Dave in Green

The Zips need a lot of work on both offense and defense. Correcting what went wrong with only one or the other tonight is not going to turn the Zips into instant winners. They have a long way to go on both offense and defense to have a chance to be decent by the end of the season. I have formally lowered my expectations for this team for the first half of the season. Is anyone still dreaming about upsetting one of the tough teams were going to be playing over the next few weeks? Forget about it! This team is going to be taking a Miamiesque win-loss record into conference play. The only hope for this team is to develop into something that has a chance to win the MAC Tournament. More than ever this year, that's the only hope. KD played all the starters more than 30 minutes tonight to go for the win. The result was a big loss and little experience for all the first-year players the Zips are going to need to have contributing in order to be good by the end of the season when it counts. Forget about winning right now. The focus has to be on developing the younger players and integrating them with the veterans. Stop playing all the starters more than 30 minutes per game and start giving the first year guys meaningful minutes, even if they screw up. If this team can't develop an effective 10-player rotation by the end of the season, the starters are not going to be able to carry the whole team on their backs.

It's a two-way street. The players have to give the fans some reason to hope that standing up and making noise is going to make a difference. It wouldn't have mattered tonight if every Zips fan stood on their feet and screamed their guts out the whole game. The Zips were not prepared to play as well as CSU tonight, and many of the fans could tell the writing was on the wall. I don't mind coming home hoarse and sweaty from jumping up and down and screaming when I think it will help make a difference. Tonight I came home with a sore neck from shaking my head from side to side at one poor play after another. This was not a good game to try to pin a guilt trip on passive fans.

Dayton's Chris Wright is rated by DraftExpress as the 22nd best college senior NBA prospect in the country, and is ranked the 83rd best overall NBA prospect. No sign of Norris Cole in their top 100. That doesn't mean Cole might not be an excellent player. But it does seem to indicate that Wright may be the best single player the Zips face this season. DraftExpress EDIT: Oops, DraftExpress ranks Detroit PG Ray McCallum as the 30th best overall NBA prospect. No one on the Zips schedule this season ranks higher.

Maybe have Coach Porter come into the locker room and tell the guys how painful it was when CSU upset UA's soccer team, and urge them to defend UA's honor by doing the same to CSU's higher-ranked basketball team. I wonder how well CSU fans travel, and how many to expect tonight?

Pomeroy currently ranks CSU #87 and the Zips #143. The KenPom formula predicts a 68-67 CSU victory, but with the Zips having a 46% chance of winning. I'd say that's close enough to even that the team that wants it the most and puts out the most effort -- especially on defense -- is likely to win. If the Zips play as they did against Dayton, they're in this one all the way. If they play like they did against YSU, it will be ugly. I'm pumped for this one.

Ronnie Steward is also doing well. He starts and has played more minutes than anyone else on the 3-0 Ashland team. He's tied for second leading scorer, averaging 13 ppg, and is shooting 50% from the field. His other stats are also good. Obviously DII is suiting him well. Ashland Season Stats

What about a guy who predicts the exact score of a game? What if ten guys predict the score exactly? Sometimes things are exactly as they appear. Read it again with the highlighted words. You should have highlighted "always", "anything", "immutable", "laws", and "every". Those are some pretty black and white words for someone whose sig reminds our faithful readers of his affinity for shades of gray on a daily basis. I don't use black and white terms lightly, but occasionally they are appropriate. The shade of gray on this is that those other words did not require highlighting because they were not pertinent to the point GP1 was addressing. And, by the way, when anyone demonstrates that something I've said is inaccurate, I readily concede the point. I'm more interested in getting smarter than in trying to prove I'm always right, which no one ever is (another pesky black and white assertion). But if we dig any deeper into this, we should probably move the discussion to Off Topic.

I happened to stumble across an LSU sports fan website that is sweeping the internet for all data related to the Cam Newton situation at Auburn. It's all rumor and hearsay at this point. But some of the data is breathtaking in scope, and the level of detail is extremely fine. If this all turns out to be untrue, then some people obviously have incredible imaginations to dream it all up. I'll include one brief summary quote that represents a small fraction of the total data posted, and also a link to the site for anyone who's interested in digging deeper into the details: The FBI has been investigating Colonial Bank and Louder for a number of possible violations in the financial market crash which are unrelated to AU. Part of the investigation involved gambling fraud between McGregor and Colonial Bank. Something called the Rico Statute allowed the justice department to set up wiretaps on Colonial Bank. On the wiretaps the FBI found major AU recruiting infractions involving Louder, McGregor, Dye, Trooper, boosters and others. Here’s what they say the FBI has on tape and can prove AU did: • The people above are on tape explaining who they paid and how they did it. • It involves many AU players. • Providing unmarked Colonial Bank ATM cards to players to withdraw money from secret accounts. • Giving “slot machine cards” to the players, which now involves the Alabama Gaming Commission. • Provided improper loans to some of the families in our last and current recruiting class. • The NCAA “strongly” recommended that AU sit Cam for GA. game because of the mounting evidence. • President Grogue wanted to sit Cam but was overruled by Louder and the Board of Trustees. • Coach Chizik knows none of this and has been lied to by Jacobs. • The people named above know the S%#& is going to hit the fan “big time” and have decided “we’re going down” so lets win the title even if they take it away later. • Slive knew about this early and sat on the information and is also in the “crosshairs” of the FBI. • The corruption is so deep at the highest level (trustees) that AU will be evicted from kicked out of the SEC. • This will be revealed by the end of the week. TigerDroppings.com Link

