Dave in Green

LosAngelesZipFan, that's a great observation about the professionalization of college football leading to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Looking at the numbers in that story, 17 of the bottom 20 teams in attendance showed attendance losses last season compared with just 5 of the top 20. This parallels what's happening in other areas of society. Years ago most local TV stations had more locally produced shows that were gradually replaced by more network shows and more recently by cable shows and internet video streaming. Similarly, shopping has slowly transitioned from locally owned shops to big chains and now the internet. Sports fans used to primarily support local teams. But the globalization of sports media coverage makes it easy today to adopt a college football team across the country and track it as easily as a local team. So fans are becoming more selective in picking big winning programs to follow. They no longer feel obligated to be locked into backing a small losing program just because it's the home team. That's one of the reasons why so many Akron area college football fans have latched on to that team in Columbus and ignore their home team in Akron. They shop college football teams like they shop products on Amazon.com. Local purchases are limited in selection while you can get anything you want delivered to your door at a great price from shopping on the internet. In this environment, even a winning UA program is limited in its growth potential as Northern Illinois has so clearly demonstrated.

Posting a criticism on a forum is an open invitation for others to chime in with different points of view. Ideally everyone will listen to everyone else, give fair consideration to all the points brought up, accept points that can be verified and reject points that can't. In some cases discussion results in many facts being brought out and consensus opinions developing. In other cases points are so speculative that they can neither be proven or disproven, and they either die out or just lay around and fester. To the best of my knowledge the theory that Coach Dambrot and his staff don't do a good job of developing players was first postulated here many years ago by a forum member who primarily followed football and had only a passing interest in basketball. It was purely speculative and no hard evidence was ever presented to compare how players actually develop at UA compared with other programs at a similar level. It kept getting brought up again season after season and some seem to have accepted it as having some basis in fact just because it keeps getting repeated. Zeke became the poster boy for this theory because he seemed to have so much promise when he arrived yet didn't develop to the point of being drafted by the NBA. But the theory of Zeke's development being impeded by Coach Dambrot and his staff doesn't stand up to close examination. Zeke and his parents have publicly stated that Zeke's slow development was due to Zeke's attitude, not coaching. I've personally spoken with Zeke and his parents and they confirm that. At least when a single player like Zeke is held up as an example we can dig into the situation and get some facts. Exactly where Coach Dambrot and his staff stand in terms of developing players compared with similar programs is a much more complex question. There's really no reliable system that accurately measures the player development rankings of different coaches, so it becomes mostly speculative. There are so many variables involved that I'm not sure it could be reliably done. Certainly within the coaching community some coaches have better reputations for developing players than others. As far as I know Coach Dambrot has a generally good overall reputation among his fellow coaches. But who really knows if he's in the upper third, middle third or lower third of all coaches when it comes to the single issue of player development when there's no way to measure it? I'm open to any points anyone wants to bring up on this issue. I enjoy intelligent conversation and I'm always interested in learning things I didn't know. But of course I'm going to question points that are purely speculative with nothing to back them up just as I would expect everyone to question me if I did the same. I think it's in everyone's best interests if we all try to do our best to separate fact from speculation.

This is an easy one to answer as Zeke, his mom and his stepdad all publicly stated that Zeke himself was responsible for his slower-than-hoped-for development, not the coaching staff. Zeke publicly stated that he really didn't develop a passion for basketball and a strong desire to play professionally until his senior season. He said he originally played basketball because his family expected it of him, and he started off at UA using his basketball scholarship just to get a degree. There's no way a coaching staff can develop a player to their full potential unless the player wants it for themselves. All the evidence needed to prove that Zeke developed slowly in his first three seasons and then took a big jump up in his senior season when he finally wanted it is shown in his stats and NBA scouting evaluations. As a senior he not only improved his defense to become the #3 shot blocker in the country, he also dramatically improved his offense to the level of top 10 nationally in shooting percentage and top 25 in player efficiency rating (PER). NBA Draft Express said it appeared that Zeke had turned the corner in his senior season to become a legitimate NBA draft possibility. But they cautioned that big questions remained about his laid-back demeanor and lack of toughness, which come from within. As I've said before, if you could have transplanted Tree's intensity and toughness into Zeke, Zeke would have been a first round NBA draft choice. Then again, an abundance of intensity and toughness with inadequate self-control can lead to an entirely different set of problems.

