Dave in Green

The Bearcats averaged more than 31,000 paid attendance at their six home games, so they averaged selling about 90% of their 35,000 seats for the season. The home finale was the only game where they drew less than 30,000. They also played Oklahoma in Cincinnati, but played at Paul Brown Stadium to handle a larger crowd. Attendance at that game was more than 58,000.

I've never been to the Tap House. But according to the Suburbanite story, Ripper Owens' Tap House had its grand opening just two months ago. I guess the question is whether it's under new ownership or has just been renovated and might have a new attitude about catering to Zips fans.

From the Barley House website menu: BOTTLED BEER Amber Bock Amstel Light Boddington’s Bud Light Bud Light Lime Budweiser Bud Light Golden Wheat Bud Select 55 Coors Light Dos Equis Dos Equis Amber Goose Island IPA Goose Island Summer Kolsch Great Lakes Dortmunder Great Lakes Eliot Ness Heineken Heineken Light Hoegaarden Honey Brown Labatt Blue Labatt Blue Light Landshark Lager Leinenkugal Berry Weiss Leinenkugal Sunset Wheat MGD MGD 64 Michelob ULTRA Miller Chill Miller Lite Molson Canadian New Castle O’Doul’s Old Speckled Hen Rolling Rock Samuel Adams Samuel Adams Light Strongbow Hard Cider Stella Artois Wild Blue Woodchuck Cider DRAFT BEER Magic Hat #9 Bass Black & Gold Black & Tan Black & Red Blacksmith Blue Moon Bud Light Shiner bock Oktoberfest Budweiser Coors Light Goose Island IPA Goose Island 312 Great Lakes Dortmunder Great Lakes Xmas Ale Guinness Half & Half Half Moon Harp Killian’s Irish Red Labatt Blue Jacks Pumpkin Spice Magner’s Irish Cider Miller Lite Molson Canadian New Castle Sam Adams Sam Adams Winter Lager Smithwick’s MALT BEVERAGES Smirnoff Ice Smirnoff Blueberry Lemonade Smirnoff Twisted Green Apple Smirnoff Twisted Raspberry Magic Hat #9 Sierra Nevada Great Lakes Dortmunder Great Lakes Seasonal Great Lakes Eliot Ness Mike’s Hard Lemonade Mike’s Hard Mango Punch Four Loko Fruit Punch Four Loko Cranberry Lemonade Four Loko Lemon Lime

ETSU has gone to the NCAA in each of the last two years. They played almost exclusively a zone defense and the Flyers hoisted up an amazing 38 three point attempts making a whooping 13. So how good is Central Connecticut State (not to be confused with the UConn Huskies)? Because tonight they took Dayton to the wire, missing a last second 3-pointer to win and 2-pointer to tie before losing 63-61. The game was in Dayton, where the Flyers used to be nearly invincible, but this year look very mortal. And, since beating Dayton at Dayton, East Tennessee State has lost their last two games to South Carolina Upstate and College of Charleston.

Dr Z does stats! I'm impressed. Really. Just relying on stats or just relying on what you see on the field each gives you a part of the picture. Taking both together gives you a more complete picture. Turns out the stats verify your impression that the Zips special teams were neither great nor awful, but just adequate. For sure there's room for improvement on special teams. But other areas of the Zips game need even more attention.

The first thought that came to me was that this was one of those "name the two that don't belong" games. But, what the heck, certainly no worse than some of the first round matchups in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

Seating capacity of Nipper Stadium is 35,000, so 27,496 represents about 80% of capacity. UA would be ecstatic to sell out 80% of the Info's seats.

Good Suburbanite story on the recent opening of Ripper Owens' Tap House. Sounds like a cool place to try, especially if the owners are true Zips fans. Suburbanite Story

It's nice to hear that UA helped last year, and unfortunate to hear they couldn't swing it this year. Maybe the story will eventually come out as to why they couldn't put some kind of discount package together for students. Airline tickets to the West Coast can be a killer. The cost of flying to Portland two years ago for the Zips-Gonzaga basketball tournament game was pretty steep.

First, I want to give you high compliments for the College Cup Guide you posted on ASN. I know how much time it takes to do that kind of research, and yours is really well done. Zips fans are really fortunate to have someone like you making the effort to do this. I wish something like this had been available when I flew out to Portland two years ago to see the Zips play in the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Second, I'm wondering if you had any expectations for UA helping students in any way to get to Santa Barbara. The reason I ask is because I'm not aware of any university that helps students get to a tournament so far away. It's obviously not as easy as chartering a bus for a one-day trip up to the Motor City Bowl, for example. I just wonder if you know of other universities somehow helping students in a situation similar to this, and what kind of assistance was provided. If there's a precedent somewhere, it should at least be brought to UA's attention for future consideration.

Blow hard.

Not just windy, but unpredictably windy. You can see by following the smoke from the fireworks that it just swirls around and around the stadium in odd patterns.

