Dave in Green

Sure, a road win carries more weight than a home win. Both were upsets, but Oakland's carries a little more weight for being on the road. Oakland has had a pretty decent team in recent years, and has played a lot of good teams tough. Oakland gave Tennessee a wakeup call that should have had the Vols more prepared for Charlotte.

Hopefully any Zips scholarship offer that might be pulled is due to having a higher level player commit for that scholarship. In the musical chairs game of teams looking to land the best players and players looking to land with the best teams, someone always gets caught out when the music stops.

McNees' career shooting percentages are interesting to note: 35% for both field goals and 3-pointers, and 69% for free throws. The 3-point percentage is decent but not great. The field goal and free throw percentages are not good for a starting guard. By comparison, Roberts' career shooting percentages are 41.9% field goals, 41.3% 3-pointers and 86.6% free throws. Roberts is obviously a better pure shooter than McNees. But percentages aren't everything. It's also important when you hit your shots, and McNees has a good history -- especially at tournament time -- of hitting important shots that make a difference. In the past it's been suggested that McNees should not shoot exclusively from long range, but also develop a drive to the bucket. Unfortunately, he hasn't shown much ability to finish. When he does drive, it looks as if he's just flipping the ball in the general vicinity of the rim and hoping Zeke or someone else will tip it in. Since McNees shoots the same percentage on 2- and 3-pointers, his effective percentage on 3-pointers is 50% better. His shooting history suggests that he should stay focused on shooting 3s, and especially when the game is on the line.

Hilltopper, didn't you know about the deal Can't and the Record-Courier have? * Can't annually recruits high-risk basketball players who are likely to get in trouble with the law. * The Record-Courier gets exclusive access to any criminal stories that develop, and requires a paid subscription for anyone who wants to read the stories. * A percentage of all profits from new subscriptions generated by Can't basketball criminal case stories is given to local charities. It's really a great service to the community, and should be supported by all concerned citizens.

I'm guilty of saying that McKnight has not been as great a shooter as some people seem to think, and that there have been other areas of his game that were not strong. I'm guilty of saying that if the Zips had to do without McKnight that we fans shouldn't sit around crying about something we have no control over, but hope that Euton developed quickly into a player who could shoot for a higher percentage and contribute more in other areas than McKnight. Now that McKnight is back, I'll say that I hope he makes the most of his remaining senior season and shows visible improvement in all the areas where he's been criticized by fans in the past. If McKnight has a productive senior season, the Zips will be a better team over the course of the season than if he hadn't returned.

Note that Zeke's reverse dunk came at the very end of overtime when the game was over and no one was even guarding him. They did feed the ball to Zeke a lot during the game, and the smaller B-C guys swarmed him, knocked the ball out of his hands, and even blocked one of his shots. As has been frequently discussed here, Zeke is basically too nice a guy on the court. He's a finesse player who's at his best making short hook shots without a body leaning on him. He absolutely does not have that killer instinct of getting the ball down low, locking it in a vice-like grip, taking it to the hoop with violent intensity and daring everyone to try to stop him. I understand that he's still developing and improving different areas of his game. But I hate to see him being tentative and beating himself up for the tiniest little thing that goes wrong. I want to see him have more confidence in himself, be more aggressive and just go for it. If something goes wrong, immediately shrug it off like nothing happened and come right back and do it again the next time. I believe that Zeke's physical abilities are superior to his self-confidence and mental attitude right now. He's capable of doing more than he believes he can. I keep waiting for the light to go on and see him break out.

It's funny now to look at the final stats. It's hard to believe it was the game I watched. The Zips final stats don't look bad at all. They just grabbed so many rebounds and made so many shots in the last few minutes of the game and OT that their final stats are much better than B-C's after B-C was leading all the stats for most of the game. Worst individual stat of the game was a tie between McNees shooting 1-12 from the field and Zeke shooting 3-9 from the free throw line.

Funny that the Zips beat UIC and UIC beat Illinois, but I doubt anyone here would give the Zips a prayer of beating Illinois.

