Dave in Green

Halfway through the second half, and the Zips are still miss, miss, missing. Score is 54-35, and they aren't going to make up that much in the last 10 minutes.

Stinky poo. Zips trail 38-22 at halftime, shooting 7-23 from the field (0-7 3-pointers) and 8-14 free throws.

Halfway through the first half, Zips trailing 22-9. Miami 10-10 free throws, Zips not hitting much of anything. Correction: Scoring was changed to take away one of the buckets Zeke was credited with earlier. Now showing 2-4 for Zeke.

All Zeke so far, as he's 3-5 from the field and no one else has scored in a 6-6 game.

GP1, so you're saying you've fully thought this through and you can find no problems with turning on the money faucet for college players?

It's easy enough to rattle off a couple of points to justify just about any change to try to improve a situation perceived as flawed. It's only when you spend the time and effort required to comprehend the full implications of a given change that you begin to understand whether it will result in improvements or even worse problems. I doubt that anyone here has spent more than a few seconds considering potential problems that might be expected to arise if college scholarship athletes were turned loose to leverage their sporting fame into dollars without any controls in place.

The actual cost of any transportation option is the result of a complex formula that includes many factors not usually considered in casual discussions, such as future scalability. For example, the current balance of U.S. transportation systems was developed in an environment of cheap, plentiful petroleum. Transportation systems evolve to fit changes in the availability and cost of various energy sources. When it comes to implementing transportation changes to fit future environments, some will be ahead of the curve and some will be behind.

Did everyone read the whole story? There were a lot more violations cited than just tatoos. Their first five opponents next season are Akron, Toledo, Miami (Fla.), Colorado and Michigan State. Their chances of winning all five games without Pryor are not so good, so this is kind of a "mini death penalty" on their hopes for a national championship next season.

How nice is it for the Zips to finally have a PG who shows up in the national rankings for assists? Abreu is currently ranked #25 in the country in assist percentage (percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted while he was on on the floor) with a mark of 37.15%. For comparison, the national leaders in this category are both familiar to Zips fans -- Dayton's Juwan Staten is #1 at 49.53%, closely followed by Ohio's D.J. Cooper at 48.2%. Other Zips in the national statistical rankings include Zeke, who continues to demonstrate his blocking prowess this season by being ranked 17th in blocks per game at 2.636. For comparison, the leader in this category is Northwestern State's William Mosley at 4.25 blocks per game. Also, Roberts continues to be ranked high in a category where he's been proficient throughout his career. This season he's all the way up to #5 in the country in least fouls committed per game (40 minutes). Roberts has averaged only .82 fouls per 40 minutes on the floor, which isn't far behind national leader Tim Burns of Maryland Eastern Shore at .69 fouls per 40 minutes. Now, everyone please sit down for this next piece of statistical news, because it may make you go crazy. The offensive percentage statistic is measured by points produced per 100 posessions. A player must have a minimum 40% game minutes played to qualify to be listed in the national rankings. Currently, Connecticut's Kemba Walker is #1 in the country with an offensive rating of 139.6. The player who currently leads the Zips in offensive percentage is not qualified for the national rankings due to not playing 40% game minutes. If he had, his current rating of 123.6 would be second only to Walker among all DI players in the country. Largely based on hitting 80% of his field goal attempts (8-10), the Zips offensive percentage juggernaut this season is none other than Mike Bardo. One last thing: Remember the old saying about not shooting the messenger?

It's never going to stop. LeBron's Best Friend Throws Him A Party

Tennessee now has three straight losses, with USC joining Oakland and Charlotte in consecutive upsets.

Foul trouble isn't such a big deal when you have such a big lead. Let the freshman forwards play and rest the other guys for tomorrow.

We don't need to look outside the MAC to find a team that always schedules a number of tough OOC games and usually loses them all, but occasionally wins one. Miami is 1-4 in their toughest 5 OOC games this season: Nov 16 @Duke Lost 45-79 Nov 22 San Diego St. Lost 56-77 Nov 26 @Ohio St. Lost 45-66 Dec 1 Xavier Won 75-64 Dec 4 @Dayton Lost 58-70 The Zips OOC schedule this season is not as tough as Miami's, but I thought there was pretty general agreement here that it was at least somewhat better than previous seasons, and a step in the right direction.

Nice 24-minute performance by Zeke, with 6-9 from the field and 2-2 free throws for 14 points, 16 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 turnovers, 3 blocks, 3 personals, and a monster +30 efficiency rating.

Box score currently shows Zeke with 13 rebounds, and a huge +25 efficiency rating. Roberts is now second in efficiency at +17.

If the stats are garbled, then the following may not be accurate. But they currently show that McNees is the only Zips player with a negative efficiency rating at -2. Zeke leads with a +21, followed by Nitro (+15), Abreu (+12) and Roberts (+10).

http://www.sidearmstats.com/stours/lasvegd...game3/index.htm Excellent! Never been there before. Interesting shooting percentage stats for the Zips: 57% from the field, 59% 3-pointers and 60% free throws.

I've tried every site I can think of, and can't find a box score anywhere.

It appears as if this season's edition of the Zips is a chronic slow starter. Nice to see they didn't wait until late in the game to pick up the pace.

Or maybe not. The box score on the Can't-YSU game isn't working, so not a good sign for the Zips game. YSU, by the way, is leading Can't 22-16.

Looks like Fox Sports is going to have a running box score for the game once it starts. The Can't-YSU game only had a Gametrax option until the game started, and then a box score option was added. Fox Sports Link

Anyone ever hear of Gonzaga's basketball budget? About double UA's -- $3,053,437 vs. $1,603,402 in 2008. Among other things, Gonzaga's basketball team has a private jet for road games and for jetting the coaches overseas to evaluate foreign talent. Gonzaga has no football team. Basketball is the focal point of their athletic budget.

I'm saying that investing resources in women's soccer to leverage what you've already invested over the years in infrastructure and personnel to support the #1 men's team is a good investment because there's a realistic chance of UA building women's soccer into a #1 program. That doesn't mean not investing in football or basketball, just being realistic that UA doesn't have the resources to compete against the elite teams in basketball or football. The relatively small amount of resources necessary to try for #1 in women's soccer would not make a significant difference if applied to trying to raise the level of the basketball or football teams. I say this from the point of view of being primarily a basketball and football fan myself, and understanding that football and basketball are the two biggest college sports that get the most attention. However, I also recognize the value to a university of being recognized as #1 in any sport, and if there's a realistic and cost-effective chance of getting there, it's foolish not to try.

Here's my question: When you look at the resources dedicated by schools with the best football programs in the country, does UA have the resources to compete at that top level? There's no question about soccer. It's already been done. UA is #1. To be at the top in basketball would require significantly greater resources. To be at the top in football would require astronomically greater resources. The bigger the sport, the greater the resources required to compete at the top level. What is the biggest sport that UA realistically has the resources to compete at the top level? That's the sport where the resources should be focused.

No team can offer only the exact number of players they want, because some of those players are going to go elsewhere. Say a team needs a fullback. They offer 4 or 5 fullbacks hoping to get 1 or 2. Once 1 or 2 commit, the offers are pulled for the 3 or 4 who were slow to commit. Obviously there are many different reasons why a team will pull an offer or a recruit will verbal and then change his mind. It's purely speculative to try to guess on a sports forum what may have happened.