Quickzips

Now thats a little more like it.Nice game by the Zips. Not a great game, not the best game I expect them to play all year, but enough to give us some hope.Hero of the game has to be Roberts. He's a player, and he hasn't gotten a lot of attention. 17 points, 9-9 from the FT line and that steal on the inbounds pass late. He does all the little things to help you win.A little surprised to see Nik starting tonight, but he did well with it. Actually surprised we didn't see more of him. He's got a nice game at both ends of the floor and gives you a ton of hustle. Possibly Zeke's long term frontcourt runningmate???Biggest thing to me was defense and turnovers. We played some really good defense all night long and we only turned the ball over 7 times. That's a recipe for winning.Still not shooting quite as well as you would like to see, but it will come.How nice was it to see this team put Winthrop away at the FT line. That is something we haven't been able to do a whole lot of the last few years.Overall, great win for the Zips! On to Pitt!

I can't say I'm that concerned. Wasn't at the game, but listened in on French. Like I said in the gameday thread, this team is not going to shoot 35% from the floor all season. They just aren't. The defense sounded a whole lot better last night forcing TO after TO. That to me is a GREAT sign. We've got to get out of this habit of sitting behind the 3 point line and settling on jacking up 3's. That is also a contributing factor to the rebounding issues. Like others have said, the young guys need to get some more time under their belts. This is the 2nd time this team has been on the floor together. Rome wasn't built in a day. That said, there are a few changes I would like to see made. I think Roberts needs to start at SG instead of Steve. Steve is a guy you can put in to that microwave role from some instant offense off the bench, but Roberts is a more well rounded player and it seemed that KD trusted him a lot more last night. I also think that we need to start the game by establishing C.McKnight in the post. He's got some great post moves and we didn't look to take advantage of that nearly enough last night. I see Chris taking on a similar role as Wood had last year. Use him down low early on to loosen things up for the perimeter players later.

The problem with personel is directly related to the problem with formation. We just don't have enough big guys to play on the line to be effective in a 3 man line. A 3 man defensive line is designed for 3 guys in the 300-350lb range who can take on double teams and free up your linebackers and db's to make plays. We haven't had that here. Instead we play with one adequatly sized NT and two DE's who are better suited for a 4 man front where you ask your DE's to get into the backfield and make plays. Asking our DE's to try and take up blockers instead of getting after the ballcarrier (or passer) is taking two guys completely out of our defense. So now we are playing with 9 guys. Then add in the fact that our DE's can't carry a double team and you have offensive lineman coming up and getting on our LB's. That takes 1 or 2 other guys out of the play as well. Now your runningback or your quarterback is into our secondary. That is NEVER a good thing. Have we recruited the best players for our defense? No. But you have to put the guys that you get into the best scheme you can to help them succeed. We don't do that by running this god awful gimmick defense.

For the seemingly 18,000th time this year the defense gave up over 200 yards in rushing. You can talk all you want about only 3.9 YPC, but that still equals a first down every 3 plays. This defense is abysml. Buffalo's game is ball control, ball control, ball control and we played into that perfectly. Sure there were other things that didn't help, but at the end of the day Buffalo had the ball for nearly twice as long as we did (and no, I don't blame that on the offense, at a certain point the defense has to take it on themselves to get off the field, they couldn't do it from the opening snap to the end of the game). When you have the ball for that much longer than your opponent you absolutely should win the ballgame. It's actually rather surprising that it took 4 OT's for them to do it in.

JD has recruited more d lineman lately. The time for the 3-3-5 should be over by next year.Really? Last I checked we recruited a bumper crop of DB's last year and we don't have any commits from DLineman this year, let alone that many guys that we have offered.

Man am I tired of watching this defense. It can't stop the run, it can't stop the pass, it can't stop a mobile QB. Heck, I'm pretty sure I saw Drew Willy hand the ball off to a rather large turtle and watched him run for 7 yards.

The quintessential Brookhart-era Zips game. Do just enough to keep yourself in the ballgame, have a bunch of dumb penalties, miss a few FG's, drop some passes, leave the defense back on campus and then hope and pray you can pull it out at the end. Well, we couldn't pull it out. Gotta feel bad for Kennedy. You can't blame him much for this one. The guy had 250+ all purpose yards and 4TD's. Unfortunatly everyone will remember the botched handoff. Rubber Bowl.

The only good thing about that first half is we are only down one score. Missed FG's, untimely penalties, invisible defense, dropped passes. You name any of the Zips problems over the last 3 years and they showed up already tonight.

Loving me some 335 defense right now.

Lust

It will probably also help when we aren't going through wholesale substitutions every time we have a chance. Getting the rotation figured out will no doubtedly help the team chemistry.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. I think a lot of what happened with the freshman was nerves. There were times that they were rushing shots and missing big time. I didn't notice any selfish play from Steward in the least. Probably the biggest culprit if there was any going on was Brett. Especially early in the game he seemed to be a bit of a black hole. When the ball went into him it just wasn't coming back out. In any event it is going to take some time for that chemistry to develop.

Just making an educated guess on the information I have and what I've observed. I think it comes down to two things with Steve. First and foremost, he's an offensive player who doesn't show up much on defense (supposedly). It's a well known fact that if you don't play you some D, you don't get minutes for KD. Second, I suspect that the HS injuries have slowed him down a step or two. This team is looking to push the ball up and down the floor more this year and having a guy out there who can't keep up makes it tough to do that. Either way, it is disappointing. I hated seeing the look on his face on the bench last night.

