Quickzips

UA and UB are the two best teams in the conference right now. No doubt in my mind about that. What order you want to put them in is up to you. UB has the win head to head. UA has the better record. Ball State is the best team in the West (sorry EMU), but I still don't see a team from them that is ready to compete with the powerhouses of the East. At best they can maybe go 3-3. Outside of Ball State nobody in the West is worth mentioning in the same breath as the top 3-4 teams in the East. Unfortunately 1 or 2 of them may well end up stealing an early round by simply based on the fact that even a mediocre West team is going to have a stellar record because of how weak their conference schedule ends up. Ohio can get hot on any night and run a team out of the gym from the 3 line, but they are wildly inconsistent, have no real threat in the post and the idea that they are the deepest team in the league is absolutely laughable. Can't is a team in absolute disarray. There is no leadership on that team at all. Their depth is suspect on good days and without Justin Greene they have nobody in their frontcourt that can even come close to matching up against the bigs that Akron, Buffalo and others can run out on the floor.

Just back from the game. What a tale of two halves. At one point we made a 23 point swing of it from down 8 to up 15. That is pretty incredible. I can only dream of what would have been if everyone had been healthy and out of trouble during the OOC season. This team is legit. I don't think I am the only one right now absolutely salivating over having Harney and Tree for three more seasons. The last time the Zips had two youngsters in the front court come through with this much talent was Wood and Romeo. Although both were good, those teams never quite lived up to all the potential they showed early on. Let's hope Nick and Tree can stay out of trouble, keep their grades up, stay healthy and keep developing. They could well form the best frontcourt in MAC history before it is all said and done. Can't State hoops as a whole is in big BIG trouble. When Justin Greene isn't in the game they have absolutely noone worth a wooden nickle in the post. Greene got in some foul trouble and the Zips just hammered that team inside and out. Greene is a senior this year, and they don't have anyone on their roster, or any notable recruits coming in to take his place. I know better than to count Can't out, as we've all predicted their eventual demise as a program many times before only to watch some JUCO nobody come on the scene and tear it up, but things are not looking good in Portage County. Frenchy mentioned on the postgame that everyone who played for the Zips tonight had at least 5 points. Harney was obviously the offensive story of the night, but that kind of diversity on offense make this team a lot of fun to watch. Have to give a big shout out to Q as well. He had a rough first half, but was absolutely brilliant in the second. His consecutive 3's to draw us back even with Can't were a thing of beauty, and he had probably his best game running the point all year. Disagree about the idea of starting Harney. There isn't another team in the conference who has a scorer like him coming off the bench. Huge advantage for the Zips. As long as the starters are playing fairly well let's not mess with the rotation. 4-1 the first time through the East. I will take that any day. Bring on the cupcakes...I mean the MAC West.

OU is down six with 3 minutes left at home against Miami right now. The once mighty Bobcats are dangerously close to dropping to 2-3 in the conference. If Miami hangs on, BG beats Buffalo at home and the Zips take care of business over Can't then Akron comes out of the first swing through the East with a 2 game lead.

Guess I spoke too soon on the better defense. Someone needs to teach these guys to put a body on someone and box out for the rebounds. This isn't rocket science. When the ball goes up, get your rear end between the rim and a Buffalo player. We seem to think that because we are long and athletic we can just out jump/reach everyone. Buffalo is killing us on the boards simply by getting good position and playing fundamentally sound.

It looks like KD got their attention at the half. Much better defense the first four minutes here.

Alex in foul trouble isn't helping us right now, but the problems were bigger than that in the first half. If the Zips can't defend the rim in the second half the Bulls WILL win this one. Gotta tighten up the screws.

Our defense is pitiful right now. KD is going to tear these guys a new one in the halftime locker room.

Zeke still struggling to defend the pick and roll. The Bulls are beating us to death with it.

Buffalo is going to be a tough out for us for one simple reason. Unlike most every other team in the conference, they have the horses to match up with us in the paint. McCrae and Watt are perfectly capable of going toe to toe with our frontcourt, which I maintain is the real strength of this team and coming out on top. The problem for Buffalo, they have no depth. Titus Robinson is their only real big coming off the bench, and he isn't a whole lot to write home about. I don't expect the Zips to have too much trouble with Filzen who is mostly a 3 point specialist (92 of129 FG attempts this year from beyond the arch). The Zips defend the 3 as well as anyone in the conference, and they showed it against OU. Keeping the rotten meat (Oldham) in check could be the key to the game. I would look to see Diggs on him a lot more than Abreu as at 6'3" he is a tough matchup for the 5'10" Alex. I expect this one to go a lot like the last 3. Buffalo will lead early by as much as 8-10. The Zips depth will wear them down as it goes along. I'll say Zips by 5.

