Dave in Green

@GP1, good call.

As GoZips told us before the season began, the Zips had a goal of getting to the sweet 16. The 1-point loss to OU at the Q killed that. Having OU make it to the sweet 16 is verification of how close the Zips came to their goal. The Zips need to develop the attitude that today's New York Times article described D.J. Cooper developed in high school. They need to get a chip on their shoulder. I'll copy a part of the NYT article to make a point about the kind of attitude the Zips need to develop to take the next step: One of Cooper's high school rivals in Chicago, James Pointer of Leo High School, made a comment in the local paper about "checking him off my list" after beating Cooper's team. The comment so irked Cooper that he kept the article in his sock when he played Leo again. "We beat them pretty good the next two times that we played them," Cooper said with a smile, knowing that the final victory ruined Pointer's senior night. So, yeah, basketball is just a game, and you shouldn't take it too seriously, and blah, blah, blah. But if you want to beat players like Cooper and coaches like Groce and teams like OU and get to the sweet 16, you'd better take it at least as seriously as Cooper does and be a little chippy and a little nuts.

There are many different ways to look at any situation in life. Some people tend to look at things more from the positive side and others tend to focus more on the negative. Reality is usually somewhere in between.

Lots of credit to OU. Tonight was like watching a replay of how they played the Zips. You know exactly what OU is going to do, and it's up to you to come up with a game plan to defeat their style. Roy Williams is just the kind of coach to draw up a plan to strangle the Bobkitties. But the one player you don't want missing when you go up against OU is your starting PG. This is going to be interesting. And, by the way, every game that OU wins in the NCAA tournament by more than 1 point makes the Zips' performance at the Q look all that much better.

OU hitting 50% of their 3s and leading 52-46 with 5 minutes left. If they keep shooting like this, the prove me wrong.

Well, let's not put words in GoZips' mouth. Let's see what he actually said when he first mentioned the Zips as a sweet 16 team. Note the words that I bolded at the end of his post:

OU started off with hot shooting against USF and took a 12-6 lead, then started shooting bricks for 8 minutes and fell behind, 12-16. OU trails at halftime, 21-27. I had predicted that OU would be shooting bricks in this game. They'll have to heat up in the 2nd half to prove me wrong.

Cooper made the big time with a major story in the Sunday New York Times sports section entitled "Saying No to Majors Was Easy for Ohio Star." Unfortunately you have to sign up for the NYT to read it online. I just happened to pick up a copy of the NYT sports section today and read it. Cooper's chippy attitude is easy to understand when you read about him being a 5-10, 145-pound HS player who didn't like getting pushed around. The way he reacted reminds me a lot of Isaiah Thomas and how he used being small and getting pushed around to develop a chip on his shoulder that he took out on anyone who challenged him. Despite his small size, Cooper was being pursued by several major schools. But Groce really, really went after him hard because he's the exact kind of PG/shooter to run Groce's offense, where the PG is given a lot of freedom to run the show, shoot whenever he wants, etc. Basically, Cooper and Groce were made for each other, so it's no surprise that the combination is producing big results. The NYT also had a big story on Lehigh, with most of it devoted to C.J. McCollum, entitled "Once Ignored, Lehigh Guard Has Everyone's Attention Now." Before his growth spurt to 6-3, McCollum was even smaller than Cooper at 5-6, and called himself "a shooting guard in a point-guard frame." The article compares him with Stephen Curry.

If you analyze the number of players the Zips and VCU played this season and the number of minutes they averaged, there's not a significant difference. The VCU players did not get into better shape by having fewer players playing longer minutes in games than the Zips.

A great day for elitist fans, as it appears that all the unworthy teams are losing.

I talk with GoZips all the time. He's in good health and is as feisty as ever. I'll PM you.

Well, crap. VCU loses by 2. But I still love their relentless style, even if they missed shots near the end that could have won it.

VCU up by 5 with less than 4 minutes left. Man, I just have to say how much I love VCU's style of play. One of the announcers just summed it up pretty well when he noted that VCU is "relentless" on both offense and defense. I really like that term relentless. I like it when the players are always sharp and crisp, lunging for balls on defense all the time and moving so fast on offense all the time that someone is always open. I would love to see the Zips play this style of ball. I would love it if KD spent some time with Shaka trying to emulate that style of play. The one thing that concerns me is that the Zips players just don't seem to be in great athletic shape. I don't mean they aren't athletic, because they are. But they seem to lack endurance. In spite of many slow, deliberate offensive possessions and in spite of all the subbing that goes on, I frequently see Zips players sucking air and bending over as if they've been running a marathon. If I could wish for one thing, it would be that KD would put all the Zips players on a serious endurance training program so that they could play flat out on offense and defense for the whole game without tiring out. I want to see Zips players begging to stay in instead of asking to be subbed out. Otherwise I fear that the Zips may not be spending much time in the NCAA tournament, and that I'll end up watching my second favorite team (VCU) making a run through the tournament every season because they are physically fit enough to be relentless all the time.

