Zip Watcher

All right, i guess i just was impatient. I got my letter today Definitely a good move. I'm sold to renewing 2 tickets next year. You've gotta be kidding. He's not kidding .. he's a ZIPS FAN! And a good one. Not a mildly interested passer-by. A fan. Go Zips!

I will absolutely pay into a "drink the Gaucho student body into SB Rowdies" fund.

No you don't ... :lol: I've got a hard sided golf club carrier we can probably get him to fit into.

I love me some ZTV! B) Go Zips!

Done!

Force them into 3 or 4 OOC games a year with MAC teams in hoops, and I think I'd be OK with U*ASS joining up. Go Zips!

Care to elaborate?

Your lips to God's ears! Go Zips! B)

Why exactly do you need 2 free feeds?

Strong words. Good for CSU if he's even in the top 3 or 4 individual players the Zips see. Thank you .. and the same back at you. Go Zips!

I'm pumped for this game. It's going to be another good measuring stick of how the Zips are doing before they start their 4 game road swing. I feel good about the Zips chances. They've had a few days to work on the results of the YSU game, and they're going to have a big crowd. I like the Zips to win this in regulation. B) Go Zips!!

Let's recall that it is still speculation and supposition. As of now, Brett remains on the roster @ GZ.com and the department has suspended him, not removed him from the team. I keep hope alive that Brett will get things straightened out. Go Zips!

You know they could have not done it at all .. would that be better? How about some latitude for those providing all of us a free service? Go Zips!!

