Quickzips

That plus his strut....Everywhere I've seen him: at a Browns practice, at the Q, at the JAR and even last Wednesday at BW's after the UB game. Strutting around like he owned the place. The bar had a nice crowd and nobody even recognized him....Apparently you did.

I know everyone has one more game left, and for us it is a huge one, but thought it was still an appropriate time to bring up the Post-season awards. What are everyones predictions?For me:Player of the Year: David Kool-Western Michigan-I know this award usually goes to the best player on the top, or one of the top teams, and that Western is clearly not a top team, but you can't discount what Kool brings to that team. Without him, I'm not sure they are capable of beating Toledo. He leads the league in scoring, FT%, is fifth in steals, fifth in minutes played and top 15 in 3pt/game and 3pt%. Western is in store for a big drop off when he leaves.All Conference First Team:G-David Kool-Western Michigan-See aboveG-Rodney Pierce-Buffalo-Best player on one of the top teams in the East. Third in the league in scoring, 10th in assists, 7th in FT%, 10th in steals, 12th in 3pt%, 6th in 3pt/game, 9th in assist/to ratio.G-Carlos Medlock-EMU-Fourth in the league in scoring, 5th in assists, 9th in FT%, 8th in steals, 4th in 3pt/game, 13th in assist/to ratio. Good to see him have a strong senior year after all the injuries.F-Chris Singletary-Can't-It pains me to do this, but the thugs combination of scoring, steals and assists from the SF position makes him one of the most unique players in the league. He is difficult to game plan for. Honestly, you take him off that team and I think the Zips already have the #1 seed wrapped up for the tournament.F-Brandon Bowdry-EMU-I know what you are thinking, two players from EMU make first team all-MAC? But it is tough to keep the guy who is 4th in the league in scoring and leads the league in rebounding by a wide margin off the list. Also in the top 10 in FG% and offensive boards. Also, I honestly don't think there is anyone on the Zips worthy of first team All-MAC. It has been noted over and over again that this team doesn't have a go to guy but has a lot of depth. Brett McKnight and maybe Conyers will be in the running for 2nd team or honorable mention, but even though we are one of the top teams, we just don't have that first team All-MAC caliber player.Rookie of the Year: DJ Cooper-Ohio-No disrespect to Zeke or any of the other talented freshman in the conference, but Cooper has been that good. To show you how good he is, as a freshman he is leading the league in minutes, assists and steals, and is in the top 15 in Assist/TO ration, 3pt/game, scoring and FT%. Cooper is going to be a handful in this conference for a long time to come.Coach of the Year: Keith Dambrot-Akron-KD has never won the award, and this year it really comes down to him and Geno Ford for Can't. I honestly think Dambrot gets it due to his ability to manage a team that doesn't have a go to guy. For Can't, they know where their bread is buttered. When things get tight, the ball runs through Singletary. For the Zips.... Yet, they have identical records and have both been the class of the MAC all year. I might also be willing to give consideration to Coach Ramsey from EMU if they can close out the MAC West this weekend.Defensive Player of the Year: Jimmy Conyers-Akron-This one was tough for me. In the end, you have to look at the stats for the guys that Jimmy matches up with. Conyers just doesn't give up big games to opposing 3's. Combining that with his leading the Zips in rebounding from the 3 position, I have to give it to Jimmy. Calvin Betts is a consideration, but you look at how he fairs against the better competition in this league and you have to take him out of it, even though it is damn impressive for a 6'2" G/F to lead his team in rebounding.

I guess I'm just going to have to agree to disagree as far as this one goes. I am clearly in the minority, and pretty much the only one there right now. I'm just not nearly as excited about the NIT as seemingly everyone else is. Maybe my expectations are too high after last year. Maybe getting a taste of the NCAA's has spoiled me a bit. I don't know.

Can we get a poll going here as to how many people are honestly just as excited about the prospects of an NIT bid as they are an NCAA bid?

Let me make this absolutely clear. I am not saying I wouldn't accept an NIT bid. Let me repeat that so that it gets through to those of you who don't seem to get this. I AM NOT SAYING THAT I WOULDN'T ACCEPT AN NIT BID. All I am saying is that I don't hold the NIT in the high regards that apparently everyone else on this board does. It isn't a tournament that excites me, and I don't think I would be the only one. It also isn't a tournament that does that much to advance this program.You can now go back to twisting my words around to make them fit whatever you want to hear.

