Dave in Green

Just back from my first experience at the Wolstein Center. Not a bad place. It's far from state-of-the art. But at least the sight lines were decent. As disappointing as the loss was, it should be noted that the Zips were playing a team that is currently ranked in the top 40 in the country on their homecourt, the Zips were without their leading scorer, and the Zips only true PG was obviously still hampered in his lateral movement by his well-wrapped knee. Even with that adversity, the Zips could have won this one if they hadn't made some key mistakes in the last few possessions. A consolation is that the Zips proved again as they did at Mississippi State that they can play close on the road with a top team. But they need all their players suited up and healthy to get the job done. Zeke had one of his most complete games as a Zip. He was aggressive without too many fouls, and when he did foul, he showed no change in expression. On plays that went wrong, where he normally shows frustration, he had the body language of a winner. This is the Zeke we dream of seeing in every game. Tree tried to carry the team on his shoulders in front of the Cleveland crowd. For a guy with only one season of HS basketball and 5 games of college experience going into this one, he was awesome. He made some silly mistakes, not the least of which was the wide open missed jam. But without his overall performance in this game, the Zips would not have been in a position to pull out a win in the final minutes. The CSU fans sitting behind us kept saying, "That Treadwell is killing us." I think it's going to take the rest of the season for this Zips team to reach full potential. They have a lot of work to do on the rough edges. Several of the players have some growing to do. But if they can stay healthy, stay out of trouble and minimize the silly errors, they are going to be one tough team come MAC tournament time.

As depressing as it is to lose the team's leading scorer for one of the toughest games of the year, hopefully Harney will learn quickly from this hopefully minor violation of team rules. This has to be really painful to him not to be able to play in front of his family and friends in Cleveland and know that he's responsible. More importantly, it should be crystal clear to all of the players by now that what each of them does as an individual can have a dramatic effect on team performance. Maybe it's time for the players to have a meeting and take a vow to dedicate themselves to doing what's best for the team. Maybe someone will finally step up as team leader. It's still early in the season and still early in the college careers of the younger players. They have to dedicate themselves to learn life lessons as quickly as they are trying to learn the lessons of playing college basketball at a high level.

Interesting Zips connection either way -- the team that knocked the defending champs out vs. the team led by the player who transferred from UA. I have to go with Charlotte as it's easier to make the case that the Zips would have had a good shot at repeating their national championship if they had beaten Charlotte as opposed to thinking the Zips would have had a chance to beat NC if NC beats Charlotte.

@ITZ, your last post has convinced me that Winters has even more special qualities than what he's been showing at Wayne State. If UA really means that much to him, I wouldn't be surprised if he has a clause related to being released from his WSU contract should he ever be offered the HC position at UA. My enthusiasm is building.

I read a story a few weeks back about how the University of Michigan ranked 108th in the country against the rush last season, and were ranked 8th this season when the story was written. That was with 7 defensive starters returning. The big difference was in the new defensive coaching staff. While the Zips aren't likely to get that big a turnaround, it's possible with the right coaching staff to have a noticeable improvement.

Lots of possibilities to look for here. Beckman may want to take Campbell with him to Illinois, which would show he thinks Campbell has the skills to run a competitive offense at a higher level than the MAC. If Beckman doesn't try to take Campbell with him, does that mean he thinks Campbell is not ready to be anything more than a good MAC OC? If Toledo goes off on a HC search, does that mean they've seen something in Campbell that leads them to think he's not quite ready for the top job? And, finally, if UA decides Campbell is the best available HC candidate, how much will Campbell's desire to be close to his and his wife's families in Perry Township weigh on his decision? Intriguing stuff.

I think that ITZ has a good grasp of the overall situation with this team and the difficulty of turning it around quickly. I agree with his point that losing some close games will be an improvement over getting consistently blown out. However, I'd argue that having more close games would increase the odds of winning more than just 1 or 2 on the season. For example, better coaching would likely have made the difference in the CMU game this season. So I think that 2-4 wins rather than 1-2 is not unreasonable to expect from a well-coached team next season. But even if it ends up at the low end with only 2 wins, playing respectably and having a good chance to win many of the MAC games would still be a big improvement over this past season. We won't need to see the win-loss record or final scores to know whether or not we're seeing a better-performing Zips team on the field that doesn't cause us to cringe in embarassment.

Thanks for that link. There are some positive points in there that could work in DI and are needed at UA, such as: Winters built a base by "building it the right way." He tore down a wall of doom by changing the mind-set of players, their friends and people in the administration. Wayne was viewed as a losing program. Winters did not want people around who felt that way. He convinced recruits that the school was a hidden gem and wanted players willing to redshirt and wait their turn. The one glaring negative in the story was this: Now he's a hot commodity and is rumored to be a finalist for the University of Akron job. Winters says he has no intention of leaving Wayne State for that job. Now you might expect any coach to say they aren't interested in leaving a school while they're in the middle of chasing a national championship. But you never really know what personal reasons someone might have for not wanting to take an opportunity that everyone else thinks they'd jump at. Anyway, the mystery should be solved within the next few weeks.

You're right. I should have checked WMU's schedule. It's similar to a typical Miami OOC schedule. They've lost to South Dakota State, Temple, Iona, Colorado, Purdue, Gonzaga and Detroit, and have beaten Hope College. Most of the teams they lost to have pretty good records.

By block, do you mean to block another member's posts when you don't want to see them because you think they never contribute anything productive to the conversation? If that's what you mean, it's called the Ignore feature. Dr Z kindly posted detailed instructions about how to add a poster to your Ignore list right here.

Detroit beat Western Michigan tonight, 92-81. Halftime score was 61-39. Remember how some were predicting how good WMU was going to be this season? Tonight's loss leaves them with a 1-7 record.