My thoughts:Ugly, ugly game. Walsh should never come that close to beating us, regardless of how many freshman we have.It is obvious who the leaders on this team are. Chris and Nate have control of this team. Unfortunatly both still look like they are trying to figure out just how to lead and what kind of a stamp they are going to put on this program in that role.Chris had a heck of a game on offense. He should lead the team in scoring.Nate had a very Nate game. A couple threes, a few rebounds, followed a missed shot in for a layup, played nice defense (about the only guy who did), took an elbow to the face.Round 1 of the PG battle goes to Ronnie. The offense just looked more in sync when he was on the floor. He also hit a few shots which is more than I can say about most of the freshmen. His defense was a little suspect, but he seems to be further along than some of the other guys. Humpty played ok defense, even blocking a 3 pointer at one point, but he was lost on offense. Rushed a few shots and accounted for some turnovers.Surprise of the night for me was Mike Bardo. He looks like he's really worked on his offensive game. Broke down on defense a couple of times, which isn't a good sign, but he ought to get that straightened out. Where in gods name is Steve Swiech? Have we given up on this guy already?Brett McKnight still has a long way to go. He was pitiful on defense and he's trying to do way too much on offense. Early in the game he was essentially a black hole. Once the ball hit his hands it wasn't coming back out and he took some terrible shots as a result of it. He settled down a little bit in the 2nd half and made the game winner for us, but he also sat on the bench a lot.Most of the freshman (except maybe Ronnie) were suffering from a severe case of nerves. At least I hope that was it. Rushed shots, missed defensive assignments, bad fouls. You name it they did it. These guys will have to settle down sooner rather than later.I'm hoping they got this clunker out of their system when it doesn't really matter and that this serves as a wakeup call for this team. We've got a lot of hard work ahead of us.

Tutoring Session

It is live on ESPNU

This game looked like a blowout for the 15 minutes, now... 21-10 and we've got a ballgame. Can someone please inform these guys that the game is in fact 60 minutes long.

I doubt that anyone in the athletic department or the University administration would agree with such a characterization. In fact, I know for certain that they wouldn't.

I totally agree on point #1. Point #2 is a different scenario all together. Talk to anyone in the athletic department. The biggest cost for an athletic program IS scholarships and the biggest culprit is football. 22 less football scholarships would be a BIG money saver for the AD. I would hardly call it peanuts. That said, there is little sense in dropping to IAA after everything that has been invested in this program. It would be like John McCain or Barack Obama coming out tomorow morning and saying that after years of campaigning and spending millions of dollars they are dropping out of the race for President 2 days before the election. Doesn't make any sense.

Thanks for the update GoZips. Couple of Questions:I see you have Hitchens as the probable starter at PG now. What happened there? All summer long we've heard that Steward would likely be the starting PG. Is there a problem with Ronnie? Has Humpty outplayed him? Is it just a simple matter of personel where Ronnie seems to be running better with the second unit?How's the progress going with Swiech? Is he starting to come around at all? Can we expect him to contribute any this year or is he still another year away.Where is the playing time for Coblentz going to come from? We've already got Humpty, Ronnie, Roberts, McNees and now apparently McClanahan in the guard rotation? Is the walkon really going to take minutes from one of these guys?What is the word on Conyers? Is he still playing SF or have we switched him over to play any 2 Guard? Is his shot improving any?

I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. I just don't see us filling 5-6K worth of student seating all season. I can see us doing it for the opener which I expect to be pretty close to a sell out one way or another, but I still think at this point the estimates of student support are too ambitious. If we can average 3500 students next year I'd be THRILLED. Laugh at me all you want, but I've seen enough of the student support on this campus. I've been around on the weekends. I've been to the football games. I've been to the basketball games. I've lived on campus. Based on my experiences I just can't share in the optimism of 5-6K students all season long filling the Info that I've seen floated around here.

I almost hate to get into this debate again, but those of you expecting massive student turnouts just because of this new stadium are delusional. If anything is going to help student turnout it will be the increased presence of the Rowdies and a winning team. This stadium is by no means "within walking distance of nearly all students." Remember, this is still largely a commuter school. On campus housing has increased in the last few years, but we still don't have more than maybe 30% of our students on campus. I can almost guarantee you that at least half of that 30% is still going to go home on the weekends as opposed to staying on campus and going to the games. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong on this one, but I really think we need to temper our expectations when it comes to the effect this stadium is going to have on student support.

Anyone up for bringing some Tesla coils in in support of Nikola?

Thanks for the updates guys.From the sounds of it the redshirt issue is going to turn out to be quite interesting. It sounds like, based on past thinking and now the likely foot/ankle injury Sullivan is probably a good candidate for a redshirt. I assumed Parrish was as well, but if he was the first guy off the bench...kinda makes you wonder. Everything I've heard about Nic is sounding great as well and it doesn't sound like McClanahan is doing all that bad either.I'm psyched about the PG competition. Hopefully I can make it over to see these guys duke it out some time. It sounds like a real treat to watch. I've got a feeling that no matter who starts we're gonna have some good depth at the position that is going to make opposing players and coaches pull their hair out on the court.If I have one concern right now it would be the big guys up front. I hate the idea of playing another year up front with 3 forwards and no real centers. We've got the guys, but if they can't keep up with the run, run, run pace that this team seems built for...

Wow. That says something right there.