Dave in Green

Actually, the Zips soccer team did somewhat underperform in the regular season from what Zips soccer fans expected. Now in the NCAA championship tournament they are starting to live up to the expectations of a defending national champion. Hopefully the basketball team will also do well in the post-season.

Is there a clearly defined process for who gets home games in soccer, or can the NCAA wing it and add intangibles? This all seems a little crazy.

Charlotte played #11 UAB. Zips played #6 SMU. Don't lower-ranked teams have to play higher seeds?

Charlotte was ranked much higher than Akron. Aren't seedings closely related to rankings? Don't know how Akron could earn the home field out of this: NCAA Rankings

Thanks, that scared me!

Joining late. Is the stat on the webcast correct that SMU has 20 shots on goal and the Zips 10?

Every Zips fan is disappointed with every loss. All Zips fans would prefer to be undefeated right now. Yet in our brief moments of realism we understand that the Zips never had a realistic chance to go undefeated this season. So now we're down to the question of when is the best time to lose? In the past we've tried the formula of losing to the best teams and beating the lesser teams. It didn't carry a lot of weight with the NCAA tournament selection committee at the end of the season. So what would happen if the Zips beat all the best teams they played and lost a few to lesser teams? Well, the Zips have beaten the strongest team they've played -- Mississippi State. The NCAA tournament selection committee will like that. The Zips have several more games against teams the NCAA selection committee will respect, like Detroit, Cleveland State, West Virginia and VCU. Those are the ones you really have to win to make an impression on the NCAA tournament selection committee. The Zips started the season with a big win and a couple of painful losses. Knowing that the team was going to lose some along the way, it's better to have it happen earlier rather than later in the season. Another important thing the NCAA tournament selection committee considers in selecting at-large teams is who performed well late in the season rather than earlier. At this early point in the season, the Zips are still alive on winning the big ones and still have an opportunity to finish the season strong. So there's no reason to panic.

@mes102, I must not have been reading that thread, as I haven't seen a thread closed in awhile. In fact, I've seen very few threads closed on ZN.o compared with some other forums I've been on. I believe the oft-stated philosophy of the moderators here is to try to let people say what they want as long as they don't get way out of line. Personally, I agree with that philosophy. Generally speaking, I don't think it accomplishes much to lock a thread unless it gets way out of control. In most cases, hot threads tend to cool off on their own as people eventually run out of words and lose interest. As far as a moderator posting a comment before locking a thread, that can be productive when the moderator explains why the thread is being locked so that forum members will be more likely to understand what is unacceptable and will be less likely to do the same in the future.

Without the games in Canada, I doubt they would have beaten Mississippi State. There's no question that KD is giving Harney and Tree more PT than he normally gives first year guys with no DI experience. These two guys are everything they were advertised to be coming out of HS in Cleveland. They're both high major talents. They represent the heart of the team for the next four years. They're going to continue to play long minutes even if it hurts in the short run in some situations. If they work hard on their weak points, such as free throw shooting, they could be pretty awesome by the end of this season. They need a lot of experience against tough competition to season them, and it may result in more early season losses before the steady wins start coming.

Walsh played long minutes against Duquesne -- 29, to be exact. Hard to believe he healed so quickly from the previous night. But if both Rico and Walsh are, in fact, having physical problems, that could help explain burning Ibitayo's redshirt. Zips really need steady PG play to help stabilize team performance.

Something very odd here, and I don't have time tonight to fully analyze the stats. But here are a few obvious questions: The starting and only pure PG on the Zips plays only 6 minutes? The starting power forward and potential MAC all-star plays only 15 minutes? Ibitayo burns his redshirt by playing 6 minutes when we're wondering where the PT is for all the non-freshmen players? Treadwell and Harney continue to play longer minutes, shoot like veterans from the field and like junior high kids from the free throw line? A Zips team has 19 turnovers to 11 for the opposition? Zeke plays 31 minutes, gets only 3 fouls, has one of the most complete games of his career in all aspects of the game, and the Zips lose? I don't have the answer to all these questions. But it looks suspiciously as if KD is more interested in juggling lineups to test all his players than he is in winning early season games after already proving this team could whip a major school like Mississippi State at their house -- the same MSU that mauled Top 25 teams ranked Texas A&M and Arizona at a neutral site.

@mes102, I think we all see little things on internet forums that frustrate us from time to time. We see little frustrating things in everyday life, too. If most people are not bothered by these little frustrations, they rarely get addressed. Is there any specific areas of frustration that you think rises to the level of being worthy of discussion?

