Dave in Green

I never attended UA. Does that mean I have to stop rooting for the Zips?

Personally, I think it would be good to have an appropriately named thread for this subject if only the discussion could be confined to this thread and not spill over into other threads specifically about the Zips. Of course, this thread and all others like it really belong in Off Topic, Smack & Jokes and not in Akron Zips Football, because it's off topic about Akron Zips football. This subject is equivalent to trying to discuss politics or religion. People have their own beliefs, they don't really want to hear what the other side has to say, and they will argue emotionally and endlessly if someone else dares challenge their beliefs. Please, can we keep the Akron Zips Football forum exclusively about Akron Zips football?

The Zips just took care of business against APB. They were so methodical in taking advantage of APBs weanesses that I couldn't even get motivated to yell at the refs when they made a couple of bad calls toward the end of the game when there was no doubt about the outcome. Also, I didn't want to yell at the refs after they mostly allowed the two teams to play and weren't constantly blowing their whistles on minor touch fouls. It made the game much more enjoyable to watch than some of the officiating disasters we've seen at the JAR. I spent most of the game focusing on Abreu and Diggs, and they continue to show me more each game. Abreu has amazingly quick hands to poke the ball away. But after a steal he is almost always run down from behind by a defender before he can get to the basket. That's what KD meant when he commented earlier about Abreu not being very fast. But that's in a straight line. When he brings the ball upcourt, Abreu changes direction and speeds up and slows down so quickly that defenders have a hard time staying with him. And his passing continues to get more amazing as he and his teammates get more in synch. His ability to drive for the basket and then kick the ball out to the far corners of the court is something Zips fans haven't seen in many years. Diggs is playing better defense game after game, which is earning him more PT. He's also more under control on offense even though he's always going at full speed. It seems the second he gets his hands on a loose ball that he's charging upcourt on the fast break. In the second half I commented that his ball handling appeared to be good enough to be a backup PG. Toward the end of the game when the deep bench was on the floor, KD kept Diggs in as the PG, and he did a nice job of bringing the ball upcourt and triggering the offense. But there's no question that Diggs' biggest single asset is his amazing ability to drive into a crowded lane, avoid all the defenders and somehow get the ball into the bucket. It's so nice to see a Zips player on the giving end of these kind of plays instead of watching athletic opponents posterize the Zips like that. It was clear that the Zips are a much different team with Abreu and Diggs on the floor. They become much more aggressive and attacking on offense. When they are both on the bench, the Zips slowed down and APB started creeping back into the game. Especially when Abreu is not at the point, the Zips offense has more trouble breaking down the opponent's defense. I'd say that none of the other players had a particularly great or awful game. Everyone did a good job of contributing to this expected win. I had hoped to see more of Euton and Egner. But Euton was way off on his only 3-point attempt, and Egner earned KD's wrath by missing a couple of assigments. So the learning process continues for those two, and McKnight's return continues to look better and better for the team.

Except for the few very best at the top of the food chain, everyone is someone else's cupcake.

For anyone who's interested, a comparison of season stats for Hitchens and Abreu can be found on statsheet.com at the link below. Rough summary is that Hitchens has about 50% more PT and is shooting at a higher percentage, but Abreu as a true freshman in only his first dozen games already has about twice as many assists per game, twice as good an assist-to-turnover rate and triple the assist percentage rate. I would expect Abreu's shooting percentage to improve as he gets more comfortable playing at the college level, and I would expect as he gains more experience that by the end of the season his overall stats will be significantly better than Hitchens' in all the areas most important for a PG. Hitchens-Abreu Comparison

My experience with OSU fans is that they are pretty typical sports fans. Some show class and others act like jerks. Debating whether they are all classy or all jerky is futile.

Nothing against Belmont, which is not exactly a pushover. But the key point is that Tennessee had no business losing those three games in a row and then only beating Belmont by 1 point. Oddly enough, Tennessee and Belmont have now played twice this season, with Tennessee winning the first game by 9. Let's see how Belmont does against Miami Thursday.

Good for Q. You can see him improving game by game as he continues to get more comfortable in the Zips system. He's definitely an entertaining player to watch.

