Quickzips

Again, I'm going to take issue with the criticism of McNees. To point out his shooting numbers last night isn't really fair. We didn't ask him to shoot a lot until late in the game where we asked him for 3 or 4 desperation threes that had little chance of going down. If you want to measure him by his shooting last night you are missing the big picture. As far as him running the point, I will agree to a certain degree. Steve isn't a pure PG. He also isn't a pure SG. He's a combo guard. That said, he didn't do the terrible job you guys are giving him so much grief for. If you want to complain about him bringing the ball up court to slow that complaint needs to fall on the coaching staff. The plan going into this game was to try and slow the tempo down and make Rhode Island play at a pace they aren't comfortable with. It wasn't quite a Charlie Coles style slow down game, but we certainly didn't want to get into a track meet with this team. Pushing the ball up court all game would have played right into Rhode Island's hands. As for McNees not setting up the offense well, I can't fully blame that on Steve either. Fact is, our guys weren't giving him good passing lanes a lot of the time. Our floor spacing was not very good for most of the night last night, and neither was our movement away from the ball. The best PG's in the world will have a hard time running half court sets if their teamates don't do a good job of giving them an angle to receive the ball. Steve still had three assists last night and would have had more if a couple of easy baskets weren't blown. One I remember in particular was when Steve made a pretty move from the left baseline and threw and alley-oop pass to Zeke who promptly clanked the dunk off the backrim. On another occassion Brett McKnight blew a 4 foot gimmee off what I believe was a McNees feed.

38% shooting didn't lose us that game either. Rhode Island only shot 35% from the field. It was 61% FT shooting on 18 FT's for the Zips against 80% FT shooting on 25 FT's for Rhode Island combined with 16 TO's for the Zips and only 10 for Rhode Island that contributed to losing that game.

Just a few more thoughts on last night that I haven't posted yet.I thought there were two key points in the game last night. The stretch at about the 12 minute mark where the Zips coughed the ball up like it was their job was the first. At that point the Zips had a solid 3 possession lead. Those turnovers allowed Rhode Island to cut it back to even and really put the pressure on the Zips. The second was Jimmy Conyers picking up his 4th foul with about 5 minutes to go. That was when the rebounding advantage really started to swing for Rhode Island. They got a lot of second chance points down the stretch that they weren't able to get early in the game because Conyers was, again, a beast on the boards.Nikola needs to completely change his free throw motion. Stop shooting from way above your head like that. Shoot from the elbow.Daryl Roberts doesn't take one FG attempt all night last night? Granted, we don't need Daryl jacking up 15-20 shots a night, but it makes it hard on us when, probably our most efficient shooter doesn't take a single shot from the field.Dambrot got flat out-coached last night. I thought at halftime there was one defensive adjustment each team could make that would win them the game. For Rhode Island it was backing out of the full court pressure and playing in a half court set. Their full court pressure was completely ineffective, but when they went into a half court they seemed to confuse the Zips. For us, I felt we should have come out of the locker room playing a 2/3 zone and stick with it until the Rams show us they can shoot over it. Like I've said before, I've NEVER seen an opponent come into the JAR that highly hyped with absolutely no ability to hit a jumper. They airmailed or bricked just about every one of them. Unfortunatly, Rhode Island made their adjustment, the Zips stayed with their man to man.I'll go ahead and be the first to say it. I think Zeke needs to sit down for a week or two and rest those knees. He was effective at times last night, but after about 2 minutes on the floor you could tell he was laboring. His defensive rotations became slow and he just couldn't seem to get up and down the floor like he normally does. I know it would suck to sit him for the first week or two of conference play, but in the long term we need those knees to be healthy.I'm normally pretty hard on him, but I'll go ahead and give Mike Bardo props for making the most out of the minutes he got last night. They weren't many, but when he was in the game in the first half the Zips extended the lead and Rhode Island seemed frustrated. Not enough to warrant more minutes for him, but a decent game nonetheless.It was a tale of two halves for Ronnie Steward. In the first half I actually started to think about him as a potential starting PG again. He was calm out there, and he actually started looking to drive the ball to the hoop and take his own shot. In the second half, he looked tenative, indecisive and he became turnover prone. Guess the rust isn't entirely off for him yet. Still, it seems like Dambrot is determined to get him some more minutes. I hope it pays off.Finally, awesome job by the crowd last night. It wasn't as large as I would have liked, but I have rarely seen our crowd that engaged in the game. Too bad we couldn't send them home on a good note.

