Quickzips

Hard to grab a lot of rebounds when your opponent is shooting 60%+. If you assume defensive rebounds are easier to come by than offensive rebounds, ORU had 8 offensive rebounds so even if we held them to 0 our total would only have been 22. Another key statistic is that ORU turned the ball over 21 times to our 6. That's 15 less chances to get a defensive rebound. Agreed, last night's rebounding differential is pretty misleading. Not saying that we are a good rebounding team or anything. We've been dealing with problems cleaning the glass all season, but last night is a night that I can give a bit of a pass on. When you look at the much larger turnover differential and the fact that ORU only missed 20 field goals all night compared to 34 misses for the Zips (the turnover differential lead to 14 more field goal attempts for the Zips), you get a much clearer picture of what went on last night. The bigger issue for us last night was absolutely horrible interior defense. When ORU had the ball last night it was pretty well guaranteed that one of 3 things was going to happen. Either ORU was going to turn it over out front, Zeke was going to block a shot around the rim or ORU was getting an easy layup. We can't count on our opponents turning the ball over 23 times and Zeke blocking 4 shots every night. We HAVE to play better defense around the basket.

We'll have to agree to disagree on Buffalo for the time being. Fact is that they've only played a few games against teams with winning records (BYU, St. Bonnies, Army), they haven't played one team from a power conference and they have some bad losses on their record (Youngstown State, Indiana State). If they come out of January 19th with wins over Can't and Akron at their place, I'll put them in the conversation. Until then, they are very suspect in my mind.

Well, the Zips made it through another ho-hum OOC schedule. They didn't grab that signature win for another year, but outside of being un-competitive against Temple they avoided the truly embarrasing losses. Now it is time to jump into the ever-entertaining Mid-American Conference Schedule. This year is shaping up a lot like every other year for the MAC. The power of the conference still lies in the East and it starts with Can't and Akron who have been the two most competitive teams through the OOC season based on record and schedule. Buffalo, Ohio and Miami have also had their moments, but don't look to be quite as good. Buffalo's record is good, but their OOC schedule would make previous Zips OOC schedules look like guantlets. Ohio hasn't been terrible, but they certainly haven't lived up to expectations and they have a few puzzling home losses. Miami probably has the "signature" OOC win for the conference in beating a watered down Xavier team, but their murderers row of an OOC schedule has left them with another horrible record headed into conference play. Bowling Green brings up the rear of the East heading into conference play, but even they have shown signs of life in recent weeks. Out West it appears to be a two horse race between Ball State and Western Michigan with Ball State in the early lead. To be honest, you might be able to put Ball State in the same conversation with Can't and Akron. The only thing holding them back right now is the long standing perception of the West as an inferior division. Western has been a big surprise as they actually look just as competitive without departed PoY David Kool as they did with him. The rest of the West, well......let's just say that teams like NIU, Toledo, EMU and CMU can probably expect to be traveling for the first round of the conference tournament. CMU has been particularly puzzling as freshman all-everything SG Trey Zeigler has not made the Chips any more competitive. If anything they have been worse than they were last season. Personally, I predict that Can't, Akron, Ball State and Western will earn first round bye's for the tournament. Ohio, Miami, Buffalo and Central Michigan will host first round games while NIU, EMU, Toledo and Bowling Green will travel for the first round. Depending on matchups I think this could be the year that a West team makes it to the finals with Ball State taking on either the Zips or the flushes for the right to the MAC's one NCAA tournament bid.

Not much to add this morning that hasn't already been said. Would have liked to have seen a better performance out of the Zips headed into the rivalry game, particularly on defense, but it is still hard to complain about a win. You can bet KD is going to have the guys doing some serious work on interior defense this week. Nik especially was terrible last night. ORU's big guys played him with spin moves and drop steps to the point that Nik didn't know where anyone was. We can't keep relying on Alex creating turnovers out front and Zeke cleaning up everyone's mistakes on the back end. At some point our other guys have to step up and play some defense. Hopefully Saturday will be the night. I really have no idea what to expect out of this Can't matchup. Having not seen either team against a conference opponent yet makes this one very unpredictable.