Wow, I simply state that I'm not excited about the idea of an NIT berth because it doesn't carry near the excitement and attention that an NCAA bid does (something I think all of you would agree with) and now I am "stupid" and a "simple minded [person] masquerading as a zips fan."Like I said before, if the Zips are in the NIT's, fine, I'll probably watch. I may even try and go to the game if we can draw a close travel distance. Am I going to be excited about it? Not really. Am I going to feel like this program is really growing and taking a step forward? No. Am I going to go around the office bragging about the Zips big NIT game, or puffing out my chest if they win a game or two? Probably not.I understand and appreciate that the NIT is a post-season tournament, and that for a long time the Zips didn't have a snowballs chance in you know where of getting to one, but some of you are significantly overvaluing it. It isn't like playing in the NIT is going to give us a lot of big matchups against top programs, all the top programs are playing in the NCAA's. Penn State and Baylor were last seasons championship game. I know they are both from "power" conferences, but this isn't like playing Michigan State and Kansas here. It isn't even like playing Ohio State and Kansas State. I also don't see the Zips making a run at winning that thing either. They are just too inconsistent right now to make a deep run in the tournament. As I stated before, there is nothing that says a deep run in the NIT leads to any kind of invite to the preseason tournament, and this isn't the bracketbuster where the teams we play in the NIT owe us a game next year too. All the NIT really does for us is give us a week or two more to practice and play together before the offseason. Don't get me wrong, that is pretty significant, especially for a team that will have a lot of returning players next year, but there really isn't a lot of benefit too it outside of that.

Advanced Mathematics

Honors English

Helmet

Gold

Some of you need to go back and re-read the part of my post that said As far as invitations to preseason tournaments and all that. I am unable to find any rule officially giving the NIT champion a spot in next years preseason tournament. However neither of the 2009 NIT finalists (Baylor and Penn State) went to this years preseason tournament. In fact, none of the four semi-finalists (Notre Dame and San Diego State) appeared in this seasons tournament. I find it hard to believe that all 4 of these teams would turn down the chance to play in the preseason tipoff. Look, I'm not saying the NIT hasn't been beneficial to the Zips in the past. And I am not going to completely write off this team if we don't make the NCAAs. Am I going to watch if we go to the NIT instead? Probably. But I'm not going to be into it the way I would be the NCAAs. There isn't much of anything to get excited about. The Zips have been there, they've won there. I suppose getting to the semifinals or the championship game would be a little more exciting, but I honestly don't think it would even hold a candle to another NCAA berth. Don't even get me started on the CBI.

NIT reality check, nobody cares about the NIT. It is a secondary tournament. A consilation prize (and not much of one) for those teams that get left out of the NCAA's. It draws little to no national media attention and is really only good for giving young teams another week or two of practice and playing time together before a long offseason. This team shouldn't be focused at all on the NIT's. NCAA's or bust.

The biggest problem with MAC refs is that they overuse the whistle. I don't know what the reason is, physical nature of MAC play, poor use of discretion, general need to be in on the action more, but for whatever reason MAC games tend to spiral into long and drawn out free throw shooting contests. I think it is part of the reason that attendance around the MAC keeps going down. People go to basketball games to see action, guys running up and down the court, passing the ball, knocking down jump shots, driving through the lane for layups. I don't know of one person who enjoys watching free throw after free throw after free throw. I have no idea what it will take to fix it, but I would really like to see MAC refs "let 'em play" a little more.

Personally, I could care less about the NIT. We've been there, won games there. It really isn't that big of a deal. Come April nobody in the country is going to be talking about those great NIT games or how impressive that NIT championship game was. It isn't quite on the level of the CBI and these other ridiculous tournaments, but that is really only because it has been around longer. I suppose if we won the whole thing I might get a little excited about it, but other than that, ehhh.Now all that said, I still want to wax the floor with Can't.

I think the bigger question is will Can't start to run the 3-3-5? If they do, that ridiculous scheme combined with Doug Martin's general coaching ineptitude means they might never win a game.

My favourite call when D-rob was fouled shooting 3. The refs call 3 free throws. D-rob shoots the first 2 and then the refs decided to review the play on TV to find out if it was 2 or 3 Aren't you supposed to do that before the first 2 free throws???There were a lot of other examples from what I saw on TV.Refs lost track of how many fouls Akron had in the 2nd half. When we got to 10 they weren't sure if we had 10 or 9. BG player missed the first FT, BG got the rebound and dribbled around for a good 7 or 8 seconds before the refs decided to go over to the scorers table and spend 5 minutes figuring it out.The play where C.McKnight stole the ball at mid-court and drove coast to coast pretty obviously should have been an and one.In the 2nd half, I forget what Akron player got absolutely mugged on the way to the rim, no call. Other end, Nitro gets called for a cheap touch foul.At the end of the game there were some really questionable calls. First was the jump ball with Conyers where he was clearly just getting hacked by two BG players. The whistle for the jumpt came quickly and definitively. On another play Nik came down with the rebound off of a BG miss and the refs called a real quick travel.Again, I'm not one to generally complain about refs. Especially when we win, but yesterday was just embarassing. I really hope we can get some good refs for the Can't game. It would be a damn shame to put that kind of a crew on the floor in primetime on national TV.