The Zips dodged a bullet last night, and dispatched YSU in overtime, with plenty of good offensive performances to go around. First, the box score (still waiting for StatSheet to get the +/- run .. hopefully that'll be soon. Zips 91 - Penguins 84 Box Score I didn't write any notes down last night, so these are from memory the morning after. With the customary regrets to Sergio Leone, my observations from the JAR: The Good: Took a punch, landed the last one: KD is fond of this concept, and it's growing on me. It's good to know your team can take a punch and get back up and stand in. While this wasn't the toughest adversity the Zips will face this season, I thought it was a nice early season test of the Zips mettle. They never got down more than 5, but YSU didn't just go away. This is an upgrade over some other games where a 5 or 8 point run early in the 2nd half is enough to blow things open. The Zips needed to stay in this mentally the whole way, and they did that. Offense: This will be a strength of the Zips. We saw tonight what can happen when they push the ball inside to start the offense. Career highs from our 2 bigs, and our shooter. These are linked. Brett will continue to see single coverage and good space to work on the perimeter and the mid-range as long as our interior guys are playing well on Offense. This was a nice step for the Offense. Zeke and Nik are showing signs of working well together and appear to have a pretty good sense of where the other one is and what he's going to do. Great to see. The Penguins: Flat out the best Penguins mens team I've seen since a guy name Peters was coaching over there. Not just because they pushed the Zips to the brink. Slocum seems to have turned a corner of sorts. Glad to see it. Hope they go 30-1 and tear the Horizon up. And I hope we continue this series. Career highs: Nice scoring punch from 3 different guys. The inside out was working well and Zeke was good and kept things moving inside out, especially late in the game. It'd be good to see some more career highs in rebounding to go with it. The Bad: Minutes: 38 minutes from the bench is not going to be enough. Some of this is KD's rotations, but a lot of this is guys coming off the bench and contributing. These guys need to step into the void and give quality minutes and effort when out there. 7 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist to go along with 4 turnovers is not adequate bench production for this team to be successful in the long haul. An area for improvement. The boards: Two things the Zips are doing are naturally counter to being a good rebounding team. #1, they're playing a zone with the big guy patrolling the lane. By definition, if you're in a zone, it's harder to have guys on bodies boxing out when the shot goes up. So zone teams will usually not rebound as well as strictly man teams. #2, with a shot blocker, if you're going to be aggressive in going after blocks, the shot block guy is going to be out of position for the rebound. Larry Nance was never a great guy on the boards because of this. It's going to take some experience and a retraining a bit of the team to adapt to both of these things. Giving up 15 offensive boards to a smaller opponent indicates there's some work remaining. The Rome & Wood front court was an example of a Zips team that blocked a fair amount of shots (Rome) & rebounded well (Wood). So it can be done. Shots for Steve: We all would like to see Steve moved over to the 2 more. That will happen more with Alex's development, but we need to have him involved more I think. One thing that will help our bigs inside is if every perimeter player is viewed as a legitimate outside threat. As far as Brett & Daryll go, they're taking enough shots to maintain that. Steve passing up open looks will allow teams to condense the middle a little more. So I think the Zips need Steve to be a little more aggressive with his shots. Alex developing into a 20 minute guy would help that. The Ugly: Defensive rotation: It seems like the Zips are playing no D right now, but I think it's a consequence of the process KD is going through in adjusting the team to the strength of his talent. We've not had a stud 7' shot blocker as the anchor of the defense before. The Zips have always played primarily man, with the guys who guarded their man best being the 5 on the floor when it matters. Well now, we're seeing more interest in using a 2-3 zone to leverage Zeke's ability to protect the rim. He's getting better at it, and 3 blocks will grow as the year goes on. But what will happen while this process continues, is that the rotations are a bit slow, or they get caught out of position. We saw that a bit tonight, and against Dayton. While it seems like the Zips are getting killed from outside, they're eventually going to win the battle inside the arc and force teams to shoot lights out from outside to beat the Zips. Case in point vs. YSU, the Zips outscored the Penguins 50 to 36 inside the arc. If they can push that advantage and do better on the perimeter rotations, the defense will improve. The Stripe: The Zips shot an anemic 65% from the line as a team, and still made more FT's than YSU attempted. If they shoot a more palatable number, this game is over in regulation. They're not going to shoot 90% as a team, but they need to be above 70 I think. Getting to the line that much is a good indicator of forcing the action at the rim .. but they need to convert. They did when it counted in OT, but regulation wasn't pretty. Turnovers: The Assist:Turnover ratio was better than 2:1 as I recall in the Dayton game, but against YSU, the Zips turned it over 13 times. Many of these were somewhat necessary .. so that number can be lower. I think it will be unusual for the Zips to turn the ball over more than the opposition, but it happened. Speaks to the need for stiffer D. ... And a few comments more: Zeke's higher level near the end of regulation and overtime show us what kind of upside he has. The 2 rebounds at the end were clutch, and driven by heart and effort as much as his size. I absolutely LOVE this guys instincts in these situations to look for and hit the outside guy immediately in one motion. There wasn't any thinking in that situation .. he went after the ball, and got it where it needed to be. He's starting to look for his shot more .. but the thing that I'm liking more and more is his awareness of the defense and ability to pass out of the double teams. These things will make him a monster because hitting a high percentage outside shooter will earn him some more single teams .. and there's not a guy in the league that can check a 7 footer with a soft jump hook. He seems to play pretty well angry as well .. so like Rob Preston before him, perhaps the staff should find a way to get him fired up. The Freshman bigs intrigue me, and I hope they find their groove and can contribute 10-15 minutes consistently before the end of the non-conference. I liked that play were Dakotah got the rebound in traffic and fought it back to the rim immediately without bringing it down. Egner is getting to the line, but needs to sink them. These 2 kids will help the Zips before this season is over. The Crowd was decent for an early game .. seemed lively at the end, and was treated to a good basketball game with a nice tempo and lots of offense. I have to believe a bunch of these people will be back on Wednesday to witness another of these regional rivalry games. Another win on Wednesday may go a long way to pushing the average attendance this season up over last year. They're off and running, and I'm liking what I've seen. Big game Wednesday before a big road trip to 4 solid teams. This schedule will test this team and build it up. I got 'em on .. do you? B) B) Go Zips!

