Quickzips

I thought there was a lot to like about last nights game and a few things I didn't like.The Zips offense was working smoothly. They were pushing the ball down the floor a little quicker, getting position down low and abusing Buffalo's post men. When the Zips make a concerted effort to work the ball into the post I don't think there is a team in the MAC that can beat us. I think this is reflected in Dambrot's comments about the McKnight brothers, but it also applies to Cvetinovic, Conyers and even Zeke at times. Playing McNees off the ball some more is certainly not a bad thing for the Zips as it creates space for him to shoot those threes. I still think Steve can be an effective point guard in spurts for us, but I agree that playing him 25-30 minutes at the point is not the most effective use of his talents.Zeke bounced back from a particularly bad game against VCU with a nice game against the Bulls. He was aggressive on the boards and most of his shots were good ones (although he still has a lot of work to do when it comes to finishing layups at the rim, he's still missing a lot of those pretty badly).Big game from Conyers was great to see, but what is with the three clanked FT's in a row? Speaking of FT's, I am still praying that we don't have a point in the tournament where the Zips need to make free throws to win or ice a game. We are still wildly inconsistent from the line. On the plus side, I think Cvetinovic is leading the nation in drawn lane violations. If I'm a Zips opponent the first thing in the scouting report on him is to hold your water when he's shooting free throws.Shout out to Ronnie Steward who got a little more of a run at point guard and looked pretty good. I like the added dimension he gives to the offense by being a guard who can get into the lane and finish at the rim.Absolutely terrible ballhandling at the end of the game. Teams have been pressing the Zips seemingly all year, but I have never seen them handle it that poorly. I am hoping it was just a lack of focus/interest as a result of having the game well in hand throughout, but damn.I am a bit concerned with some of the offensive board performances our opponents have been putting up lately and last night was no different. It seems like since Zeke has come in everyone is more concerned with blocking shots and less concerned with boxing out on rebounds. Blocking shots is a good thing, but someone has to be going after the rebound as well.Congrats to the Zips for locking up that first round by. Now lets go take another road win agains the Falcons and get ready for some roast turkey on national TV for the regular season title.

I said it earlier in this thread and I will say it again. This kid will NEVER put on a UA uniform. Waste of a scholarship. I don't care if he were a 4 time All-American and the #1 recruit in the country, there is no purpose whatsoever in signing a kid who doesn't want to be here and probably can't make the grades to qualify anyways. I am utterly shocked at how soon some people forget the headaches we went through under Brookhardt with kids like this.

Who, if anyone redshirts will likely be based on how well these guys play when they show up, particularly on defense. We certainly will have minutes available in our frontcourt with the loss of Conyers and C.McKnight. Any one or all of these three guys will probably have an opportunity to earn playing time. Personally, my guess would be that Egner and Euton will see some minutes. Egner may eventually earn the chance to start as he will probably be the only pure SF on the roster. I'm really hoping that we aren't going to rely on McClanahan as our primary SF next year. It isn't his natural position and he really doesn't seem to be adjusting well to it right now.

High time to open those seats up to non-Rowdies students. Once the game tips off, and those seats are half-full there is no reason to have the rest of the students that are there sitting up in the wooden bleachers.

I'm assuming this is some kind of Dambrot-era all-star team thread? If so I will go with this:C-Zeke Marshall: The only true Center with any kind of descernable talent Dambrot has had. Outside of him we have had a bunch of PF's playing out of position (Wood) and scrubs (Bardo) at Center. Tough position to recruit at this level.PF-Jeremiah Wood: When healthy, Wood was an unstoppable force. It's a shame that he always had to deal with those injuries. Truly the "Shaq of the MAC" in his day.SF-Nate Linhart: The definition of a glue guy. One of the best perimeter defenders this league has ever seen. Offensively he was often awkward and sometimes even difficult to watch, but overall was usually pretty effective.SG-Nick Dials: This is a tough one for me. Cedrick Middleton is certainly deserving. Nick gets the edge because he started the majority of his career and also took on the role of PG in his senior year when nobody else stepped up.PG-Dru Joyce: The only pure PG Dambrot has had. Hard to argue with the school's all-time assist leader.Bench/Rotation Guys:PF/C-Rob Preston: Big Country is the type of player I hope we are getting with Dakotah Euton. A big guy who could get after it on the boards but created matchup nightmares with his ability to step out to the 3 point line and knock down shots.PF-Romeo Travis: Got all the hype at the position, even though Wood was always the better player. Still, a scoring machine with diverse talent on the offensive end.SF-Jimmy Conyers: Until this year I never would have guessed I would have been putting this name down here. Conyers has done enough this year to warrant a spot on this list.SG-Cedrick Middleton: Dials and Middleton has to be one of the better SG combinations the conference has ever seen. I don't think I've seen another player work as hard at his craft as Cedrick. PG-Anthony "Humpty" Hitchens: Still young, but Humpty is an explosive player. Pretty much the opposite of the calm and calculated Dru, Humpty is a wrecking ball who pesters bigger guards on the defensive end and has a knack for the big moments and the big shots on offense. I really have no idea where all the Quade Milum love is coming from. He is what I am fearful of Zeke turning into. An incredible athlete whose lack of basketball skills often made him a liability on the floor. He fell out of the rotation at times in his senior year for a reason. He was never all that good.