I said it in another thread, and I will say it again here. Officiating did not lose us that game last night. The Zips took care of that all on their own. Was the officiating good, ofcourse not. But it didn't lose us that game. Turnovers, poor foul shooting, poor rebounding down the stretch and the general nature of the Zips to crap their pants any time they have a shot at winning a big game lost us that game last night. Winners win basketball games, losers gripe about officiating.

Call me crazy, but the box score has McNees down as 0 turnovers, and a team high three assists in 30 minutes.... Humpty had three turnovers in 17 minutes, and Steward 2 in 5 minutes. You sure you want someone else running the point?Thank you, any criticism against McNees for that game is completely unwarranted. Fact is, Steve played one of the most solid games I've ever seen him play. Honestly, I'm more impressed with his performance last night than some of these nights where he lights it up from three. Steve took care of the basketball very well. When he was on the floor our offense always ran more smoothly. I agree that Steve isn't a pure PG, but he did a yeoman's job last night. You can't blame that loss on Steve. On the flip side, one could look at the box score and say Brett McKnight had a pretty decent night. Truth is, he was awful. This was the Brett McKnight I thought we had gotten rid of over the last few weeks. The Brett McKnight who doesn't care where he catches the basketball or how many defenders are thrown at him, he's going post up and take a shot. I can't even count the number of times he gave Rhode Island an easy block because everyone in the arena knew what he was trying to do. He's a good scorer, but he isn't good enough to try and be a one man wrecking crew against a quality opponent. Problem is, he thinks he is. Don't even get me started about his brother, the senior who was supposed to step up and lead this team, but has played so poorly he's on the bench and right now is barely deserving of minutes.

Rhode Island might beat every team in the MAC, but that isn't much of a testament to Rhode Island. Truth be told, that wasn't a GREAT team. They were good mind you, but they weren't that great. I've seen NAIA teams shoot jumpshots better than those guys. They don't rebound particularly well (though they turned it on in the middle of the 2nd half and did a decent job there). Their full court press, quite frankly is a joke. The Zips beat it with ease. Rhode Island won the game because they moved into a half court defense and the Zips couldn't figure it out. Nothing about that team screamed "Top 25" to me.

Same story, same ending. Zips build a nice little lead against a high quality opponent. Get to about the 10-12 minute mark and piss it away. Absolutely piss it away. Turnovers, missed free throws, airballed jump shots. You name it, the Zips did it. And don't tell me that the refs blew that game for us. They didn't call a very good game, I'll give you that, but the refs didn't lose that game for us. We lost it ourselves. Until this team learns just an ounce of killer instinct it is going to continue to be the same story over and over and over and over and over. Absolutely horrible.

I'm sure Roy Williams would trade rosters in a heartbeat.It's possible, I mean he has gone through some really nasty cases of vertigo.

No way on earth is URI a better team this year than UNC. On a side note though, this is exactly the kind of result that supports scheduling a few games like this. Now Charleston got UNC to come to their place, how, I have no idea. That probably isn't going to happen for the Zips and any consistent top-25 program. But there are still plenty of examples out there of this kind of win for a huge underdog on the road. Not only will Charleston receive a huge boost in RPI from this, but they certainly have gotten a lot of national media attention. That can only be good for your program. You lose 100% of the games you don't schedule.