The Zips dodged a bullet last night, and dispatched YSU in overtime, with plenty of good offensive performances to go around. First, the box score (still waiting for StatSheet to get the +/- run .. hopefully that'll be soon. Zips 91 - Penguins 84 Box Score I didn't write any notes down last night, so these are from memory the morning after. With the customary regrets to Sergio Leone, my observations from the JAR: The Good: Took a punch, landed the last one: KD is fond of this concept, and it's growing on me. It's good to know your team can take a punch and get back up and stand in. While this wasn't the toughest adversity the Zips will face this season, I thought it was a nice early season test of the Zips mettle. They never got down more than 5, but YSU didn't just go away. This is an upgrade over some other games where a 5 or 8 point run early in the 2nd half is enough to blow things open. The Zips needed to stay in this mentally the whole way, and they did that. Offense: This will be a strength of the Zips. We saw tonight what can happen when they push the ball inside to start the offense. Career highs from our 2 bigs, and our shooter. These are linked. Brett will continue to see single coverage and good space to work on the perimeter and the mid-range as long as our interior guys are playing well on Offense. This was a nice step for the Offense. Zeke and Nik are showing signs of working well together and appear to have a pretty good sense of where the other one is and what he's going to do. Great to see. The Penguins: Flat out the best Penguins mens team I've seen since a guy name Peters was coaching over there. Not just because they pushed the Zips to the brink. Slocum seems to have turned a corner of sorts. Glad to see it. Hope they go 30-1 and tear the Horizon up. And I hope we continue this series. Career highs: Nice scoring punch from 3 different guys. The inside out was working well and Zeke was good and kept things moving inside out, especially late in the game. It'd be good to see some more career highs in rebounding to go with it. The Bad: Minutes: 38 minutes from the bench is not going to be enough. Some of this is KD's rotations, but a lot of this is guys coming off the bench and contributing. These guys need to step into the void and give quality minutes and effort when out there. 7 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist to go along with 4 turnovers is not adequate bench production for this team to be successful in the long haul. An area for improvement. The boards: Two things the Zips are doing are naturally counter to being a good rebounding team. #1, they're playing a zone with the big guy patrolling the lane. By definition, if you're in a zone, it's harder to have guys on bodies boxing out when the shot goes up. So zone teams will usually not rebound as well as strictly man teams. #2, with a shot blocker, if you're going to be aggressive in going after blocks, the shot block guy is going to be out of position for the rebound. Larry Nance was never a great guy on the boards because of this. It's going to take some experience and a retraining a bit of the team to adapt to both of these things. Giving up 15 offensive boards to a smaller opponent indicates there's some work remaining. The Rome & Wood front court was an example of a Zips team that blocked a fair amount of shots (Rome) & rebounded well (Wood). So it can be done. Shots for Steve: We all would like to see Steve moved over to the 2 more. That will happen more with Alex's development, but we need to have him involved more I think. One thing that will help our bigs inside is if every perimeter player is viewed as a legitimate outside threat. As far as Brett & Daryll go, they're taking enough shots to maintain that. Steve passing up open looks will allow teams to condense the middle a little more. So I think the Zips need Steve to be a little more aggressive with his shots. Alex developing into a 20 minute guy would help that. The Ugly: Defensive rotation: It seems like the Zips are playing no D right now, but I think it's a consequence of the process KD is going through in adjusting the team to the strength of his talent. We've not had a stud 7' shot blocker as the anchor of the defense before. The Zips have always played primarily man, with the guys who guarded their man best being the 5 on the floor when it matters. Well now, we're seeing more interest in using a 2-3 zone to leverage Zeke's ability to protect the rim. He's getting better at it, and 3 blocks will grow as the year goes on. But what will happen while this process continues, is that the rotations are a bit slow, or they get caught out of position. We saw that a bit tonight, and against Dayton. While it seems like the Zips are getting killed from outside, they're eventually going to win the battle inside the arc and force teams to shoot lights out from outside to beat the Zips. Case in point vs. YSU, the Zips outscored the Penguins 50 to 36 inside the arc. If they can push that advantage and do better on the perimeter rotations, the defense will improve. The Stripe: The Zips shot an anemic 65% from the line as a team, and still made more FT's than YSU attempted. If they shoot a more palatable number, this game is over in regulation. They're not going to shoot 90% as a team, but they need to be above 70 I think. Getting to the line that much is a good indicator of forcing the action at the rim .. but they need to convert. They did when it counted in OT, but regulation wasn't pretty. Turnovers: The Assist:Turnover ratio was better than 2:1 as I recall in the Dayton game, but against YSU, the Zips turned it over 13 times. Many of these were somewhat necessary .. so that number can be lower. I think it will be unusual for the Zips to turn the ball over more than the opposition, but it happened. Speaks to the need for stiffer D. ... And a few comments more: Zeke's higher level near the end of regulation and overtime show us what kind of upside he has. The 2 rebounds at the end were clutch, and driven by heart and effort as much as his size. I absolutely LOVE this guys instincts in these situations to look for and hit the outside guy immediately in one motion. There wasn't any thinking in that situation .. he went after the ball, and got it where it needed to be. He's starting to look for his shot more .. but the thing that I'm liking more and more is his awareness of the defense and ability to pass out of the double teams. These things will make him a monster because hitting a high percentage outside shooter will earn him some more single teams .. and there's not a guy in the league that can check a 7 footer with a soft jump hook. He seems to play pretty well angry as well .. so like Rob Preston before him, perhaps the staff should find a way to get him fired up. The Freshman bigs intrigue me, and I hope they find their groove and can contribute 10-15 minutes consistently before the end of the non-conference. I liked that play were Dakotah got the rebound in traffic and fought it back to the rim immediately without bringing it down. Egner is getting to the line, but needs to sink them. These 2 kids will help the Zips before this season is over. The Crowd was decent for an early game .. seemed lively at the end, and was treated to a good basketball game with a nice tempo and lots of offense. I have to believe a bunch of these people will be back on Wednesday to witness another of these regional rivalry games. Another win on Wednesday may go a long way to pushing the average attendance this season up over last year. They're off and running, and I'm liking what I've seen. Big game Wednesday before a big road trip to 4 solid teams. This schedule will test this team and build it up. I got 'em on .. do you? B) B) Go Zips! View the full blog post here.

