Dave in Green

Zips played well enough to win if both teams had hit their season shooting averages. While the Zips were right on their season averages, MT came into the game shooting 37.7% from the field (32.6% on 3s) and ended up shooting 55% (and 50%) tonight. Blame it on the Zips not playing tough enough D or MT just having one of those nights where everything goes in or a combination of both. But shooting percentage was the difference. In every other stat the teams were close. In fact if anyone had said before the game that MT would shoot 55% from the field, I'd have predicted a double-digit Zips loss. As for the last play, it was a combination of MT playing tight enough D that no Zips player felt open enough to take a clean shot and making one pass too many. The buzzer sounded almost the instant the ball hit Pat's hands. He wasn't that close to the bucket and didn't have time to get anything off anyway. No one on the floor had much confidence in their shooting at that point. For example, Kwan started off 2-2 and then went 1-10 the rest of the way while Jake and Reggie were a combined 1-9 for the game. In retrospect we might question why Antino wasn't on the floor as he had the hot hand late in the game hitting 3-4. It's just going to be an up-and-down season until the Tree-less Zips learn to handle various game situations like getting off a last-second shot. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the players won't try to blame each other for team issues but will work together to find solutions. A characteristic of Coach Dambrot teams is that they adjust when one aspect of the game is off and compensate with other areas of the game. They fell just short tonight but hopefully learned a lesson that will help them later in the season. I expect this team to be much better at that as the season goes on.

More perspective from GT: Freshman Noah Robotham’s maturity rubbing off on Zips basketball team

They lost in their mid-major conference tournament for starters. Their 24-9 record and #63 RPI were 3rd best in their own conference behind Southern Mississippi (29-7, #31) and Louisiana Tech (29-8, #57). That would have knocked them out of both the NCAA and NIT tournaments. They should have easily qualified for the CBI or CIT tournaments. My best guess is they elected not to participate in either of those tournaments as some other schools have done.

It's no surprise that the Zips are favored by 7. As I mentioned in another thread, Middle Tennessee last season tied Louisiana Tech for best record in Conference USA. But they graduated their top 4 leading scorers (Shawn Jones, Neiko Hunter, Kerry Hammonds and Trantell Knight), and the leading returning scorer (Jaqawn Raymond) averaged only 6.5 points per game (though he torched the Zips last year). So they're obviously in serious rebuilding mode. MTSU has a strong program, but has more question marks than the Zips this season due to so many key players graduating. Below are a few notes from the MTSU website:

The NCAA rule is 5 consecutive years to complete 4 seasons of interscholastic competition. Tree was a non-qualifier who spent his 1st year at UA proving his scholastic ability. Non-qualifiers who maintain qualifying grades as freshmen are granted 3 years of scholarship athlete eligibility, identified as their sophomore, junior and senior seasons. They must keep their grades up to remain eligible. If they are still making academic progress toward graduation after their 3rd athletic scholarship (or senior) season, they can petition the NCAA for a 4th season of competition which would be their 5th and final year of eligibility. If they are granted a 5th season, they are identified as 5th year seniors as Tree was this season. In other words, this is the final season of Tree's NCAA eligibility. Unless he has graduated, he can't transfer to another D-I school. It may be technically possible for him to transfer to a lower division school. But it could only be for this season as his NCAA eligibility runs out at the end of this season. Since we're already well into the college basketball season, a lower division school looking to add a player with less than a full season of eligibility remaining doesn't seem likely.

Now where have I heard that before?

I agree with one exception. As part of their athletic scholarship, student athletes may sign agreements requiring that they adhere to a higher standard of personal conduct than other students at the same school. If this is the case at UA, then scholarship athletes may face different treatment than non-athlete students by virtue of what they signed up for. Maybe an ex-UA scholarship athlete reading this would like to comment on what differences there might be.

I upgraded mine this season and am contributing more money to the program. The more aware I became of what it takes to be consistently competitive in D-I college basketball, the more I came to appreciate what Coach Dambrot has accomplished with what he's been given to work with.

That may not be a BS response. UA may not be paying Sidearm Sports enough to get full technical support. UA may be on the budget plan where the school is responsible for providing its own high-speed internet connection for video streaming home games. But it doesn't hurt to have Sidearm Sports on the side of the fans. Maybe Sidearm can use the fan complaints to leverage UA into upgrading its service plan.

Well here's a shock -- all televised C-USA football games are on Saturdays: C-USA and Sinclair Broadcast Group Reach Multi-Year Content Agreement Men's basketball also gets a good TV package: American Sports Network to Carry 63 C-USA Men's Basketball Games

Is there a clue here in the fact that Zips men's basketball has recently established home-away series with both Middle Tennessee and Marshall and football with Marshall?

Sidearm Sports brags about: They do not list UA individually as one of their clients, so their deal may be with the MAC. Since some MAC schools have much better live streaming quality than UA, the problem may be internal at UA, an area where Sidearm's technical support staff should be able to provide good advice on how to improve. Sidearm describes their video streaming service like this: They claim the following: So if UA's poor, overworked athletic department folks get to go home a little sooner believing that Sidearm is taking care of the streaming video, why don't they use a little of that extra free time to personally check on the quality of the streaming service Sidearm is actually delivering? It's not rocket science to check the quality of a video streaming service. Anyone with an internet connection can do it any time. Zips fans do it every game.

