MDZip

Trying to help Dave's case ... From Luke Winn on the SI Site: http://www.kenpom.com/stats.php "In the six years kenpom.com has tracked tempo-free statistics, no Final Four team has been ranked outside the top 25 in adjusted defensive efficiency*. And only two Elite Eight teams in the past six years have ranked outside the top 50 in adjusted defensive efficiency. Having a decent offense matters, too, but the data shows just how unlikely it is for a non-elite defensive team to make a deep tournament run". However, in a later posting "It’s my nature to try to find some kind of numerical explanation for what happened in the Cornell-Temple game, so I settled on this: Highly efficient defensive teams with really bad offenses — like the Owls — have not been good of late in the dance" You just can't win (I guess unless you have a good offense coupled with a stout defense - hey, that makes sense )

I'm still trying to figure out what possible expletive could have fit in there. Maybe he actually said "I am not here to sit with 24 wins".

How much, though. Something trivial like $5k per school? Can't's sweet 16 credits are set to expire and unless OU can win their next game it still means a reduction in NCAA money. About $125,000 per school per round. The payout from the Elite Eight run expired a couple years ago. But is that divided amongst all of the schools in the conference or is it what each school gets? If it is the former, VMD was not far off.

And Cornell gets the victory! Much as I am disappointed by the lack of a Zips presence (especially remebering how much fun last year was), the tournament is still a lot of fun. Saw a couple of other interesting stats just now - Ohio teams are 2-0 (with Ohio State coming up later today a likely win too), and former Indiana players (Arom Bassett and Jordan Crawford - of Xavier - combining for 60 points. That's got to stick in Indiana's craw. And the thing I most disliked - a commercial for "Rules of Engagement" where they named three states - North Carolina, Connecticut and Kansas - which were obviously supposed to represent who they were rooting for or thought would win the tournament, and the first two didn't make the tournament. Nice job, Hollywood!

WOW Does the ESPN pool have a payout? If not, the stats may be different for people who paid their way in. Only 56 after the first round. WOW Winner gets ten grand. There is no entry fee. If things hold up I will have 16 of the first 19 games right, and I'm still behind about 100,000 people. By the way I'm watching the WVU-Morgan State game and they had a graphic with Akron since Huggy took them and two other teams to the tournament. Plus they said he transferred to WVU from OU.

2.4% of all of the brackets in the ESPN pool picked OU. There are 4.7 million entries so that is almost 113,000 entries. And out of that 4.7 million entries only 56 are still perfect after half of the first round.

Still want to stick with that one?

Make no mistake, Georgetown may not have played well but that was no fluke. That was a butt kicking. If Ohio can manage to keep up that hot shooting they could definitely last another round.

I am not looking forward to seeing Bassett and Cooper together for another year.

This one just got posted on the site for Xavier - "Bi curious basketball team seeking same for a discreet home/home encounter". I hope it's real. Maybe we should post looking for a high-major game on one of those SugarDaddy sites.

Keith is not nearly old enough to have coached Lyndon Baines Johnson in high school. Now if you were going to say LeBron James, that could have been a possibility. I'll have to look into this.

Miami's hockey team was ranked #1 for a good portion of the season (I believe they are #2 now) so they are pretty good and BGSU's hockey team and OSU's hockey are both generally in the good category too. If you are talking about solely NE Ohio hockey, then you may have something.

Anyone seen the palace that Orgeon is building? (of course they have Nike money backing it). $220M, the most expensive college basketball arena ever built. http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat...ns_matthew.html

Still taking up the collection?

Well we got beat by an NCAA first round winner. Arkansas PB won the play-in game. On ESPN they mentioned all of the teams in thier brutal early saeson road warrior trip that started them off 0-11. I think ESPN mentioned every team they lost to except the Zips.

I think its more likely I'll be listening tonight, but if we had made the NCAA tournament, I was going to try to go again.

I voted for the wrestling team, since I was on the last one before it was cut at Akron. It doesn't cost much, Northeast Ohio has a lot of quality wrestling, and it would give more options for area wrestlers. By the way, Can'ts program is actually pretty good. I will have to say that Lacrosse is a better spectator sport but we have plenty of sports that are not particularly spectator friendly (golf, cross country, etc.).

I got one too which is odd because I am not a basketball season ticket holder and live 350 miles away. At least they are trying to market (maybe to other than season ticket holders?)

Yeah, quite a news story, unmarried coach might be dating two unmarried woman at the same time. The horror!

So the Zips make a post-season apperance in four of the last five years. Unless you're a top-level program, that's still not bad. And the irony is that the one team that didn't was arguably the best of the five.

Was also nice just to see the brothers celebrate with each other just as the game ended.

If I had coached that game, we would have lost by 30.

Gotta give Steve McNees a lot of credit too, excellent ballhandling, fearless drive to the hoop (it should have droipped) to even get us into that position. Steve is doing a lot of things well in this tournament.

Man, Miami is playing awful, Down 41-26 with 7 minutes left. Looks like it's going to be the Bobcats.

The semifinal loss to BGSU was pretty disappointing since they weren't competitive at all, but someone needs to give a shoutout to the ladies on a great season. They could well be following the same path as the men, making those incremental improvements every year. Interesting quote from BGSU coach Curt Miller about Coach Kest:When asked his thoughts on Kest's coaching performance during the past four years, Miller said ''Amazing.''''Jodi has done it the right way,'' he continued. ''It is all about class. She is the coach of the year [in the MAC] for a reason. She is a brilliant tactician.''She had some very talented players when she took over, but some of them lacked good character. She has rebuilt the entire core by going out and getting strong character kids. That program is a not a one-hit wonder. They will continue to be in the mix.''Interesting because he took one of those "problem players" he is referring to. But he is certainly right that the ZSips are not likely to be at the end of their run.