Any kind of increased interest in MAC hoops can only be a good thing. Just hope the Rowdies can put together a better showing than some of the ones we've had this year. It would be flat embarrasing if Buffalo shows up with 5 dozen students and we can't manage to fill the two tiny endzone seating sections reserved for the Rowdies.

Are you harshly saying all of the "growing" and "building" is an illusion?I think we've grown, and I think we've built since Keith has been here. I don't think anyone can fairly argue that Keith's teams aren't significantly better than Hipsher's teams were, and honestly, under Hipsher we wouldn't have even been in position to get a bracketbuster game against a team like a VCU, so there has been progress. The problem is that we have stalled out all together. We've gotten to the point where we are one of the top programs in the MAC now, but we have no idea where to go from here. There doesn't seem to be any attempt to go for bigger things. We're perfectly content trying to win the MAC tournament to get to the NCAA's, but we have no plan of action after that. Seemingly every time we have an opportunity to show something outside of the MAC we fail. Apparently at this point we aren't even going to try. Just win your 20+ games against a watered down OOC schedule and your crummy West teams, try to win the MAC tournament then bow out early in the NCAA's. Again, we've gotten to a new level for this program by being able to get to and win MAC tournament titles, we just don't seem to know what to do next.

Another opportunity to prove something on a semi-national stage, another craptastic performance from the Zips. Guys looked uninspired and out of sorts. This one falls squarely on coaching. Ever since this game was announced KD took the approach that the game really didn't matter for the Zips and that he didn't even really want to play it. Well guess what KD, you just got embarrased on national TV. You got outcoached, your team got outhustled and you were simply overmatched. Normally I'm not a big critic of KD except for when it comes to scheduling. But one has to wonder if all the talk about being a "sleeping giant" and becoming the "Gonzaga of the East" that we've heard for so many years out of Keith was just a bunch of bull. This coach and this program seems perfectly content just trying to be at or near the top of the conversation in one of the weakest college basketball conferences in the country. There doesn't appear to be much interest at all in making a splash on the national scene. Open challenge here Keith, you want us (the fans) to continue to support you and you want to grow this program, show us you want it. Show us you want to be something more than just one of the top programs in the MAC. As far as individual performances and issues, not much more to say here. Zeke was flat awful today. He kept a few balls alive on the offensive end, but that was about it. His shot selection and finishing ability was as poor as I've ever seen it, and he was really a non-factor on the defensive end. I'm pretty well convinced that none of our big guys could have finished a wide open dunk if they had the opportunity today. Piss poor free throw shooting (a KD staple) and long scoring droughts (again a KD staple) and the Zips lose. Not much else you can say. Ohh well, at least we still have a shot at that #1 seed in the MAC tournament.

Really? Playing another team in the top-100 in RPI instead of Malone (who admittedly does not play into the RPI calculations) wouldn't have helped our RPI?

Alright, at this point we have spiraled into conspiracy theories and non-sensical ramblings about old delusional men sitting in back rooms controlling the fate of the world (or at least the NCAA). Experience tells me trying to argue with such nonsense is an aggravating and ultimately futile task. I'm out on this one.

I'm sorry man, but beating Austin Peay and EMU wouldn't have done crap for us this year. Not a damn thing. Did losing to them suck? Yeah, from a fans point of view it did. But from an overall perspective looking at RPI's, at-large bids, tournament seeding, etc. It didn't mean much at all. Maybe we are in the top-100 RPI at this point but that is about it. We are still in the same place we are now. The only thing we are "in the driver's seat" for is the 1 seed in the MAC tourney based on having one more conference win than Can't. This RPI stuff isn't about the MAC. This is about the NCAA's. The Selection Committee isn't going to care one bit about wins over Austin Peay and EMU when it comes to at-large bids. At worst maybe those losses move us down one seed if we can win the conference tourney.I actually agree with you on a lot of these other points. I still have no idea why we have started the season the last couple years with walkons getting so many major minutes. It does nothing for us. I also believe that going Miami style with the scheduling is probably not in the Zips best interest. I am still not quite sure what to make of McNees. I am of the impression that he is neither as bad as some on here make him out to be nor as good as others make him out to be. I am however concerned about our over all guard play.

