Dave in Green

Odds favor Toledo and WMU earning 2 of the top 4 seeds and the Zips, Buffalo and OU battling for the other 2. Realistically the Zips need to win all 4 of their final conference games to have a good shot. If the Zips beat Buffalo, they will have split with both Buffalo and OU. Should there be a tie at the end of the season, it would go to other tiebreakers beyond head-to-head competition. The simplest scenario would be if Buffalo beats OU and the Zips win out (major challenge with a depleted roster). But there are scenarios where the Zips could earn a top 4 seed regardless of whether Buffalo or OU wins on Wednesday. I think it's a little early to try to calculate all the possible permutations with 4 games still left to play. Here's how the Toledo Blade described MAC tiebreakers before last season's tournament: 1. Between TWO teams: A. Head-to-head competition B. Division Record (10 games)^ C. Winning percentage* vs. ranked conference teams (top to bottom, regardless of division, vs. common opponents regardless of the number of times played) D. Coin flip ^ - For the purpose of determining the Division champion only * - Winning percentage is used instead of record because of situations where teams do not play each other the same number of times. Therefore, a team that is 1-0 (1.000) would win the tiebreaker over a team that is 2-1 (.667). 2. For MULTIPLE (3 or more) team ties: E. Total won-lost record of games played among the tied teams F. Two (2)-team tie-breaker procedure goes into effect (refer to A) NOTE: Once a three-team tie has been reduced to two teams, the two-team tiebreaker will go into effect

@Ada Zip, from your description, it seems that you like Coach Dambrot the person you used to personally interact with, but you dislike Coach Dambrot the person quoted in media interviews. Further, it's your interpretation of his quoted words that you really dislike, whereas not everyone is going to interpret his words so negatively. Finally, the alternate wording that you suggest for one of his statements is a classic PR non-statement, the kind of bland wording that causes some coaches to be criticized for not really speaking their mind. If most of his vivid "defenders" are those who personally interact with him on a regular basis, wouldn't it also be fair to say that most of his vivid "attackers" are those who judge him only by their negative interpretations of some of his quotes in the media? Personally I just don't get why this is such a big issue to a few fans. But the fact that we all have different perspectives is part of what makes the world interesting. If I were Coach Dambrot's PR guy, I'd advise him to just continue being himself and accept the fact that you can't please all the people all the time.

@GP1, I understand the point you're trying to make. So far this season we've seen lots of signs of frustration from the players, the coach and the fans. We're all in this together. But we all see it from different perspectives, so I think it boils down to a matter of personal interpretation. I interpret some of the comments I see here as assumptions that Coach Dambrot is deliberately trying to duck accountability. I don't see it that way from my perspective, so I'm just offering the counterpoint that assumptions should always be challenged and not accepted as if they're proven fact.

@Ada Zip, I think it's fair to say that Coach Dambrot has had some varying degree of influence on everything you mentioned. But no one has total control of everything. Like everyone else, he works to the best of his ability within the limitations of the circumstances he's given to work with. Even the best leaders don't always get the best results because there are too many variables that are ultimately beyond their control. It shouldn't be assumed that Coach Dambrot is publicly laying all the blame on the players just because he isn't quoted after every loss taking the blame himself. First of all, whenever he talks about "we" he's talking about the whole team including the players and the coaches. Secondly, head coaches make many hundreds of words of comments to the media after each game, and a typical sports story has at most a few dozen words of quotes. It may not show up in the quotes that sports writers end up using, but anyone who's spoken with Coach Dambrot knows that he readily takes responsibility for those things he can control or influence. I've been fortunate enough to have a number of extended conversations with him, and he really does agonize over doing the right thing for each and every one of his players. I honestly don't believe that he ever tries to throw his players under the bus.

The people I pay attention to on this forum are those who call out both the bad and the good as they see it. Those who dwell excessively on the negative and rarely have good things to say remind me of former VP Spiro Agnew's colorful quote about the "nattering nabobs of negativism." I mostly tune them out. As for Coach Dambrot, he's an honest man who calls them as he sees them and is always trying to do the right thing for his players. If he glossed over weak effort from the players, someone would be criticizing him for using PR speak instead of speaking the truth that everyone else saw with their own eyes. Everyone knows Coach Dambrot believes poor offense can be compensated for by strong defense, and when he sees his players not doubling down on defense when the offense is sputtering, he speaks his mind. The players who didn't play D with more effort and intensity called themselves out. Coach Dambrot simply reaffirmed it. And, yes, it's his responsibility to get his players to do better. He's tough on his players when he believes they need toughness and he's protective of his players when he believes that's called for. Fans will always second-guess the coach no matter what he does.

If someone had said before this game that the Zips would have only 9 turnovers against the Kitties defense, I would have said the Zips had a fair chance of winning. Counting the 4 turnovers against Buffalo, that's a stunningly low (for this team) 6.5 turnover per game average against the 2 toughest opponents in the MAC East. Then again, 26.8% shooting from the field would have more than offset zero turnovers. It looked to me like the Zips were just throwing the ball in the general direction of the backboard and hoping some greater power would guide it in. Seriously, when your 2 leading scorers (Tree and Q) are a combined 7-30 from the field and your next 3 highest scorers aren't playing, that's a big heaping pile of steaming doo-doo. Did anyone else notice that Q played a full 40 minutes, and that he was playing his heart out right up to the final buzzer? It's just a shame that his shooting was off, like everyone's shooting but Deji's. I commented during warmups that Deji was hitting almost every practice shot he took, raining in 3 after 3. He was 5-7 from the field while the rest of the team was 10-49. The Zips outrebounded the Kitties by 5 and had 1 fewer turnover. With average shooting from the field this game was winnable even with 3 of the top 5 scorers out.

