Dave in Green

Every provider (DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-Verse) in the area except TWC carries HDNet. This will speed up the process I'd already begun of selecting a new service to replace TWC.

Skip, I think you're missing the point. The RPI numbers were good, but there was NO CHANCE OF GETTING IN. NONE. ZERO. NADA. The only way those RPI numbers get you in with the NCAA selection committee is if you're in a BCS conference. If you are in the MAC, you might get in with an RPI of 10. Maybe.

Good explanation of the CBI deal for UA here: Beacon Journal Link

Here's another interesting data point to be chewed over and interpreted. At the end of the regular season and before the tournaments begin, the Zips are currently #94 in RPI and NC State of the mighty ACC, who beat the Zips earlier this year, is #95. Check out their won-lost records against their SOS and ponder how they ended up so close on RPI: RPI ... TEAM ...... WON .. LOST .. SOS 94 .... Akron ....... 24 ...... 10 ..... 171 95 .... NC State .. 19 ...... 15 ....... 68

That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Zeke's freshman season was a learning and growing year for him. Starting next season, Zeke becomes the focal point. Let's face it, no single player can defend against a 7-footer shooting the skyhook that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pioneered. Zeke's skyhook has been improving all season, and looked really good at the Q. He needs to practice that shot 10,000 times before next season and perfect it. When teams throw 2 or 3 defenders at him to try to stop it, there will be open Zips players who have to knock down the open shots. I really have my fingers crossed about the incoming freshmen. They're the X factor. You can never rely on freshmen contributing right away. But everything I see and read about the Zips' incoming freshmen makes me optimistic that the odds are good that one or more will surprise us. I'm already excited about next season, and this one isn't even over yet!

Virginia Tech's RPI is 57, so they just missed the cut of being a BCS school with an RPI of 50 or better.

Here's the challenge. For the last 6 years, the 3 best RPI teams excluded from the NCAA tournament were all non-BCS affiliated schools. No top 50 RPI team from a power conference was left out of the tournament this year, which is the way it usually works. The challenge for a MAC school to get an at-large bid is monumental. It would require actually beating a fair number of high RPI teams, not merely scheduling them. Here are the top 3 schools (RPI) passed over for the past 6 years. Pay special attention to 2005: 2010 -- Rhode Island (40), Wichita State (43), Alabama Birmingham (45) 2009 -- San Diego State (34), Creighton (40), Alabama Birmingham (46) 2008 -- Dayton (32), Illinois State (33), Massachusetts (42) 2007 -- Air Force (30), Missouri State (36), Bradley (38) 2006 -- Missouri State (21), Hofstra (30), Creighton (39) 2005 -- Miami-Ohio (39), Wichita State (45), Buffalo (46)

It's obviously not totally predictable as to who can make the leap from star HS player to D1 college player. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. But Swiech played HS ball in Elizabeth, PA. To the best of my knowledge, his HS team played mostly within its own conference and area, and did not play an aggressive OOC schedule against power schools. I believe he was probably the biggest guy on the court in most of his games, and he does have a nice shooting touch. That all added up to high scoring and rebounding averages. I can find very little about Swiech's AAU accomplishments. I can't really find anything about how he matched up against other top HS or AAU stars. Euton has played his HS ball in a hotbed of Kentucky basketball near Lexington and Louisville. In addition to the many highly competitive HS teams he's played against in Kentucky, his HS schedules many games against top HS basketball powers from around the country. He regularly plays against opponents as big and as talented as him or better. He has played national AAU basketball since he was in the 5th grade. His AAU team also plays at the highest level, and Euton has recently focused on trying to shut down the best big men in the country. As recently as last April's King James Classic at the JAR, Euton played pretty much even with 6-8, 260-pound Jared Sullinger, #1 HS power forward in the class of 2010. So, on paper, Euton looks to have better credentials coming in than Swiech had. We all know the key to earning PT with KD is how well you play D. My guess is that Swiech has not earned much PT because his offensive skills exceed his defensive abilities. Like Swiech, Euton has also shown good offensive skills in HS. But Euton plays on a team with two other D1 college recruits, so he doesn't have to do it all himself. Opposing Kentucky HS coaches credit Euton and his team with outstanding defense. That would reinforce the point about Euton being able to contain Sullinger. All of that leads me to believe that the odds of Euton earning PT with the Zips are greater than for Swiech. But no guarantees.