OU has a lot of offensive options. Cooper and Baltic refuse to give the ball up. Nick Kellog is one of the best pure shooters in the league. He got half the shots that Baltic and Cooper did. Walter Offutt has proven himself an effective scorer in a variety of different ways. He only got 7 shots. This is absolutely poor coaching on Groce's behalf. I really don't understand all the praise for Baltic in this thread. The guy played an absolutely miserable game. He made a couple shots early on Zeke and the rest of the game he was a black hole. Every time he got the ball he started trying to run all of these crazy spin moves, pivots, reverses and up fakes. Every time Zeke stayed at home, moved his feet well, and the play ended with Ivo taking a wild shot that had zero chance of going in. Dude was 5-17 from the field last night and pulled down only 3 boards. Nothing at all impressive about that. He needs to learn to pass the ball out of the post once in a while.

Not sure who the newb is. As for Egner. He's behind Zeke, Nikola, Tree and Harney on the depth chart. The Zips are big, talented and deep up front. Unfortunatly for Josh he isn't quite the caliber of player that those other 4 are. He'd probably be starting at a lot of other programs in this conference, if not playing major minutes, but here he is the 5th best big we have, and there just isn't enough minutes to go around. If he's patient and works hard he should take over some of Nikola's minutes next year.

Just back from the game. If this one doesn't take things to a new level with the rivalry I don't know what will. This is getting to be as heated as the Can't games. Love that the Zips made me look good with the smack I've been talking on OU. Not at all impressed with the Bobcats. If you're patient and don't fold under their pressure D you can get anything you want against them. Their frontcourt is probably the worst in the East. Harney and Tree would start for them. Heck, Egner and C.J. Oldham would probably see major minutes on that team. Their only recourse inside was to try and muscle Zeke, Nik, Tree and Harney off their spots, but the refs weren't going for it at all. Don't even get me started on Cooper. Most selfish player in the MAC. Here is a guy shooting sub-40% from the field, something like 25% from 3 and he's taking contested shots all over the court. I think Frenchie stated on the postgame that DJ went something like 2-15 tonight. That isn't a PG, that is a selfish ball hog. As for our guys, can't say enough about Zeke's performance. He fought hard for position in the post all night, and was rewarded with the calls (for once in his career). Harney was a game changer in the minutes he had, and Tree was an absolute terror on the boards. Alex had a rough night, but managed to hit a few key shots down the stretch. Not sure what is up with Q. I have no idea why he feels the need to get a word in every time things get chippy. Keep your mouth shut and go work on your FT shooting Q. It was nice to see Nitro step up and have a solid game as well. 3-0 in the MAC. If we can somehow steal a win against Buffalo and hold serve at home against Can't.....

I guess you have to take a win no matter how you get it, but man these are two ugly ones in a row. Thank god for Nick Harney. Gotta come out of the locker room with a LOT more energy if we expect to keep this winning streak going.

This team absolutely didn't come to play. Nobody is rebounding, the ball movement is sloppy, we can't defend the pick and roll to save our life. Zeke is back to slopping the ball the rim when he gets it in the low post. Abreu is forcing everything leading to plenty of TO's. Not a good night.

I sure hope the rest of the league doesn't see this tape. BG is putting on a clinic in how to attack Zeke on the offensive end. The big guy simply cannot defend the high pick and roll. That little PG Crawford is picking him apart.

Memo to the BG video production staff: Having the scoreboard, game clock and shot clock on the video feed is much appreciated to your viewers. Show the game action while the game is going. Save the replays for timeouts.

The Zips rebounding effort is flat out embarrasing right now. BG has 3 put-back dunks in this game. Unacceptable. If I'm KD it's time to send a message to Zeke, Nik, etc. Get Egner and the rest of the bench in there in the frontcourt for the rest of the half.

Whats even more surprising. Toledo is one of them.

I'd say it is a little of both. OU is being exposed for what they are. A talented backcourt without a frontcourt to match up and too reliant on the 3 ball. On the other hand. BGSU has quietly put together a nice roster. Their backcourt is a little undersized, and they are a little inexperienced. But this team also went on the road and nearly handed Georgia a loss and did take down Temple earlier in the year. Like I said above, anyone sleeping on the Falcons right now is doing so at their own risk.