Sigh. Yeah, keep beating that drum, Dave. There's no mystery to your thought process. ?

I'm glad to hear that whatever problems Brett may have are not all of his making. Like others here, I have the greatest respect for the McKnight family. I really hope that things work out for the best for him. As previously discussed, the loss of an experienced senior and important role player will certainly hurt the team in the short run. The best we can hope for is that the increased opportunities for Euton and Egner will help speed their development, and that team performance by the end of the season will not be compromised.

What about a guy who predicts the exact score of a game? What if ten guys predict the score exactly? Sometimes things are exactly as they appear. Read it again with the highlighted words.

I can edit my posts, too. 86 = number of mind-numbingly similar posts since you joined ZN.O last month.

But a win might get the Zips off the very bottom of the bottom ten list.

And the rest of us get it that you only want to argue one point, the same point, over and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseum -- 85 mind-numbingly similar posts since you joined ZN.O last month. Since everyone already knows what you want to say about the only subject you want to talk about, there's not much reason to read any more of your posts, is there?

Thanks for taking the time to correct some of our members. Hopefully some of our members will try to get their facts straight before they post. I'm reminded of the decision in 18th century England to try to discourage an epidemic of pickpockets by publicly hanging them. Sure enough, the public hangings drew huge crowds to the gallows. Problem was, these public gatherings also attracted more pickpockets who took advantage of the distracted crowds to pick their pockets. Since even so drastic a practice as public hanging wasn't enough to discourage some pickpockets, I doubt that some posters will be discouraged from stating figments of their imaginations as if they were proven facts.

For DIG, There's Lies, Damned Lies and then Statistics. Good memory, Hilltopper. We go through the "RPI is nuts" discussion every year:

No one wants a building process that goes on endlessly with consistently negative results. This season is rock bottom. You can't get any lower than #120 of 120 FBS teams. The only two options left are to remain at rock bottom or demonstrate a building process that produces positive results. I'm open to a building process that produces positive results starting next season.

I've been underestimating Illinois-Chicago. If they beat Rhode Island, they will not be a cupcake. This is going to be one tough 5-game stretch. But it should do a good job of preparing the Zips for conference play.

If Linhart's alleged "underuse" doesn't show up in the stats, then it comes down to our memories and opinions. I don't recall Linhart being underused, so I guess my opinion differs from yours. We all know that KD rewards players who contribute the most defensive effort with more PT. So I don't know why he'd single out Linhart for underuse when it was obvious to everyone how much effort Linhart made on defense. Stats do show that in his junior season, Linhart played the second most minutes on the team, trailing Nick Dials by only 7 minutes over the course of the whole season. So you're obviously thinking of something other than PT to define "underuse." Since Linhart was usually assigned to guard the opposing team's best player, "underuse" doesn't seem to fit there, either

I graduated from a university 1,000 miles away many years ago. I now live in the Akron area, and UA is my adopted home school for the foreseeable future. My favorite sport is basketball, and I'm happy with the direction UA is going under KD and enjoy going to all the games. Football is my second favorite sport, and the last couple of years have been miserable. If I thought that UA had totally given up on having a decent football program, I might consider skipping UA football games. But I'm an optimist. I respect all the good things that have happened to UA under Dr. Proenza. I believe that he's committed to making the football program as respectable as other areas of UA. I've been around long enough to see other schools rise from the ashes of a disastrous football program to become perennial winners. I know it can be done, and I believe that it will be done at UA. If at any point I become convinced that this is not going to happen, I reserve the right to give up on UA football and find something else to do. I have to say that the total experience of watching football in the new stadium is not totally awful even when the team is losing. My seat is in a section of hardcore fans, and there is a lot of camaraderie among us. I also enjoy the spectacle of the marching band, which I think has really taken a leap forward this year. If the Zips were a perennial doormat, that might offset all the good stuff about attending UA games and cause me to give up on attending football games. The progress of next season's team performance will be important to my decision about purchasing season tickets. This season is obviously rock bottom. There's nowhere to go but up. I'm expecting progress every season after this. If progress doesn't come, I will reluctantly conclude that Dr. Proenza and UA are not committed to having a competitive football team.