Wow...this time-honored line appears so soon? After game 3 (game 2, if you don't count Hiram...and you shouldn't). And a BCS win? Will it change if we beat Duquesne, Detroit, WVa and CSU? It can't...can it? To quote Ralph Wiggum - "That's unpossible." +1 You're right. I was posting late last night after a little too much wine at a wedding party and left out the part that it will come down to winning the MAC tournament if the Zips have too many games like this one. One loss does not cancel out the power of the MSU victory. The Zips need to take last night's loss as a lesson and make adjustments. They still have a number of quality opponents ahead. Beating enough quality opponents will offset a few losses to lesser teams. But the Zips don't have a big margin here. They are not a perennial NCAA tournament power in the eyes of the NCAA in terms of an at-large bid. They need to beat several stronger opponents and not be upset too many times by lesser teams. The door didn't close last night, but the gap got a little narrower.

Everyone knows there are good refs and bad refs, and that, like players, refs have good games and bad games. Statistically, every team is going to fall victim to bad reffing at least once per season and likely several times. It's just part of the game. I think every team's fan base has the right to vent its collective spleen when this happens to their team, get the frustration out of the system, and then move on. If a team's fan base thinks it happens to their team more often than other teams, they sometimes start talking about conspiracies against their team. This is highly unlikely. The other possibility is that a team's style of play tends to draw more whistles. Zips opponents have had more free throw attempts than the Zips as long as I can remember. Last season, opponents had a 768-649 free throw advantage over the Zips. That's a coaching choice. Teams that play aggressive D are more likely to draw more fouls unless their players are exceptionally skilled at avoiding fouls. That's one of the hazards when a team focuses more on defense than offense. Teams with good offenses who can score enough points that they can afford to give up more points don't have to rely so much on tight D, are less likely to draw fouls from whistle-happy refs, and don't have their best players fouling out early or riding the bench with too many fouls. Maybe this edition of the Zips has enough offensive firepower that KD can adjust by backing off a notch on the most aggressive D and focus on scoring more points.

Help! I was tied up in a family event this evening and wasn't able to watch the game. Just finished reading this thread and don't know who to believe. Such a diversity of opinion. The result doesn't surprise me at all. There are only a few really dominant teams in college basketball, and even those that are dominant and don't get upset in the regular season often get upset in the NCAA tournament. Sounds like another roller coaster ride to me. I expect these Zips to lose a number of OOC and conference games that most here expect them to win. At the end of the season, it will come down to winning the MAC tournament. In that situation, the Zips could be a better team than last season and still be upset in the MAC tournament. I wonder how the ZN.o faithful would react to that?

Well, this thread has now been up for three days, and there has not exactly been an outpouring of concern from forum members about some of the problems that some have perceived on ZN.o. What this tells me is that any perceived problems on the forum are not so great as to cause a large number of members to want to speak out about them. That should be good news to the owners and moderators of ZN.o. They devote many hours of their personal time as well as their own personal money to keep ZN.o running smoothly for the benefit of all Zips fans. It's not easy work, and, like regular forums members, they also want to have fun here and not constantly be playing policemen. On the specific issue of some people not participating on ZN.o due to the way some forum members post, I'm not sure there's any perfect solution for that one. I've been participating on many forums for many years, and I've never seen one where at least a few forum members don't leave because they don't like the tone of the forum. On virtually every internet forum, the number of posters is generally way less than 10% of the total members -- closer to 1% in many cases. Nothing is ever going to cause all forum members to want to post. There are as many reasons not to post as there are forum members who choose not to post. We don't all like the same sports, we don't all like the same TV programs, we don't all like the same restaurants, and we don't all like to see forums run exactly the same way. In the end, it's all about compromise. We spend the most time on the forums we like the most. We can influence the tone of the forum by the way we choose to post ourselves. But we can't force others to do the same. Well, forum members can't. But the owners and moderators can if they want by kicking people out who refuse to behave according to the rules of the forum. I don't think the owners and moderators of ZN.o have a problem with any forum member suggesting changes, or they wouldn't have a forum with this name. But getting into a debate about changing the way the forum is run in the middle of a football or basketball thread is not the best place. That just ticks off the majority of forum members who only come to read about or discuss Zips sports. This Board Comments, Suggestions & Technical Support forum appears to be the perfect place to suggest changes. Anyone is free to float an idea, as I did to start this thread, and any interested forum member is free to respond. The owners and moderators can read what forum members think and add their own comments if they choose. It all seems pretty fair to me.