I hope no other game on the remaining schedule comes close to beating this one for ugliest win of the season. Zips looked dead on their feet, and B-C players were jumping around like kangaroos on a steroids and speed cocktail. Just a flat-out poor game by the Zips against a fired up, overachieving underdog. Zips finally woke up at the end while B-C was coming back down to earth, missing the field goals and free throws that were falling unconsciously for most of the game. The Zips came out with some fire in OT, and B-T was never really in it after that. McKnight did not look rusty, and scored a couple of important buckets. The Zips will definitely be stronger with him back in the lineup. The one Zip who seemed to have the most energy all game long was Diggs. He is looking more and more comfortable in the Zips system, and is really aggressive bringing the ball upcourt on a fast break. His D is improving, and I think he's getting closer to being a 20+ minute per game player. Honestly, I don't worry too much when the Zips have a letdown game like this. It would worry me if they had three or four games like this in a row. I don't think they will.

According to the ABJ: A violation of the same rule in November led to an indefinite suspension by the UA athletic department. McKnight then appealed it and won. ''Basically, we have a process we go through here at the university when we are dealing with student-athletes and issues,'' UA director of athletics Tom Wistrcill said Friday while watching practice. ''The process played out. He was exonerated, got reinstated and here he is. I am glad to have him back.'' ABJ He appealed, won the appeal, was exonerated and reinstated. That explains his Facebook posting. Good for him, good for the Zips and good for Zips fans. He got a long and loud cheer from the crowd at the JAR when he entered today's game, and looked pretty good in the few minutes he played. For all the complaints we might have about some things he doesn't consistently do well, he brings a dimension to the team that no other player has yet been able to match.

So now we need to put Charlotte right up there with Oakland, right? Or do we need to lower the value of beating Tennessee? Tennessee Loses to Charlotte

The Zips did make it into the story about the Virginia soccer team's visit to the White House: News Link

Nice to see that the Big Ten pays attention to popular opinion on ZN.O.

I'm thinking UA gets great performances from freshman soccer players for the same reason as top college basketball and football programs do. The very best players tend to sign with the very best programs, and a few of them are so good that they could literally go into the pros right out of high school. Since UA doesn't have top 25 football or basketball programs, they don't attract the most talented young players in the country, and we Zips fans are not used to seeing freshman stars. But with UA having what is arguably the top college soccer program in the country right now, it's attractive to the very best young recruits, including those who are so talented that they can be star players even as freshmen. When it comes to the UA soccer team, we Zips fans need to be thinking more like Duke or Kentucky basketball fans, and expect that at least some of the incoming freshmen will be good enough to contribute immediately to another national championship.

Zach, really appreciate you keeping up with so many different sports stories and sharing with us.

KD says Brett won't play Saturday. Ohio.com Link Hopefully this reinstatement will produce an immediate gain in team competitiveness. The flip side is that it will slow the development of the new forwards.

ITZ, your exact words were: "Haywood got that job because of his skin tone." That's a pretty definitive statement, and one that you can't possibly know to be true. But why even bring it up? It just begs to be countered by the history of all the white coaches over the decades who got their jobs because of their skin tone. Skin color has always been a fact of life in football coaching to varying degree, from the days of "whites only" to the days of enforced anti-discrimination. As far as your stereotyping of guilt-ridden white guys, I earned my street creds in rural Louisiana in the late '60s and early '70s when there were still Jim Crow laws on the books. I spent a lot of time hanging out with blacks in public, which eventually came to the attention of the local chapter of the KKK. I received a warning from a third party that I'd been targeted by the KKK, and the message was that if I didn't move my butt out of that little town fast that something bad was going to happen to me. A week later a massive fire started under mysterious circumstances in the apartment complex where I lived. Again, word came to me through a third party that the KKK was pissed because they torched the wrong apartment, and the fire just missed my unit. I vividly recall sitting in the fire chief's office telling him about the threat from the KKK. That silver-haired southern gentleman smiled, told me he was certain that the KKK had nothing to do with it, and proceded to lecture me about how misunderstood the KKK was and how much good they had done for folks over the years. I just shook my head and walked out, thinking every city official in that little town probably felt the same way and there was no hope of justice. Then I got a call from the FBI, who wanted to meet with me. In our meeting they said they had been monitoring the local KKK chapter because it was more active than others, and they had evidence of a number of incidents for which they planned to bust that chapter. They said what I told them fit in with other information they had, thanked me, and told me not to tell anyone I had spoken with them. I can't say what eventually happened, because that very week I received a job offer in California and moved out there within days. So, yes, I do have a history of being sensitive to racist comments and racist actions, and with good cause, including much more than just this one incident. There are still plenty of racists today, and many of them use the same type of wording that appeared in your initial post. However, in your second post you try to clarify that you did not intend for your words to convey a racist message. As I've said before on this forum, I take a man at his word unless there's compelling evidence to prove otherwise. If you agree that it's fair to have rules to protect otherwise qualified candidates from being excluded for consideration solely on the basis of their skin color, and that skin color was not the primary consideration for Pitt selecting a highly qualified coach, then you and I have no disagreement.

