Dave in Green

There's nothing unusual about coaches telling players that if they're incapable of raising their level of performance up to expectations that they're going to be replaced by someone who can. Anyway, I seriously doubt that players performing at the level of Brian Wagner are being told they aren't good enough to be Zips and should feel free to look for other opportunities.

Watching the video and seeing all the expressions and interactions and hearing the inflections is so much better than reading short sports stories with a couple of selected dry quotes. This video of the post-game interview is a great addition to ZN.O.

I voted for the Unemployed American.

Pomeroy predicts 70-59 win for Dayton.

Beware! There must be a DaveInGreen impersonator out there, as my wife can confirm that the real DIG was not there.

LeBron/Randy Moss good; media bad?

It's a cliche, I know, but if you made something like this up, no one would believe it. LeBron has now, without prompting, volunteered that he identifies with Randy Moss. GP1 was so right when he noted that LeBron desperately needs a professional communications specialist to advise him what to say and what not to say. I'm sure the thought never entered LeBron's mind that comparing his situation with that of Randy Moss is not going to do good things for his public image. ESPN Link

You knew I had to do this ..... StatSheet.com has had a complete makeover, and is worth visiting to explore all the new features. If you bore in on Akron and click on Season Preview, it takes you to a Zips Update section that's still in beta. It's not perfect, but much better than before. Pomeroy Ratings haven't changed much from last year. Latest edition has the Zips ranked 138th, and predicts a 70-59 loss to Dayton with the Zips having a 12% chance of winning.

Last season's Dayton team beat UNC by 11 at Madison Square Garden to win the NIT. It should be noted that last season's UNC team finished the season with barely over a .500 record and were not the vintage UNC powerhouse of the past. But none of that takes anything away from the Flyers being extremely tough to beat on their home court. Dayton had a 30-game home win streak broken last season by Rhode Island, losing by 1 point. Today, in their first game of the season, the Flyers beat the mighty Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers by 15 points. But Dayton only shot 40% from the field and 46% from the free throw line. They mainly won by outrebounding the Mountaineers 49-25. Freshman PG Juwan Staten was only 2-9 from the field in his first college game. He's a highly ranked recruit, but still inexperienced at the college level. If the Zips hit the boards hard, play really tough defense and shoot close to 50% from the field, they have a chance to pull an upset. It won't be easy in front of 13,000 rabid Dayton fans, but it can be done. EDIT: Now I see where Quickzips got his board name.

On the subject of how Zeke will shoot against D1 competition, he only had one shot that missed the rim. On that one, it appeared that his defender may have gotten into Zeke and moved him as he was in the air releasing. Zeke tried to make his case with the refs, but they didn't see contact. There's no question that Zeke's defenders will be trying to push him around and throw his shot off. As for KD's criticism of Abreu and Diggs, it's true that Abreu had trouble staying in front of the players he was defending, and Diggs at times looked like he was playing playground basketball. On defense, Abreu has an uncanny ability to get his hand on the ball. But it's not without risk as it sometimes puts him out of position to defend when he reaches for the ball and misses. Diggs is going to make the crowd go crazy with some of his moves to the basket, and he's also going to make the crowd groan when he messes up. He seems to be playing right on the edge, and may need to back off a half step. Diggs is very loose on court and appears to be having a lot of fun. I think KD would like to see Diggs become more businesslike in his approach, starting with practice. Addressing Egner's leadership role, he was shouting out to his teammates all the time he was on the floor almost like a PG on offense. Egner also appears to me to be like a good PG in the sense that he sees where everyone else is on the floor. While guarding his own man, he's continuously scanning the other players and frequently makes small moves to be in position to switch his D to help out on another player if needed. As Hilltopper and I noted when we saw Egner play several HS games, he is extremely intense and businesslike on the floor. KD has to love Egner's attitude, and Diggs could learn some things from him. By the way, Egner did not miss two dunks. He missed one under heavy defensive pressure, and the other one that came out was due to a goaltend and he got credit for the basket. Nothing to be alarmed about with Egner's ability to slam. Egner, Abreu and Diggs really change the character of this team when they're on the floor. They're all exciting, dynamic players. They also have areas of their game that can be improved. If they all improve significantly during the course of the season, they will help make this Zips team a tough matchup for any team on their schedule.