Sorry you couldn't hear me from up in the nosebleed seats. My voice is gone from screaming. Well, the Zips dodged a loss tonight to an energetic YSU team that ran circles around the Zips defense for much of the game. The Penguins were scrappy as heck and may surprise a few teams before the end of the season. The Zips offense was fairly good, but most of the players looked like they were a step slow on D. Nitro officially joined the Jimmy Conyers club tonight with great shooting, rebounding and all-around hustling. The 3 he hit that saved the Zips' bacon and sent it into overtime was a thing of beauty. But I was just as impressed with several drives to the basket where he flew through the air and used the backboard to perfection to bank the ball in. Nitro is not yet as good as he's going to be, but he's good enough to be a starter and a finisher on this team. Hard to believe he led the Zips in rebounding again tonight with 10, and is also the leading rebounder over the first 3 games. Nik played the game of his life. His drives to the basket left YSU defenders glued to the floor, and earned him a brilliant 10 of 12 from the field. I take back what I said last week about Nik not finishing at the basket. He was brilliant tonight. Not only that, he swished his last 6 free throws, including 4 in OT that helped seal the deal. At one point there was a questionable call against Nik, and he started to walk toward the ref. One of his teammates tried to pull him away, but Nik broke away and got up next to the ref. Nik said something (apparently nice) to the ref, patted him on the back, smiled, and trotted over to the bench. When Nik is cool and calm, he can be deadly on the court. KD said he wants Zeke to develop a 12-15-foot jumper, and Zeke tried mightily tonight. But he just couldn't get the shot to fall. His hooks went down a little better, and helped him to an 8-16 shooting performance. He played 34 minutes, and actually seemed to be playing stronger at the end than in the first half. His conditioning has really helped him. Roberts and McNees had fairly quiet games, but between them generally ran the offense pretty well. The scoring focus was more on the inside game as YSU appeared to be focused on stopping the 3-point game after what the Zips did at Dayton. The bench got a total of only 38 minutes, as the Zips never had enough of a lead to let the starters have much of a breather. The highlight for the bench was Bardo sneaking through the lane, getting a bounce pass from McNees and scoring an easy layup. Honestly, whatever anyone thinks of Bardo, KD is not kidding when he says Bardo really is improved this year. KD said in the postgame interview that the freshmen will be getting more PT come January. I'm all worn out from this one.

This is giving me a headache: SECTION 29. Timing Devices Game Clock ARTICLE 1. The game clock is any device under the direction of the appropriate official used to time the 60 minutes of the game. Play Clock ARTICLE 2. Each stadium shall have a visual play clock at each end of the playing enclosure. The play clock must be capable of counting down from both 40 seconds and 25 seconds. It should automatically default to 40 seconds and start immediately upon being reset by the play-clock operator when any official signals that the ball is dead after a play. Timing Devices ARTICLE 4. a. Game Clock. Playing time shall be kept with a game clock that may be either a stop watch operated by the line judge, back judge, field judge or side judge, or a game clock operated by an assistant under the direction of the appropriate judge. The type of game clock shall be determined by the game management. b. 40-Second Clock. 1. When an official signals that the ball is dead, the play clock shall begin a 40-second count. 2. If the 40-second clock does not start or the count is interrupted for reasons beyond the control of the officials or the play-clock operator (e.g., clock malfunction), the referee shall stop the game clock and signal (both palms open in an over-the-head pumping motion) that the play clock should be reset at 40 seconds and started immediately. 3. In the event that the 40-second clock is running and the ball is not ready to be snapped after 20 seconds into the count, the referee shall declare a timeout and signal that the play clock be set at 25 seconds. When play is to be resumed, the referee will give the ready-for-play signal [s1] and the play clock shall begin the 25-second count. The game clock will start on the snap unless it had been running when the referee declared a timeout; in that case, it will start on the referee’s signal (Rule 3-3-2-f).

I'm looking forward to seeing Euton, Egner, Abreu and Diggs getting lots of PT tonight. They all need to develop quickly for the Zips to have a good season. After tonight, 4 of the next 5 games will be among the toughest of the season. For the 3 freshmen especially, it's going to be a challenge facing Cleveland State, Detroit, Temple and Minnesota over a 3-week stretch.

All you advocates of both options have done a good job of convincing me that both options were about equally valid, and the odds against either option producing a positive result about equally high. It's certainly valid to think that video replays might show that the receiver was slightly juggling the ball, and the officials might rule that he never had full possession and call it an incomplete pass. It was far from a terrible call to risk the final timeout on a challenge, and it would have been far from a terrible call to hold the timeout to try to get the ball back with a few seconds left on the clock. There are plenty of valid complaints to be made about some of the calls from the coaching staff this season, but this was not one of them.

Sure it is. Someone always believes that anything is neither as good or bad as someone else does. It's one of the immutable laws of human nature that for every belief there are alternate beliefs with differing levels of perceived validity.