Anybody sleeping on the Zips and Bulls while getting enamored with Can't State and Ohio is making a huge mistake. For that matter, anyone who isn't paying attention to what is happening at BG is going to be in for a big surprise. Can't State and OU are NOT the best teams in the conference, or even the best teams in the East.

My opinion: Diggs has struggled when asked to run the point at times this year. He's been able to do it somewhat effectively in spurts, but in those games when Alex has been injured and he's been asked to be the primary ball-handler for the majority of the game he has struggled and the numbers reflect that. He's been coming off the bench in large part because we needed some players with experience and ball-handling ability coming off of the bench. Walsh and Gilliam weren't cutting it as the "leaders" of the 2nd unit, which is why they are now starting and Q and Nitro are coming off of the bench. A starting lineup with Q and Nitro in there along with Nik, Zeke and Alex leaves all first year players coming off of the bench. As much talent as we have in the first year players, the lack of experience would be a significant detriment. Q's game picks up when he is on the floor with Alex because of the matchup problems that particular lineup creates. It is tough for defenses to stay in front of either of those guys individually. Put them both on the floor together and you have a real difficult time trying to defend them. When Alex isn't on the floor, Q tends to be the only guy out there that can consistently break down a defense from the perimeter. Our opponents know that, and they key on Q. Q doesn't quite do as good of a job responding to that as Alex does. This tends to result in more turnovers from Q and at times poor shot selection.

+1. Can't get too caught up in the box score of a Miami game or the appearance on the floor. This is a different type of basketball than almost every other team in the country plays. It isn't going to look like a "normal" game. A few other thoughts on last night: I definitley felt like I watched Zeke regress significantly last night. More than the box score, the lack of scoring or the lack of rebounds, I saw the same body language out of him on the court that we saw for the last two years. He wasn't engaged. He pouted after poor plays. He wasn't demanding the ball in the low post. Still waiting for the big "breakout" we've all been expecting. Those of you wanting to see less of Nitro are starting to get your wish. Last night Brett got only 14 minutes off the bench while Walsh played 28 and got virtually all of the minutes in crunch time. I'm sure it didn't hurt that Walsh was hitting his shots and playing pretty decent defense. I personally expect this trend to continue. Walsh is every bit the 3 point shooter that McClanahan is, but he also has the ability to hit the mid range jumper and do some good things moving to the basket. Harney had 11 points in 10 minutse on the floor last night. I know KD still has him on a bit of a short leash, and I know we are deep at the forward positions, but this kid is going to have to start getting more than 10 minutes per night pretty soon here. We have to find more ways to get him on the floor. I am really concerned about the BG game coming up Wednesday night. BG plays a really good zone defense (just ask OU), and the Zips continue to struggle against the zone. When Miami went to the zone in the first half the Zips offense completely died. KD better spend a good amount of practice time the next few days working on how to break down a 2/3 zone. If not that BG game is going to be mighty ugly.

Stats from the OU/BG game: Rebounding: Ohio - 26 BG - 34 Ohio shot 4/20 (20%) fromt he point land, taking over a third of their shots from behind the arch. Ohio lost by 10 despite getting 15 steals and turning BG over 20 times. 5'6" Dee Brown for BG had 4 rebounds while OU's "best big man" Ivo Baltic only grabbed 3. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I am not impressed at all by OU. Not saying they can't get hot on any given night from 3 point range and run a team out of the gym (like they did Northern Iowa), but they lack size, discipline and depth.

Vintage Miami/Akron game. After a year of speeding his tempo up a little bit Charlie Coles apparently has recovered from whatever head injury lead him to do that, as Miami made it a grind it out half court possession game. Thank god for Q tonight. That 3-4 minute stretch late in the second was as good as I've seen Diggs play since he's been here. Walsh had a nice game as well, and Harney did a few nice things with his minutes. Otherwise not a lot noteworthy tonight. Ohh, and as an aside, did anyone see the Frauds, I mean Bobcats get handed a 10 point loss on the road by Bowling Green?

I expect that rotation to not change much from the last 2-3 games. Abreu, Walsh, Gilliam, Nik and Zeke starting. Nitro, Q, Harney and Tree off the bench. Alex and Zeke will get as much playing time as they can handle whle staying out of foul trouble. Q will be basically the first guy off the bench. Egner and Deji will see sporadic time if injuries or foul trouble occurs or if we are blowing a team out. In crunch time it will be Alex, Nitro, Q, Nik and Zeke. KD has stressed in a lot of his press conferences that one big advantage we have right now is our depth. I don't expect him to stop utilizing it. I would be surprised if we play with anything less than a 9 man rotation.