It's awfully tempting to consider players as reliable sources. But in reality players are not always in the loop on all coaching decisions. I suspect that Nik told you what he believed to be true as opposed to him having heard it directly from the coaches' mouths. Nothing wrong with posting a player's thoughts as long as we all take it with a grain of salt.

Humpty got the start, alright, but not the minutes. He only played 12 minutes total, while true freshman Chad Jackson got 33 minutes off the bench. Ironically, Jackson was a HS teammate of the Zips' Dakotah Euton. Reading the play-by-play on the JMU website, Humpty hit his first shot in the first minute of the game followed by 2 quick fouls and off to the bench. When he returned in the first half, he missed all his shots, had 1 assist and 1 turnover and went back to the bench after his 3rd foul. He started the 2nd half, had a turnover followed by his 4th foul, and went back to the bench. He returned briefly with a few minutes left, but didn't show up in the stats while he was in. Losing that much PT to a true freshman in the first game of the season is not a great sign for an experienced junior. Hopefully he'll do better. JMU Game Stats

Zips looked crisp most of the first half, and a little sloppy in the second. Egner plays, and Euton and Green redshirt. Egner ended up with the same 7-10 from the field as Zeke, and had 2 blocks to Zeke's 4. Egner was the go-to guy while he was on the floor, and he delivered. It will be interesting to see him play against D1 competition. Zeke's hook is deadly. It was looking good toward the end of last season, and it looks even better now. He continues to play more aggressively and with more confidence. McKnight looked rusty and didn't show a lot tonight. Nik was a little disappointing as his temper started flaring, and he eventually got a T. Nitro was a little off on his 3s tonight, but was again all over the floor on defense and led the team in rebounding with 9. McNees had a quiet night, taking only two shots and mostly just efficiently running the offense. Roberts had a better game than he did in the exhibition last week, hitting 4 of 6 treys. Diggs showed some more brilliant moves dribbling, driving, passing and shooting -- 4-4 from the field. But he also got a little sloppy at times and had 5 turnovers. Abreu continues to impress with his ball handling and no look passes mostly on target. Bardo actually hit a short jumper from the lane. Overall impression is that this is a much different looking team from last year despite many familiar faces. This team is much more entertaining to watch. The bench definitely has more poise and athleticism. Of course they look good against D3 competition. The real test will be against other D1 teams. The odds are against upsetting Dayton in Dayton. But I have a feeling that this year's Zips will look more competitive against tough competition than we've seen in the past.

What a great deal for Humpty. He gets the start in his first game at JMU. But it's tough playing against a loaded team like Kansas State. Humpty's 1st half stats are 1-3 from the field for 2 points, 1 rebound, 1 turnover, 3 personals, 0 assists and 0 steals. Not sure how many minutes he played, but only 1 guard and 1 forward came off the bench, so Humpty may be getting good PT. JMU is hanging tough, trailing only 38-30 at the half.

Akron is the 5th most affordable college town in the country among markets that are home to the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision, according to a Forbes Magazine story on a study done by Coldwell Banker Real Estate: Forbes Story

A pair of 6-3 guards -- one a great outside shooter and one a driver and leaper who plays above the rim. With the graduation of the 6-0 Roberts and 6-2 McNees, these two guards will be the shortest players on the team except for Abreu at 5-9. Last season's roster had 5 players who were 6-2 or under, this season there are 3 and next season there will be 1. The Zips are definitely growing up.

