Dave in Green

OK, so Duke is ranked #1 in adjusted offensive efficiency and #3 in adjusted defensive efficiency, while Butler is #50 in adjusted offensive efficiency and #6 in adjusted defensive efficiency. Duke is ranked higher in both offense and defense, so on paper Duke wins. But if all the games were played on paper, Butler wouldn't be in the championship game.

By what measure? By conference RPI, the MAC ended up the season #16 and the OVC #20. Average team RPI in the MAC was 169, and in the OVC 205. How would this be better for the Zips? We would have been in the NCAA tournament If the goal is to get into the weakest conference with an automatic NCAA tournament bid, why shoot so high as the OVC? There were 11 conferences with lower RPI's than the OVC that had automatic bids. How about the SWAC? Their average team RPI was 302. That would really be good for Zips recruiting, too.

Interesting stat (for those who like stats): Butler is the first team in the era of the shot clock to hold all 5 opponents to less than 60 points in getting to the national championship game.

How about that. A team from a MAC-level conference (Horizon) is in the national championship game. Butler shoots 31% from the field for the game, 24% in the second half, and will be playing for the national championship. It can be done.

This article sums it up pretty well, noting that "a source close to the player has stated that Bassett would not say for certain what his plans were for next season." collegesportsfeed.com link

Right. They use the same kind of crap to market Calhoun's video on the attacking 3-out-2-in motion offense. basketballcoach.com link

By what measure? By conference RPI, the MAC ended up the season #16 and the OVC #20. Average team RPI in the MAC was 169, and in the OVC 205. How would this be better for the Zips?

Poor Jim Calhoun. He just can't give away those $39.99 instructional DVDs on the 2-2-1 pressure defense "which has led the Huskies to national prominence and an NCAA Championship!" basketballcoach.com link

The JAR may have been on a list of things that contributed to Huggins to leaving UA. But I suspect it was near the bottom of the list.

I hear that golf outings are a great place to hear rumors, especially on the 19th hole. But a link to a Canton Repository story was already posted on ZN.O stating that after increasing his leaping ability by working out at High Intensity Training in Green, Egner's vertical leap has been measured at 37 inches. ZN.O Link

Not that it will change anyone's opinion, but here's a link to the story that confirms what everyone already knows. ABJ Link

..... along with a windmill dunk by Egner that was reminiscent of Dominique Wilkins in his prime as a forward for the Atlanta Hawks. The legend builds.

Apparently Durant's connection to Akron goes way back to 2007: July 13, 2007 ..... Durant said he's heard from Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth and Akron. florida.rivals.com link This was before he signed a letter of intent with Virginia Tech, then couldn't meet academic requirements and went the JUCO route. If he's still an ACC level player, it would be a Zeke-like achievement to lure him to Akron.

Good luck to Mr. Bassett. I hope he's getting good advice from someone and doesn't just have an inflated ego from reading the Georgetown clippings. Only 60 players are drafted into the NBA each year. The latest 2010 mock draft on nbadraft.net projects only 10 pure point or point/shooting guards being selected in this year's draft. That's a pretty elite group to try to crack for someone who has not showed consistent excellence this season. Bassett's season shooting percentages of 39% from the field and 34.6% on 3s are mediocre. In fact, his national rankings in most measurable categories are pretty low, especially for playing in a middle-of-the-road conference. nbadraft.net link StatSheet.com link

Nice analysis. I'm not too surprised by how Egner looked in this game. All-star games generally promote offense over defense. At Jackson, Egner's main job was to focus on defense and support Henniger on offense. Only in the quarterfinal and semifinal games of the state tournament was Egner really unleashed on offense after the opposing defenses focused on stopping Henniger. Jackson's Mike Fuline is a defense first coach, so I believe Egner will immediately impress KD with his defensive effort and earn good PT early. I think Egner will require more direction from KD on what kind of offense to provide. Egner will have no problem getting the ball to Zeke or Nik under the basket the way he did with Henniger in HS. But when he should drive to the basket or pull up for a jumper will be very much influenced by how KD instructs him. Egner didn't need to shoot a lot in HS to keep him happy. But he's capable of scoring in bunches when turned loose. It also doesn't surprise me that Cameron Black handles the ball well for a big man. He started HS as a guard, then had a big growth spurt and went from ball-handling, outside-shooting guard to a big center. Black was a focal point of his HS team's offense like Henniger, so you'd expect him to look good on offense in an all-star game. I sure hope he doesn't turn out to be a better overall college player than Egner, Euton or Green, as we'll be seeing him twice a year when the Zips play Bowling Green. Then again, Black is really more of a center than a forward, and I doubt he would have wanted to play backup to Zeke.

EA is still writing stories about Zips basketball, with the latest focusing on next season. Cleveland.com Link

For all the speculation about Hitchens not being totally happy with everything, he represents the second highest average minutes per game of any returning player, behind only McNees by a couple of minutes per game.