Absolutely agree about working the rotation for depth and continuing to adjust to having a real PG. On the officiating, there's nothing that can be done about it. There's good, fair and poor officiating. It's luck of the draw. What I would really like to see is the Zips adjust to the level of officiating rather than trying to fight it. If the refs are calling tiny touch fouls, back off and don't make tiny touches. Most of all, under no circumstances ever give tiny touches to opponents driving to the rim, allowing them to score and go to the line for the and one. Either foul them hard enough to cause them to miss the shot without being so hard as to get a flagrant, or admit you got beat and give them the bucket without the plus one. In other words, play smart.

One of the more interesting aspects for me in the OSU-Arkansas game is the Razorback's QB. Ryan Mallett spent his freshman year at the University of Michigan, and was expected to be UM's next big NFL QB prospect. But he transferred to Arkansas after Rich Rodriguez took over at UM and began looking for running QBs. So this is the QB and more the type of offense OSU would have been facing in their games against UM if Rodriguez hadn't been brought in as head coach.

I was having some problems with my computer's Java when visiting the Sports by Brooks site. I ended up uninstalling Java, deleting all the old Java files and directories, and downloading the latest Java setup. After that I haven't had any problems. But if anyone is concerned about visiting that site, I'll just post what I find there that might be of interest. That has been one of the leading sites in documenting the Cam Newton situation at Auburn, and it looks like they will also be monitoring the OSU situation pretty closely, as well. Here's the latest from sportsbybrooks.com : Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith also made clear during a press conference to announce the NCAA penalties that his compliance staff had fell down on the job when it came to making it known to players that they couldn’t sell such items. “We were not explicit with these young men that you could not resell items that we give you. We began to be more explicit in November 2009.” On the same day Ohio State and the NCAA claimed OSU player ignorance of the rules, the Buckeye football player with the most tattoos on the team between 2007-09, Thaddeus Gibson, said that Ohio State football players during the time in question were repeatedly (explicitly) informed of the NCAA rule in question. From a report assembled by Zack Meisel and James Oldham of the OHIO STATE LANTERN last Thursday and published early Friday: The OSU players in questions are using a common answer, the same answer that Newton used in the midst of his scandal. Basically, they didn’t know they were in the wrong. While it’s possible that the players are telling the truth, former Buckeye defensive starter and current San Francisco 49er Thaddeus Gibson said that they were told not to sell personal items fairly often. Gibson played for OSU from 2007-09. “Oh yeah, they (OSU athletic director Gene Smith and the coaches) talked about it a lot,” Gibson said Thursday in a phone interview with The Lantern. This would appear to contradict what Gene Smith said Thursday, unless those warnings didn’t start occurring until November 2009. Wednesday I reported that multiple current Ohio State football players had gotten tattoos at the Fine Line Ink tattoo parlor in Columbus. I did not include Gibson at the time of that report because he was not a present member of the team. That said, while he was a player at Ohio State, Gibson got tattoo work done at the same Fine Line Ink establishment that led to the subsequent suspensions of five current Ohio State players. Gibson is the second Ohio State player to contradict statements made by Ohio State AD Smith. Also last Thursday, despite Smith assuring the media that the NCAA violations involving the tattoo parlor were “isolated”, former Buckeye Antonio Pittman Tweeted that OSU football players had been getting “hookups” on tattoos “since 2001″.

Miami has done the same in hockey, regularly beating the bigger name schools, getting ranked #1, getting into the final four and coming close to a national championship. They also have a great coach who's happy coaching at a small Ohio school. Even though the MAC isn't a hockey conference, it would still be nice if a MAC school could win the hockey national championship. Miami is currently rated #6 in the hockey standings, ahead of Michigan, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc.