VCU up on Indiana at the half, 42-41.

I've read so many articles about the NCAA tournament selection committee that I think I'm going blind! Short answer to your questions about Murray State is that the selection committee considers every rating system available. Sports writers may have voted Murray 12th in the country, but their RPI was in the 20s, and the more sophisticated ranking systems (like Pomeroy) had them in the 40s. When all those numbers are considered, a #6 seed is about right. It means that the NCAA selection committee rated Murray in the range of 21st-24th best college team in the country. That rating may be a little worse than where the sports writers had them, but it's almost spot on for their RPI and is actually better than they were rated by Pomeroy and other more sophisticated rating systems. The best Murrary could have hoped for considering all that would have been about a #5 seed.

The reason I say that OU is built for the short haul is that I don't believe their defense alone is adequate to get the job done consistently against tougher opponents. They need both their offense and defense clicking in order to win, and their offense is too inconsistent because it relies too much on outside shooting that is streaky at best. Having said that, USF certainly looked like a beatable team in the first half last night. But if USF plays against OU like they played against Temple in the second half, OU will need its best defensive and offensive performances to win. My prediction is that OU will be shooting bricks and bring down their brilliant first tournament game shooting percentage closer to their season average.

Can't seems like a logical destination. They have a history of trying to do their civic duty by helping rehabilitate troubled youths -- as long as they can score and rebound.

Dangerous court decals must go On-court stickers removed after Memphis' Crawford slips

The big picture refers to considering both the positive and the negative as opposed to dwelling on one or the other. Examples of positive and negative data points are merely representative. A narrow view can be painted by glossing over the positive or the negative and focusing on one to the exclusion of the other. A balanced view tries to consider both positives and negatives in reasonable proportion without exaggerating one or the other to try to make a point.

@GP1, I really appreciate you presenting those stats. They illustrate why little teams beating big teams are called "upsets." If they happened at a higher percentage rate, they wouldn't be upsets. Most people like the current setup where there is the occasional upset of a really big team by a really small team. Thursday's results were fairly predictable while Friday's results represented the March Madness that so many people enjoy. Really, the current setup is just about perfect. Underdog fans who love the big upsets can tune in for the early rounds, and elitist fans who think the little guys shouldn't even be given a chance to pull an upset can wait for later rounds to tune in.

Whooeee! I'm not sure that either Temple or South Florida have the beans to beat OU. A halftime score of 19-15???!!!

I've said it twice in other threads and I'll say it again. OU is outstanding at covering the passing lanes and poking the ball away from their opponents without having fouls called. The former can be taught by studying game film of opponents and knowing when and where they're likely to pass. The latter is less obvious. I don't know if the OU players are trained to poke the ball away or if OU specifically recruits quick-handed players who naturally have that talent. I know that Rico is really good at that, but most of his teammates aren't. That's one of the reasons why the Zips get so many "ticky-tacky" fouls. OU's defense is pretty consistent. It was one of the keys to beating Michigan tonight. The other key was great outside shooting, which for OU is pretty inconsistent. But on offense the Bobkitties are streaky. They shoot the lights out one game and stink up the court the next. They destroyed Georgetown with their great shooting in the NCAA tournament two years ago, and destroyed themselves against Tennessee in the next game with bad shooting. To take the next step, the Zips have to get more like OU on defense but more consistent than OU on offense. On offense, the Zips are built for that. They're built more for an inside game, which is more reliable than an outside game. On defense, maybe there's some kind of training exercise KD can come up with to train the players to play tighter defense and be able to poke the ball away without fouling. In any case, I'm convinced that the Zips have the foundation to beat OU and make a run in the NCAA tournament next season. They have to train to do the right thing, they have to want it really badly, and they have to execute like assassins.

I was just discussing tonight's results on the phone with Hilltopper, and he told me that UA was recruiting McCollum, but he ended up selecting Lehigh because his parents both went there. Hard to beat family connections.

Add to the above: #15 seed Lehigh 75, #2 seed Duke 70. #13 seed Ohio 65, #4 seed Michigan 60. More examples of why it's probably not such a good time to try to build a case against the NCAA. The NCAA basketball tournament is where most people think the NCAA gets it right. A lot of little teams actually get into the tournament, and some of the little teams actually knock off some of the big teams. Americans tend to love this. Americans tend to hate it when the big guys control everything and the little guys don't have a chance. No one really cares about the way the courts are painted right now.

Kudos to OU for representing the MAC well in the first round of the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years. But they're built for the short run, not the long haul. Odds are they go cold and get destroyed in round 2 as they did last time they were in this position. If anyone thought the Zips weren't getting enough respect this season, get ready for next season when OU will be walking on water with the national media. The Bobkitties have taken over from Can't as the MAC team that can actually win NCAA tournament games.