I can't read KD's mind as to the precise details of his plan for the younger players' PT. But I'm guessing what he meant is that he's planning to slowly ramp up their PT as they demonstrate they're learning from limited minutes, and that he expects them to be more up to speed by January. In other words, they don't suddenly go from 5 minutes per game to 15 starting Jan. 1. We'll see if their PT gradually increases in the remaining December games. I don't think it takes a mind reader to understand the redshirt situation. KD initially wanted to redshirt 2 of the 3 freshman forwards. He picked the most athletic and best rebounder/defender of the 3 to play this season -- Egner. When McKnight was suspended indefinitely, KD lost his top scoring forward off the bench, and was down one frontcourt player from what he wanted. Egner and Euton are not interchangeable pieces. They have different skill sets. Euton is best known for his shooting from any range. Therefore, Euton's skill set better matches McKnight's team role than Egner's does. I think Euton and Egner will be used in different situations against different matchups. One of them alone would have left the Zips a weaker team in one area or another after McKnight was suspended.

So 27,496 was the number of tickets sold, probably mostly season tickets, and a small fraction of ticket holders bothered to show up. Not uncommon in sports, as those of us who showed up at every Zips home football game this season can attest.

Paid attendance or actual attendance?

On top is where UA soccer belongs -- the top sports program at UA. Great suggestion by Hilltopper and fast action by the good folks at ZN.O. If only everything in life worked so smoothly and efficiently.

One person's opinion on CJ Morgante from ForTheIntegrityOfSoccer.blogs.com (my bolding and underlining): Just an update that Jair Marrufo and Baldomero Toledo are now on the FIFA list of referees. CJ Morgante, Corey Rockwell, and Adam Wienckowski are now FIFA list ARs. Posted by: Anonymous | January 15, 2007 at 03:05 PM Thanks for that saddening update on our new FIFAs. Jair should not be there. I don't think Baldo, either. As for the ARs. Corey Rockwell is a great guy and I am happy for him. Of any of those people, Corey deserves it. Congrats to you, Corey. I do not know Mr. Wienchowski, but I have only heard nice stuff about him personally and on the field. Congrats, Adam. As for CJ Morgante - wow. Three years removed from knowing next to nothing about soccer, he's now a FIFA asst. referee. That's what's wrong with this program. I remember watching him referee at a tournament and he was terrible. He knew nothing about the game and I doubt he's played a day in his life. But, he can offer his expertise on all things related to running track and getting stuck in the butt by a deer antler. Two out of five is a 40 percent success rate. Failing, as far as I am concerned. Nice work Alfie and Esse. ForTheIntegrityOfSoccer Link

On the issue of playing the freshmen more, KD is on record in a previous post-game interview that they will be playing more in January. We fans may be a little impatient with KD's plan. But I'm sure he has some good reasoning behind his schedule for the new players. In any case, 4 weeks is not a long time to wait. While Diggs is not a freshman, I'm starting to look at him more and more as a freshman equivalent despite his year of freshman play at UNO. I get the feeling that Diggs did not get the kind of coaching at UNO to prepare him for KD's system, and that UNO may have had more of a run and gun offense without a lot of focus on defense. So I don't expect Diggs to be much more advanced in his game than the 3 true freshmen alongside him on the bench.

Maybe the police escort was for CJ Morgante's own safety. By the way, searching for CJ Morgante on the internet shows that he's a respected pole vault coach at Slippery Rock who has a passion for soccer. There are also various opinions about his level of expertise as a soccer official. At least one strongly voiced opinion is that he is not competent to work important matches. This story is rippling out pretty wide across the internet, with some people arguing that the officials should support each other when confronted by a coach, and that Coach Porter is the one who should have been tossed. But then, we at ZN.O understand as well as anyone that there is a diversity of strongly held opposing opinions about anything related to sports.

Maybe I just missed it, but I never even saw the UCLA goalie on that last goal.

I was watching the basketball and soccer webcasts side-by-side. I may not do that again, as it was extremely stressful today. Fortunately, good final results in both. Turns out both Vegas and Pomeroy were correct in predicting the Zips would win by 2. It's a good thing Nik didn't catch what Zeke has, as he kept the Zips in the game with great shooting (8-11 from the field), defense (4 steals and only one personal foul) and ball handling (only 1 turnover). After cold shooting nights, McNees and Nitro both hit their last and most important 3-point attempts, which tied the game prior to Nik hitting the winning shot. It's pretty hard to win a game with cold shooting, too many fouls and not enough rebounds. No style points for this win. If the Zips play like this in either of the next 2 games, they'll get blown out big time.

54-52

Zips down 32-20 at halftime. That was some ugly basketball. Wide open shots clanking off the rim, balls bouncing off of hands and out of bounds, little to no interior D, outrebounded 23-17, 11 team fouls to just 3 for UIC. Zips are in a deep hole here.

Zips have more fouls (6) than shots made (5). UIC doesn't look that great. Zips just look bad so far.

Zips are cold from the field.