Growing pains, I'm afraid. If Alex plays it smart (or KD protects him a little better), the Zips may have won this one going away. Nevertheless, they gutted it out against a team that is much better than their record. Bring on K.E.N.T, because we all know: Even at this early venture in his career it is abundantly clear that Alex is a HUGE key for this team. I'll go so far as to say that he may be more important to the Zips success than Zeke is at this point. Zeke is still a bit of a luxury at this point. When he's on, it's big for the Zips, but if he isn't, the Zips can still win games. Alex is a necessity. When he's out on the floor, the Zips offense runs smoothly. When he's not on the floor, the Zips offense stagnates and the defensive pressure becomes almost non-existant. I know it is a lot to ask of a true freshman, but I feel like this years Zips team is going to go as far Alex can carry them.

Hard to grab a lot of rebounds when your opponent is shooting 60%+.

I have NEVER seen this big of a choke job down the stretch. Zips don't deserve to win this game.

Nikola is getting flat abused by ORU's frontcourt players. Justin Greene has to be watching this and salivating. It looks like Nik is moving in quicksand out there. Zeke is doing his best to clean up Nik's mistakes, but at some point our "leader" needs to man up and at least try to stay in front of someone.

Update: 5Dimes has the Zips as 5 point favorites. If the Zips come out with the kind of intensity they did against Pine-Bluff they should win by at least 5, probably 10 or more. I doubt you will see a 30 point blowout like you did against Pine-Bluff, but a pretty sound win SHOULD be in store. That said, this Zips team is pretty hard to predict. If the 3's aren't falling, and Nik and Zeke start getting frustrated down low, this could be a long night. As for Can't, I really have no idea what to expect at this point. I really want to see how the Zips come out of tonight before thinking about Saturday. This Can't team is not the same Can't team we've seen the last two years, and without Guyton they are struggling to find their way. To be fair though, the Zips have been a roller-coaster ride all year themselves.

This guy sounds like a head case cry-baby, or at least his dad sounds like it. Not exactly sure I want him leading our offense.

Anything? I would have to think App State might trade a win over a pathetic Mich team for a I-AA championship?! Thing is App State is usually good enough to compete for the championship. You saw what good it did for Akron to beat NC State in 06. If you are beating Can't consistently from here on out it might mean you are making some progress in being competetive in the MAC. Tell me if you would rather beat OSU once or compete in the MAC year in and year out. Again, we have pretty well handled Can't for the better part of the last 8 years. It has done absolutely nothing to make us more competitive in the MAC. Can't is not a measuring stick for the rest of the MAC, they are a whipping post. Unfortunately we've fallen to their level and probably below that. If beating Can't is our only focus over the next five years our program is going to remain absolutely pathetic. We will be a 2-10, 3-9 kind of team every year. Our sights have to be set a lot higher than that. Taking one from OSU may be a little unrealistic, but as others in this thread have said, the program that beats OSU once is certainly not going to drop 5 in a row to Can't State.

Oral Roberts sweeps into town tomorow night to close out the non-conference season. This one has all the makings of the classic trap game for the Zips. Final OOC game of the season, at home, big matchup with the Golden Felons looming to open the MAC regular season schedule, underperforming team that has some talent. The Zips can't look past the Golden Eagles in this one. Despite a 5-10 record, they have some good talent. They are lead by a dynamic 6'6" wing-forward in Dominique Morrison who leads the team in scoring (18.4/game), is second in assists (2.3/game) and third in rebounding (4.9/game). Morrison can score from anywhere on the floor and is shotting 51% from the floor and 43% from 3 point range. 6'10" Sophomore Center Damen Bell-Holter leads the team in rebounding at just over 7 per game while also contributing just under 12 points per game and will be a tough matchup for Zeke. Bell-Holter is also a capable outside shooter having knocked down 7 of 17 from outside this season. The Eagles' frontcourt is rounded out by Steven Roundtree, a 6'7" freshman. He's a capable rebounder at 6.7 boards per game and he can put the ball in the hoop scoring 12.5 per game. Sophomore Guard Warren Niles from Cincinnati also averages 12 points per game and likes to jack the ball up from 3. The rest of their lineup doesn't seem too involved in the offense, and if they have one big weakness it is depth. As a team they only go about 7 or 8 deep. Beyond that, the Golden Eagles are a pretty solid team. If the Zips want to take some momentum into the MAC schedule they can't overlook this Oral Roberts team, they've played a tough schedule (Missouri State, Tulsa, Utah, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Missouri, Miami(FL), Oakland) and are a better team than their record indicates. Don't look past the Golden Eagles in anticipation of the Golden Felons. Let's get out of the OOC season on a high note.