Pretty easy to look through the Zips season stats and see the individual player numbers on games played, games started, minutes, and average minutes played per game. Here it is, sorted by average minutes per game from high to low, with strikethroughs of players who have graduated and are definitely not returning, and asterisks for walk-on players. Due to the graduation of 3 frontcourt players who together averaged 57.6 minutes per game, there will be about that much time available for frontcourt players to pick up next season, and 3 new incoming frontcourt players. With no backcourt graduations, there would be no freed-up backcourt PT unless 1 or more backcourt players leave the team. Player .......................... GP-GS ... Min ... Avg ------------------------------------------------------- McNEES, Steve ............ 35-28 ... 966 ... 27.6 CONYERS, Jimmy ......... 35-31 ... 940 ... 26.9 HITCHENS, Anthony .... 33-22 ... 836 ... 25.3 ROBERTS, Darryl ......... 35-19 ... 833 ... 23.8 McKNIGHT, Chris ......... 35-16 ... 742 ... 21.2 CVETINOVIC, Nikola .... 35-13 ... 708 ... 20.2 McKNIGHT, Brett .......... 34-13 ... 661 ... 19.4 MARSHALL, Zeke ......... 35-28 ... 588 ... 16.8 McCLANAHAN, Brett ..... 35-4 ..... 434 ... 12.4 STEWARD, Ronnie ........ 30-0 ..... 186 ..... 6.2 BARDO, Mike ................ 29-0 ..... 175 ..... 6.0 CARROLL, Tim .............. 16-1 ....... 50 ..... 3.1 * SWIECH, Steve ............. 6-0 ........ 14 ..... 2.3 SULLIVAN, Alex ............. 6-0 ........ 12 ..... 2.0 PETERSEN, Kyle ............ 4-0 .......... 5 ..... 1.3 * OLDHAM, C J ................. 0-0 .......... 0 ..... 0.0 * EGNER, Josh (incoming) EUTON, Dakotah (incoming) GREEN, Michael (incoming)

At the time that Rasor wrote that blog, there was only 1 transfer required to open up the 3rd scholarship for the 3 incoming forwards, and Rasor simply threw out 3 possible names for that 1 transfer. I don't see where Rasor's wording implied that there would be multiple transfers at that time. EDIT: OK, after rereading this, I see where you're coming from: Dambrot had an understanding with several players, only 1 was really required to transfer to open up the 3rd scholarship, but now possibly more than 1 of the "several" may want to transfer even though only 1 scholarship needs to be freed up. Makes sense. Link to Rasor's Nov. 11 Blog

The statistics in the following story are somewhat less intense than in the one above, so those with only a mild allergy to numbers might be able to handle this: ESPN Link

Luck is only a minor component of Tom Izzo's remarkable success, according to political statistics guru Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com. CAUTION: Anyone who is allergic to statistics should not go to the following link. It is filled with statistical data of the most intense kind. If the only numbers that interest you are final scores, do yourself a favor and avoid reading this. FiveThirtyEight.com Link

One of the cool things about internet forums is that each of us leaves behind an electronic trail of posts that can be checked at any time to get an idea of anyone's general credibility. A quick look at mes102's history shows lots of positive posts with no BS, so I take that as a good sign of credibility. The more I think about this, the more I go back to the team chemistry thing. That's a really critical component of a winning team that's not easily measured by stats. You can have a team full of good individuals who for some reason don't all get along really well with each others' styles. It's not necessarily the fault of any individual, so trying to assign blame often causes more harm than good. Sometimes these things can be worked out, and sometimes it's best for all if one or more move on to a place where they think they'll fit in better. I'm sure that those who are closest to the team all have different ideas about what might be going on beneath the surface. Hopefully the coaching staff has the best understanding of the situation and is doing all the right things to improve things. Whatever may happen -- from having a team meeting to clear the air and everyone shaking hands and moving forward together, to one or more players deciding it's best for everyone if they transfer -- the important thing is that everyone come together as a close-knit team after whatever happens. The one thing that can really be destructive is to have a team chemistry issue turn into a nasty public fight. I know there are people who are close to every player on the team who are tempted to want to tell their side of the story and lobby on behalf of the player who's closest to them. But those kinds of feuds can easily get out of control and poison any chance of good team chemistry. So I really hope for the sake of the Zips team that everyone exercises discretion in what they say on this forum about any internal team issues.

I suspect that the number of players on college basketball teams across the country who consider transferring out of their respective programs is larger than we might suspect. Some might just think about it to themselves, and some might share some of their thoughts with friends and acquaintances. But it just doesn't often show up on sports forums, so we don't really know how many there are. Not naming names is a good thing, because some of these players are likely to decide after thinking it over that they really want to play for the Zips, and it does no good for any of us fans to think anything less of these players simply because they had some doubts about staying with the program.

Just do a Google search for "Armon Bassett" with quotes, show Options and select Past 24 Hours to get only the most recent news. Several stories about Bassett telling friends on Facebook that he's going to declare for the NBA draft.

Part of the intrigue of internet forums is separating the few ounces of gold nuggets from the tons of mucky sludge (yes, I once panned for gold at an Alaskan gold mine for touists). People do hear rumors from friends and acquaintances, and sometimes what they hear is dead wrong, or sometimes it's right and they hear and repeat it wrong, or sometimes it's partially right and ...... well, you get the picture. Anyway, I take everything with a grain of salt until it's proven to have a basis in reality. I do think it's important not to get so far out on wild rumors that the discussion gets poisonous and destructive. But I haven't really seen much of that on ZN.O. There are some really good fans here who have the Zips best interests at heart. Whatever happens with current Zips players, I hope that all of those who return take a solemn oath to play together as a team next season. For whatever reason, the team chemistry seemed to me to be just a little bit off this season, and some of the players appeared more irritated with each other than I've seen in the past. I don't want to play this up too much and make a big deal out of it, because I don't think it was a major problem. A little competitive tension on a team is not all bad as long as it doesn't get to the point that it negatively impacts team chemistry. I do think it's possible that it may have reached the point this season where it was at least a minor problem. But that's just an impression from my observations, and I have no hard evidence to support that.