I'm going to allow RFR44 this ZachTheZip moment in posting. He's owed some latitude due to his excellent work over at the ASN site. Linhart played 19, 21, 29 and 29 minutes per game each year he was hear (from Fresh to Senior). By the end of his Freshman season he was logging 25+ minutes for several games. The end of the year he lost some time due to the injury / concussion late in the season. There's not really any definition I can come up with which validates any notion that Linhart was under utilized. He burst his way into the heart of the lineup as a Freshman .. and he never came out. And I don't recall him even ever having a short leash. There was a tremendous amount of trust w/ Linhart .. between the team and coaches both. So I say .. ERRONEOUS. Go Zips!!

Game thoughts a little bit later, but from my seat, having the band on the opposite end from the more involved / organized rowdies seems to me to be a better arrangement. I'm not commenting on the back struggle that appears to be concerning people, but just from a noise and activity perspective, the band and the south rowdies are active and engaged perhaps just by their numbers. So it was a noticeable change to have loud activity on both ends. I understand that having the band at the Zips end might not be ideal for the Zips themselves. I also figure that the some of the active rowdies are better off near the opposing bench. Just saying it was cool to have both endzones packed with loud fans. Go Zips.

Booked my flights for that trip just the other day.

You see he had a +44 in the game?!

Hey Jupiter, Is anything more known about Coleman & Kellogg (older)? Are they with the team at all? Gone for good?

Didn't miss it at all.

Anyone happen to know Bryan Wood's HS Scoring average or shooting percentage? Love the stats, DiG .. but you have to admit that this is a little bit of a reach. Go Zips! B)

