Dave in Green

@Z.I.P., what I'm saying is that @TrippleZip overheard some people talking about a player being benched for a game. No one was really benched for the game, but Egner stopped appearing on the bench. So I'm guessing someone had heard about Egner leaving the team but misinterpreted it. I guess we'll never know for sure what those folks were actually talking about.

Josh Egner -- not benched, but transferred out as expected after the end of the semester.

Good, because I have no interest in betting.

@ziptrumpet87, bringing it closer to home, how about: Zips Field brought to you by Summa Health System at The University of Akron Stadium brought to you by InfoCision Management Corporation. Seriously, this is one point where GP1 has it right: It's all about the money. People who put up the big bucks get to call the shots. And don't forget that corporations are people.

@Dr Z, so if I posted sports betting stats instead of plain old sports stats, you'd have more interest? @Zipmeister, good point about including Sagarin, who also ranks 1-11 Texas Southern as the best 1-win team in the country, and better than 60 D-I teams that have more wins than the Tigers.

When that UA-CSU game was played at the JAR in November, 2010, Zeke was still a pretty raw sophomore in the 4th game of his second college season, while Cole was an NBA-ready senior star. Cole was selected 28th in the 2011 NBA draft, worked his way into the Miami Heat's rotation as a rookie, and earned an NBA championship ring in his first pro season. I hope that Zeke has many chances in the future to meet Cole and demonstrate to him that he's learned a little more about blocking in the meantime.

@GoZips, thanks for taking the time to do the research. Texas Southern has the #23 toughest OOC SOS in the country. Despite the 1-11 record, Pomeroy has them ranked #240 of 347 DI teams, the highest-ranked 1-win team in the country and even ahead of several teams with winning records such as 6-4 Sacramento State, 6-4 McNeese State and 7-5 Central Michigan. In other words, if you judge them by their 1-11 record alone, you are likely to underestimate them. Of course the Zips should be heavily favored, and they'll score a comfortable win if they play the way they did against Cleveland State. But if the Zips try to sleepwalk through this one, they could get a rude awakening.

@SeeTeeZip, I appreciate the passionate support that you and Spin have for the minority position. But the majority has made a solid case about the perennial losing Can't football program coming oh so close to going to the Orange Bowl, and NIU actually getting there by virtue of beating Can't. Had you been a Can't fan equally vocal on the Can't forum at some point in the past, and had you convinced the world that you were right, this might never have happened. But you're a good Zips fan here now trying to tell other good Zips fans that UA is incapable of doing as good or better than Can't? Good luck with that. Don Quixote had better fortune jousting against windmills. A vocal minority that knows when all logical points have been made that it's time to move on is an important thing to have on any forum.

@Spin, I'm as open-minded as anyone on this forum, and am far from elitist. I appreciate minority positions and have advocated my share. But there's a difference between a serious discussion and a sports forum cat fight. A serious discussion with good logic should cause at least a few people to consider a minority position. I've honestly looked at all the points being made about the pros and cons of UA dropping from FBS to FCS right now, and I just don't see a compelling case. I think that you and SeeTeeZip have tried awfully hard to gain some traction. But the logic just doesn't appear to be there. Having said that, I do appreciate you two doing your best to stand up and try to make your case against overwhelming odds. The majority is not always right, and they lose points for telling you to just go away. No good Zips fan should go away from a Zips forum because other good Zips fans disagree with them. We may all see things a little differently. But that's a positive, not a negative.

Trying to keep up with this. Is there anyone besides SeeTeeZip and Spin who think it would be a good idea for the Zips to drop down from FBS to FCS right now?

I would have posted earlier, but had family obligations. This is the Zips team I've been waiting to see. They all came out with enthusiasm and intensity, and played better as a team than they have all season CSU tried full-court pressure early, and the Zips easily broke the press without breaking a sweat or losing the ball. They showed huge confidence from the opening tipoff to the final buzzer. Tree established himself early as he did at last season's game at CSU. This time all of his teammates were on board and they just tore CSU apart. This was as intense a performance as I've seen from the Zips in a long time. They were just doing everything right on both offense and defense. No question the Vikings were hurting from losing Anton Grady for the season. The 6-8 sophomore was their leading scorer and rebounder when he went down with a season-ending injury after playing in only their first six games of the season. But even if Grady had played and had a great game, the Zips would have been too much to overcome in this game. All the Zips who looked shaky against Arkansas-Pine Bluff were hitting their marks in this game. Some of them may not have been hitting their shots. But they were all playing aggressively yet under control in all other phases of the game. It's hard to pick out one Zips player who impressed more than the others. But I'm going to go with Deji. He's playing at a much higher level of confidence than last season, and he looked really promising today. Though he was 0-3 on 3-pointers, where he's been shooting over 50%, the rest of his game was really impressive. He had 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 1 block in 18 minutes. At times he just took control. At one point he was playing the 2, got the ball at the defensive end and started bringing the ball upcourt. Melo was playing the point and coming upcourt with him. But instead of passing to Melo, Deji kept the ball all the way to the offensive end and rifled a pass to Zeke for an easy layup. On the defensive end, Deji jumped so high on his block that he might as well have been Zeke. Deji is an awakening monster.

Groce's formula for getting Illinois to #10 finally fizzled on the road against a strong major as #12 Missouri beat them, 82-73, in St. Louis. Illinois was leading, 64-61, with a little over 6 minutes left in the game. But Missouri's defense stiffened up and the Illini went cold from the field. Illinois ended up hitting just 33.8% from the field and only 25% of their 3-pointers. They were destroyed on the boards, with Missouri outrebounding them, 51-29. Star Brandon Paul led the poor shooting with 5-18 from the field and 2-8 on 3s.