Past experience suggests that some inside information comes from inside someone's large intestine. Real inside information usually comes from co-workers, family or friends. However, there can be huge variations in exactly how close one of those people is to a situation. Some people who are semi-close may be sincere in giving their best estimate based on what they heard third-hand, while others may have actually sat in meetings where key details were discussed. It's hard to tell what's accurate without knowing exactly who the source is. And, of course, no one wants to reveal their sources because then they'd be cut off from future leaks.

Almost as if they were monitoring ZN.o .....

FootballScoop.com, a much better source, says otherwise. Correction: FootballScoop.com is not a "source," but a relay system. They get information from sources and relay the information. There's no guarantee that FootballScoop.com's source is better than GoZips' source. GoZips has provided some pretty accurate information on these forums. But I've yet to find anyone with 100% accurate sources.

That's the part I've been trying to figure out. Hard to believe Coach Porter miscalculated Speas' potential to contribute to this year's team, but it's possible. It could also have been that he didn't fit Porter's style of play, could have been that he left with a chip on his shoulder and used that as motivation to get better, could have been that whoever Porter pictured playing ahead of Speas this year just didn't live up to expectations, could have been any number of things that aren't obvious to anyone who wasn't part of the decision. But the new recruiting class and thoughts of next year's team helps to erase memories of the guy from last year's team who may have made a difference this season but who "got away." What a great position to be in to "only" be a sweet 16 team after losing someone who might have made a difference.

Impossible. I spent a lot of money on a professional hypnotist to erase all memory of the Hipsher era from my mind.

Honest, I wasn't plagiarizing! Now that I go back and read your post, I see where we've processed much of the same data and independently come to virtually the same conclusion. I've always thought you were one of the smartest posters on ZN.o, and this confirms it.

I don't know as much about Winters as some of you. I've tried to research him as best I could. By all accounts he appears to be a good and decent man who has toiled long and hard to reach where he is this season. His connections to UA are undeniable. In many ways he makes an almost perfect candidate for those who have longed for a qualified head coach with strong UA ties. From all I'm able to gather, I believe that he would make a good head coach for UA in that he could probably make UA competitive in the MAC within a couple of years. My only concern is that I haven't seen anything to convince me that he would be likely to turn UA into a big winner in the MAC, or in a more competitive conference in the event that UA should ever make such a move. I guess I look at Winters as the comfortable choice -- the guy who is likely to draw the least criticism on ZN.o if he's selected, and someone who could probably navigate the MAC well enough to keep the Zips from being an embarassment. I just don't see the flash of potential greatness that I do in someone like Matt Campbell, who has risen quickly to prominence at a young age. If Winters ends up being the choice, I hope I'm wrong and that all of the optimism from others is well-founded.

Add the Perry Township family connection into the mix of what might influence Campbell's choice if given multiple options.

A little pure speculation: It's been said that the familes of both Campbell and his wife still live in Perry Township, and that they are close-knit families. Perry Township is about a 30-minute commute from UA. Maybe an edge for UA if Campbell is trying to choose from among multiple offers, and he and his wife prefer living closer to their families.

Interesting story. Key statement to me about what this could do for the MAC from a basketball perspective: A league with Memphis, UMass, Temple, Akron and Can't State would be better than what the Atlantic 10 can offer.

Campbell worked with Urban Meyer as a graduate assistant at Bowling Green, and is a rumored "top target" by Meyer as offensive line coach at tOSU. How ironic would it be for UA to snatch up a coach targeted by Urban Meyer at tOSU? Urban Meyer’s Coaching Staff: Offense

Matt Campbell, who's proven that he can be a top recruiter in Ohio and the best recruiter iin the MAC, that he can run an exciting, high-scoring MAC offense with the players he's recruited, and who would be right at home near his hometown of Massillon.

@lumberjack, thanks for reviving this thread. It's one of my all-time favorites on ZN.o. I'm impressed by your basketball knowledge. One thing we've learned about KD over the years is that he does have some flexibility. For example, while he doesn't like to play zone defense, he has gone to it more later in the season when man defense wasn't producing good results earlier in the season. He's also been known to simplify the offense later in the season when more complex schemes weren't getting the job done earlier in the season. You are absolutely right that the current players are not typical of previous KD players. I think he may be a little uncomfortable turning them completely loose until they demonstrate they have a firm grasp of at least some basic schemes. This team does have more athleticism and raw talent than previous Zips teams. That's one of the reasons why so many of us longtime Zips fans were so optimistic about this season. But we're also going to be facing more athletic and talented teams this season. There will be times when a more disciplined offense and defense will pay dividends. The main thing to remember for someone new to observing a KD team is that he really focuses on getting everything working right when it counts the most. Making it to the MAC tournament championship game 5 seasons in a row and winning 2 of the last 3 MAC tournaments is evidence of that. I think what we're all hoping for now is that this season's team will not only repeat that previous success, but become the first to win in the NCAA tournament. I think that KD will throw all kinds of challenges at his players all season long, and when he's comfortable that he knows what produces their best performance as a team, that's the direction he'll go when it comes down to tournament time. You just have to have a little patience in watching a KD team develop over the course of the season. It's always a roller coaster ride.

The more I read about Matt Campbell, the more I like him. Everything about his past suggests that he understands Ohio, understands the MAC, and is a winner wherever he goes. At the very least, he would bring an exciting offense to UA. Losing is always painful. But losing while scoring a lot of points is at least a little more entertaining. That alone would give me the patience to wait for him to put it all together at UA. There may be a better choice out there. But I would not be unhappy if Campbell gets the call.