Dave in Green

Rasor's Blog

Thank you.

As far as Zeke's minutes go, in the first 5 games he is averaging about 15 minutes per game, with a high of 24 minutes and a low of 10 (last night). I think it's pretty smart not to play Zeke too many minutes so early in the season. It's a big transition from a HS to college schedule for a true freshman, and especially for a big 7-footer like Zeke. It takes time to get conditioned to a longer, more physically draining season. The most important thing is to have Zeke peaking around the MAC tournament. The worst thing would be to physically wear him out before then. I will be surprised if Zeke does not gradually work up to about 30 minutes per game by the end of the season.

As they were setting up for the inbounds, Humpty was being grabbed and held by the UAPB guy. Humpty complained to the ref, and I believe the ref warned the UAPB player. But when the inbounds play was triggered, it did look like the UAPB player deliberately threw an elbow into Humpty's face. This is what should have been T'ed up, and no one can blame Humpty for being teed off after that sequence. It also looked to me as if Humpty went directly to the UAPB coach after the final buzzer to register a formal complaint.Let's all remember that the Zips are not trained thugs spoiling for a fight. They are good, clean players with no history of fighting. This was not that different from the incident last season where Linhart got sucker-punched by Singletary, and the Zips reacted with anger but no violence. Technically, what Humpty did in response was wrong. But he reacted with anger and not with retaliatory violence, and he did what he did only under the most extreme provocation.

From all I've seen so far, this year looks a lot like last year -- a big roller coaster ride through the regular season, with fingers crossed that the Zips can jell at the only time that really counts, the MAC tournament.

Point made.

Ok, Dave .. I ask that you re-read the first post in that thread, and consider your sentence above. The Great GP1 was recommending that the Nation check out a band that he ran into at an event / venue. He added a comment to it about an opinion .. and the rest is history. But the sole purpose? Latitude exists here within reason .. and things like this are typically handled by the members, not the Moderators. Several people said their peace in that thread, and in our view it was handled. The probing in the thread illuminated the Great GP1's mindset on the Amish.Many times things are stricken by the Moderators .. we have a trash bin full to prove it.Go Zips!I re-read the first and subsequent posts several times before responding in that thread or here. The dislike of Amish was featured in the thread's first sentence before the band was mentioned, not the other way around. Within 2 hours, dislike of the Amish became "hate." And it went downhill from there, which was entirely predictable.I also read earlier posts by the same person trashing a different religious group. A pattern of posting gratuitous hate messages about different religions on a sports forum certainly fits the classic definition of trolling. Many of the best-run internet forums do not allow any religious discussion, let alone overt hate posts, because religious discussion has proven over time to be one of the most emotional and divisive issues that can absolutely rip a forum community apart. Initiating attacks on religious beliefs is a time-proven method of provoking other forum members.Intent is hard to prove, so no one will ever know for certain what thought processes led to that series of hateful posts on ZN about different religions. But it's well known that those types of posts are extremely offensive to the fundamental beliefs of many. A pattern of similar posts suggests deliberate, not inadvertent, provocation. And that leads back to the classic definition of trolling. It's all about manipulation.I appreciate the good work of the moderators in filling the ZN trashbin with the obvious trash. But ZN would be an even friendlier place for all if there was zero tolerance for expressions of hatred for such things as religions, ethnic groups, etc.

Very important, indeed. It's always helpful for forum members to understand how a forum is run. Every forum has different rules and different levels of enforcement. A forum member who doesn't understand the rules and how the moderators enforce them can get in trouble without knowing they've done something wrong. Now we all know that initiating a thread on a sports forum like ZN with the sole purpose of smearing the Amish religion is not considered by the moderators to be trolling, as long as the poster is a loyal Zips fan. Thanks for the clarification on how ZN operates.