And a Merry Christmas to you, too.

Ball State getting hammered by UCF, 35-10 after 3 quarters.

Might make some sense in cases where the stats are not in the context of an ongoing discussion about team or individual performance. An obvious example of appropriate use of stats in an ongoing discussion is GameChngr44 citing numbers in this thread to correct an erroneous impression about Zeke's performance.

I just don't get it. I almost never post the same numbers, but my posts often seem to generate a few repetitive responses. Oh well, as long as some ZN.o forum members find it useful, I'll continue to research and post stats from time to time. Anyone who's only interested in wins can just look at the final scores and ignore my stats posts.

Can you cite me some examples of consistently winning teams that have poor stats in all the common areas of performance measurement? Oops, sorry. I forgot that statistical analysis is frowned upon in ZipsNation.

Well, you could tell by analyzing the stats if the improvements were simply due to increased playing time. But analyzing stats is apparently frowned upon in ZipsNation.

Well, you'd have to check the stats to be sure. But apparently that's frowned on in ZipsNation.

Not only is Zeke's blocking still improving, so is the blocking by his teammates. With Forsythe, Tree and others chipping in, the Zips currently trail only five teams in the country in percentage of opponents shots blocked per game -- Kansas, St. John's, Syracuse, Kentucky and Arizona State. Pretty good company! As a team, the Zips are in the Top 100 in a number of important statistical categories: #6 in block percentage #7 in blocks per game #15 in blocks #25 in effective field goal percentage #35 in true shooting percentage #45 in points per possession #49 in efficiency #57 in 3-point field goal percentage #58 in field goal percentage #64 in 3-point field goals made #69 in offensive rebound percentage #70 in floor percentage (ratio of scoring possessions to total possessions) #92 in assists per game OBVIOUSLY the most important stat is number of wins. EVERYONE understands that. It's not a debatable point. The point of the above stats is that they show where the Zips' strengths are. So, for example, it would be just plain silly for someone to post on this forum that the Zips are not a good shooting team when they are ranked #25 in the country in effective field goal percentage. The Zips do have their weaknesses, and will need to improve on those in order to improve on their winning percentage. But they're in pretty good shape in the categories above.

@Wally B, thanks for the good perspective.

We sports fans tend to discuss bits and pieces of issues on forums like this one without having spent time trying to research all the details. Who has the time to do a thorough research on the finer details of anything? This brings to mind the old saying about the devil being in the details. It's fairly easy to find the flaws in existing systems. We know that all human systems are flawed because all humans are flawed, so all we have to do is follow the complaints to find the flaws. It's also easy to see what might be right in a hypothetical replacement system if it's specifically set up to correct the flaws in the existing system. But it's not so easy to see the new flaws that will inevitably pop up in the hypothetical replacement system because it requires accurate prediction, which is much more difficult than simple observation. Considering the above, it's interesting to go back and review the origination of the NCAA rule that has allowed scholarship athletes to hold part-time jobs. An article in Diverse Issues in Higher Education immediately after the NCAA convention that voted on and approved the new work rule is filled with many observations worth considering. The one I found most interesting was the following: “It was such an emotional issue at the convention. It’s like apple pie and motherhood, so it was hard to vote against it. But as the convention came to a close, people were saying `Oh, oh. What have we done?’” Student-athletes at work: NCAA work rule will be ‘difficult to monitor.’ – National Collegiate Athletic Association

@Ada Zip, I can only guess that you haven't been looking at all the available data before making such a judgment. All of Zeke's stats for all four seasons are readily available in easily compared chart form on statsheet.com. I could post 1,000 words right here based on that chart documenting all the improvements Zeke has made each season in virtually every aspect of his game. But it's a lot easier to just post a link below. I will, however, take the time to say a few words about one key statistic -- offensive rating. That's a summary of a player's total offensive performance. Everyone knows that Zeke came to UA as a defensive specialist with mediocre offense. In his freshman season, Zeke's offensive rating was 86.8, #65 in the MAC and not ranked nationally. In his sophomore season his offensive rating improved to 100.4, #35 in the MAC but still unranked nationally. Last season his offensive rating climbed to 110.8, #18 in the MAC and #453 nationally. So far this season, Zeke's offensive rating is 126.8, #3 in the MAC and #94 nationally. That's right, defensive specialist Zeke Marshall has improved his total offensive game to the point that he currently has a Top 100 national offensive rating. Zeke and the coaching staff deserve credit for that massive improvement. Zeke's Career Stats on statsheet.com

Heckuva shootout at UMass. OU was shooting lots of 3s at the end, went cold, and lost, 85-76. UMass recovered in the second half from their incredibly poor first half rebounding effort, when the starting five players only snagged 3 rebounds, to come out about even with OU on rebounds. Final shooting numbers -- OU 29-64 from the field (12-30 3s) and UMass 26-54 (9-24 3s). UMass won it at the free throw line, hitting 24-35 to OU's 6-10.

OU started off all hot potatoes tonight, hitting 6 of their first 8 shots and taking an early 9-point lead over UMass on the road. By halftime, OU was still hitting 52% from the field (47% 3-pointers), but UMass was 48% from the field (55% 3-pointers) and OU was trailing, 48-40.