Blaming the West for Akron's perpetually low RPI is a tired old excuse. Every conference has their bottom feeders. The Horizon has UIC(306), Youngstown State(254) and Detroit (198), but yet Butler manages to get themselves up to 16. The West Coast Conference has Pepperdine(305), San Diego(220) and Loyola Marymount(211) yet Gonzaga manages to be 19 at the moment. The A-10 has Fordham(295) and St.Bonaventure(194) but still has 5 teams in the top 32.Why are all of these teams able to overcome the fact that they have to play some real clunkers in their conference schedule? Because <gasp> they manage to play a relatively difficult OOC schedule.Butler(16): beat Northwestern(77), lost to Minnesota(83), beat UCLA(admittedly a down year for them at 134), one point loss to Clemson(34), lost to Georgetown(8), beat Ohio State(30), beat Xavier(20), lost to UAB(38).Gonzaga(19): lost to Michigan St(26), beat Wisconsin(18), beat Cincinnati(49), two point loss to Wake Forest(11), lost to Duke(2), beat Oklahoma(87), beat Illinois(70)Temple(12): one point loss to Georgetown(8), beat Siena(35), beat Virginia Tech(50), beat St.Johns(72), beat Villanova(3), beat Seton Hall(55), lost to Kansas(1), and for bonus measures I should also point out that they played half of a MAC West Schedule (Ball State, WMU and NIU)Xavier(20): lost to Marquette(57), lost to Baylor(17), beat Can't St.(63), lost to Kansas St.(7), beat Cincinnati(49), lost to Butler(16), lost to Wake Forest(11), beat Florida(59)It is time for some Zips fans to stop blaming the MAC West for our problems in the RPI and start looking at the fact that we had a whopping total of two teams (Rhode Island and Texas A&M) on our OOC schedule this year that are currently in the top 100 RPI. Those four teams above, average over 7.Just for the record St. Bonnies and Fordham have been top programs at some time in the past.St.Bonnies has had two winning seasons (barely, last year they went 15-14) in the last 10 years. Fordham has only had one. Many years both of them are struggling to break double digits in the win column. Whatever they did in the past, they are currently MAC West level bad.

You need more examples of the difference b/w the Butler's, Gonzaga's, Xaviers and even Can't's of the world and the Zips. Lets look at bottom-100 RPI and non-DI games they have played in OOC this year.Akron has played four bottom 100 RPI teams (UIC, Howard, Greensboro, St.Francis) and one non-DI school (Malone) in OOC play.Butler played one bottom 100 RPI team (Evansville) and didn't play a non-DI school.Gonzaga played two bottom 100 RPI teams (Mississippi Valley St. and Eastern Washington) and one non-DI school (Augustana ILL).Can't played three bottom 100 RPI teams (Samford, Youngstown State, Norfolk State) and one non-DI school (Rochester College).Temple played two bottom 100 RPI teams (NIU, Penn) and didn't play a non-DI school.Xavier played two bottom 100 RPI teams (Youngstown State, Sacred Heart) and didn't play a non-DI school.

And for those wondering why Can't's RPI is so much better than our's despite the similar record and similar conference schedule:beat UAB(38)lost to South Florida(54)lost to Xavier(20)lost to Pitt(14)beat Morehead St.(103)That is at least twice as many top-100 RPI teams as the Zips have on their OOC schedule. And if Morehead St. moves up a couple spots they will have one more.

