Dave in Green

Z.I.P., you win this round. Willis went off tonight. He only does it occasionally and tonight is one of those nights.

Kitties don't have to shoot 3s when their guards can drive to the basket and score at will.

Now who do you suppose would say something like this about the Seahawks and The Play?

From The Athens Messenger:

Not as much news available on Emmanuel as he doesn't play with a powerhouse team like Peter and Josh. But his season stats, player of the game awards, etc., can be tracked here. There's also a brief month-old video on YouTube showing Emmanuel (22) getting three easy slams. Check out how far above the rim his hands are on the last one. And finally, here's a link to an unedited video from MaxPreps with the first four minutes of one of Emmanuel's games where he shows off some of his blocking ability.

Peter (42) making a nice block in the big game: And fouling out against Giles:

I see in that game that the Kitties established their inside game in the first half and then hit most of their 3s in the second half. For the game OU hit 70% of their 2s and 41.7% of their 3s. This season they're relying more on the inside game than previous editions. Sure, in any given game one of their guards could always go off from outside the arc, and the Zips have to guard against that. But in most games they're relying less on 3-point shooting than we're used to seeing in recent seasons, so stopping their inside game early should be the first priority.

Is it possible that school colors are no longer relevant to the younger generation? We need some input from the kids here because some of us are too old to identify with how their thinking differs from our vintage viewpoints.

The only thing I've been able to find so far is that Giles had 24 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 5 blocks. No info on Peter yet.

You're living in the past. This edition of the Kitties relies about 20% less on 3-pointers than the Zips. It's their inside game that the Zips need to guard against.

Nice summary. UB slaughtered conference leader Can't in Buffalo but lost to lowly OU in Athens. The Kitties will certainly be up for the Zips, who will have to be sharp to avoid UB's fate in Athens. Statistical comparison of the two teams shows the Zips leading in most categories, but rivalries like this one often produce unexpected results.

Thanks, ZZZips. No surprise to me on the free throw shooting as I've read hundreds of articles on the subject. Even top-ranked ACC teams accept substandard free throw shooting in exchange for athletic players who are outstanding in other areas of the game. Those teams can usually get away with missing more than their share of free throws because they're otherwise so dominant. If free throw shooting was so critical to winning, the top 10 free throw shooting teams in the country wouldn't be: 1. 80.1% Ole Miss 2. 79.3% Illinois 3. 77.9% Quinnipiac 4. 77.7% Lafayette 5. 77.2% Brigham Young 6. 77.0% Albany 7. 76.6% Eastern Kentucky 8. 76.1% Pepperdine 9. 76.0% Cal State Northridge 10. 75.9% Evansville By the way, EA mentions that there are currently only 9 college players shooting better than 90% from the free throw line. Jake Kretzer is currently shooting 95%, better than the national leader. But his 19-20 are too few to qualify for inclusion.

They just take the top team in the MAC whenever they update. Zips are now tied with Can't for best MAC record but have a higher RPI, so that's how we got to be MAC placeholder of the week. VCU would be a huge challenge, for sure. But they just suffered a huge loss: VCU loses a point guard, leader

Might as well throw RPI in with stats in general. The road win over BGSU finally got the Zips into the top 100 RPI at #93. BGSU had a suprisingly strong RPI when the Zips played them, and even with the loss they're still ahead of the Zips at #83. As I post this, here are the current MAC RPI rankings from ESPN : 44. UB 83. BGSU 93. Zips 95. CMU 102. Can't 103. UT 123. WMU 150. EMU 201. OU 231. BSU 234. NIU 265. MU 143.7 = average RPI of 12 MAC teams 131.3 = average RPI of 6 MAC East teams 156.0 = average RPI of 6 MAC West teams

It's interesting to look at OU attendance in more detail. Even with their poor performance this season, their smallest home crowd so far has been 5,611 for Belmont while Arkansas-Pine Bluff drew 5,641. The Kitties drew healthy non-conference crowds of 7,203 and 7,115 for St. Bonaventure and Appalachian State. Their smallest home conference game crowd was 5,743 for NIU and the largest was 9,124 for Buffalo. Not sure how weather and other variables affected those crowds. A 2011 PD story said OU averaged 1,100 students at basketball games the previous season, less than 20% of the average total game attendance.

Exactly. You have 26 seconds to score from a little more than a yard out but just 1 timeout. Odds of getting off 3 running plays in 26 seconds with just 1 timeout are small. You have 2 superior weapons -- Lynch and Wilson. You trust Wilson to make the right decision and throw the pass out of the back of the end zone if the receiver is covered. That stops the clock with about 20 seconds left and you still have 2 downs to score and 1 timeout. There's even an option for Wilson to run for the TD on 2nd down if the receiver is covered and he sees a clear path to the end zone. Trusting Wilson to make the right decision on 2nd down was a good choice. An incredible play by an undrafted rookie was highly improbable. Bad things could have also happened with the unimaginative option of running Lynch twice and praying there was time to run him a 3rd time if the first 2 failed.