How about 20 assists on 24 field goals in this game! When you get assists on 83% of your shots made you are really moving the ball around well as a team. The 9 turnovers was also pretty good. Of the 9, 7 were by the two centers (Pat and Big Dog), who were being double- and triple-teamed every time they touched the ball. The rest of the team combined had only 2 turnovers. They're now averaging 13.5 assists and 11.8 turnovers per game, a reversal of last season's average of 11.4 assists and 13.1 turnovers per game.

Well, there are Zips fans right here on this forum who say that the teams that the Zips have beaten so far aren't all that impressive, even if a couple of them were high majors. The point is that Middle Tennessee and North Dakota State both have good programs that shouldn't be taken lightly by lumping them in with the cupcakes.

Honestly, I thought that Big Dog would be the major contributor first. I never doubted Kwan's offensive capabilities but thought it would take time to develop and that his defense would take even longer to develop. Kwan was a candidate for redshirting last season but just made the cut and got to play. But his play last season supported the concept that he would take time to develop. He played so little last season that he's already exceeded last season's minutes in just the first 8 games this season. Coach Dambrot recently mentioned that Kwan was also a candidate to redshirt this season. It was the loss of Tree that opened the door for Kwan to show his stuff, and he has surprised everyone -- including the coaching staff -- at how fast he's responded to the challenge. Circumstances can play a big role in how players develop. While Kwan has taken advantage of Tree's departure with rapid development, Big Dog suffered a pre-season injury that slowed his development. He came into preseason in great shape and poised to challenge for the starting center position. But his broken wrist opened the door for the previously maligned Pat, who, like Kwan, has responded to being the only healthy center by elevating his game to a new level. I guess what I've learned from this is that the Zips are pretty deep in talent, and that players who look lost on the court can quickly blossom and perform beyond expectations when the right opportunities arise. Maybe this shouldn't be a surprise. Players who develop early tend to end up at the big-name programs and schools like UA have to dig deep for players with potential who haven't yet arrived. Some develop quickly, some develop slowly and some never develop at all. We've lamented the number of players who've transferred out of UA in recent years because they didn't develop. Now we're seeing the other side with players developing beyond expectations.

Thanks for the PM. I understand your concern about fans building their hopes up and then having them dashed. Just going by the publicly available information and ignoring all input from private sources, I'm inclined to believe that the odds are against Tree returning. I think it's the kind of situation where it's best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. At some point official word will come down on a final disposition and everyone will be able to get out of the holding pattern and move on.

They're 10-7, a little better than the Heat's early 9-8 record with LeBron. Next major checkpoint will be the final regular season record compared with Miami's 58-24.

I can confirm that multiple sources are predicting that there's either a fair chance or little chance that Tree will return to the team. I will decide which ones to believe at the end of the season.

It never pays to underestimate good programs. Middle Tennessee and North Dakota State both lost a lot to graduation, but they have been pretty good over the years at reloading. Here's a list of the only teams that have beaten these two teams so far this season: Texas Iowa Cincinnati Creighton Belmont Southern Mississippi Murray State

Half of the games so far have been against high majors.

An interesting note about this game is that the Zips blocked 9 shots. In their 8 games so far the Zips are averaging 5.6 blocks per game. In Zeke's senior season when he was at the height of his shot-blocking performance the Zips as a team averaged 5.7 blocks per game and were ranked #11 in the country in that category. The difference is that the Zips have more depth in shot blocking this season with Kwan, Pat and Big Dog combining for an average 4.7 blocks per game compared with Zeke's senior average of 3.7 blocks per game.

Unfortunately I've been noticing that. I guess I jinxed them.

Kwan and Zeke are two totally different styles of player. Zeke was always a classic low-post, rim-defending center. Kwan was a typical-sized wing who had a big growth spurt and now has a unique mix of physical abilities. Kwan has grown into a modern NBA-type small forward combining the mobility, ball handling and shooting skills of a wing with the height of a typical college power forward or center. Someone noted earlier that Kwan is really effective in the high post feeding the low post. Where the Zips guards and wings have had trouble getting the ball all the way in to Pat and Big Dog, Kwan has become a reliable relay. Get the ball to Kwan in the high post and he uses his position and height to feed the low post. Kwan has also been showing a deadly mid-range jumper similar to the one Tree was working to optimize. So he's a double threat in the high post to feed the low post or take the mid-range jumper. He has the ability to dribble the ball to create separation and then get off a virtually unblockable fadeaway jumper. He can also dribble drive to the rim. Add that to his 3-point shooting and at 6-9 he becomes a nightmare for opposing teams to cover. Kwan has made such a big leap between his freshman and sophomore seasons that it's not unrealistic to speculate whether he can keep improving his game to the point that he might have an even better chance of playing professionally than Zeke.

Dr Z, I think you're really on to something with separate threads for ongoing subjects like UA's poor video feeds, game officiating, etc. Now if we can just get all the old dogs to learn this new trick ... Really, there's no excuse for a university not to have fast, reliable video streaming. Services to expedite this are available at relatively low cost. The quality of video streaming is a direct reflection of a school's technical capabilities. UA is coming across as a third world institution. Ustream for one could easily correct this, since they do a great job with more technically challenging connections such as NASA TV. Ustream's top-of-the-line Enterprise plans start at $2,000 per month. It's time for UA to enter the modern connected world with a modern connection.

BJ had a minor muscle tweak that kept him out. He should be fine by the next game.