Dave in Green

Creighton should be on next season's schedule. So far everything I can find about this year's match points to Iona. Since Iona currently has an RPI of 46, a win on their court could possibly move the Zips' RPI into the 40s.

Euton had an ESPN scout grade of 85, 1 point higher than Egner. Of course these scouting service grades aren't perfect. They're someone's best estimates of a player's skills at a certain point in his career. Some HS players peak early and some continue to grow at a high rate. Some reach their full potential in college and some never do. But when you go through and look at the list on ESPN, for example, you see that the players with the higher scout grades generally end up with the better college programs, and the players with the lower grades generally end up with the lesser college programs. So obviously most college coaches are believers in the general validity of the scout grades. Like every other team, the Zips are more likely to have success with more players from the higher end of the scout grade scale than the lower end.

Fixed it. The Zips always seem to lose to an inferior MAC West team or two, especially on the road. Last season's road losses to RPI 300+ NIU and EMU took the Zips out of contention for the regular season MAC championship. And the season before, EMU embarassed the Zips in the JAR. The current Zips team has been showing recent signs that they have enough firepower in their 9-player rotation to overcome sluggish performance by the team in general, especially in the 2nd half. But they can't afford to let up or back off with MAC West teams or the odds will go back up that the Zips will get upset sometime in the next 4 games.

McAdams has an ESPN scout grade of 89, and is ranked the 5th best HS senior in Ohio. The only current Zips player who had a higher rating out of HS than McAdams was Zeke with a 92. Of all the current Zips players, Brian Walsh had the second highest rating behind Zeke with a grade of 88. If McAdams performs at a similar level to Walsh, he's an Xavier-level player who would comfortably fit into the Zips current lineup, considering that the other current Zips players outside of Zeke all graded lower than 89. Think for a moment that Nick Harney had a scout grade of 87 out of HS. We should have high expectations for McAdams. Kretzer is more of a question mark. His current ESPN scout grade is 80, and they rank him the 26th best HS senior in Ohio. For comparison, Josh Egner was graded an 84 out of HS. The good news about Kretzer is that his stock is going up in his senior season. Some of the HS talent rating services have moved Kretzer up in their rankings to the second best senior small/wing forward in Ohio behind only McAdams. Hopefully this is a sign that Kretzer is more of a late bloomer with a big upside.

I don't know if Murray State is necessarily the best BracketBusters team. But they sure have the best record. Who wouldn't want a shot at knocking off D-I's last undefeated team? Most people just don't think the Zips are ranked high enough to be selected for that opportunity. I'm not giving up on the remote possibility of a Zips-Racers matchup until the pairings are officially announced.

Windows XP is more than 10 years old now and is more vulnerable to malware and viruses than Windows 7. In addition, older browsers also have more security holes. It's always best to have the latest operating system and browser, and to keep them updated with all the latest security patches. At the very least, everyone running Windows should be using Microsoft Security Essentials. It's a free download from Microsoft and can be set to automatically update every day through the automatic Windows update process. It's rated as good or better than most of the commercial antivirus programs that you have to pay for, it doesn't use much memory or slow down your computer, and it's saved me on several occasions by isolating and eliminating potential threats before they can do any damage. The Rogue virus is the one that pops up false alerts that your computer is infected with a virus, and has you download and install a phony antivirus program that causes more problems. While it's possible to get something like this on VCU Ram Nation, I've visited that site many times with no problems. Virus writers are now cleverly covering their tracks by designing viruses to install on a computer but stay dormant until triggered by an outside source. For example, a dormant virus can be triggered by an innocent Java applet when visiting a "clean" website. So it's more likely that an innocent Java applet on VCU Ram National just "woke up" the virus that was already on your computer. As for Macs vs. PCs, that's a debate that's been going on for years. People have their favorite and are unlikely to change. Personally, I've always preferred PCs because they are open architecture and less costly. Macs are proprietary and pricey. I've built my own computers from scratch for many years and like to get under the hood and do my own maintenance. You can do that with PCs. You can't do that with a Mac.