The storied history of the NFL is older that most posters on ZipsNation, and I don't believe any of us are astute enough NFL historians to make the call of the worst play in history. But you could certainly see the agony on Pete Carroll's face when he was asked about that call. Then again, who would have expected an undrafted rookie defensive back, the first from South Alabama to play in a Super Bowl, to make that incredible defensive play? It was not as bad a call as so many are making it out to be in retrospect. But plays that fail are always subject to question in hindsight.

There is absolutely no way to understand or apply this study without knowing all the metrics. They only cite 2 of 11 key metrics -- number of NFL and college football teams and average ticket prices. Since the study was done by WalletHub, I'd guess it's related to how much money WalletHub makes from various markets, and the story is designed to create publicity for WalletHub to generate more business. Maybe Akron fans have found better options to use than WalletHub. EDIT: OK, if you take the link from the story to the full study, you can see all the metrics and decide for yourself if they apply to Akron fans. A cursory look tells me the hottest markets are the ones with the winningest teams. DUH!

We're saying the same thing in different words. I agree that Coach Dambrot would not have had those 5 players on the court if he didn't believe they could win the game. Since no one has yet commented on the Zips fan turnout, it was really good. Our busload of fans was in the first few rows opposite the Zips bench, and team family members and those who drove over on their own were in the lower section behind the Zips bench. We made enough noise to let the players know they had support, and toward the end of the game we actually had an effective ZI - PS cheer echoing back and forth across the floor. Zips fans definitely cut into the home court advantage.

We spoke with some BGSU fans during and after last night's game, and they seemed to be as upset with the officiating as Zips fans were. From the Zips perspective, the most questionable calls were against Pat. The same official called all 5 personals on Pat, and some of them appeared really weak. Overall I'd say the officiating wasn't far from average. For a good read on an academic study of college basketball officiating, check out the following AP story from a few years ago. Among the study's conclusions are that it pays to play aggressive defense because, although it may result in a lot of early fouls, many officials subconsciously try to balance out fouls between the two teams as the game goes on, rewarding the team that may be committing more actual fouls that go uncalled. Fewer fouls called on home team

Noah, BJ, Aaron, Kwan and Nyles were on the floor after Pat fouled out and Jake was hurt. Inexplicably, BGSU's highlight video on YouTube does not show the final few plays of the game.

Maybe Coach Dambrot wanted to give next season's Deji a chance to show what he could do in crunch time. BJ will likely take over the designated slasher role after Deji graduates, and he's quickly evolving into a savvy defender. Time and again last night I saw both BJ and Aaron getting really nice defensive position, cutting passing lanes and generally disrupting BG's offensive flow. They're both really quick for their size, they're both full of energy and they're both relentless on D. The experience they're getting this season is not only preparing them well for the next 3 seasons but also paying dividends this season. Maybe Deji would have made the same putback play BJ did at the end to win the game, maybe not. And speaking of defensive play, Kwan deserves a lot of credit for getting nice defensive position on a driving Richaun Holmes at the buzzer. Kwan came flying in at Holmes from an angle causing him to pull up short and take an off-balance 3 rather than take it all the way to the rim as OU's Ndour did to upset Buffalo on the game's last shot last week. Holmes appeared to be startled by Kwan's fast closing rate and actually traveled before getting the desperation heave off. Just great defensive play by the whole team in the closing minutes.

Stroh Arena seats 4,387 for basketball. Construction began in 2009 and completed in 2011 for a total cost of just $30 million or $31.5 million in 2015 dollars. To me it was nice and shiny new, and a great example of how much you can get for about $30 million. If you look closer you begin to see all the cut corners that prevent it from being the kind of arena Zips fans could be happy with for the next 20 years. For starters, the seating is not optimized. Corner seating sections aren't rounded or angled but just meet at 90 degrees in the corners. Anything would be better than the JAR, including a clone of the Stroh Arena. But I would consider that clone to be the absolute rock bottom facility you'd want for a new Zips arena.

I'm hoping you're right about that. He went headfirst into the chair with someone sitting in the chair, but his neck and shoulder area may have absorbed most of the impact.

Zips now tied for best record in the MAC with a shot at taking over sole leadership Wednesday if they can beat OU in Athens and if Can't loses at WMU. Zips 69, BGSU 68 EMU 69, WMU 63 UT 80, NIU 69 CMU 74, OU 69 UM 79, BSU 73 EAST Zips 6-2 Can't 6-2 UB 5-3 BGSU 5-3 MU 3-5 OU 2-6 WEST UT 5-3 CMU 5-3 WMU 4-4 EMU 3-5 BSU 2-6 NIU 2-6 Wednesday's matchups: 6-2 Zips @ 2-6 OU 6-2 Can't @ 4-4 WMU 5-3 BGSU @ 5-3 CMU 3-5 EMU @ 5-3 UT 5-3 UB @ 2-6 BSU 2-6 NIU @ 3-5 MU