If Shaq can fix his free throw, there's no reason our big guys can't hahaShaq fixed his free throws???Steve McNees is a big guy???McNees is actually third on the team with a .737 FT%. Hardly good for a guard, but a far cry from the .625 he went from the charity stripe last year, and not that much of a problem considering he's only taken 19 FT's through 13 games. If you want to call out one of our guards for FT shooting it would be Hitchens whose percentage has gone down from .750 last year to .625 this year. Again, he has only shot 16 FT's though. Can't really count McClanahan as he's only taken 2 FT's (1 of 2) on t he year.Like I said the bigger problem lies with our big guys:B.McKnight: .655 on 29 FT's about at his career averageC.McKnight: .612 on 49 FT's, his FT% has decreased every year he's been hereCvetinovic: .478 on 23 FT's, down from .636 a year agoZeke: .462 on 39 FT's, not much to compare this too, but he has gotten better lately going 61% over the last 4 games.You want to know why we shoot below 60% on FT's, those guys right there take 53% of our FT's and only hit on 55% combined.Conyers is really our only frontcourt player hitting his FT's as he is tied w/ Roberts for a team leading .778 on 36 FT's.

If Shaq can fix his free throw, there's no reason our big guys can't hahaShaq fixed his free throws???

I get flushbacks to the '06-'07 team every time I watch this team step to the line. Free throw shooting is certainly a problem for this team. Unfortunatly the bi-product of being an interior oriented team is that your big guys have the ball in their hands more often, and your big guys are more often than not the guys who are your worst foul shooters. When they get fouled, it is always an adventure.

It's easier to bow down to the team 2 hours down the road and write fifty stories a week about the 5-11 pro team 45 minutes up the road.

Key there is espn. ESPN midmajor recruiting updates are woefully inadequate. To get a clear picture of mid-major recruiting you need to access ESPN, Scout and Rivals. Even then you miss some people. I can assure you however, that all of the players listed above have offers from Akron.

Because it is very easy to force Malone, St. Francis, and Mount union to commit TOs, much harder when you play Providence, VCU, and OK StateThat is just it. Different teams are better or worse off when it comes to handling the press. Something tells me Oklahoma State, Boston College, VCU, Providence and Davidson are better equiped to deal with the press than St. Francis, Malone, UNCGreensboro and Arkansas Pine Bluff are equiped to deal with the Zips defense. The real question right now is how well can the Zips handle the press and how well can Rhode Island handle the Zips defensive attack.

What concerns me about Rhode Island isn't their tempo, it is their full court defensive pressure game(there is a difference). Both of our PG's have struggled at times during their careers when it comes to turning the ball over, particularly when faced with a long and athletic backcourt that extends their pressure. Humpty can get pretty loose with the ball in those situations and turn it over. McNees just often times doesn't have the physical capabilities to deal with bigger more athletic guards. I remember a couple years ago at Can't when the Flushes threw Al Fisher at him in a full court press and he turned the ball over like it was his job. He's better than that now, but it still takes him some time to break that press and he will get a fair number of 24 second calls trying. Even if we get it over in time, it can disrupt us as we have less time on the shot clock to work the ball into the post like we want to. I don't think we necessarily lose this game, and I think it will be a pretty hard fought game, but I can also see some stretches where we have trouble protecting the ball.

Adding to what mes already has:6-8 SF/PF Jakkar Sampson: St.Vincent-St.Mary High School(OH): Offers reported from Dayton, Xavier, Cincinnati, Michigan State and Ohio State. This kid would be the "steal" of the class if we could land him.5-6 PG Stevie Taylor: Gahanna Lincoln High School(OH): Offers reported from Ohio, Miami, George Mason, Providence and James Madison. 5-11 PG Travis Trice: Wayne High School(OH): Offers reported from Dayton, Cleveland State, Wright State and Butler. Teamate to Markus Crider. 6-7 SF George Fant: Warren Central High School(KY): Offers reported from Butler, Ohio, Oklahoma State, Western Kentucky and Wright State. 6-8 PF Anton Grady: Cleveland Central Catholic High School(OH): Offer reported from Dayton.6-4 PG Pierri-a Henry: South Charleston High School(WV): Offers reported from Cleveland State, Delaware, Marshall, Ohio, VCU, Virginia Tech, West Virginia and Xavier.6-2 PG Traevon Jackson: Westerville South High School(OH): Offers reported from Arizona State, Cleveland State, Miami, Ohio and Wisconsin.Like I said, my ultimate class of 2011 (we have 4 scholarships to give from McNees, Brett McKnight, Roberts and Bardo) would include Ennis, Crider, Trice and Sampson.