Under the category of "local signings," the Chicago Sun-Times lists Deji as "committed to" Akron. Chicago Sun-Times Link

KD's direct quote is: ''He is deceptive. He looks like he's slow as molasses, but he's always getting by guys." He's not slow as molasses. He just looks that way. The deceptive part is that defensive players have a problem staying with him even though he doesn't appear to be moving that fast. I always marvel when I watch Chris Paul play the point because he doesn't look as fast as some other NBA guards, but he calmly dribbles right into the lane, weaving in and out of defensive players like they aren't even there. Now obviously I'm not saying that Alex Abreu is equivalent to Chris Paul. But my initial look at Abreu playing last week reminded me of the way Paul can keep defenders on their heels despite not appearing to move fast in a straight line. As I try to analyze it, I think it has to do with making many sudden, unpredictable changes in direction and speed instead of moving consistently fast in a single direction. This requires great peripheral vision to know where all the other players are on the court, and it requires being extremely comfortable dribbling the ball close to defenders without fear that it's going to be picked so that the total focus can be on finding the open player to hit with the pass. I was thinking as I watched Abreu weave around defenders as if they were statues that this is one of the most important qualities of a really good PG. I can't recall having seen a converted shooting guard or combo guard make those kinds of moves, and most PGs aren't really that good at doing it. Over the years we've complained that the Zips are a little too predictable, which makes them easier to defend against. Abreu appears to have that rare combination of being both unpredictable and in control. Keep your eyes on him every moment he's on the floor. He's fun to watch.

Some of the comments about McClanahan prior to the start of this season are similar to what some people were saying about Conyers at the beginning of last season. Nitro has to prove himself the same way Conyers did. I'm not smart enough to predict things like that, so I'm just going to wait and see how Nitro performs as the season goes on. All I can say from watching him play in the exhibition game is that he was busting his butt on defense, and showed a smoother, more relaxed stroke than last year while canning four consecutive treys.

Wow, lots of action in this thread since last I visited, and some really interesting and informative data and opinions. On the subject of how many players can get meaningful PT, last season 11 Zips played in 29 or more games, and a 12th player saw action in 16 games. Nine of those players averaged double-digit minutes, and the other three averaged 6, 5.5 and 3.1 minutes. I'd say that any player who can contribute for 5-6 minutes in 25-30 games is going to learn important lessons that will help them contribute a lot more next season than if they were redshirted. The PD story on Nik increases the odds in my mind that he may not be back next season. That's a compelling reason to get as much experience as possible for the three freshman forwards, who will not only have to fill the gap left next season by the graduation of Bardo and McKnight, but also quite possibly Cvetinovic. Harney and Treadwell remain big question marks at this point, and can't be counted on until they prove they can qualify academically to play. Zach is right on in pointing out that Zeke's junior and senior seasons offer the greatest opportunities for the Zips to break through and potentially win an NCAA tournament game or two. That's not going to happen without an experienced supporting cast, and Euton, Egner and Green will all need to make significant contributions. They are much more likely to do so even if they only get 5-6 minutes in 25-30 games each this season than if they redshirt. Another factor is that KD is raising the bar every year with the level of recruits he's bringing in. There appears to be no need to put a player in storage for a year to push their eligibility off another year into the future when there are more good players on the way in every recruiting class. What a great time to be a Zips basketball fan!

My thoughts exactly. I typically just type them into that Google machine. Copy and paste makes it even easier.

Finding out where quotes came from is no longer the challenge it used to be before internet search engines.

Revisiting the question of which of the trio of freshman forwards gets redshirted, I just spent some time going over the stats from the JCU game. Euton was the first to play, and was on the floor for 16 minutes, or 40% of the game. I think everyone believes that he is least likely to redshirt. Green had the second most PT at 8 minutes (20% of the game) and Egner the least at only 4 minutes (10%). Ordinarily, you might guess that Green has a slight edge on Egner based on PT alone But what a 4 minutes Egner had. He scored 10 points and had 5 rebounds and 2 blocked shots in 1/10th of a game. Those are pretty impressive raw stats even if they came near the end of a blowout against D3 players. I think it may be important to have at least 2 of these 3 freshmen get some game experience this season now that the possibility of Nik leaving a season early to play pro ball in Europe has been brought up. Along with McKnight's graduation, that would leave the Zips a little short on experienced forwards if 2 of the 3 freshman forwards should be redshirted.

Hope you are suffering from dyslexia; 41 points would be more accurate IMHO. Zipmeister was just being a good environmental citizen by recycling his football prediction.

Good point on the redshirt situation. Sub Oldham in for whoever ends up with the redshirt from my previous "All New Guy" lineup. Assuming McKnight plays this game, that means a little less PT for the forwards toward the end of the bench.