It's hard to prepare a defense to stop a team's leading scorer when many different players take turns being the team's leading scorer. As can be seen in the following list, 9 different Zips players have been the team's leading scorer, tied for leading scorer, or within 2 points of the leading scorer in the 20 games to date this season (number of games - player name): 6 - Cvetinovic 6 - Diggs 6 - Marshall 5 - Harney 3 - Treadwell 2 - Abreu 2 - Walsh 1 - Gilliam 1 - McClanahan

I've spent some time looking at graphs of Nitro's performance last season, and there was only a small statistical falloff from the first to the second half of the season when Q was starting to earn more PT. Over the last complete season, Nitro was the team's 3rd leading scorer at 10 ppg, behind only the Serb's 11.7 and B. McKnight's 10.2, and 3rd leading rebounder at 3.6 rpg, behind only the Serb's 6.9 and Zeke's 4.9. Nitro was the team's best 3-point shooter of those who had more than 50 attempts for the season at .389 to B. McKnight's .385 and D. Roberts' .382, and his .893 free throw percentage was 2nd only to D. Roberts' .944. Perhaps most impressive last season is that Nitro had the 2nd best offensive rating of any Zips player and 12th best in the MAC. The only Zip with a higher offensive rating last season than Nitro's 110.0 was D. Roberts' 114.3. Taken as a body of work, Nitro's entire junior season showed significant progress over his first 2 seasons. Bottom line is that I can find no data to support the claim that Nitro "really never progressed much in his career here."

The Serb's offensive rebounds per game are down about 12%. But his minutes per game are down about 6% on this season's deeper team, which accounts for about half of the reduction. On the other hand, his effective field goal percentage is up from 45.2% last season to 51.2% this season. Effective field goal percentage takes into account the extra points scored on 3-point shots vs. 2-point shots. Some of the Serb's offensive stats are down while others are up. Most importantly, his offensive rating, which includes all offensive stats, is up from 99.3 last season to 102.8 this season. Overall, he's playing a little less and playing a little differently. But his better offensive rating suggests he's playing a little more effectively.

We talked extensively here last season about Nitro's huge progress in his junior season over his first two seasons. He went from a bit player to a key component of last season's NCAA tournament team. He's playing a smaller role this season due to the influx of talented new players. But that doesn't mean he never progressed much in his career here. The progress in his junior season is obvious when you look at his numbers. Nitro on StatSheet.com

I think we're all blown away by what Harney is accomplishing because he has so little experience in both HS and college. Same with Tree. They deserve all the attention we're giving them. But this team is deep, and different players step up in every game. Look at the total game that Walsh had tonight. What a huge presence he's brought to the Zips. Q played an outstanding game tonight, as well. So did Rico. Harney is going to have off nights, just like everyone else. When you have 9 players of the caliber that the Zips have right now, one guy is not going to get the job done in every game. But it doesn't matter. Teams may try to come up with a smothering defense against the Zips player they think they have to be most careful to keep in check. But that's going to leave someone else less tightly guarded, and any of the Zips players can light it up in any given game.

@TPSjugglerdude, that's a great RPI site. Got it bookmarked now, and thanks for the tip.

Where do you see that?

Taking care of business. Man, I used to dread the trips to Ball State. Those guys used to out-athlete the Zips like crazy. The Zips are just amazingly good right now. They just keep throwing great players on the floor. And they really turn it up a notch in the second half. It's a great time to be a Zips basketball fan.

This is what you want to avoid: Recruit Yuri Wright expelled for Tweets

It's simple statistical math: For every 2-point shot the Serb takes, he scores 0.944 points. For every 3-point shot the Serb takes, he scores 1.101 points. He's doing just fine on his balance of 2s and 3s.

You would not let anyone else on this forum get away with a BS statement like that. So, in the spirit of CK The Enforcer, I formally call you out.