Can't is having problems right now. After starting 7-1 they have gone 2-4 over their last six and now sit at 9-5. The loss of Guyton is clearly having an impact on this team as they were a very erratic perimeter shooting team before he left. Being their best outside shooter, his loss is making them even more erratic. They have one good big guy in Justin Greene, but they are struggling to find another post presence to play off of him. They are really trending downwards recently having lost at him to Humpty and JMU and taking a 17 point shellacking from Morehead State on the road before that. That said, they have better than a week to prepare for the Zips while we have a game Monday evening. Both teams will bring their A games next Saturday night. I expect nothing less than a slugfest.

Morning after thoughts here. Loved seeing the Zips extend the defense to full court and get out and run more. With guys like Abreu and Diggs ability to get up and down the floor and the 3 point shooters we have on this team we can be a very deadly transition team. I hope KD is starting to realize it and that we see more of that is we move into conference play. Very welcome sight to see the Zips manhandle an inferior opponent. Particularly after the Bethune debacle. With the exception of a brief period in the middle of the first half Pine Bluff was never really in the game. We need that kind of mentality every time we go against the cupcakes. Can't get lulled into playing down to the level of your competion. If you are a Zips basketball fan I don't see how you can NOT be excited about the teams prospects in the coming years with Abreu running the offense. He is such a natural PG out there on the floor. Humpty's name keeps coming up in comparison to him, because of their size and position, but there really is no comparison. Where Hump would drive to the basket, get himself in too deep and either throw up a wild shot that had no chance of going in or simply turn the ball over, Alex attacks the basket, but stays under control and makes the correct play 9 times out of 10. Thinking about what this team is going to look like at the end of the season when guys are fully used to the kinds of looks he can set them up with makes me salivate. If I'm KD I want him and Zeke in the gym as much as possible working on pick and roll situations. With Alex's effortless ability to get to the rim and Zeke's length and athletic ability there isn't a team out there that could stop them on the pick and roll. Quincy Diggs just continues to get better. I love what he brings to the Zips in the open floor, and his defense has improved seemingly every game. Not only that but he is fully capable of knocking down the long range three. When you have a guy who can get to the rim and finish that can also knock down the 3 that is a guy who is a VERY difficult matchup for your opponents. I thought Zeke had a pretty good game. He only gave up one silly foul when he got a little too aggressive going over the back to try and knock away an entry pass. By that point in time the game was already decided anyways. We didn't try to force feed him the ball like we were earlier in the year, but he was still pretty effective on offense and he was attacking the boards a lot better. The two senior guards disappeared for the most part last night, but they really weren't needed. Not as worried about Roberts who has put together an otherwise solid season. Still concerned about McNees who is clearly struggling to adapt to the Abreu run offense. Nitro had one of his better games in recent weeks, leading the team in scoring and playing pretty good defense as well. I would still like to see him attack the basket a little more and work some more in the mid-range game. He's shown some ability there, but like many of our guards he settles for camping out behind the 3 point line waiting for his shot too often. Nik seemed to be on the verge of a meltdown all game long. He still had a pretty effective game, but I felt like he was right on that edge a couple times. He's had a much better year this year, but he still scares me. You just never know where the kid's head is going to be from night to night. McKnight seems to be settling into the bench scoring role rather nicely. I hope that KD sticks with him there. I rather like our starting lineup, and brining him, Daryl and Quincy off the bench is a big advantage for us. He showed some veteran presence in the second half by patiently backing his man down and drawing the foul to get to the line. Glad to see he's come back and been able to make some decent contributions to this team. Bardo played, to me the ideal game for his ability. 5-8 minutes, a couple rebounds, eating up space inside, heck he even got his obligatory highlight real block for the season. All we need him for is a few minutes a game to spell Zeke and Nik a little bit. With McKnight back and the emergence of Quincy and Alex we can finally put him back into that role instead of asking him to play 15-20 minutes a night. Euton and Egner were pretty well non-factors. Josh had a few silly fouls and a dumb turnover. Dakotah bricked his only 3 point attempt badly. God I wish we had McKnight at the start of the year so we could have redshirted one of these guys.