Maybe we can change the title of this thread to Four Positives Coming Out of Today, and all come to a positive agreement that no one posting in these forums is all good or all bad. We're all human with different balances of positives and negatives. We all see things a little differently. Someone whose posts sometimes (not necessarily always) appear to one forum member to be textbook examples of trolling may strike others differently.That's why foruns need firm, fair, objective moderators. They need to stay out of the occasional firefights that break out here and focus on behind-the-scenes fixing of what causes firefights. By definition, the act of trolling is a deliberate manipulation of people's emotions with the intention of starting a fight. A troll doesn't always make trolling posts. A good troll will play regular guy for awhile, and "innocently" drop the occasional troll bomb to get the forum buzzing. It's only over time that the pattern becomes clear, and every one of us leaves a trail of posts on forums that can be tracked back and analyzed by anyone.A good moderator should be able to spot the pattern developing and issue private warnings. Often a single private warning will resolve the problem, because the person really wasn't a serial troll, but just someone who was inadvertently using tactics that trolls use. I think we are all at least occasionally guilty of being somewhat trollish. But it's up to the moderators to pick out the serial troublemakers, privately give them fair warning of what they are doing wrong, and ask them to please correct that behavior or leave the forum.The last thing we want to do is get into personal warfare over trolling on ZN where we all pick sides and come out shooting at each other. That's precisely the goal of trolling, and we don't want to contribute to that.No, it's up to the moderators to resolve trolling issues behind the scenes, quietly and privately, only with those individuals who the moderators believe fit the pattern of frequent trollish behavior.

All civil forums have rules against such fundamental things as trolling, personal attacks and making derogatory remarks related to race and religion. It's the duty of moderators to enforce those rules by issuing warnings and penalties to those who cross the line. When the moderators are lax in rules enforcement, the unruly become emboldened. The cumulative effect of ever more questionable posts that are allowed by the moderators to stand makes any forum a less friendly place for all.Public criticism is ineffective against posters who believe they are so great that they can say or do no wrong. If someone breaks the rules, they should be dealt with in a fair and reasonable manner according to the rules that apply to all. Sometimes that's a tough judgment call that moderators need the wisdom and fortitude to deal with promptly and appropriately before the situation degenerates.Wikipedia has a good definition to help both moderators and forum members isolate the troublemakers:A troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.If forum members personally believe that someone is consistently breaking the fundamental rules of civility, and for whatever reason the moderators choose not to take appropriate action, each of us has the freedom to add that poster to our Ignored Users list and make that poster cease to exist.

Thanks, templefan, and best of luck to your team. I think Temple has a better overall team than CMU, and would be the best representative of the MAC against a tough opponent in a major bowl game. So I hope you get the chance to prove it.

Good input from the Temple fans. It helped focus my attention on a key element that affects so many aspects of a football program: discipline. This is a quality that begins with the coaching staff. They must be disciplined themselves, and they must drill it into all the players.The Temple team performed like a precision military drill team both on the field and on the sideline. By comparison, the Zips looked like a rag-tag bunch of individuals running around doing their own things, both on the field and on the sideline.I have no doubt that the Temple coaching staff takes a highly disciplined approach with their players, and wonder how the Zips players would perform had they been trained by the Temple coaching staff or one with a similar focus on discipline?

Football is a dynamic, ever-changing game where offensive and defensive adjustments must be made throughout the game. Nicely and the rest of the Zips offense looked OK until the Temple defense adjusted and shut them down. The Zips offense never adjusted to the adjusted Temple defense. The Temple secondary began covering the Zips receivers very tightly. Nicely looked from receiver to receiver to receiver and found none open. By that time the rush was on him and he was forced to throw out of bounds, which is smart and not a freshman mistake. Forcing the ball in to well-covered receivers would have been a freshman mistake.The Zips team was overwhelmed by a much better team. Nicely cannot be expected to do it by himself.

The Temple players were not just bigger than the Zips, they were faster, less error-prone and had a better game plan that they executed better than the Zips.

Announced attendance last night was 10,927, and there clearly weren't that many in the stands. So there were obviously many no-shows.

I've been hearing attendance debates for decades. One confusing factor is paid attendance vs. butts in seats. A certain percentage of people with tickets do not show up for games for a variety of reasons, so paid attendance is always higher than actual attendance. If there are many no-shows, questions invariably arise about the officially announced attendance.Having attended all the games this year in the Zips' new stadium, the actual attendance appears to have been reasonably close to the officially announced paid attendance, based on the percentage of seats actually filled, the actual number of seats available, and factoring in a reasonable percentage of ticketholders who did not show up.

It's also a bonus when a big man like Euton shoots 83% from the free throw line.

