Zip Watcher

That should be 6 games in 3 sessions.

I'm with you. I wasn't suggesting it was you with an axe to grind. B) Go Zips!

This is the only thing you're missing:

Do you think the Roundhouse has the U?

That is awesome.

Which one's McFadden in the image? Not sure I recognize that picture of Rick.

So with roughly 20 games left in his Zips career, he needs 4 BPG to get to a smooth 400. B) B)

I hope Stalyga gets at least 4 shots up.

I think it's safe to say everyone here recognizes JSF aka OZoner and his long time posting, including these power ranks. Also, there's protections to prevent new users from posting spam links .. etc. No need to hand wring about how he posts his links.

Nice! What would it say on the back? @Trying2HoldThisTogether @GottaMakeMyBonus @ConferenceCollapsingOnMyWatch @OuijaWDaveGavitt

How is the Iowa situation different than the Winston-Salem St. uniforms a few years ago when all the jerseys had "Gaines" on the back, in honor of their recently-passed coach / AD? The NCAA is a bunch of stooges.

Hello again ZipsNation. I hope everyone reading this has had a good holiday season. So the Zips completed the first third of the conference portion of the 12-13 slate last night, and I thought now was as good a time as any to take a step back and look at where things stand. Due to circumstances, I missed the MTSU, CSU and Ball St. games in person. Listened to CSU, caught the MTSU game on the feed with French in the background. So with the usual apologies to Sergio Leone, here goes: The Good: Zeke, Zeke and More ZEKE: Lots of discussion here at ZN.O and elsewhere that Zeke is turning a bit of a corner after the Creighton game. Hard to argue with that sentiment when you look at his last 3-5 games. He has been dominant defensively, and more importantly AGGRESSIVE on offense. If he keeps his current mindset and goes Conyers for his senior season, we're looking at the MAC POY and a 1st round draft pick. Get after it big fella .. it's great to watch the new mindset with Zeke. Pounding it in: Once upon a time, the Zips had some Wood in the post, and they put the ball inside on nearly every possession to start the offense. Now, the Zips appear to have the whole Tree. I absolutely love the aggressive, simple nature of the offense the past few games. A month ago, they weren't really sure what they were running. Lately, it's come up the court, make some space, and drop the ball to the blocks. Ever since about the Princeton game, the Zips have done a great job of initiating the offense inside. Extending the D: Shaka has apparently finally convinced KD to stretch the D, and we've seen it in spurts, especially against CSU. It's a powerful tool that will no doubt improve as the year goes on. It didn't affect Princeton much, but I think it will pay dividends against some of the less disciplined teams the Zips will face in the MAC. The horses are there, let's get some easy buckets, right? This also goes for their ability to stretch the defense on the perimeter in the half court, which made the difference against U@B. Athletic size rules: KD is using almost 80 minutes a game between Zeke, Tree, Harney and Forsythe. All 4 guys are shooting near or above 50% from the field, and Zeke is almost at 70%. Harney is the low man @ 47%, but he's taking more outside looks than the remaining 3 combined. I recognize that these were "puffed up" in the bakery portion of the schedule .. but I can't see how MAC teams will defend that. If the Zips remain committed to pushing the ball low and going at the rim with these 4 guys, what's the defense? I guess we're going to start seeing 2-3 zones from teams