Ultimately I'd love Crider, his teammate Travis Trice and St.VM standout Jakkar Sampson.

Not too worried about BG just yet. We need to send a statement to the MAC Tue. night by winning a significant OOC game just before conference play starts. Then we can worry about BG.

Compared to the MAC, the A-10, with Temple, Xavier, Dayton, Rhode Island and others, is certainly a "major" conference.

Not all of them were. At least one was a MWC official. Something tells me the foul situation and all the turnovers had as much to do with the frantic pace taht Wyoming was able to force on us, all the one-on-one play they like to run and the fatigue that the pace of the game and the high altitude brought on as it did the refs.

85-74 good guys with under :30 to go. Looks like the Zips will get out of a crazy game with a win. Too many turnovers and too many fouls tonight. Needs to be cleaned up if we want to end the OOC season with a good win over Rhode Island. On the plus side, the Zips finally have a double digit scorer on the season as Brett McKnight with 16 is finally above 10ppg for the season. Another good game from Conyers with 13pts 12reb 3stl. Hitchens and McNees combined for 7-10 from 3 including a couple big ones down the stretch.

It's hard to tell, but this sounds like an absolutely brutal game to watch. Just whistle after whistle, turnover after turnover for both sides. Zips up by 2 right now with 3:59 to go and one of Wyoming's best players apparently just fouled out. Going to have to close out well. Wyoming has a lot of players in foul trouble. Keep attacking them.For those of you keeping track of the Jimmy Conyers line, he has another double double tonight.

I'm sorry, but I'm sick of you complainers too. You complainers that bemoan how difficult it is to schedule for the Zips. Who complain that no one wants to come and play us at the JAR. Who complain that a better schedule will never make us into a serious at-large contender. Who whine about how poor attendance is at games against teams like St. Francis and UNC Greensboro. Dan Peters and Keith Dambrot want to complain about how hard it is to schedule, tough. IT IS A PART OF YOUR JOB! Look, Can't State, Miami, Ohio, Buffalo, BG and every other stinking team in the MAC manages to put together a better OOC schedule than we do EVERY YEAR. You want to complain about teams not wanting to give us a return trip to the JAR, but you go out and schedule Texas A&M, who I am sure we will NEVER see in the JAR. Where is the consistency in that? Not that I am complaining about scheduling the Aggies. Far from it. I actually want to see another game or two like that on our schedule every year. Look, no one is asking our guys to get Duke to come play us in the JAR, and no one is asking for a Miami like guantlet of games where all we are is a sacrificial lamb. All we are asking for is to give us some kind of a schedule that we can get excited about. Stop acting like a bunch of sissies, ball up and schedule a few teams.

<br /><b>zip37</b>, I see you got it. Keep the faith.<br /><br />Oh, and for you unbelievers, Dan Peters is also a friend of mine. We just had the future scheduling<br />conversation at the <b>On Tap</b> last Monday night.<br />Well, go on. Do tell. Who are we hoping to get on the schedule?Akron 2010-11 OOC ScheduleNotre Dame College (The one in Cleveland, not the one in South Bend)Vanderbilt (Preseason tournament)Norfolk State (Preseason tournament)Drexel (Preseason tournament)IPFWDartmouth@MarylandAmericanUniversity of Phoenix OnlineMorehead StateEast Tennessee StateFlorida A&M@St. LouisSienaJust a guess.