"Real" Zips fans should be able to separate school rivalries from interacting with individuals. Screw uncivil behavior from anyone, especially if they are Zips fans representing Zips Nation.

equins, I've followed your posts on ZN for some time, and you've always been friendly and civil. Looks like you got jumped by some grumpy Zips fans here who misinterpreted your CSU post. I guess they forgot all the times you've posted on here wishing the Zips good luck. I'm sure you understand that Zips fans are generally more friendly and civil than the reaction you got from a few in this thread.

And the official announcement popped up on gozips.com in the past hour or two.Official AnnouncementI really like this recruiting class. These three quality forwards will be playing up front with Zeke for 3 of his 4 years at UA. Along with the other forwards already in the program, I think this is a great addition to the Zips' already strong group of young guards. Of course there are no guarantees that every player signed will live up to their full potential. But I'm ready to sign up for season tickets for at least the next three years.

The Zip's women's basketball 2010-11 signing class was officially announced at gozips.com a couple of hours ago, but nothing on the men as of 5:12 p.m.

Those who know me know that I'm no saint. No one is entirely free of prejudice and bigotry. They're flaws in human character that we all should try to better understand and oppose, whether in ourselves or in others. It starts with admitting that we are imperfect rather than trying to defend the indefensible. Promoting prejudice and bigotry is indefensible.

You should also have an aversion to scam artists. The Amish are running one of the biggest rackets in the country. They should be investigated and jailed.....all of them!Scam artists are bad, and I'd be happy if every single one of them was caught and punished to the full extent of the law. But bigots are worse, because bigots indict many innocent people along with the few who might be guilty. Since the USA was founded on the fundamental judicial principle of innocent until proven guilty, by definition all bigots are inherently un-American.

Since Steve Swiech's shortcomings are often posted on this forum, I think it's only fair to point out what he did right. He tied Chris McKnight for team leadership in rebounding with 9. Swiech got his 9 in just 14 minutes compared to 21 minutes played for McKnight. Swiech also had 2 blocks, 1 assist and was 1 of 2 from both the field and the free throw line. Whatever his shortcomings and his future may be with the Zips, he deserves credit for his overall performance in this exhibition game.

The opponent was obviously weak, so all of the Zips players should have looked pretty good. For me, the key point of this exhibition was seeing with my own eyes how the "new guy" looks on court. I tried to watch Zeke's play objectively, and imagine how he would do against bigger, more skilled D1 opponents.What I walked away with was the certainty that in his first time on a collegiate court in front of fans that Zeke clearly demonstrated that he already fits in the Zips regular rotation. His level of play in all aspects of the game is at least passable, and in some areas at some times was much better than passable. I don't recall any Zips player I've ever seen play any better in their first game as a true freshman.The defensive part of Zeke's game is where the highest expectations have been. With 8 blocks and at least another 6 altered shots in 14 minutes on the floor, I don't know how anyone could ask for more than a block or altered shot a minute. Given this, some of the smaller, less talented teams who challenged or even beat the Zips last season will be in big trouble this season. What I saw last night convinces me that the Zips will be upset fewer times this year by lesser teams. Having Zeke on the defensive end will be like having the Great Wall of China between shorter players and the basket.On offense, I was impressed by his quick, crisp passing. But the biggest surprise was his heat-seeking-missile approach to the basket when he caught the ball inside. There was no hesitation, no lowering of the ball for shorter opponents to knock it out of his hands. He went to the basket with speed, authority and accuracy. He is a true inside threat on offense.Of course he will not look this good against stronger competition right away. Bigger players are really going to be trying to push him around under the boards. And the fact that the smaller Mount Union players were able to foul him and keep him from following through for the slam suggests that he doesn't yet have the strength to pound it down through a foul. It will take time to develop strength and become familiar with the many different aspects of playing at a higher level. But if he wants it badly enough, you can see the potential all over him just waiting to be unleashed.I was especially impressed how all the other players related to Zeke during the game. You could see that everyone was really trying to help him adjust and build his confidence, especially Humpty. While it's been published that the veteran players will have to adjust to a newcomer getting all the attention, it looked to me as if the other players already know that the quicker they can help Zeke develop, the better they are all going to be, both individually and as a team.Perhaps most importantly, nothing I saw last night took away from all the early expectations of Zeke being a team player and not a "me first" star. He really seems to fit well with the team and KD's team-first approach.It is going to be so much fun to watch Zeke and the whole team grow this year. I can't believe there are any serious basketball fans in the Akron area who would not want to come to the JAR and enjoy watching something very special.