The odds against a HS combo guard better known for his scoring than his PG abilities making a significant contribution as a true freshman PG on a D1 college team are pretty overwhelming. Then again, I've yet to see a proposed solution to next season's PG situation that doesn't carry at least a fair amount of risk. Even @Hilltopper's speculation about a 5th year senior transfer who could play right away would mean a stranger unfamiliar with the Zips system trying to develop good chemistry with the rest of the players.

For starters, we already knew before the last couple of games that this season's team has not shown that it's as good as last season's team. Need I mention last season's 19-game winning streak? Now you take 3 of the top 5 scorers out of this lineup and how do you expect them to perform against a good OU team out for revenge? After Tree and Q, the 3rd leading Zips scorer for the season on the floor tonight was none other than Nyles Evans and his scintillating 5.1 points per game average. At full strength this is still a pretty good Zips team. With 60% of its top scorers out, it's a really vulnerable team, even in the MAC.

I'm told that Coach Dambrot said before tonight's game that Reggie is not showing progress in fighting off the mono symptoms, and is all but certainly done for the season. It's also pretty certain that Jake will miss the next couple of games. So that leaves Nick as the only one with a chance of returning to the floor for the Miami and Bowling Green games. Based on what I saw tonight, the Zips would not have an easy time at Miami or against BG at the JAR without additional offensive firepower. So everyone keep your fingers crossed that Nick rejoins the team Monday and Jake returns for the Buffalo game. Even if the Zips win their final 4 conference games, they're going to need help to sneak into a top 4 seed.

Can't putting up a surprising fight against Buffalo, leading most of the first half and trailing by just 1 point (33-32) at halftime. Hard to root for Can't, but an upset of Buffalo could end up helping the Zips' tournament seeding. EDIT: Flushes fail and Buffalo wins, 78-69.

Houston obviously doesn't have a lot of money to pay Yuracheck, as they will be compensating him with one of the grandest athletics department titles in the known universe:

GT points out that the Kitties are also hurting: Zips Basketball: Limping Akron Prepares for Aching Ohio Worst news from the story: Meanwhile Elton points out a potentially positive point in his story:

Really nice Hustle Belt story on Q: The Resurgence of Quincy Diggs Has the Zips In the Hunt For Another MAC Championship

I think the original report on Reggie was "at least" 2-3 weeks. My understanding of mono is that the severity varies from individual to individual, and recovery can vary from weeks to months. In severe cases the spleen can swell to the point that it bursts, which can create a medical emergency. But in about half of mono cases, the spleen doesn't swell at all. I had mono in college and was really wiped out for a couple of weeks, but bounced back pretty quickly. We can only hope that Reggie has the mildest possible version. I'm sure he's getting great medical advice.

By now we know that the Zips are perfectly capable of losing any of their remaining games. Tomorrow's OU game will be especially challenging with the big question marks hanging over Nick, Reggie and Jake. It's highly unlikely that Reggie will make a miraculous recovery from mono, Elton's last report was that Jake is probably out for at least one game and still no official word on when Nick will be back. The Zips at least got 3/4 of a game from Jake in Buffalo. But going a whole game against OU with all those players out would be brutal.

@LZip, consider that if the people who know someone best aren't always right about them, how much less right are people likely to be who know the person even less. It's an imperfect world. When we're young and idealistic we tend to get outraged at all the things in the world that are going wrong and want to blame others for being imperfect. As we grow older and begin adding up all the mistakes we make in our own lives and in our judgments about other people and things, we begin to appreciate just how imperfect everything is. As hard as we may strive for perfection, we're all doomed to failure. We just have to try to do the best we can and hope that others forgive our flaws. Likewise we need to be understanding of the imperfections of others. All we can ask of anyone is to always try to do the right thing and hope that it works out that way more often than not.

Goofiest West-West game of the season tonight: EMU and NIU both score 16 points in the first 20 minutes and 31 points in the second half. Then, in OT, NIU outscores EMU 14-12 in 5 minutes -- almost matching their score from the first 20 minutes. And EMU falls to 7-6. Meanwhile, Toledo is destroying Bowling Green 42-23 early in the second half.

In plain English, everyone understands that Buffalo was at full strength last night while the Zips were missing two important players (Nick and Reggie) for the whole game and a third (Jake) for the final quarter of the game when he's usually relied on as one of the Zips' closers. Despite all this, the Zips lost by only 6 points on a floor where they've had trouble winning even when playing at full strength, which qualifies to me as a gutty performance (YMMV). And, of course, everyone also understands that all excuses are unacceptable.

I'm humbled by your grasp of stats.

I like Q's tweet. I hope every Zips player feels the same.

Only 1 of 8 Buffalo players who played tonight shot less than 50% from the field, and he was 3-7. Some of it was an uncharacteristic lack of defense from the Zips and some of it was that Buffalo was just red hot from the field tonight. I would really enjoy watching the Zips return the favor at the JAR.

Really nice to see Jake back on the floor for the handshakes at the end.

Great effort. Just not enough juice left at the end.

Gutty, gutty performance from a severely depleted Zips lineup.

Nyles looking like a D1 PG tonight.