Dave in Green

I'm seeing a final of 57-55. In either case, Miami chokes on a cupcake.Next up: Can't trails Northern Illinois at halftime, 30-28.

I was thinking before tonight's Miami-CMU game that CMU just might have enough punch in a home game to surprise Miami. CMU was behind by only 1 point at halftime, and ahead 44-40 midway through the second half. It's now tied 51-51 with just 4 minutes left.

How he can keep Ball St. ahead of ANY team in the East is beyond me Kinda hard to rate Ball State behind Ohio based on the results of their head-to-head meeting. That and the fact that Ball State has only lost one game to a MAC West team and Ohio has lost two.

And equal time for Tom Gaffney:http://www.ohio.com/sports/zips/39289692.html

Elton Alexander has high praise for the Zips:http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/in...ove_in_the.htmlAnd more good things to say in his game coverage:http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/in...ries_akron.html

Skip, I figured you and I would be mostly in agreement on this. Another thing to remember is that Humpty has been sick with a cold or something that slowed him down the last few games. From his performance yesterday, I'm guessing he's just about back to full health and ready for the stretch run. It's a similar situation to the steady rise in performance by C. McKnight as he has recovered from his bruised rib. And now Linhart is playing a little gingerly with a sore back. Fingers crossed that everyone is in good health at the end of the season when it really counts.

That's good training to help prepare Zeke for the calls Zips fans are used to seeing from MAC refs.

I'll try to state it a little more clearly. I don't think Humpty is in his comfort zone when he's playing out of control. I think, as KD said, that he was trying too hard to do too much. That's not a comfort zone. That's a bad habit of playing over your head because you think you are expected to make spectacular plays all the time. I think that KD has gotten Humpty to back off a notch, which will make it easier and more comfortable for him to execute with fewer mistakes. Humpty may still feel a little discomfort that he's not doing enough. But as he sees the results improving, he will be more comfortable playing in that comfort zone most of the time.Then there will come certain times when he's going to need to push it a little harder, especially again tougher opponents. But by not trying to do that all of the time, he will be less predictable to the defense and harder to stop. You see that in the NBA all the time. A player will play conservatively for long stretches, taking few risks. When the defense is lulled by the predictability, that's the time to blow past and get the easy bucket. Even the great players have long stretches of conservative play punctuated by a few spectacular moves that make the highlight reels.You don't want to make a player so paranoid about making a single turnover that they are conservative and predictable all the time. You want them to feel comfortable about taking calculated risks at the appropriate times when conservative, predictable play alone is not getting the job done.

It looks to me as if the Zips are set to have a strong 10-man rotation for the next several years. Think about next season. We lose Linhart but gain Zeke, who you have to believe will immediately be in the rotation. Now, assuming that Conyers gets his extra year, a healthy Steward returns and Parrish and Sullivan are available, there are three more players fighting for spots in an already full 10-player rotation. The potential is there for some quality players to get little or no playing time. Obviously, that's a situation that coaches and fans may like. But it will be hard on players who might have been starters for the Zips a few years ago to end up nailed to the bench.Looking further into the future, the growing success of Akron's basketball program could lead to commitments from even more talented recruits. Winners attract winners. Sure, it's dreaming right now. But the important thing to remember is that this is a dream that could be realized based on the groundwork that has already been laid in place.

I think KD said on the post-game broadcast that Humpty had been trying too hard to do too many things, and that he was now accomplishing more by not trying so hard all the time. That's a great lesson for a freshman starting point guard to learn before the end of his first season.The challenge is going to come once the Zips are back playing the tougher East teams and into the MAC tournament and potentially beyond. There are likely to be more close games ahead where everyone on the team is going to have to dig down and play even better than they are now. There will be a fine balance for Humpty between playing within his comfort zone and pushing hard to make a few special plays that could make the difference between winning and losing a close game. Part of the maturation process is to know when to be steady and when to turn on the afterburner.

Late in the second half, Cvetinovic was whistled for his 4th foul on minor contact that was somewhat questionable. It was the kind of play that would have caused an explosion of emotion earlier in the year. This time he walked away from the play looking downcourt at the bench, and made a "calm down" motion with his arms while nodding his head up and down. I took this to be a sign to KD that he was calm, in control and wanted to stay in the game. KD let him play on with 4 fouls. It was a clear sign of how much he has grown in a short couple of months, and there's no doubt more to come.

I interpreted that to mean coaches have to break players' bad habits. One of the worst habits is when a player doesn't listen to the coach, learn and grow. A player can hobble along with bad habits, doing a half-good job, and be satisfied thinking he's doing all he can. Hitting rock bottom can finally get the message across that the player can't do it all by himself. He needs to listen to the coaching staff and let them help build him into a better player. I thought the article was pretty clear that Cvetinovich now understands this and really appreciates the process he went through with KD.

The refs were good, probably the best I've seen at the JAR in a long time. They had the game under control from beginning to end, and were making calls evenly and fairly. That made it a lot easier to focus on what the players were doing, and also saved me from losing my voice from yelling at them!Western came out with intensity and played the Zips even for awhile. But, unlike earlier in the season, once the Zips took control and started pulling away, they remained consistent and left no doubt that a Western comeback was unlikely. As with the Zips game against CMU, this was Western's worst loss of the season, the previous worst being 18-point losses to Southern Illinois and Can't. So while these wins against the West cupcakes may be expected, the way the Zips are consistently winning big is good reason for optimism. This is a much more enjoyable and entertaining Zips team to watch now than it was at the beginning of the season. They are showing a lot more poise, confidence and maturity. The inside game has really made a difference. The McKnights and Cventinovich are all quick and strong, and put a good deal of pressure on the defense when they get the ball down low. B. McKnight especially has improved on his decisions of when to pass and when to shoot, and it's paying off in a lot of high percentage shots. The inside game has also opened up the outside game, with more high percentage shots available from long range. McClanahan is going to cause a lot of pain for MAC East teams in the stretch run, as he is a superb 3-point threat. And Hitchens is playing more under control, putting himself in fewer difficult situations. I think he only had one turnover today, and McNees had none.As I said in another thread, the Zips current 10-player rotation is at least as good as any Zips team I've ever seen, and the potential is there to keep growing this year and in the future. There's just no noticeable fall-off in team performance as players are shuttled in and out. It has to be really disheartening to other teams to know they have to fight off waves of fresh Zips players throughout the game. But it's great for Zips fans!