OK, I'll bite. I think this is a good topic for discussion. But for a rational discussion, I think it needs agreement on common terminology. This thread began with the premise that the WAC is a "mediocre" conference this year. By what standard? Someone's Laugh-O-Meter or Smell-O-Meter? Sorry, but all of our internal Whatever-O-Meters are wired differently. How can we arrive at a common consensus without a common method of measurement? I'm on record that RPI is imperfect. But I think it's less imperfect than everyone relying only on their own private meters. RPI is a commonly accepted measurement, and it's what the NCAA uses. I'm open to other such measurements as long as they don't involve someone's basement formula for perpetual motion that we're all supposed to accept on faith. So I'm just going to lay down the basic RPI math here to start the ball rolling: The WAC had the 10th best conference RPI out of 34 conferences. That puts the WAC in the top 30% of conferences. That is not "mediocre." It's a goal that all non-BCS conferences should strive for, including the MAC. Of 347 D1 teams, the WAC had 4 teams with an RPI of 79 or higher. That means that 45% of WAC teams were in the top 23% of all D1 teams. Why would we not want the MAC to measure out like the WAC, which would presumably include more respect from the NCAA tournament selection committee?

More than you wanted to know about Josh Egner (hint: Megan Fox and meat loaf). Massillon Independent Link

A very brief video of Mike Green has just been posted on YouTube:

Another good Euton feature: Euton signed with Akron in November and has averaged 15.1 points and 9.4 rebounds a game this season. He's shooting 40.7 percent from three-point range. “I've never seen a kid change his whole body and change his whole game,” Hicks said. “He has gotten where he can score off the dribble, score posting up inside. He's just made himself so much a better player. It's a night-and-day difference.” Louisville Courier-Journal Link

A real odd duck here. AP-B belongs to the mighty SWAC, whose conference RPI ranks 31 of 33 D1 conferences, ahead of only Independents and the brand new Great West conference. Despite all of their early games against high level competition, they finished second in the SWAC regular season with a 14-4 conference record to Jackson State (17-1), which beat AP-B twice during the regular season. In the SWAC tournament, favored Jackson State was upset by Grambling and AP-B squeaked its way to the championship and NCAA bid by beating weaker SWAC teams. The SWAC is so bad that even with that opening string of 11 games against many high RPI teams, by the time AP-B finished playing its conference schedule, it wound up with an SOS of 279. If we think the MAC West is weak, the SWAC is on life support: 180 Arkansas-Pine Bluff 201 Jackson State 231 Texas Southern 273 Prairie View A&M 277 Alabama State 328 Mississippi Valley State 331 Alabama A&M 339 Grambling State 342 Southern University 346 Alcorn State

I thought it was "end of story."

What part of his body did Humpty not hurt on Friday? He was thrown to the floor more times than I could count.

Conyers was not an exact replacement for Linhart, and Egner won't be an exact replacement for either of them. I think that Conyers was stronger in the paint and Linhart was stronger at the wing. I don't really know where Egner will be at his best. We'll have to wait and see how he develops. As far as a slasher guard who can reliably put the ball in the bucket, I just don't see anyone on the Zips current or future roster who can do what the very best slasher guards have been doing to the Zips. But that's not the end of the world. We always covet what we don't have. We should spend more time appreciating what we do have. I don't care if the Zips don't have a guard who can drive to the bucket a dozen or more times in a game and walk away with field goal and/or free throw points more than 50% of the time as long as the Zips have other options to score more points than their opponents. How many teams covet a 7-foot center who can reliably shoot unblockable skyhooks?

