dave in Green

Pretty remarkable similarity in depth between these two teams, with both playing 11 deep. The most obvious difference is that the top 4 Zips average fewer minutes per game than the top 4 Kitties while the next 7 Zips average more minutes per game than the next 7 Kitties. ZIPS ... AVG MIN PER GAME ... KITTIES Abreu ........ 29.158 - 30.700 .... Cooper Marshall ..... 25.895 - 29.850 ...... Offutt Treadwell ... 25.688 - 28.050 ...... Baltic Walsh ........ 23.579 - 25.900 .... Kellogg Kretzer ...... 22.105 - 20.700 ...... Keely Harney ...... 18.750 - 17.150 ...... Smith Gilliam ...... 18.588 - 13.474 ... Johnson Ibitayo ...... 13.389 - 11.563 .... Wilkins Forsythe .... 13.368 - 11.421 ......... Hall McAdams ... 11.500 - 10.100 ...... Taylor Betancourt ... 9.789 -- 7.000 ...... Green

@Z.I.P., as far as I know, the fire marshall says 5,500 is the max capacity. I don't see any empty space where any seats were taken out. @Dr Z, we were commenting on the way out how packed the general admission seats were right up until the end of the game. We figured there were a lot of non-hardcore fans there for the promotion and that they'd bail out early. But most of them stayed right up to the end. Very impressive.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it up to Akron for the Grantland Rice Bowl. I vividly recall the Ruston Daily Leader running a big front page photo the day after the game showing Bradshaw releasing a TD pass with several Zips hanging from every part of his body. He was just so darned big, tough and strong for a college QB in that era. That's why the Steelers drafted him #1. He was the perfect QB for the Steelers.

So we're back to the age old question about announced attendance vs. butts in seats. Announced attendance is usually tickets sold, not butts in seats. A certain percentage of season ticket holders do not show up for all games for a variety of reasons. While there were clearly a few gaps in the reserved seats, the general admission sections were impressively packed.

On average visiting teams are called for several more fouls per game than home teams. So the refs will be inclined to call more fouls against the Zips when they play in Buffalo just as they called more on the Bulls at the JAR. It's just the way it is, so expect it. The biggest advantage an underdog like Buffalo has against a better team like the Zips is the element of surprise. The Bulls definitely surprised the Zips with their level of play at the JAR, which was way better than any other performance they've shown this season. The surprise element will be missing in Buffalo. The Zips will be prepared to face a better team than they expected at the JAR.

Both. His golden hair was pretty thin even in college. Being the first small college player drafted #1 in the NFL really gained Louisiana Tech football national respectability, and more good players and teams came after the Bradshaw era. I used to sit in the stands during practice and watch Bradshaw practice throwing from behind. He had an odd delivery directly over the top of his head. I learned he had set the national HS record for the javelin throw, and that's where he learned his football throwing style. I remember at night games where he'd throw the football so high that it would disappear above the lights and magically float down right into his receiver's hands at the other end of the field. I recall a defensive back trying to tackle Bradshaw running downfield, and the defender being flattened and taken off the field with a broken collarbone. Bradshaw was definitely a man among boys at the small college level.

Thanks. It's pretty obvious what happened from viewing the video. As I just pointed out in the appropriately named Testicular Fortitude thread, the defender was groping Zeke from the beginning to the end of that play, ending up with his left elbow disappearing in the groin area between Zeke's legs after he finally released the rim. The technical should have been called on the defender.

On the video of the Zeke slam/technical, you can advance it a few frames at a time by dragging the little round spot on the video player slightly forward a little bit at a time. This slo-mo, stop-frame viewing shows that as Zeke goes up, the defender behind him goes up at the same time. As Zeke is in the motion of slamming the ball through, the defender's right arm pops up between Zeke's arms with absolutely zero chance of stopping the shot. The defender's arm contacts Zeke in the face, causing Zeke's head to snap back. Meanwhile the defender's left arm begins wrapping around Zeke's hip. As Zeke hangs on the rim to stabilize himself after the impact, the defender's left arm remains on Zeke's hip pushing his body at an angle as Zeke hangs from the rim. When Zeke finally releases and comes down, the defender's left arm remains pushing on Zeke, and the defender's left elbow cleverly ends up briefly disappearing between Zeke's legs in the groin area. I'm sure that Zeke was just trying to apologize for hitting the defender's right arm with his face and left elbow with his groin area.

I didn't complain about the reffing overall because I saw the missed calls against the Zips as well as missed calls against Buffalo. I thought they balanced out and didn't change the game's outcome. I like that the total of 32 fouls was below average for a MAC game and didn't disrupt the flow of the game. I like that the home team got fewer whistles (13) than the visitors (19). The baffling call against Zeke stunned everyone and deserves special recognition.

Zeke taunting? Well that would be a new one. They didn't announce the reason for the T at the JAR, but everyone assumed it was for hanging on the rim. Perhaps Zeke said something to one of the Buffalo players who mauled him on his way up for the dunk, and it was interpreted as taunting. Maybe GameChngr44 will let us know what really happened.