Great early season basketball game tonight by our Zips and the Flyers. Not a win, but an entertaining look into what the team looks like and what we might expect against good D1 competition. Great to have it on TV. From what I saw in the in-game thread, I'm glad I muted the FSN guys and put on Frenchy. So we're off! Another season of dreams is underway. First off, the box score, as presented by StatSheet.Com And with sincere apologies to Sergio Leone, my notes from the game ... The Good: Resiliency: It was a nice recovery to get back into the game (2x) when things appeared to be getting out of hand. I take this as a very good sign of the toughness of the club. They didn't finish the Flyers out, but the also fought to stay in it. For game 1 of the D1 slate, I think this was my key takeaway. Nitro: 21 points on 15 shots in 28 minutes. Can we please stop calling the guy a bust? He's got a ways to go in demonstrate some consistency, but the guy played a nice game on the offensive end. For much of the first half, he was the only offense. Excellent game by Brett tonight. Newcomers: I was very surprised to see Euton drop the redshirt, but not disappointed. You can see the guy knows the game, and gets himself in position to make plays, instead of counting on athleticism. This guy is a basketball player, and will help us this year. 2 for 2 on pop out threes. That's HUGE when you have a big going to work inside at the same time. Abreu was clutch also. Took good care of the ball for the most part against the press. Lost it a few times down the lane, but he seemed comfortable out there overall .. and enabled Steve to move over to the 2 spot, where he found his shot a bit. Nik: Did not shoot well from the field tonight, but 11pts, 10 rebs & 7 assts is a stat stuffing night. He kept his composure and led the team in a lot of ways. He's not going to shoot 20% .. he just isn't. When he starts hitting a more normal rate, this guy will be a load .. especially opposite some other capable bigs. Nice game by Nik tonight. Zeke changes everything: I'm really dying to see the +/- numbers from tonight, because my perception right now is that Zeke must have a pretty good + number. The feel I had was that it really altered things on both ends of the floor. His stats weren't overpowering, but he changed what Dayton did .. drew a double & triple team every time he had the ball, and did a pretty darn good job of passing out of those situations to an open shooter. If he masters that skill of sensing the double and waiting to the right moment to kick out .. our shooters will have open shots, and the number of threes the Zips hit tonight will be the norm. The Zips could very well become a "pick your poison" kind of problem for opposing coaches. Team play on offense: The Zips assisted on 18 of 22 FG's and had only 7 Turnovers against a longer, more athletic team. Read that again. That's a great sign of the state of the offensive execution. The ball is being moved around to the open shooter. There weren't too many forced shots, and they did an adequate job of protecting the possessions. The Bad: They lost: There are no good losses. The Zips got close to a good D1 team on the road. Let them get out to a double digit halftime lead, fought back to lead by a possession or 2, and then gave it back at the end. This is an early season game, but I'm sure KD joins us in wanting to see the team grow to the point where they can sustain that run in the middle of the 2nd half and put Dayton away. Scoring Droughts: CK warned about it today. Some may say jinxed the Zips .. but the droughts reared their ugly head again @ UD Arena. Frankly, with the 10 minutes or so they went without a FG in the first half, it should have been walkon time in the 2nd half. Nik's aggressiveness with the ball got him to the line, and that kept the Zips in it. If the Zips are to be successful in March, they have to find a way to get good looks when Zeke isn't in the game. They can't continue to have these stretches of no offense. Rebounding: The rebound totals were 39-25. You don't need to look at the box score to see that UD had more. The Zips were manhandled on the boards at critical times in the game. Frenchy described a few of the offensive boards as weird spin outs or odd bounces, but for the most part they were due to bad positioning, and/or the Zips guy just not putting a body on the Flyer who eventually snared the board. Exception: in 10 minutes on the floor, Dakotah had 4 boards. That's as much as our 2 centers had in 33 minutes. The Zips can not get beat on the glass by 50% and expect to beat good D1 teams. The Ugly: Foul trouble for Zeke: Gotta keep the big guy on the floor. I can't help but hope the MAC officials call fewer of the bogus freshman ticky tack stuff. His 3rd foul was a joke. It's plain to see that he alters the game. Now the Zips need to find away to keep him on the floor for more than 19 minutes. He plays more in the first half, the deficit is probably half of what it was. Nik survives first season ending injury of the 2010-11 campaign: I remember a practice 2 seasons ago where Nik stopped play rolling around on the floor, only to get back up and be on the court in 2 or 3 minutes. KD was furious at him. Good to see Nik bounce back from his first season ending injury of the year. Bardo on a poster: Let's face it, The Old Spice Guy or George Clooney wouldn't look much better on the Chris Wright poster that's getting readied for sale in the UD bookstore in the morning, let alone Mike Bardo. Mike, you've got to put him on the floor in that situation. Does 2 things: keeps you off the marketing materials for UD sports, and maybe makes the guy a little slower to drive in on you. Live & die by the 3 ball: I have no issue whatsoever with the Zips taking 36 3-balls last night. They made a bunch of them. My struggle with it is only when it starts to happen without any inside action whatsoever. Be it a dribble drive by Abreu (happened a few times) or a dump to a big guy .. the threes fall better off an inside out action. The scoring drought really took hold when there was no inside activity or success in penetrating to force the defense to address the paint. This team can shoot the rock and should shoot it .. but they need the inside out to have more open, higher percentage 3's. ... And a Few Comments More: Love the zone to man switch: French & Dunn made noise about Dayton being confused by the Zone look in the second half .. but I think they missed what KD was doing, and probably what caused UD the most trouble. The Zips have the habit of sitting in that zone for a portion of the shot clock and then quietly slipping back into man. UD never caught on. It's not something you can do all the time, but I expect to see more of it. I really like the look .. and if the Zips can pull it off without losing a man here or there, it should be pretty effective. It causes the opponent to run a different zone set offensively, but gets the Zips back into a man before the shot .. and it's always easier to rebound out of man than it is zone. Chris Wright: This guy killed the Zips. I think he might be the best player the Zips have faced under KD. I've not had a ton of time to think about it, but there's not been a guy in the MAC even close to this guy in the last 6 or 7 years. Maynor for VCU was pretty tough. Lots of athletes on URI last year .. but at the moment, Wright stands apart in my mind. I can see clearly how and why he's on the Wooden and Naismith watch lists. Team unity:In the ZTVsports post game video, a comment by KD stood out: "we get along." That was nice to see today. There didn't seem to be any conflict internally that was visible on the court. The guys seem to be on the same page. There weren't a bunch of TO's due to complete mis-communication, as we've seen in the past. I think this bodes well for the season. Can't wait to see more. My appetite for Zips hoops is officially whetted. This was a good competitive game. The offense is turned up from last year .. and now they need to get the D in line with KD's expectations. The potential is here for a really strong season, not just one waiting for the 4 horsemen to be able to join them. That's what I got. There's probably more. B) B) Get 'em on Zips fans! Go Zips!