Yeah, quite a news story, unmarried coach might be dating two unmarried woman at the same time. The horror! I don't believe that marital status was cited in the story. The Toledo Blade reports that the letter allegedly comes from a Dawn K. Gears of Ottawa Hills, and was supposedly dated dated Nov. 5, 2009, but not delivered (hand delivered, no less) to the university until March 5, 2010. The letter was reportedly unsigned, which means that it could have been typed up by anyone, so already there are oddities in the case that could point in several different directions. Coincidentally, a Dawn K. Gears of Ottawa Hills and a Jeffrey J. Gears were reported by ToledoLegalNews.com to be in foreclosure on their jointly owned Toledo residence as of Oct. 16, 2009 -- 3 weeks before the letter was allegedly written. They were apparently served at two different residences. No way of determining exactly what was going on there, but it certainly adds another odd wrinkle to the case. ToledoLegalNews.com Link As an investigative newspaper reporter, I once covered many police investigations and court cases, and know how to dig deeply into cases like this one. But it's not appropriate in this forum to go beyond what's already out there in the public domain.

What, no questions about Duke and Kansas?

"Extremely deliberate" is a kind way to put it. The not-so-fast-there Zips are 195th in the country in possessions per game, averaging 67.5 per 40 minutes. UWGB is 291st (out of 347 D1 teams) at a glacial 64.9 possessions per 40 minutes. By comparison, hyper VMI is #1 with 85.7 possessions per 40 minutes. EDIT: I should have mentioned that UWGB is not quite as deliberate as the MAC's very own Miami, which ranks 338th out of 347 teams with 61.7 possessions per game.

I think everyone got the sarcasm. There were just too many different plays off of the sarcasm to pass up.

Some mighty impressive numbers in his final season, ranking in the top 100 nationally in a number of categories: Rashon Brown @ StatSheet.com

Even an unsubstantiated charge of sleeping around can be hazardous to the careers of MAC basketball coaches: Toledo Blade on Rockets Coach Gene Cross

All I can tell you from my perspective is, no, I don't think KD is that far off. A little off of what it would take to accomplish what Utah State accomplished, but not a lot. As we've discussed before, I think it's a simple matter of replacing 2 or 3 of the weakest opponents in the 200-300 RPI range with 2 or 3 opponents closer to 100 RPI. Utah State did benefit this year from the fact that 3 other WAC teams had RPI ratings of 79 or higher, and they were 4-2 against these 3 conference teams in the regular season and 1-1 against them in the tournament, for a 5-3 record against high RPI teams in their own conference. If this year's MAC had the same percentage of high RPI teams as the WAC, and the Zips had the same percentage winning record against those teams as Utah State, the Zips would have had a much higher SOS and RPI even with the weak OOC schedule.

Who cares? I'm not looking at this so much as a postseason tournament as I am an extension of the regular season, but playing some of the mid-high RPI teams that so many of us would like to see the Zips schedule in place of the softest of the cupcakes. The fact that the first game is another home game is a huge bonus that the NCAA doesn't offer. I'm saving a heck of a lot of money over what it cost me to go to Portland last year to see the Zips play Gonzaga. I get to see Jimmy Conyers and Chris McKnight play another game at the JAR. I get to see Zeke one more time at the peak of his freshman year performance. I get to see all the Zips players I enjoy watching play, win or lose. So I could care less if the CBI has zero cachet. It's just another opportunity for fans of Zips basketball to see more Zips basketball.

I get your point about the bottom-feeding Rainbows and the 4 other teams with RPI of 172 or less. But simple math dictates that a 9-team conference with 4 teams having RPI of 79 or better is going to end up with a pretty decent conference average. This is a similar team RPI distribution to where the MAC was when they were the #10 conference in 2004-2005 RPI, which many of us look back on so fondly. 2009-2010 WAC RPI 32 Utah State 54 New Mexico State 73 Nevada 79 Louisiana Tech 172 Idaho 183 San Jose State 185 Fresno State 203 Boise State 250 Hawaii 2004-2005 MAC RPI 46 Buffalo 52 Miami (OH) 58 Ohio 69 Can't State 77 Akron 97 Western Michigan 105 Toledo 109 Bowling Green 120 Ball State 185 Northern Illinois 237 Marshall 246 Central Michigan 267 Eastern Michigan