Just looking at the box score tells you everything you need to know about the MAC West. That division alone is setting basketball back into the middle ages. 87 points COMBINED. Teams combined to shoot 29-89 (32.5%), 13 assists to 26 turnovers. Ball State only got scoring from four players (including one who only put in 4). 6-28 from 3 (21.4%). Ball State managed to lose despite shooting 14 more free throws than Toledo. Congrats to the Rockets, I guess.

If this one isn't standing room only, this campus and this community should be damned ashamed.

0-14 in the MAC, Toledo has Ball State on the ropes at halftime, up 30-15 in Toledo. Ball State came into the day with the inside track to the 2 seed, could Toledo throw a monkey wrench into that?

Big win for the Zips in what amounted to an 8 on 5 afair. Normally I'm not one to complain about refs, but man that was horrible. I know BG plays a zone and so they don't foul as much, but they do foul. Didn't see anything getting called. Zips played through it though. They overcame the refs and, quite frankly, themselves. I'm telling you guys, those 4-5 minute scoring droughts we go through seemingly every game will come back to hurt us in the MAC tournament.

Zips just looked like the superior team first half. They are slaughtering BG on the boards. Even though the teams are shooting about the same, Zips are winning because they are getting more 2nd chance opportunities. That is the danger of that zone BG plays. Nitro has been HUGE, not only from beyond the arch but he's made some nice passes as well. I've only got one complaint from the first half and that is our PF's continually trying to trap Jakubowski and Crawford 35 feet from the basket. BG took advantage of that a couple times early for some backdoor buckets. Other than that, not too much to complain about. Gotta come out and play another 20 minutes though. Don't let up on these guys.

Actually, what we want to do is run the table (BG and Can't). That will guarantee us the MAC championship and at the very least an NIT bid, although I suspect that if we do win the league and lose the title game in the tourney we "could" get an at large to the NCAA. I know what the other people are saying, but the best path to the post season is to run the table. That's two games, one at home. OTOH, the tourney is I think three straight wins (someone correct me if I am wrong) and sudden death. So the BEST result for us is the win the MAC, THEN try to win the tourney. But at least we would have the NIT in the bag, which is way better than nothing.And frankly, there is nothing at all wrong with a trip to the NIT and just maybe win a game or two.The point is that the BG game doesn't matter for winning the MAC regular season and the automatic NIT bid. The scenario simply comes down to next Friday against Can't. Even if Can't wins their next game and the Zips lose it still comes down to the winner of Can't/Akron on March 5. If BG beats Akron, and Can't wins this weekend, but Akron beats Can't on the 5th then the two teams are tied to end the season, they split in head to head matchups and the tiebreaker goes to record against Miami where we have the advantage, we win, we go to the NIT at the very worst. I'm not so sure I don't sit Roberts, his ankle has been a problem most of the second half of the season and a night off of it would probably do him good. If Zeke's knees are starting to become a problem as people seemed to think last night I would probably also limit his minutes.

For whatever it is worth, my depth chart for next year would look something like this.PG: McNees(with a lot of time at SG as well), Steward with a little bit of HumptySG: Roberts, Humpty, McClanahanSF: Egner, B.McKnight w/ a little bit of McClanahanPF: B.McKnight, Cvetinovic w/ a few minutes for EutonC: Zeke, Cvetinovic and a few minutes for BardoGarbage minutes to Sullivan(if he sticks around), Sweich, Patterson, Oldham and whatever walkon we get to presumably replace Tim Carroll.Redshirt for Green.

At this point the Zips have a first round bye wrapped up. They will either be the third seed or the first seed in the tournament depending on the outcome of the March 5 game against Can't. Nothing that happens on Saturday will have any impact on that. So now comes the important question. Do you take the Indianapolis Colts approach and rest some of your guys in an arguably meaningless game, or do you go for broke and try to sweep your way through the 2nd go around in the MAC East and build some more momentum heading into the tournament? Personally, I see positives and negatives from both ends. Resting guys like Zeke, Roberts and Brett McKnight who have had to deal with nagging injuries throughout the year heading into tournament time would probably be a good thing, but there is something to be said about continued chemistry and, as Herm Edwards so famously said, "you play to win the game." Your thoughts?

Whatever floats your boat dude.... We have a former football coach at our school who bought himself and his coaches MAC East Championship rings when they didn't even make the MAC Championship.Turns out the New Orleans Saints are not the NFL champions. They only won the tournament. The Indianapolis Colts, who had a better regular season record, are the true NFL champs. If there is confetti on your head, you won a Championship. If not, you didn't.Sweet, I'm going out to buy some confetti tonight!