Blaming the West for Akron's perpetually low RPI is a tired old excuse. Every conference has their bottom feeders. The Horizon has UIC(306), Youngstown State(254) and Detroit (198), but yet Butler manages to get themselves up to 16. The West Coast Conference has Pepperdine(305), San Diego(220) and Loyola Marymount(211) yet Gonzaga manages to be 19 at the moment. The A-10 has Fordham(295) and St.Bonaventure(194) but still has 5 teams in the top 32.Why are all of these teams able to overcome the fact that they have to play some real clunkers in their conference schedule? Because <gasp> they manage to play a relatively difficult OOC schedule.Butler(16): beat Northwestern(77), lost to Minnesota(83), beat UCLA(admittedly a down year for them at 134), one point loss to Clemson(34), lost to Georgetown(8), beat Ohio State(30), beat Xavier(20), lost to UAB(38).Gonzaga(19): lost to Michigan St(26), beat Wisconsin(18), beat Cincinnati(49), two point loss to Wake Forest(11), lost to Duke(2), beat Oklahoma(87), beat Illinois(70)Temple(12): one point loss to Georgetown(8), beat Siena(35), beat Virginia Tech(50), beat St.Johns(72), beat Villanova(3), beat Seton Hall(55), lost to Kansas(1), and for bonus measures I should also point out that they played half of a MAC West Schedule (Ball State, WMU and NIU)Xavier(20): lost to Marquette(57), lost to Baylor(17), beat Can't St.(63), lost to Kansas St.(7), beat Cincinnati(49), lost to Butler(16), lost to Wake Forest(11), beat Florida(59)It is time for some Zips fans to stop blaming the MAC West for our problems in the RPI and start looking at the fact that we had a whopping total of two teams (Rhode Island and Texas A&M) on our OOC schedule this year that are currently in the top 100 RPI. Those four teams above, average over 7.

The only thing that concerns me a little bit right now is whether all of these close wins might be masking some problems for us. I'm not sure what those problems would be, but personally I felt like the only one of the last 4 that should have been close was Miami. Maybe you can argue Ohio or, based on the way they had been playing, Ball State, but I still feel like we should have been the superior team to those guys. I felt like we should have had at least 2 blowouts over these last four. Maybe I just got a bit pampered by some of our earlier results. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing us win tight games, but you have to admit that any regression from this team would mean that we would be losing these close games. Not a lot of margin for error.

+1To say that Butler wouldn't win this watered down version of the MAC is to ignore what Butler has done this year and over the past few years.

Thought this thread needed to be brought back up now that both Akron and Can't are 10-3 with 3 games left. It is probably going to take at least 12 to win the East.

Big win for the Zips. Obviously didn't get to watch, but the stat lines indicate it was your typical Zips/Hawks game. Grind it out battle to the end. If I am reading things right, either a Zips win over Buffalo or a Miami loss in the next game clinches a first round bye for us. Early in the year the Zips seemed to either blow teams out or lose close games. Now they are winning the close games. Good sign going into the end of the season. Would have been nice to see OU pull off the upset to give us sole possession of first, but I'm also kind of looking forward to the collision course with Can't for the #1 seed on ESPN2 in Primetime.

Typically channelsurfing will bring something up about 5 min. before game time if it is going to be on there. They only have an early listing if they are getting the feed through ESPN or something like that.

That looks a little closer to what you would expect from a typical Miami game.

Technically, no. The Zips next two games are at Miami which won't be broadcast b/c FSN decided to pick up that assured nailbitter of NIU@WMU and then the aforementioned bracketbuster. It is nice though that three of our last five Zips games will be broadcast.

It is a good thing the Zips have gotten some good experience playing close games and OT games the last few weeks. Zips/Hawks in Oxford traditionally is a close afair. Last 4 down there have seen 2 OT games and 2 others decided by less than 5 points. Despite a loss at BG, Miami is playing some pretty good ball right now and Coles usually has his guys ready to play. You know their guys must have a bitter taste in their mouth from the beatdown we gave them at the JAR. After a double overtimer on Sunday, our guys HAVE to be ready to play.

Nice game for the Zips. I had to skip out at the end of regulation to make it to a Valentine's Day reservation, but was listening in on French all the way. Ohio is going to be a tough team if they ever find some depth. I am not looking forward to the DJ Cooper show for 3 more years. Kid is talented. Senior leadership made the difference today. For once we had a Chris McKnight sighting. I said before the game that the Zips had the advantage in the front court if they would just be patient enough to keep pounding OU down low. Turned out to be pretty much spot on. When the Zips were pounding it inside with the McKnights, Cvetinovic and Conyers they got just about whatever they wanted. When they settled for long jumpers early in the shot clock OU was able to get out on the break and make a game of it. Hats off as well to KD for making some adjustments. We don't play very good zone defense, but throwing it at a team for a minute or two every now and then confuses them. You could see that tonight with OU. When the Zips went zone, they fell out of rythm. I'm so looking foward to not having to see KVK anymore. From a basketball prespective you'd like to see five of him on the floor, he is just that bad, but the kid throws his body around so much that it is only a matter of time before he hurts someone. On to Miami, a win in Oxford would be a big boost for the Zips division title hopes.