Right, and if you don't have the budget to travel across the country, you darn sure shouldn't have aspirations of being a national power.

Looking at the overall picture, I'd say it's not productive to try to blame this on individual players or coaching. This team was built to ride a potential MAC player of the year. Now it has to be rebuilt on the fly with a lot of roles changing. So far there's been both good and bad. Bad tends to stick with some more than good. I'm sick at what's happened the last two games. But I'm not a quitter and I don't think the Zips players or coaches are, either. I expect them to be more upset about the recent results than any fan could possibly be and to dedicate themselves to turning things around.

No one should get too excited about beating the Zips right now. They have a lot to prove to live up to the 20+ win teams of the past decade. As much as we Zips fans would like to be optimistic, you just can't lose a strong candidate for MAC player of the year and go on as if nothing has happened.

17-57 from the field (29.8%) 5-19 3s (26.3%) 7-13 free throws (53.8%)

Whatever mojo the Zips showed in the immediate aftermath of Tree's departure is officially dead. I give Kwan a lot of credit for picking up a lot of the rebounding loss. But Tree's toughness may be irreplaceable.

Nominated for irrelevant remark of the night.

I read the wrong stat line. NDSU was 2-9 on 3s, not from the free throw line.

Wrong thread.

8-28 vs. 8-27 from the field, 1-6 vs. 2-9 from the free throw line and a 22-19 score at the half? How can you do anything but laugh, shake your head and say this may be a candidate for worst half of the year by two teams.

Send another e-mail to your "friend" Megan at Sidearm and tell her you paid good money for her company's feed from NDSU and tell her it was worse than the one from UA. Tell her you are starting a petition for the MAC to ditch Sidearm and find a legitimate service provider. Tell her you believe Sidearm is a fraud stealing money from public universities and you aren't going to put up with it. See if that gets her attention.

It turns out that one of the players tied for 2nd leading scorer, AJ Jacobson, will not be able to play tonight. That leaves the Bison with only 6 players in their regular rotation and a few players who've averaged less than 5 minutes per game. Source.

The Bison play a short bench with 6 players averaging more than 25 minutes per game, a 7th averaging 19 mpg and no one else averaging more than 5 minutes. Lawrence Alexander, a 6-3 senior guard, is by far their leading performer. He averages 17 points per game followed by 6-4 junior Kory Brown and 6-6 freshman AJ Jacobson both at 10 ppg. Their primary 7 players average from 3.4 to 5.3 rebounds per game. Alexander is the only senior on the team along with 3 juniors, 3 sophomores and 7 freshmen (1 redshirt), so half of the roster consists of freshmen. Of the 7 who play most of the minutes, there's 1 senior, 2 juniors, 2 sophomores and 2 freshmen. Of those 7, the tallest is 6-8 followed by a pair of 6-6 players and the shortest is 6-3. There are no centers on the roster, and only 2 pure forwards play significant minutes. The other 5 are all listed as either G or G/F. But for a relatively small team they have a great defensive rebounding percentage of 77.4%, 7th best in the country. The Zips will have to fight hard for offensive rebounds.

Like Middle Tennessee, North Dakota State is a solid program in a major rebuilding season. While NDSU won the Summit League championship last season, this season a poll of coaches, SIDs and media has projected the Bison to finish 5th in their conference. They graduated star players Taylor Braun and Marshall Bjorklund, their 2 leading scorers, as well as the team's 3rd leading scorer and 3 subs who played in every game. So they obviously lost a lot of talent and are in serious rebuilding mode. That didn't stop MTSU from upsetting the Zips, and NDSU could do the same if the Zips don't perform better than they did Saturday.

That would be illogical if you consider Skip's point #1, i.e. if the Zips were already consistently being penalized for one thing (charging) where the other team wasn't, why would they believe they could get away with another thing where MT wasn't being penalized (over the back contact on rebounds)?

