Dave in Green

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They sure nailed every aspect of Tree's game, rightfully pointing out his major weakness at the free throw line. While you really want your leading scorer and rebounder on the floor late in a close game, other teams on the Zips schedule will look at Tree's miserable 2-10 free throw performance in his senior season opener and start planning their hack-a-Tree foul strategy.

Hope has been beaten out of longtime Zips fans along with Faith and Charity.

I'd like to revise my prediction that the Zips would win 2 of their last 3 games and finish 6-6. My prediction was based on a Zips team that apparently no longer exists.

Keener's acting strangely. He just posted in the basketball forum in the middle of a Zips football game.

As one of the Gladden hypers, I'll try to offer a little perspective. BJ has a unique set of abilities on this team. He's big and strong enough to guard Tree in Zips scrimmages, and he also has great ball control to the extent that Coach Dambrot thinks he can play point forward. BJ only played 14 minutes in the Rochester game and did nothing spectacular to bring the house down. That doesn't mean he wasn't offering tantalizing hints of his capabilities. On defense, BJ spent a lot of time out at the 3-point line guarding Rochester's guards. He was quick enough to do a nice job of staying in front of his man and not allowing penetration. That's pretty impressive for a forward who holds his own against Tree in scrimmages. On offense he looked comfortable handling the ball and had no turnovers. He was only 1-4 from the field, as his shot was off like most of his teammates. What's noteworthy is that he showed the same lack of fear he's shown in Zips scrimmages in taking the ball to the rim. Skip earlier expressed his concern that the Zips needed someone like Q who could penetrate and finish at the rim. That's BJ's game. He's strong enough to be considered an undersized 4 but penetrates like a wing. He needs more development, but his potential is high. Noah and Antino are also good at penetration and finishing at the rim, so I think before the season is over we'll see a lot more of this from those three players than we did from Q last season.

LosAngelesZipFan, you seem to have a pretty good handle on university economics. The $30 million savings estimate sounds reasonable, and you make good points about the value to UA relative to various costs and income sources. The smart thing to do would be to enter into a longterm agreement to study all aspects of the schools and start with simple consolidations of services in non-competitive areas where there are clear mutual savings. Then measure how those changes work while studying other possible areas of cooperation.

Although Rochester is an NAIA team playing at a lower level than the Zips, they came in with the benefit of having already played 6 games this season and primarily played upperclassmen who've been playing together for several years. So their teamwork was much more polished than the Zips, who had 2 true and 2 redshirt freshmen playing more than a third of the minutes. Ugly stats time: 20-60 (33,3%) from the field, 5-29 (17.2%) on 3s and 10-22 (45.5%) on free throws. Impressive stats time: Noah played 31 minutes as a true freshman in his first college (exhibition) game and had only 2 turnovers along with 2 assists (hard to get assists when your teammates aren't hitting their shots). Antino had 2 assists and 1 turnover in 16 minutes and caused several turnovers with his pesky defense. So the two true freshmen who will likely be running the point for the Zips for the next 4 seasons combined for just 3 turnovers in a combined 47 minutes. Beyond the stats, it was evident from the flow of the game that things are going to be different this season. The way Noah and Antino ran the offense created more open shots than we were used to seeing last season, even if the Zips were having a hard time knocking down open looks. There will be growing pains for sure, and no doubt some frustrating performances, especially early in the season. But the PG position has definitely been upgraded over last season. Big Dog was held out of the game as his wrist continues to heal but is expected to be able to play sometime in the next few games. Deji was also kept out with a dislocated finger. And, finally, Coach Dambrot was away due to an illness in his family.

Hope you got to see all of Noah's plays.

You guys are lucky you didn't get to see the Zips' early shooting display that those of us at the JAR suffered through.

Skip, the regular media doesn't cover stories like this so most aren't familiar with how common it is. You really have to read trade publications for different industries to understand what goes on behind the scenes. For example, I used to follow the auto industry pretty closely and remember reading in trade publications about many examples over the years. For example, General Motors and Ford agreed a decade ago to co-develop a common 6-speed automatic transmission design that both companies are still using. Most people who drive Ford and GM vehicles have no idea that their automatic transmissions were developed by a team of Ford and GM engineers. It saved both companies hundreds of millions of dollars. Ford and GM are currently collaborating on development of 9- and 10-speed automatic transmissions. GM also leveraged purchasing with Fiat and Peugeot for awhile, saving hundreds of millions of dollars through larger combined orders for raw materials and common minor components. GP1 could probably give you some examples from the construction industry.

