Dave in Green

And Northern Illinois continues its recent run with a 78-63 win, knocking Western Michigan out of a tie with Ball State for the lead in the west. If NIU's freshmen and sophomores continue to improve, they could pull a suprise or two in the MAC tournament.

Interesting scores from the West tonight:Eastern Michigan in a mild upset over Toledo, 58-49.Ball State beats Central Michigan, as expected, 53-44.Northern Illinois continues to surprise, leading Western Michigan at halftime, 29-15.

An interesting data point to consider can be found in the current CBS Sports projecting the field for the NCAA men's basketball tournament (link below). At the end of the article they give a detailed breakdown of each conference whose champion earns a bid, including projected champion, at-large and on the fence entries.As expected, the MAC has "none" next to both at-large and on the fence.But here's the kicker: Of the 31 conferences listed, 20 are just like the MAC -- no at-large and no on the fence entries. So 21 of the 31 conferences can effectively be considered 1-bid conferences. This includes some conferences considered stronger than the MAC -- Missouri Valley, Horizon, etc. The much stronger Conference USA has none at-large and only one on the fence.Considering all of this, the challenge to raise the MAC to more than a 1-bid conference in basketball is huge. MAC football is much better off with multiple bowl teams every year already in place.http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/11233762

Skip-Zip's worst nightmare is becoming reality. Can't is on a run, and confidence is contagious. Let's hope BG or Miami can step up and bring the Flushes back to earth.

It would probably be somewhat less difficult for Akron to become a national power in basketball than football. For one thing, basketball is all played indoors, so the cold weather climate that affects football is not the same issue. It also requires fewer key players to become a power in basketball than football.It's good to have both short and long term goals. Before growing into a national basketball power, Gonzaga used to lose to teams with poor records like Valpo this year. They grew the program to first win the conference, and continued improving until they became a national power. So it's fair to say that being the best in the MAC is the next step toward becoming the Gonzaga of the east. Akron has already taken the first step toward becoming the Gonzaga of the east by retaining a good, stable men's basketball coaching staff that produces consistent winning seasons. The Zips also have an X factor in the form of LeBron's support. The next step is to leverage all of that to attract a potentially dominant player, and that is now in place with the signing of Zeke Marshall. If Zeke fully blossoms, the Zips could be favored to win the MAC for the next four years. That would, in turn, make it easier to recruit other quality players who want to be in a winning program.In other words, the foundation has been put in place to grow Zips basketball into a power that might be attractive to a bigger conference, if that's a goal. Another possibility is that other MAC schools might put more effort into improving their basketball programs to compete with a dominant team that routinely destroys every other team in the conference.There are no guarantees in life, and the whole thing could come crashing down. But I personally like the direction the men's basketball team is taking, and think they should be given more opportunity to continue to show progress with the building process already in place.

It's not uncommon in basketball to have some taller guys sitting while some shorter guys play because the shorter guys on balance have more skills and better execution. I've seen a number of teams visit the JAR where some really tall guys ended up riding the bench while shorter guys played most of the game. The Zips are far from alone in not having highly skilled bigs.

It's nice to have confirmation from a Horizon League fan that we are not just imagining what we see on a regular basis from MAC refs. Sorry you folks had to suffer through it on your home floor. But at least you got to leave the floor happy with a win. Valpo has a good young core of players to go with a strong recruiting class, while the Zips only get one new player next season. So the battle in Akron next year won't be any easier for the Zips. The best thing about next year's game may be the Horizon League refs!I had to turn off the video last night and walk away with a couple of minutes to go when the Zips reverted to early season form, clanking shots and free throws in crunch time while the other team could do no wrong. Aside from the first half aberration when the Zips couldn't miss, this game was pretty much what I expected from seeing what Valpo did to Loyola Chicago. Except I thought the Zips had learned to play with more confidence and decisiveness at the end of a close game. So I don't know what they take away from this game. All the usual players played all the usual minutes, and I didn't see any non-conference experimentation. So if this was fine-tuning for the conference stretch run, it's hard to be optimistic.Then again, it's pretty sorry that the MAC went 4-8 against 12 teams of which only 4 had winning records. Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, Ball State and Can't were the only winners. The most impressive performance was by Can't against a pretty fair Morehead State team (2nd in OVC). Can't trailed most of the game, but executed in crunch time when it counted most to pull ahead and win their 8th straight game. Can't is currently the most consistent team in the MAC.

40 personals with more than 7 minutes to play.

And the personals are starting to even out as Valpo players continue to crash into Zips.

Valpo is playing the same swarming defense I saw them play in the webcast of their game with Loyola Chicago. But, of course, that was not with MAC refs.

I'm open to other explanations for a truly weird game.

Refs win the first half with 23 personals called (14 Zips, 9 Valpo). Isn't it great how they let the visiting team's conference refs officiate to offset the home court advantage?I'm wondering if KD said, OK, this is a non-conference game that doesn't count. Just go out and have fun. Don't worry about D and see what happens.

Unbelievable shooting performance by the Zips:7 of 8 on 2s6 of 9 on 3s5 of 6 free throws

And Valpo fans get to experience the thrill of MAC refs -- 14 total fouls on the two teams already with more than 8 minutes left in the first half.

Zips are red hot from the field -- 6 of 8 and leading 16-11.

There's a Live Stats link under the video player on the Horizon League site.

Video feed is delayed, but you can click on Live Stats. Zips are up 4-0 after 2 minutes.

Inconsistency is the hallmark of MAC refs. In the Zips last game against Miami, they called a reasonably fair and balanced first half. In the second half, for no apparent reason, they began calling every little touch. You never know what to expect.

Those stats are a little misleading because Valpo has a much higher strength of schedule than the Zips. This is likely to be a close game unless one team catches fire or the refs really stink.

This would be a good game to play McClanahan long minutes and run a lot of the offense through him. He still only has 11 games of college experience, and needs more seasoning if we expect him to be a factor in the MAC tournament, where the Zips will need all the firepower they can muster.

i posted mine directly from GoZips.com...LinkMy mistake. I missed the reference to women's basketball. I'm too used to sports forums that separate men's and women's basketball into separate forums.

Maybe I'm missing something about the stats you just posted. But in the All-Time Series Records section of Records and History at gozips.com, it shows that the Zips are 18-23 against BGSU with the first game played in the 1937-38 season.

I think 0-5 qualifies as an especially off shooting night. ;)McClanahan's 52 shots to date have mostly been 3s -- 40, to be exact. He's shooting .300 on his 3s, and the Zips team average for 3s is .320. So, in his first 11 college level games he's .020 below the team percentage on his 3s, where he's expected to excel. In conference-only games, McClanahan is hitting .306 on 3s, and the team average is .307. So he's obviously not "worse than average" on this Zips team. He's just average. Not exactly a great performance, but not awful, either.Shooters can fool you by going for stretches without hitting. Time will tell.

Can't argue with the rankings based on recent performances. But it sure is tight at the top. Any of the top teams has the potential to get on a roll at the end of the regular season and ace the MAC tournament. When the season began, I wasn't sure I'd be able to say that about the Zips. They are on a nice upward curve right now.

I saw CC smile and wave to the Rowdies just before the start of the game. I thought at the time that he is a class act, and I'm glad to hear how he treated the Rowdies after the game confirms my thoughts. Very cool.