Good news on the recruitment of two big men. With the latest signings, the Zips now have two quality PGs and a whole bunch of other players in the 6-3/6-8 range. They need at least one quality big man in the 6-9/7-0 range to step in for Zeke after he graduates at the end of next season. The quality of the players the Zips are now getting should keep the program on the upswing as long as they can always have at least one quality big who can play center, even if the guy is a PF and not a true center. I've already said that Tree has looked better in games than I had hoped. Having a replacement in line for the Serb next season is important.

Checking in from out of town and pleased as heck to see that this team played up to its potential when it counted the most. Just keep playing like this for five more games.

@GP1, you've made more good points about the current situation on ZN.o. A lot of the current negativism and snippiness around here is directly related to Zips football. A lot of fans really take their college sports seriously, and there's a serious sense of anger and hopelessness now on the football forum that makes it no fun to visit. I've pretty much run out of things to say about Zips football. You may not speak for everyone, but I think you speak for a lot of Zips football fans with what you just said about the program.

You got it. Oliverio's is the restaurant included in the WV package. I suspect, though, that we may not be ordering from the menu since the package price is fixed and includes the meal. I'm guessing we'll end up in a banquet room with a limited choice buffet. Still not bad as I'm OK with almost any Italian food as long as the folks in the kitchen know what they're doing.

Those of you who are not taking the bus should still call Erin and see if you can purchase seats from the block that UA has for those who are taking the bus. The more we have sitting together the better. Maybe you could even get in on the dinner, too, if you're interested. It would be nice if you could get the package minus the bus trip.

@GP1, that's a really excellent point you make about the mix of having fun and partying here while at times having serious discussion. Some of the misunderstandings no doubt come from taking humorous comments too seriously and vice versa. Everyone sees things a little differently, and some are just inherently more serious than others, so misinterpretation is inevitable. For example, I personally find some of your posts to be among the most interesting I've read on ZN.o, and others to be way off base. But I'm sure there are others who think that way of my posts. Interpretation of intent is imperfect. I started this thread in this forum for board comments because the discussion among the moderators and some forum members in a basketball thread about why some people won't post on ZN.o was, I thought, an example of why some people may not want to post here. People who might participate more on ZN.o if it was focused on sports talk and not posting habits could easily bypass discussions like this in this forum and stay 100% focused on sports talk in the dedicated sports forums. The small number of people who might have interest in this subject could discuss it here without stepping all over those who only want to talk sports, hopefully encouraging more people to participate on ZN.o. I totally understand why some people get tired of negativity on ZN.o. I voluntarily took a 10-day "vacation" near the end of last basketball season when the basketball forum became filled with negative posts trying to pin blame on various players. That break gave me a chance to think things over and realize that I was only punishing myself if I let what a few other people posted chase me away from a place I really enjoyed hanging out. I returned with thicker skin and more respect for the opinions of others, whether I agreed with them or not. I would hope that others could come to a similar conclusion and not let anyone else's negative posts interfere with their fun here. Like others, I don't want to be part of the problem, and am willing to reconsider the way I address issues on ZN.o. GP1 reminds me that I sometimes tend to err on the over-serious side. Like others, I try not to be out of line with the tone that I see other forum members and moderators use when posting on ZN.o. Like others, I want to be a member in good standing of this community, and treated no differently from anyone else. What more can we ask for on an internet forum? I'd just like to add that I appreciate the moderators letting this free and open discussion go on among those forum members who want to participate.

@Doug Snyder, you may be right in everything you say. Productive direct discussion of something that keeps popping up indirectly all over the forums may not be possible for a variety of reasons. Some of those who think they've seen problems may be seen as problems. The typical response to threads like this is that life is imperfect; learn to live with it. If it can't be openly discussed here, it's probably not worth addressing indirectly in the other forums or privately.

I didn't know Phil McKnight personally. But I knew him the way so many other Zips basketball fans knew him, because he made himself heard by all at Zips basketball games. He was the conscience of all MAC officials with his constant reminders of the importance of the Integrity Of The Game! And then there were all the stories about him on ZN.o from those who did know him, or who relayed stories about him from those who knew him. And they were all good stories, because Phil McKnight was obviously a good man. You could see it in his sons who represented Zips basketball and UA so well. You knew they came from a good, strong family headed by a good, strong man. The story in the Lancaster Eagle Gazette confirms what Phil McKnight meant to the people of his hometown. It's sad that he's gone from among us, that we'll no longer hear his strong voice booming out at a Zips basketball game. But that voice will echo in our minds for years to come. He'll always be a part of Zips basketball, and we'll remember him with great fondness and respect.

If there are any legs at all to this rumor, odds are that all the ND players offered would not accept, just as all the HS and JUCO players offered do not accept.