The key term in that story is "consolidate some services." This is something that's been successfully used in the corporate world with competing companies consolidating some services in non-competitive areas to save money for all parties. It can be effective if done right and is a pretty smart thing to consider. It's no surprise that the schools are "being pushed and encouraged by everyone in Columbus" as state money for higher education has been a favorite area for cutbacks.

That's a really great idea. I know they like to reserve the premier lots for the high rollers. But there are way more positives than negatives to cultivating a first come first served red hot tailgating lot right next to Exchange where everyone driving by can see the level of support from diehard fans who arrive long before anyone else and leave long after the other lots are empty.

Also for what it's worth, I recall one of the Las Vegas newspapers saying that Noah hit 42% of his 3-pointers in his senior season.

When LeBron joined the Miami Heat in 2010, their record over their first 17 games was just 9-8. After a players only meeting to clear the air, the Heat went 49-16 over the rest of the regular season to finish 58-24 and ended up in the NBA Finals. So for me the first major checkpoint this season is how the Cavs are doing after their first 17 games compared with the 2010-2011 Heat.

It's contagious: England manager Roy Hodgson angry over NFL date at Wembley

Brock Boxen (#50) shows up in the participants lists for the Howard, EMU and Miami games and in the did not participate lists for the PSU, Pitt, Marshall, OU, BSU and BGSU games. However, Boxen is currently not listed on the Zips roster. Joe McNamara is the only player on the current roster listed as #50. But in all of the box scores to date McNamara is listed as #5B. The only other clue I can find on Boxen's status is that on Oct. 8 (after the EMU game) someone on an XBox Dynasty Rosters forum removed Boxen's name from the Akron Zips DL depth chart.

Of the bunch, Chapman was easily the highest rated QB out of HS. Rivals.com ranked him as a four-star prospect and nationally the 12th-best quarterback in his HS class. He was offered by Arizona, Boston College, Cincinnati, Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern and Wisconsin, among others. That doesn't guarantee anything, but it does seem to give him a little head start. On the other hand, after being released by Pitt he didn't exactly set the world on fire at Ashland, which seems to be a little setback. Bottom line: huge question mark.

GP1 makes some good points about the difficulty of an improving team breaking out of a losing cycle. I think the Zips rightfully had confidence coming out of the Pitt game, and they made good on that by beating EMU and Miami despite losing their starting QB for the second half of the Miami game. It even carried through to keeping the OU game close and looking good in the first half of the BSU game before falling apart in the second half. Pohl's return for the BGSU game wasn't enough to quickly turn things around because Pohl is not good enough to carry the team on his back. He's an adequate QB on a team with no standouts on offense. He's good enough to lead the offense to just enough points to outscore most MAC teams because the Zips defense has been so good. But the Zips defense isn't strong enough to overcome 4-5 turnovers by the offense and special teams. As a team, this season's Zips are just good enough to win most of their MAC games if everything is going right. Losing their starting QB for 2.5 games was a major disruption for a team with no history of winning, and a comeback from that adversity isn't guaranteed. I still believe Coach Bowden has the ability to revive this team over their last three games and win at least two of them as long as there are no other significant disruptions.

So, ignoring the umbrella issue (most reasonable people accept the fact that 99-cent ponchos are as good or better at keeping fans dry without blocking the views of others) and the uniforms issue (paid for by a donor), what legitimate issues are left in the original post to discuss beyond general venting about watching your team lose in bad weather in a season that still might produce the first .500 or better season in a decade?

So you're saying that Pohl has the talent to be invited to play in the Senior Bowl and be named MVP like Frye? You're saying that Pohl has the talent to be drafted and have a modest NFL career like Frye? While I give you credit for recognizing in advance that there would be "doubts," you may want to give a little more thought to the meaning of "only difference."

Not .500 after tonight (4-5). I expect them to win 2 of the last 3 and finish 6-6.

Zips are a .500 team this season -- not too good and not too bad. The last time they were .500 or better was 10 seasons ago, so there's reason for optimism. But not tonight.

I'd be excited about this game even if it was being played in the spring.

Yep, it's all just on paper so far. If the rookies can't shoot 3s better than the 20% range, it could get ugly around here. So might as well enjoy the potential now and get a little enjoyment out of being a Zips basketball fan.