Zips up by 29 with just under 5 to play and Oldham is in the game. Can't complain at all about the Zips performance tonight. This is a team that they should have slaughtered and they have. I'd list all the guys having big nights, but it is pretty much the whole team right now. Diggs and Abreu have been particularly impressive.

50-36 good guys at the half. Zips got out and started running towards the end of the half and Pine Bluff was left wondering what hit them. Zips look very good pushing the ball and looking for early offense right now. Lot of good things going on for the Zips that half from Abreu breaking down the defense, to Diggs pushing it on the break, McClanahan knocking down the long jumper and Zeke crashing the boards hard. Can the Zips make skip-zip happy and pull off the 30 point blowout tonight?

As I understand it the NCAA granted him a hardship waiver of some sort due to the death of his father.

http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/in...ns_basketb.html I usually think Elton takes too much crap for the quality of his MAC pieces, but this one is downright terrible. Ball State as the best team in the conference right now? Really? Probably the best team in the West, but I'd still take the Zips, Can't State, Ohio and maybe even Buffalo and Miami over the Cardinals. Toledo a bright spot for the league? Sure they aren't winless as most expected them to be, but when your expectations are that low it is hard NOT to exceed them. Buffalo may be 7-5 but when you take into account strength of schedule it isn't all that impressive. Their schedule this year makes some of our previous schedules look like murderers row.

I don't know where you're getting your numbers from, but the Hump is averaging 8.4 points per game (the lowest of his career) while averaging 1.8 assists and 1.8 turnovers (down from his 2.8 assists and 1.7 turnovers last season) while playing a little over 29 minutes a night (the most of his career). His shooting percentages from the field and from 3 are the highest of his career at 39.6% each. It also appears that he injured himself in their last game against Marshall and only played 9 minutes. Not sure what his status is for the Can't game.

From 2004-2009 the Zips took 5 of 6 games against Can't. What did it do to advance the football program? Nothing. Having the Wagon Wheel is nice, beating up on the Portage County Step-Child is fun, but it has no lasting effect on the football program. Recruits don't care, Joe Akron doesn't care, the local media largely doesn't care and the national media doesn't even notice. If you can honestly look me in the eye and tell me that the same could be said about one win over OSU then you my friend are delusional.

Absolutely agree about working the rotation for depth and continuing to adjust to having a real PG. On the officiating, there's nothing that can be done about it. There's good, fair and poor officiating. It's luck of the draw. What I would really like to see is the Zips adjust to the level of officiating rather than trying to fight it. If the refs are calling tiny touch fouls, back off and don't make tiny touches. Most of all, under no circumstances ever give tiny touches to opponents driving to the rim, allowing them to score and go to the line for the and one. Either foul them hard enough to cause them to miss the shot without being so hard as to get a flagrant, or admit you got beat and give them the bucket without the plus one. In other words, play smart. Dave, Good point about the officiating. Coaches and players normally aren't as frustrated as fans about bad officiating, as much as they are concerned about a pattern of inconsistent officiating during the course of a game. If the officials are calling everything, you adjust. If they are calling nothing, you adjust to that too. But when I am at a Zips game, I still complain about a lot of calls against us, even when I think it might have been a good call. I can't help it. Agreed, the most frustrating thing to deal with is inconsistent officiating. I can live with a lot of ticky-tack touch fouls (although I admit to hating games that turn into free throw contests) and I can live with a crew that stays out of the limelight and lets the teams play even if things are getting rather physical so long as the calls are consistent both ways. The most frustrating thing to deal with is ticky-tack fouls being called/muggings not being called on one team but not the other or during certain times in the game but not others.

Hands down, no questions asked, not even that close. I'll take beating OSU every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Beating Can't 5 years in a row would be nice and all, but nobody outside of the diehards in this region would even notice. Beating OSU once would not only be a national news story but it would send a message to all the front-running, bandwagon jumping, nut hugging Ohioans that college football does exist outside of Columbus. One win over OSU would do more for this program than 10 years of dominance over the Golden Felons.