that ordinarily don't run them, in an effort to prevent the entry pass? A question to ponder as the MAC season continues: Which other post players in the ENTIRE LEAGUE would you trade for with any of our 4 bigs? I can think of maybe one off hand .. but would love to hear from you about that. The Bad: Getting down early is a habit the team should try and rid themselves of. Even sitting in the JAR on Saturday, I'd have told anyone that I figured the Zips would still cover. The talent on this team is just so strong that I never felt they'd let it get away. My point here is that it's a dangerous game to play to always get down and then believe the switch can be thrown. On one hand, the testicular fortitude shown to dig these past two Saturday games out will serve the Zips well down the road, but on the other .. it'd be good to see the Zips approach the full 40 minutes they played against CSU and Princeton. I'd love to see the Zips get back to building some momentum early and not needing a big 10+ point swing late in the 2nd half. 40 minutes of D hasn't really happened yet, at least in conference play. Frankly, it'll be ugly for whoever it happens against. The Zips have shown in spurts the ability to take teams out of what they want to do .. but my sense is that the team D this year isn't as good as it can be .. and isn't as good as it's going to be a month from now. Rolling out the 1-1-3 yesterday to squash the Canadians was cool. I don't want to parrot KD, but being able to do different things on D will be good down the road. The Ugly: The FT stripe is perhaps one of the areas where an improvement would really help the team put teams away. The Can't game wouldn't have been a contest if the Zips weren't so awful at the line that day. There isn't any reason it won't get better, but it needs to happen. Missing 1 of 3 is way too many. I'd like to see the Zips pick up 10% in the stat. At the moment it looks like FT shooting could cost them a game at some point this season. Opponents aren't really outscoring the Zips at the line, but I feel like if this team can shoot 46+% from the field, they can do better at the line. It might make a difference later in the year. TO's: As in prior years, I still feel this is an area for improvment. The Zips tend to gather TO's in bunches. The baseline out of bounds plays against U@B are good examples of plays that can kill runs. Said this last year too: If a guy is 7' tall, has probably almost an 8' wingspan, and is athletic enough to really jump .. how is it that 2-3 times a game, a ball gets thrown over his head either out of bounds or to a defender. On the same topic, I think that Carmello has made strides within the past week in this department. Against U@B particularly he played one or 2 key shifts where he effectively ran the half court set, defended his guy well, and protected the rock. I'm more and more comfortable with him long term as the Zips' PG .. and if he continues this short term trend, he'll be fine by the time the MAC Tournament for providing 8-10 minutes. ... And a few Comments More: Tree: He's been a real beast lately. I haven't looked specifically, but he must be the MAC's leading rebounder, right? Is Zeke a lock to retain his Defensive POY trophy? 4 Freshman contributing in the top 11 on this team still blows me away. And if Carmello continues to settle down, all 4 will be factors. This youth would really bother me if I was a less fortunate fan of any other MAC school. That's before they even see what comes next. Put them on Zips fans! Buckle up .. it's going to be a great ride! B) B) B) Go Zips! Better yet, go get yourself one of these:

Hello again ZipsNation. I hope everyone reading this has had a good holiday season. So the Zips completed the first third of the conference portion of the 12-13 slate last night, and I thought now was as good a time as any to take a step back and look at where things stand. Due to circumstances, I missed the MTSU, CSU and Ball St. games in person. Listened to CSU, caught the MTSU game on the feed with French in the background. So with the usual apologies to Sergio Leone, here goes: The Good: Zeke, Zeke and More ZEKE: Lots of discussion here at ZN.O and elsewhere that Zeke is turning a bit of a corner after the Creighton game. Hard to argue with that sentiment when you look at his last 3-5 games. He has been dominant defensively, and more importantly AGGRESSIVE on offense. If he keeps his current mindset and goes Conyers for his senior season, we're looking at the MAC POY and a 1st round draft pick. Get after it big fella .. it's great to watch the new mindset with Zeke. Pounding it in: Once upon a time, the Zips had some Wood in the post, and they put the ball inside on nearly every possession to start the offense. Now, the Zips appear to have the whole Tree. I absolutely love the aggressive, simple nature of the offense the past few games. A month ago, they weren't really sure what they were running. Lately, it's come up the court, make some space, and drop the ball to the blocks. Ever since about the Princeton game, the Zips have done a great job of initiating the offense inside. Extending the D: Shaka has apparently finally convinced KD to stretch the D, and we've seen it in spurts, especially against CSU. It's a powerful tool that will no doubt improve as the year goes on. It didn't affect Princeton much, but I think it will pay dividends against some of the less disciplined teams the Zips will face in the MAC. The horses are there, let's get some easy buckets, right? This also goes for their ability to stretch the defense on the perimeter in the half court, which made the difference against U@B. Athletic size rules: KD is using almost 80 minutes a game between Zeke, Tree, Harney and Forsythe. All 4 guys are shooting near or above 50% from the field, and Zeke is almost at 70%. Harney is the low man @ 47%, but he's taking more outside looks than the remaining 3 combined. I recognize that these were "puffed up" in the bakery portion of the schedule .. but I can't see how MAC teams will defend that. If the Zips remain committed to pushing the ball low and going at the rim with these 4 guys, what's the defense? I guess we're going to start seeing 2-3 zones from teams that ordinarily don't run them, in an effort to prevent the entry pass? A question to ponder as the MAC season continues: Which other post players in the ENTIRE LEAGUE would you trade for with any of our 4 bigs? I can think of maybe one off hand .. but would love to hear from you about that. The Bad: Getting down early is a habit the team should try and rid themselves of. Even sitting in the JAR on Saturday, I'd have told anyone that I figured the Zips would still cover. The talent on this team is just so strong that I never felt they'd let it get away. My point here is that it's a dangerous game to play to always get down and then believe the switch can be thrown. On one hand, the testicular fortitude shown to dig these past two Saturday games out will serve the Zips well down the road, but on the other .. it'd be good to see the Zips approach the full 40 minutes they played against CSU and Princeton. I'd love to see the Zips get back to building some momentum early and not needing a big 10+ point swing late in the 2nd half. 40 minutes of D hasn't really happened yet, at least in conference play. Frankly, it'll be ugly for whoever it happens against. The Zips have shown in spurts the ability to take teams out of what they want to do .. but my sense is that the team D this year isn't as good as it can be .. and isn't as good as it's going to be a month from now. Rolling out the 1-1-3 yesterday to squash the Canadians was cool. I don't want to parrot KD, but being able to do different things on D will be good down the road. The Ugly: The FT stripe is perhaps one of the areas where an improvement would really help the team put teams away. The Can't game wouldn't have been a contest if the Zips weren't so awful at the line that day. There isn't any reason it won't get better, but it needs to happen. Missing 1 of 3 is way too many. I'd like to see the Zips pick up 10% in the stat. At the moment it looks like FT shooting could cost them a game at some point this season. Opponents aren't really outscoring the Zips at the line, but I feel like if this team can shoot 46+% from the field, they can do better at the line. It might make a difference later in the year. TO's: As in prior years, I still feel this is an area for improvment. The Zips tend to gather TO's in bunches. The baseline out of bounds plays against U@B are good examples of plays that can kill runs. Said this last year too: If a guy is 7' tall, has probably almost an 8' wingspan, and is athletic enough to really jump .. how is it that 2-3 times a game, a ball gets thrown over his head either out of bounds or to a defender. On the same topic, I think that Carmello has made strides within the past week in this department. Against U@B particularly he played one or 2 key shifts where he effectively ran the half court set, defended his guy well, and protected the rock. I'm more and more comfortable with him long term as the Zips' PG .. and if he continues this short term trend, he'll be fine by the time the MAC Tournament for providing 8-10 minutes. ... And a few Comments More: Tree: He's been a real beast lately. I haven't looked specifically, but he must be the MAC's leading rebounder, right? Is Zeke a lock to retain his Defensive POY trophy? 4 Freshman contributing in the top 11 on this team still blows me away. And if Carmello continues to settle down, all 4 will be factors. This youth would really bother me if I was a less fortunate fan of any other MAC school. That's before they even see what comes next. Put them on Zips fans! Buckle up .. it's going to be a great ride! B) B) B) Go Zips! Better yet, go get yourself one of these: View the full blog post here.