Great early season basketball game tonight by our Zips and the Flyers. Not a win, but an entertaining look into what the team looks like and what we might expect against good D1 competition. Great to have it on TV. From what I saw in the in-game thread, I'm glad I muted the FSN guys and put on Frenchy. So we're off! Another season of dreams is underway. First off, the box score, as presented by StatSheet.Com And with sincere apologies to Sergio Leone, my notes from the game ... The Good: Resiliency: It was a nice recovery to get back into the game (2x) when things appeared to be getting out of hand. I take this as a very good sign of the toughness of the club. They didn't finish the Flyers out, but the also fought to stay in it. For game 1 of the D1 slate, I think this was my key takeaway. Nitro: 21 points on 15 shots in 28 minutes. Can we please stop calling the guy a bust? He's got a ways to go in demonstrate some consistency, but the guy played a nice game on the offensive end. For much of the first half, he was the only offense. Excellent game by Brett tonight. Newcomers: I was very surprised to see Euton drop the redshirt, but not disappointed. You can see the guy knows the game, and gets himself in position to make plays, instead of counting on athleticism. This guy is a basketball player, and will help us this year. 2 for 2 on pop out threes. That's HUGE when you have a big going to work inside at the same time. Abreu was clutch also. Took good care of the ball for the most part against the press. Lost it a few times down the lane, but he seemed comfortable out there overall .. and enabled Steve to move over to the 2 spot, where he found his shot a bit. Nik: Did not shoot well from the field tonight, but 11pts, 10 rebs & 7 assts is a stat stuffing night. He kept his composure and led the team in a lot of ways. He's not going to shoot 20% .. he just isn't. When he starts hitting a more normal rate, this guy will be a load .. especially opposite some other capable bigs. Nice game by Nik tonight. Zeke changes everything: I'm really dying to see the +/- numbers from tonight, because my perception right now is that Zeke must have a pretty good + number. The feel I had was that it really altered things on both ends of the floor. His stats weren't overpowering, but he changed what Dayton did .. drew a double & triple team every time he had the ball, and did a pretty darn good job of passing out of those situations to an open shooter. If he masters that skill of sensing the double and waiting to the right moment to kick out .. our shooters will have open shots, and the number of threes the Zips hit tonight will be the norm. The Zips could very well become a "pick your poison" kind of problem for opposing coaches. Team play on offense: The Zips assisted on 18 of 22 FG's and had only 7 Turnovers against a longer, more athletic team. Read that again. That's a great sign of the state of the offensive execution. The ball is being moved around to the open shooter. There weren't too many forced shots, and they did an adequate job of protecting the possessions. The Bad: They lost: There are no good losses. The Zips got close to a good D1 team on the road. Let them get out to a double digit halftime lead, fought back to lead by a possession or 2, and then gave it back at the end. This is an early season game, but I'm sure KD joins us in wanting to see the team grow to the point where they can sustain that run in the middle of the 2nd half and put Dayton away. Scoring Droughts: CK warned about it today. Some may say jinxed the Zips .. but the droughts reared their ugly head again @ UD Arena. Frankly, with the 10 minutes or so they went without a FG in the first half, it should have been walkon time in the 2nd half. Nik's aggressiveness with the ball got him to the line, and that kept the Zips in it. If the Zips are to be successful in March, they have to find a way to get good looks when Zeke isn't in the game. They can't continue to have these stretches of no offense. Rebounding: The rebound totals were 39-25. You don't need to look at the box score to see that UD had more. The Zips were manhandled on the boards at critical times in the game. Frenchy described a few of the offensive boards as weird spin outs or odd bounces, but for the