It's comforting to see some support for the poor refs here. The American concept of people being presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is a noble one, and of course someone always has doubts about just about everything that happens. This is clearly not true. In the 9 games so far this season Zips fans have only called out the officiating on 2 -- the USC game in Charleston (which the Zips won by 20 points) and the MT game (which the Zips lost by 1 point). Clearly it's not just tied to when the Zips win or lose but when fans see an excess of questionable calls being made, some of which may even be going against the Zips' opponent as was the case in the USC game. It's even rarer to see officiating so questionable that it generates a separate news story. But that was the case last February when sportswriter Bruce Rader wrote a piece entitled Refs Blow Old Dominion Game vs UTEP. Rader makes the point that coaches and players are held accountable by fans and the media for bad games and officials should be, too: Well look at that. What a coincidence that Tim Gattis happened to be involved less than a year ago in officiating a game in a way that produced the most demonstrative fan protests the reporter had seen in covering 39 years of Old Dominion basketball. An ODU fan site story entitled ODU Fans Deserve a Break from the Three Stooges adds another pertinent point about who the fouls were called on: I hope Zips fan behavior at the JAR never rises to the level that people are tossed out of the building for crossing the line. But I also hope that Zips fans are never stifled in expressing their displeasure over a series of questionable calls. When fans see 5 offensive fouls called in the first half at a time when the NCAA has changed interpretation of the charge/block rule to heavily favor the offensive player, when 3 quick questionable fouls are called on the player who makes the team go (Noah), and when that's capped off with the almost never seen palming call, it would be shameful for Zips fans to sit on their hands and not vocally express their concerns about the quality of officiating. Refs Blow Old Dominion Game vs UTEP ODU Fans Deserve a Break from the Three Stooges

The rash of charging calls plus the highly unusual palming (carrying) call against the Zips are especially mystifying considering the change in enforcement of NCAA rules that went into effect last season as documented in this Cleveland.com story:

There are hundreds of moves made in every game that can be questioned in retrospect. Of all the points brought up so far that were under the Zips control, I think the biggest single area where they could have turned the game around is the point made by Sportsjunkie330 about not adjusting to defend the back door in the paint. This is an area of weakness I've noticed in other games, and it's something that other teams will become aware of and exploit. I think the Zips have done a better job of adjusting to not having Tree on offense than defense. I suspect that Coach Dambrot is going to start demanding more smart thinking and teamwork on defense as the season goes on to plug the hole in the back door that's leading to too many easy buckets in the paint.

We do have at least one forum member who is an experienced high school ref. HS Stripes has previously offered intelligent insights about officiating but hasn't posted on the forum since last basketball season. I've sent him a PM to let him know his observations and educated opinion would be welcome in this thread.

You could also ask if there are any experienced players or coaches here and question why so many untrained people have so many critiques about the players and the coaching.

The Zips did attack the basket on offense and received numerous charging calls for their efforts. The Zips hit better than their season average percentage of 3-point shots tonight while MT hit a much higher percentage of 3-pointers than their average. Guarding the 3-point line was not critical because MT only had a 1-point lead and a 2-point shot would have been just as good as a 3-pointer. The total fouls for the game ended up even but the timing of the calls and who they were called against favored MT as mentioned in the officiating thread.

In a 1-point game there are any number of things that could make a difference. The Zips certainly made enough mistakes in the MT game to account for a single point. But the officials also played a role. There were some things about the officiating in this game that deserve specific mention. Two of the refs (Tim Gattis and Zelton Steed) primarily officiate Conference USA games and the third (Jeff Spedoske) primarily Horizon League. One thing I noticed is that most of the questionable calls came from Gattis when he was much further away from the play than the other two officials. In the middle of the first half when the Zips were fighting back from a deficit, the refs called charging fouls on the Zips on four drives to the basket. That's certainly a good way to discourage a team from trying to take the ball to the basket. Even worse, two of those charging fouls were called on Noah. Then they immediately called a third foul on Noah that appeared to be a minor touch. Calling three quick fouls in less than four minutes on a team's key player is a good way to change the flow of a game. One call that stood out in its sheer insanity was a palming call on Pat as he backed a defender in on the basket in the midst of a Zips rally. Now this is the third season I've been watching Pat back defenders toward the basket, and he's always consistent in his dribble. There was nothing different about this dribble other than one official chose to make it the only palming call we're likely to see in a Zips game all season. I would categorize some of the officiating I saw in this game as selective, and I would have said the same thing if the Zips had won. There have been games the Zips have lost where I thought the officiating was fairly even. I don't blame bad officiating for losses, but neither do I ignore questionable officiating whether the game ends in a win or a loss. Win or lose, the officiating was below average in this game. Did anyone else see other calls that stood out as questionable?

Let's not forget that we now have an official officiating thread to discuss that subject outside of the game threads.