In the interests of geographic accuracy, it's 146 miles from UA to BGSU, and 60 miles from Canton to Cleveland. A better comparison would be Columbus to Cleveland (143 miles).

SFA blew it and lost to Northwestern State. That should drop them behind the Zips in all the polls, which means that any team the Zips end up with will be ranked lower. North Dakota State also lost. Illinois State looks like they're going to beat Evansville and move to 12-9 on the season.

Coming back from 20 down teaches a team that they're never out of it. This will pay dividends later in the season if the Zips get way down in a critical game. Buffalo came out aggressive and the refs didn't call the first foul on them until past the midway point of the first half. That and every ball hitting net gave them huge confidence early. Great move by Coach Dambrot to go to the zone defense. Buffalo acted like they'd never seen one before and couldn't figure it out. Absolutely love the way Kretzer hustles on every play. He was everywhere, tipping the ball away, saving it from going out of bounds, rebounding his own missed shot, hitting a pair of huge 3s. Never thought I'd see Coach Dambrot leave a true freshman in the game during crunch time. Kretzer is as close to Nate Linhart as any Zips player I've seen in a long time. Absolutely hated the tech on Zeke for hanging on the rim. He was hanging because the Buffalo players mauled him as he went up for the dunk. Two minutes earlier a Buffalo player hung on the rim at the other end even longer, and no T. BS.

Wow. This may go down as the worst game ever. Not only did NIU set records in that game, so did EMU -- 8-61 from the field including 1-33 treys. Check out all the new records in the ESPN Huskies News Feed here. EDIT: They changed it. They originally showed EMU with the bad shooting and just changed it to NIU.

@zen, as I recall, your question is discussed here on an annual basis. My best recollection is that winning a single NCAA tournament game always gets way more votes than winning the NIT championship. It'll be interesting to see if that still holds true.

@Zipgrad01, you will like Andy Glockner's current bracketology. He currently has the Zips as a #12 seed playing #5 seed tOSU in Austin.

This story says that Logan Cox (Akron) is one of several "Division I scholarship players who have been offered from the Mountain State."

I'm starting to take a liking to Stephen F. Austin. First, they're 16-1 -- best record in BracketBusters. Second, they're ranked #55 in Pomeroy whereas Illinois State (11-9) is ranked #74. Third, SFA is #10 in the mid-major top 25 while the Zips are #13, and Illinois State is not even in others receiving votes. Fourth, SFA beat Oklahoma in Norman, and their only loss is to Texas A&M by 8 points in College Station. Illinois State is ranked higher in RPI and ESPN BPI mainly because they're in the MVC, the original master of RPI manipulation conference. I'm pulling for SFA to beat Northwestern State this weekend and have a 17-1 record when they're announced as the Zips' BracketBusters opponent. EDIT: Forgot to mention that SFA has the #5 adjusted defense in the country according to Pomeroy, trailing only Florida, Louisville, Oklahoma State and Kansas. This would be a great test for the Zips' offense.

@Z.I.P., this is the first time your soccer knowledge has ever disappointed me, and I'm a certified soccer ignoramus! Marquette is a big part of the mighty Big East soccer machine. They finished 9th in the final regular season standings with a 16-3-1 record.

Honestly, I'd just as soon have the Bobkitties unbeaten in MAC play and on a big winning streak when they come to the JAR. That would increase the intensity of the national spotlight on the game, and a win over a highly rated OU would have more value to the Zips' national standing than beating a wounded OU. The best scenario for the Zips would be for OU to finish the MAC regular season at 14-2 with both losses being to the Zips.

Humor is good. But let's look at their HS senior season rebounds and blocks from a percentage basis. Pat's 12 rebounds per game is 33% better than Zeke's 9, and Zeke's 8 blocks per game is 33% better than Pat's 6. So you could say they were equally close on rebounds and blocks. The biggest gap was in points scored, where Pat's 22 per game is 57% better than Zeke's 14. Of course there were differences in the roles that their HS coaches wanted them to take with the team, differences in level of competition, etc. So stats are only good for rough comparisons. The main point I was trying to make is that Pat was a big scorer in HS, which indicates that he may play a bigger role in the Zips' offense in his final three seasons than Zeke did over the course of his career. Pat is nowhere near as tentative on offense as Zeke was in his first couple of seasons. He appears to enjoy shooting as much as rebounding and blocking. So I suspect that their career rebound and block averages with the Zips may end up closer together than their scoring averages.

Comparing Pat's senior season HS stats to Zeke's suggests that Pat was more of a shooter and rebounder while Zeke was more focused on swatting shots: Zeke = 14 points, 9 rebounds, 8 blocks per game. Pat = 22 points, 12 rebounds, 6 blocks per game. When Pat takes over the center position next season, the Zips may lose some of the defensive intimidation Zeke creates. But Pat should make up for that with higher scoring and rebounding averages than Zeke. It will be interesting to see how that will affect the Zips offensive and defensive schemes next season.

Good analysis of how Pat helps Zeke, Tree and the rest of the team be more effective.

McFadden's career stats from statsheet.com.

Well, it's painful for Zips fans to look at OU's arena when it's packed with fans and compare it with the JAR, but here it is.