@Quickzips, most of the basketball posts on ZN.o are about the present, as they should be. There's also a lot of reminiscing about the past, which is fine. Why not include a little discussion of the future from time to time? Nice work on your 10-player rotation. One assumption there is that Egner shows more progress. He obviously hasn't played many minutes this season, and his back has kept him completely out of recent games. Hope to see him play at least a few minutes against Ball State, rack up some minutes against the weaker MAC West teams and work himself back in to the rotation. For next season, a stronger, more polished Egner plus a more experienced and improved Tree would go a long way toward helping make up for the loss of the Serb in the frontcourt. The Zips are loaded with wings, but a little thin at the 4/5 position. I agree with you that McAdams and Kretzer would have to be awfully good to stand a chance of taking time from the veterans as true freshmen, and that they're most likely to redshirt. I also agree that Justice has a tough challenge ahead. As great a 3-point shooter as he was in HS, earning PT away from Walsh (50%+ 3-point shooter) and Deji (slasher and defender) is going to require a high level of performance. By the way, I just happened across a YouTube video of Egner that's been up since March, but which I hadn't seen before. It gives a hint of what he's capable of doing, which we haven't yet seen under game conditions.

It's my understanding that Betancourt will arrive next season with at least the same PG skill set if not better than Rico had when he arrived last year. Betancourt is the only other player other than Rico who is a pure PG. Deji was recruited as a wing guard who was also able to play a little PG. His redshirt was burned after Rico's knee acted up and Walsh was unable to backup Rico at the point due to a minor injury of his own. In the meantime, Rico's knee was operated on and fixed, and Q took over backup point duties. That moved Deji back to wing guard, where he's stuck in the depth charts behind other, more experienced Zips wing guards. The Zips are deep in wing players. Assuming that everyone but the Serb and Nitro is back next season, the Zips will have 7 returning players who've proven they can average quality double-digit playing minutes. If the Zips continue to play 9 deep next season, there would be available PT for just 2 more players. If the Zips were to go 10 deep next year, then 3 players might replace minutes played by the Serb and Nitro. As of now there would be 6 players going after those 2 or 3 available playing spots -- Egner, Deji, Justice, Betancourt, McAdams and Kretzer. Egner and Deji have the advantage of already having PT. Justice will be coming off his redshirt season. Betancourt, McAdams and Kretzer will be true freshman. All 3 of the true freshman appear to be very talented. This creates a unique problem for Zips basketball. The team continues to get deeper and deeper, and some good quality players are going to have problems breaking into the lineup. It will be interesting to see who's up for the challenge, and what all of that talent will do for the Zips' record next season.

It's time-consuming, but you can reconstruct rosters of any Zips basketball team by going to page 90 of the Zips media guide and searching the all-time letterwinners list (players listed in alphabetical order) for the years of the specific team you're looking for. Zips Media Guide Records PDF File

I think that StatSheet.com only goes back to the 2000-01 season.

It's never too early to talk about future Zips team lineups! I've started a new thread, and maybe one of the mods can move some posts from this thread into the new one for continuity.

We started drifting in the Can't game thread onto the subject of how they team will change next season with the loss of the Serb at power forward. Since more than one person is interested in discussing what the Zips lineup will look like next season, let's do it here.

I think CK said the number 20 isn't hard and fast, and changes from game to game depending on the opponent. So maybe we should refer to it as the CK Harney Variable Rule. Harney needed only 14 minutes to drop 21 on Can't and turn what looked like a Zips loss into a win. I don't think anyone predicted that in advance. If you measure only Harney's second half stats against Can't, the performance was even more remarkable. He scored 19 points in 9 minutes.

I don't have a good feel for where Reggie McAdams will play at the college level. He's currently listed at 6-6, 195 pounds. On paper, that doesn't sound like a great replacement for the 6-8, 230-pound Serb at PF. McAdams is described as being able to play all positions, including PG, on a small HS team. He gets kudos for his 3-point shooting. That sounds like a college wing guard or wing forward to me. The Zips are loaded with wings. Their biggest need is at the 4/5 positions, especially after the Serb is gone. Next season the Zips will start Zeke at center and Tree at power forward. Who on the roster will have the size, strength and skills to be able to rebound and defend against the other teams' bigs when Zeke and/or Tree are on the bench?