most part they were due to bad positioning, and/or the Zips guy just not putting a body on the Flyer who eventually snared the board. Exception: in 10 minutes on the floor, Dakotah had 4 boards. That's as much as our 2 centers had in 33 minutes. The Zips can not get beat on the glass by 50% and expect to beat good D1 teams. The Ugly: Foul trouble for Zeke: Gotta keep the big guy on the floor. I can't help but hope the MAC officials call fewer of the bogus freshman ticky tack stuff. His 3rd foul was a joke. It's plain to see that he alters the game. Now the Zips need to find away to keep him on the floor for more than 19 minutes. He plays more in the first half, the deficit is probably half of what it was. Nik survives first season ending injury of the 2010-11 campaign: I remember a practice 2 seasons ago where Nik stopped play rolling around on the floor, only to get back up and be on the court in 2 or 3 minutes. KD was furious at him. Good to see Nik bounce back from his first season ending injury of the year. Bardo on a poster: Let's face it, The Old Spice Guy or George Clooney wouldn't look much better on the Chris Wright poster that's getting readied for sale in the UD bookstore in the morning, let alone Mike Bardo. Mike, you've got to put him on the floor in that situation. Does 2 things: keeps you off the marketing materials for UD sports, and maybe makes the guy a little slower to drive in on you. Live & die by the 3 ball: I have no issue whatsoever with the Zips taking 36 3-balls last night. They made a bunch of them. My struggle with it is only when it starts to happen without any inside action whatsoever. Be it a dribble drive by Abreu (happened a few times) or a dump to a big guy .. the threes fall better off an inside out action. The scoring drought really took hold when there was no inside activity or success in penetrating to force the defense to address the paint. This team can shoot the rock and should shoot it .. but they need the inside out to have more open, higher percentage 3's. ... And a Few Comments More: Love the zone to man switch: French & Dunn made noise about Dayton being confused by the Zone look in the second half .. but I think they missed what KD was doing, and probably what caused UD the most trouble. The Zips have the habit of sitting in that zone for a portion of the shot clock and then quietly slipping back into man. UD never caught on. It's not something you can do all the time, but I expect to see more of it. I really like the look .. and if the Zips can pull it off without losing a man here or there, it should be pretty effective. It causes the opponent to run a different zone set offensively, but gets the Zips back into a man before the shot .. and it's always easier to rebound out of man than it is zone. Chris Wright: This guy killed the Zips. I think he might be the best player the Zips have faced under KD. I've not had a ton of time to think about it, but there's not been a guy in the MAC even close to this guy in the last 6 or 7 years. Maynor for VCU was pretty tough. Lots of athletes on URI last year .. but at the moment, Wright stands apart in my mind. I can see clearly how and why he's on the Wooden and Naismith watch lists. Team unity:In the ZTVsports post game video, a comment by KD stood out: "we get along." That was nice to see today. There didn't seem to be any conflict internally that was visible on the court. The guys seem to be on the same page. There weren't a bunch of TO's due to complete mis-communication, as we've seen in the past. I think this bodes well for the season. Can't wait to see more. My appetite for Zips hoops is officially whetted. This was a good competitive game. The offense is turned up from last year .. and now they need to get the D in line with KD's expectations. The potential is here for a really strong season, not just one waiting for the 4 horsemen to be able to join them. That's what I got. There's probably more. B) B) Get 'em on Zips fans! Go Zips! View the full blog post here.

Finding the pony in the smelly room .. to be down only 11 after the drought they had against a good team is a positive sign. They could easily be down 20. Euton hits a big shot. Have to guess kd is not counting on b mck to be back soon if Euton has pulled off the redshirt.