In the second post of this thread I said I liked the new look. After others documented problems, I went back and discovered the new site did have technical problems.That's exactly what I would expect the people in the athletic department to do if they read this stuff. If they don't have the good judgment to separate the real problems from the delivery style of the complaints, the problem is with the service provider (them), not the customer (us).

Tom Gaffney has a nice article on Nikola ''Nick'' Cvetinovic online:http://www.ohio.com/sports/zips/39261667.html

Pretending that there are no legitimate, documented problems with the redesigned University of Akron website is a joke.Telling those who document those problems that what they are doing is a joke is a bigger joke.Perhaps the joke is on the jokester.

The advertising on the website is pretty consistent with the advertising I'm assaulted with at every game in the JAR. In any case, anyone who has a problem tuning out advertising is likely going to spend the rest of their lives in misery unless they move into a cabin in the boondocks and disconnect from modern civilization.By the way, I just experienced for the first time the wierd double banner seen by others at the top of the new website when I clicked on Site Map. Reloading the Site Map page corrected the problem. But it does appear that they have a few minor growing pains there.

Can't speak for Firefox, but with IE7 I haven't seen any of the problems others have mentioned. I do have my advanced internet options set to empty temporary internet files folder when browser is closed, so I get a clean site load. Don't know if not having that option checked may be causing problems for some. It has for me on other sites in the past before I changed that setting.

I like the way it's laid out so that when you go from the clean, simple main page to the Men's Basketball schedule you get a big calendar of all the season games with links from each game to stats, etc. Nice job.

Whatever is best for him and the team.

I don't think there's any debate about the MAC having an off year. We've been discussing this here for quite awhile now, and no one has disagreed. That's one of the reasons why many of us believe a young, inexperienced Zips team has a realistic shot at the MAC championship. It should be no surprise that the Horizon is rated higher, even excluding Butler.The question on everyone's mind is how the Zips will fare against Valpo, which has a worse won-lost record, but against stronger opponents. The only way to decide this is to play the game.

I understand what it's like to be altitude-challenged. ;)Hope you stay active on the forum. We may have questions for you, and you should feel free to ask questions of us, as well. Zips fans generally don't have attitude problems as some schools do, and we enjoy having civil discussions with fans from other schools.

If 6-7 is "almost 7 feet," the Zips have a number of almost 7-footers, too.

Thanks for the update. It's good to have a knowledgeable Valpo fan posting on Zips Nation. I really hope next year's game can be scheduled after Hamga is eligible to play so that he can go up against Zeke. There aren't many talented 7-footers among the mid-majors, and this could be one of the best matches for both of those young centers next season. I know I would really enjoy watching that battle!

Not better than I think! No matter how lightly some Zips fans may take Valpo, I'm certain that the Zips coaching staff will do a more detailed analysis and realize that both games will be challenging. Valpo was leading 13th-ranked Butler with 6 minutes to go, Butler scored 11 straight points, then Valpo fought back to trail by 2 with 90 seconds left before losing by 8. This is no MAC West cupcake.Next season will be an especially interesting game. Zips fans are counting a lot on the quick emergence of Zeke Marshall to make up for the loss of Nate Linhart. But Valpo's older, more experienced Beas Hamga could be a tough matchup. Consider that while Zeke is rated the 8th best center and 37th best player in the high school class of 2009, Hamga was rated the 5th best center and 28th best player in the class of 2007. Hamga was originally heavily recruited by the University of Kentucky and other major programs before signing with UNLV. He redshirted there, and played little this year before transferring to Valpo. Once considered a potential NBA prospect out of high school (he's listed on www.nbadraft.net ), his slow development in college makes him more of a project. He will be a good test for Zeke. Consider when these two teams tip off next year how many NBA games do not feature two 7-footers jumping for the ball.I would also not underestimate the potential of Ryan Broekhoff, who was "only" voted the Junior National Player of the Year for the entire country of Australia.Inexperienced freshmen players are one thing. But Hamga isn't the only new Valpo player for next year to already have some college experience:Brandon Wood, a 6’3”, 195 lb. guard from Kokomo, Ind., is playing this season at Highland [ill.] Community College. Wood transferred to Highland from Southern Illinois, where he appeared in six games for the Salukis, averaging 3.7 points per game, before suffering a season-ending injury. He stood out in the Salukis’ opener last year against Northern Illinois, pouring in 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting in 27 minutes off the bench. Wood was a three-year letterwinner at Kokomo H.S., where he was honored as an Indiana All-Star. A two-time All-Conference honoree, he was an All-County pick after a senior year in which he averaged 21.0 points per game. Wood is projected to be the top incoming point guard next year in the Horizon League according to Rivals.com.Cory Johnson, a 6'7", 230 lb. forward, will be eligible to play at Valparaiso after transferring from Iowa State, where he played for two seasons. He was ranked No. 78 in the HoopScoop class of 2006.