Thanks for sharing your inner self. It makes it easier to understand some of your other posts.

Were you the one that argued post after post last year how we didn't need a different pg, and #4 was a good pg, and used all kind of crazy stats to try to prove it? If I have you confused with someone else, I apologize. Your memory is nearly flawless. I argued post after post last year that we didn't need a different PG last season because there was no one on last season's roster better than McNees at PG. I don't recall ever arguing that the Zips should not try to find a better PG for this season and beyond. But if you go looking through my old posts and find where I did say something like that, I would, of course, admit that I was in error.

After sleeping on it, I believe the best and most effective starting lineup that the Zips will be using before the end of the season to match up against teams like Minnesota, Temple, Dayton, Cleveland State, Can't, etc., will be the following: Zeke Nik Alex Quincy Josh Alex has already proven that he is the starting PG. He continues to improve each game, and could be pretty special by the end of the season. Q had his best game yet, and was the only Zips player on the floor who appeared to have the athleticism to match up against Minnesota. I predict he will take over a starting role and play more minutes as he learns to play better defense and stay more under control. Egner is the missing link right now. He's the athletic forward the Zips missed last night. He's the only player on the Zips bench who can really help Zeke and the Serb neutralize Minnesota-type front lines on both defense and offense. Josh is not there yet, and he's not going to get there if he doesn't get a chance to play longer minutes and learn from trial and error. Bite the bullet and play him now, KD. It will pay big dividends by the end of the season. McNees could be a major offensive weapon to bring off the bench, which may suit his streaky shooting style better than being a starter. In effect, McNees would take over the 6th man offensive sparkplug role previously held by Brett McKnight. Nitro, Roberts and Euton might also be able to fill this role in some games, depending on which of the four players has the best shot on a given night. But I really believe that the starting lineup above offers the Zips the best chance to upset a ranked team as long as all five players are given a chance to learn to play together and improve their team and individual games.

The question needs to be rephrased. Of course it's possible. If something can happen once in a trillion times, by definition it's possible. Based on what I saw this year, I'd say it's highly unlikely for the Zips to have that big a turnaround in a single season. And in the unlikely event that it should happen, then Ianello will likely become as attractive to other schools as Haywood, leave UA for a better opportunity, and be cursed on ZN.O as a traitor by some of the same people who currently curse him as an incompetent loser. Sports forums are so predictable.

A disappointing but not unexpected loss. The Zips did well not to get blown out. You could see bits and pieces of the Zips game that offered promise. Abreu is making good progress, and making plays not seen from any recent Zips player. I especially liked the way he drove to the basket and kicked it all the way out to the open man outside the 3-point line. If just one of the Zips 3-point shooters had been hot, it could have been really close. As always, Zeke has to learn to avoid foul trouble. I believe KD when he says the Zips will be much better when they start MAC play. EDIT: McNees, Nik and Nitro shoot a combined 10 of 38 from the field. End of story.

Those watching on TV will understand that Minnesota is a MUCH better team than the Zips. They're big, strong, fast, skilled and smart. Did I leave anything out?

Sorry I missed the first half. That appears to have been the highlight for the Zips.

I'm curious about what percentage of people thought that Michael Haywood was capable of such a turnaround immediately following the conclusion of his 1-11 season. It would be hard to pin that down now, because most of the folks who were calling for the loser's head on a platter back then are probably now preoccupied with complaining about the traitor leaving because he thinks he's too good for them.