Tressel rumor still just a rumor. Nothing on any of the major sports websites yet as you might expect on a Christmas holiday weekend. But another small sports website quotes either additional information on the two original sources or possibly two new sources that something may be going on. ftrsports.com The new rumor in the above article that "the OSU Athletic Department has even more self-reported infractions to deliver to the NCAA" could, if true, be the kicker that brings down Tressel. There is some plausibility to that based on a Tweet from former OSU player Antonio Pittman, who cited violations going back to 2001 and then deleted the Tweet: sportsbybrooks.com

Take this rumor for what it's worth, but ChicagoNow.com is one of a number of sources reporting today that Jim Tressel will no longer be head coach at OSU after the Sugar Bowl game. ChicagoNow.com

Either they're student athletes, in which case they go to school primarily to learn and make money after they graduate and get a professional job like every student non-athlete, or ditch the concept of student athletes and just allow each school to field a team in a professional college league where there's no pretense of the athletes being students and every school can spend as much as they want attracting the best athletes regardless of their scholastic abilities.

A review of 35 Division I football and basketball programs hit with NCAA penalties for major violations between 1987 and 2002 found that those teams on average actually won more often after penalties were imposed. This has the NCAA considering how to make penalties more effective in discouraging cheating. A change to tougher penalties could be coming in time to catch Auburn, which is still under investigation for the Cam Newton pay-to-play scheme, which Newton's father has admitted using to try to get $180,000 from Mississippi State. More about Auburn is expected to come out in the scheduled April 2011 trial of 11 defendants indicted in the gambling bribery and corruption scandal. One of the cell phones tapped by the FBI in the gambling bribery and corruption case also reportedly produced information involving the NCAA football pay-to-play case. So apparently the NCAA will have access to FBI wire taps that may clarify whether Auburn was guilty of paying Newton to play there instead of Mississippi State. Interestingly, one of the defendants recently dropped his criminal attorney and replaced him with an attorney Auburn uses to handle its sports-related cases. NCAA mulling tougher penalties 2 years after panel's recommendation

The NCAA has stated that its suspension policy for bowl games or NCAA championships "recognizes the unique opportunity these events provide at the end of a season, and they are evaluated differently from a withholding perspective."

The interstate highway system was seen by Eisenhower as a military investment that would also serve civilian interests. From Wikipedia: Eisenhower gained an appreciation of the German Autobahn network as a necessary component of a national defense system while he was serving as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. He recognized that the proposed system would also provide key ground transport routes for military supplies and troop deployments in case of an emergency or foreign invasion.

This is what I find intriguing in the timeline: Dec. 7 – Ohio State receives call from U.S. Attorney’s office saying that items belonging to OSU players were found in a home/place of business that had been seized. Wanted to find out if the items were bought or stolen. Would be interesting to know who owned the seized property containing the items, and what other properties were in that location. It begs the question of who exactly was involved in the purchase from the players, and what were the players doing dealing with a person or persons whose property was seized by the U.S. Attorney's office? There may be a perfectly innocent answer to this. I wonder if we'll ever know?

Zeke is unquestionably an unselfish, team-first player. The coaching staff just needs to drill it into his head that staying out of foul trouble helps the team more than trying so hard on defense that he draws excessive fouls. Zeke needs to be taught that the worst thing he can do for the team is to foul out. If the coaching staff can teach Zeke to play smart defense, as opposed to swatting at everything that moves, the Zips will win more games because they will be a better team.

NCAA Ruling Defies Common Sense Feigned Ignorance Equals Bliss

Oakland blown out by OSU, 92-63. Tennessee ends its 3-game losing streak with a 66-65 squeaker over mighty Belmont.

Yep, KD said it's his responsibility to help Zeke become an All-America player. Can't do that sitting on the bench in foul trouble. This has to become the focal point of Zeke's development. It doesn't matter how good he becomes in any aspect of the game if he doesn't learn to control the foul situation first and foremost. Zeke needs to start fast on the offensive end and start slowly on the defensive end. He can slowly ramp up defensive pressure throughout the game as long as he stays out of foul trouble. If he can get to the final five minutes without being in foul trouble, then he can turn into a defensive blocking monster and help seal wins.

I suspect the original thread is staying in the Akron Zips Football forum for the simple reason that, with the Zips playing OSU next season, the loss of key OSU players for that game is pertinent to Akron Zips Football. However, it's true that a lot of the discussion currently in that thread belongs in Off Topic, Smack & Jokes, if anywhere.

McKnight = 8-12 from the field. All other Zips = 13-50.