I think improving is a pretty good word for it. At the start of the year Quincy was struggling quite a bit. There were far too many times where he was dribbling himself into trouble and causing turnovers either by getting in too deep with the ball and throwing it away or having no place to go with it and picking up the offensive foul. He's cut back on that quite a bit. He's also settled down enough that he's starting to hit his shots and look more comfortable with the ball in his hands. I think people forget that he is only a sophomore in his second season out of high school sometimes. There were a lot of expectations for Quincy this year because he was a new guy who also had D-I experience, but it isn't like he came in here as a seasoned vet. He really only started getting a lot of playing time the last third of the season at N.O. and I don't get the impression that the coaching down there was adequately developing him either. This is a kid who has a lot of talent and is starting to realize it, but he wasn't a finished product when he got here by any means.

Well, it is the middle of the basketball season now and we have gone about 3 full days without a post on here. I suppose it is time to move on from the rollercoaster ride that was the Holiday Hoops Classic in Vegas. Unfortunatly that means discussing a SERIOUS cupcake of an OOC opponent. Pine Bluff sits at 0-11 right now and hasn't played a home game all season. Most of their games aren't all that close (though they did surprisingly well in a 4 point loss to Auburn a few weeks ago). Anybody who can figure out their roster and rotations for me should get a Noble Prize as they have 12 players averaging double digit minutes, but only 4 players have seen action in all 11 games while one other has seen action in 10 of 11 games. They are lead by a pair of guards who score 11 points per game each in Salavance Townsend and Allen Smith. Smith is their long range gunner ala Steve McNees having taken 75 of his 108 shot attempts on the season from behind the arch. He hits them at a decent 37% clip. The Zips will have to make sure he doesn't heat up too much. Their only size to speak of comes in senior forward Dominic Moore who is listed at 6'10" and plays 23 minutes per night. Moore is neither a scorer (4 points per game) a rebounder (4 boards per game) or a shot blocker (.5 blocks per game). Their other "big guy" is 6'6", 250lb junior Terrell Kennedy who manages better than 8 points and 4 boards per game. This is a matchup where the Zips ought to be able to hammer the Golden Lions in the paint. Pine Bluff is particularly horrible on the boards where they are 341st in the nation at 28 rebounds per game. They also have a bad tendency to turn the ball over (18 per game). Other areas where the Golden Lions are particularly bad include FG% (36% as a team), FT% (60%) and blocks (18 through 11 games). This is a game the Zips should win quite handily if they show up at all motivated.

Not exactly a "Zips News Story" here. LeBron's connections to Zips athletics are really pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things, particularly in comparison to guys like Gary Taylor at Infocision. Not trying to defend Icoach too much, but to call our football program "semi-functional" is prior to 2010 is a stretch. We were a losing program on a downward spiral when he got here. He completed the spiral into disfunctional, but it isn't like he had that far to go. Technically wasn't TW hired in 2009 or is my memory fading a bit? I wouldn't exactly call Brett McKnight the most popular player on the team. Nor would I say that TW trashed his season. Brett did something to warrant the suspension, and I personally believe the situation was handled properly by keeping as much information private and internal as possible. Brett has three months left to make something out of his senior season. It's on him to get his act together, not TW. No real argument here, although at this point I'm not sure how newsworthy this is. I don't think the story on this one ends simply with recruiting a true PG. If you look at the end of KD's 2010 class and now the 2011 class you see a radical change in strategy. More athletic players (Gilliam, Treadwell, Harney, Abreu, Ibitayo), transfers (Gilliam, Walsh), non-qualifiers (Treadwell, Harney). The light that went on for KD was the realization that he had taken the team as far as it could go with over-acheiving, high basketball IQ kind of guys and that to continue to improve he needed to make a change. The final story is far from written on this one, particularly with so few of those players actually in uniform to this point. No argument here, a much needed investment in a deserving program. Very smart move by the University and the AD's office. Yawn. This deserves to be on here, but #3? Not trying to sound to insulting, but women's hoops is largely irrelevant in the U.S. outside of a few localized pockets (Tennessee and Connecticut come to mind). Northeast Ohio is not one of those pockets and likely never will be. No argument there. You have a coach who by all indications has his mind set on building a dynasty, has a plan to do it and has already shown the ability to do it, you do everything in your power to make him happy. Was there ever any doubt that this was #1?