This kind of game is a big problem for any hopes of a MAC team getting an at large. Can't have headlines like this .. worse if it's twice in one season.

This.

I think if you go back in the records ( .. DiG in 3 .. 2 .. 1 ..), you'll find that Rick has one of the highest 3 point percentages of any Zips player over the past 10+ years. At least back to Faulkner, I think Rick is #1 or 2. Regardless of that, they still make him sit on the floor when he's on Joe & KD's TV show.

Absolutely. Loved that guy!

Updated today to reflect the departure of Josh Egner. I'll update again with any other "official" changes. Go Zips!

That's a pretty apt description right about now. I have to say I'm faced with really mixed emotions as this plays out. As a student of UConn in the early 90's, I got to enjoy some really exciting hoops .. even though Jimmy Calhoun hadn't quite figured things out yet. Ask me sometime how many UConn teams could beat the 94 team with Marshall and Ray Allen together. On the other hand, I LOVE good college hoops, and I think a high level CYO league like the one that's about to materialize will generate some great hoops. If they can somehow breathe life into DePaul .. it could be awesome. FWIW, I'd take Detroit Mercy in over Creighton, and maybe Duquesne also. They need to learn the lesson about spreading too thin .. and Providence to Omaha for a softball game is pretty darn far. Adding the Pittsburgh and Detroit markets seems better to me. Creighton might also be wise to stay as the big dog in the Valley. But UConn made it's bed, or crapped in it's bed, about 10 years ago when they set into motion the move to 1-A football. It was a money chasing event .. it's probably been profitable for the past several years (not probably .. most definitely) .. and now it lands them in no man's land. There's an editorial in the Courant today which wraps up by saying (paraphrasing) .. "the Big East music has stopped, and only UConn is without a chair." In the middle of my time there, I think in 92 or 93 .. there was a significant budget crisis in the University. It faced something like a $3-5 million shortfall unless significant restructuring was done. The administration floated the notion of eliminating the School of Allied Health, which I think was comprised of PT, OT and maybe one other. The logic, not entirely flawed, was that it was one of the more expensive departments on campus, due in part to a big expense:student ratio. The projected savings was close to what was needed. The problem in most of our eyes, was that across campus was a football program that very few if anyone gave a crap about losing about $5million per year. The editorial board of the Daily Campus figured this out, and it was a hot topic. Now, this being just about when the internets were invented, I'm not sure what the methodology was at the time, but a poll of the undergraduate student body found that a majority preferred to end football before touching Allied Health. Long story short, they found the funds .. kept all programs. I still think they should have killed football, or left it alone. If they left it alone, they'd still have been at the teat of the BCS money with the Big East, and now they'd be talking about 8 Big East teams moving forward without FB. At the end of the day, even this Basketball Guy knows that FB rules the roost in the TV dollars. And as the stories GP1 has been sharing with us show .. the AD's & Presidents are going to chase dollars. Whatever. Incredibly the MAC seems to strengthen its position just by standing still. If NIU can somehow keep it tight in Miami .. it will further do so. It needs to find its way back down to 12 teams I think. Go Zips. Crush the Titans. B) B)

There's something to your argument, but you lose me at "viewership." The Big Ten isn't adding these teams for "viewership." They're adding these teams because they're in markets (read: states) which don't currently have the Big Ten Network. Adding new states to the mix adds "subscribership" .. I don't really think they're into viewership as much as subscribership. Fans will demand the BTN if their teams are all on that network, the cable systems will ultimately capitulate, and millions of other people in the state who don't care for the turtle will be paying the BTN a $ or 2 per month since they live in MD and have a TV.

I'm astounded that we have 4 newcomers on this team who are forcing themselves into the rotation on the Zips. There were some losses from last year, but for all 4 of these guys to be commanding minutes blows me away. Offensive talent looks really good. What this season will turn on might be having someone step forward as a great on-the-ball defender at the wing position. Q had that role. Who's gonna be the (defensive) Linhart / Conyers on this team? First five games tell me something: Tree & Harney are pretty darned important to the success of this club. Especially Tree. Seems like we have a few "combustable" guys on the roster, even in the absence of Q. Chauncey's explosion in the UNCA game was nice to see. He's a guy that cares a ton about how his team does. Nice to see him bounce back. We know Harney can explode. I think the two frosh shooters if left alone have the capability too. Zeke looking good. It's really a case this year of managing him from an emotional perspective. When he's aggressive and feeling good about himself .. he fouls less and controls games more. Not the first college basketball player with this challenge. Won't be the last. Nice to see the full & 3/4 court pressing. That will crush some teams, and wear down some others. There's maybe 3 or 4 teams in the MAC that might be able to beat the Zips this season, but most of them will need help from the Zips to do so. OT. Did anyone catch the score of the YSU-Georgia game? Slocum turning the corner there, and we're not playing them? Is there a harder corner to turn in college basketball? I hope they win every single game. From the little I've been able to read, GP1 seems to be in the flow of some highly thought out and worthwile posts. Don't waste it ZipsNation. I'm contemplating searching Ebay for a welder's mask. Go Zips! Hope everyone is well and prospering. B) B) View the full blog post here.

Updated today to reflect the current reality. Go Zips B) B)

Updated today to reflect the announcement that BJ Gladden has committed to the Zips. Also showing Walsh as a Senior for now based on varied reports that this is the case. Forsythe shown as a Freshmen, since the NCAA ruling on whether or not he can play this season shouldn't affect his ability to get the lost year back from his injury shortened season at WVU. Saw something where Egner got a medical redshirt .. haven't heard or seen anything about Ibitayo. Per the general rules, he may be eligible. For now he is shown as a Sophomore .. I guess he could be a Freshmen. Hope everyone is well and thriving. Go Zips.

Agree entirely .. you should be over .500 in your league. Go Zips!

None taken.