Quickzips

With all due respect Dave, what about this season gives you the impression that we are going to play two halves better than last week's second half? This team may well win, but I'm not counting on two full halves of good basketball from them. I gave up on that ship a long time ago.

With Alex I would agree with you, but I'm not sure Melo is ready to run an up-tempo type of game. Plus it is tournament time, and in the tournament games tend to slow down and play at a little lower score. For my money, I'm rooting for Buffalo. I don't believe that they can win 4 games in 5 days (at least one going into overtime) with that roster. Just too much to ask of McCrae. Watching them so far tonight you can already see some fatigue as they are way off from the 3 line.

Option C: The game to mercifully end. Eastern is absolutely un-watchable. I hate their style of basketball. That second half was brutal. Is it any wonder they struggle to get 500 people to come to their games?

Regan had time to take a nap on a couple of those shots. Ball State doesn't have a big who is willing and/or able to step out and defend a stretch 4 like Regan. That said, Regan had the game of his life. You won't see another game like that out of him in his entire career. IF we see Buffalo on Friday Javon McCrae still has to be your first, second and third priority on defense.

Tale of two halves. First half Ball State was hitting everything from the outside, crashing the boards hard and getting all of the 50/50 balls. Second half, Buffalo was hitting everything from outside (especially Will Regan), crashing the boards hard and getting all of the 50/50 balls. Makes you wonder if the teams didn't exchange jerseys in the halftime locker room.

Love the attitude, but I would be much happier if we could stop digging ourselves a 30 point hole (or something close to it) to dig out of night in and night out.

We don't have rotation relief for him one way or another. Name one other PG on this roster? Go ahead. I dare you. I'm not expecting Melo to play 40 minutes. Not even 30. 25 would be best case scenario with Walsh, McAdams, Harney and Gilliam sharing the remainder. I've been on record these threads multiple times stating that. The positions I have listed are simply the positions those players traditionally play.

Hadn't really thought of the idea of Harney moving to the bench, but I kind of like it. Harney, when he isn't engaged, is a weak link on defense. Defense has been letting us down of late. Move him to the bench and more a guy like Kretzer into the starting lineup who gives max effort on both ends of the floor all night. Then Harney comes in off the bench to be more of an offensive sparkplug. Only problem is it is awful late in the game to start taking big swings at your rotation, but we're kind of forced into making some anyways with the Alex situation. I guess the point is, we aren't going to go as far as we once thought we could simply by moving Melo into the starting lineup and trying to do everything else the same. Why not take a big swing at it? Maybe you catch lightning in a bottle and get that miracle Disney movie finish. If it doesn't work out, you can at least say you went down fighting. Starting lineup: PG Betancourt SG Walsh SF Kretzer PF Treadwell C Marshall Rotation SG McAdams SF Gilliam SF/PF Harney C Forsythe I could live with that.

Starting lineup at the Q will almost assuredly be Melo, Walsh, Harney, Tree and Zeke. Melo did nothing against Can't to deserve going back to the bench. His minutes will have to be monitored, and I'm sure the staff will be working all week with him to try to avoid the cramping that hindered him in the second half Friday, but as long as he is able to go he will get the start. Harney won't start at PG based on inconsistency alone. He could play a few minutes here or there in a point forward type of situation, but until he starts to demonstrate some consistent effort his role isn't going to increase. I'll echo the no more Deji sentiment. The kid just does not have it. Too many turnovers. No flow to the offense. Too many defensive breakdowns. He is the poster boy for what a lot of athletic talent with no basketball IQ does for you. Nothing. Teams at all levels of sport start to shorten their bench when it comes to postseason play, and this is one time when the Zips need to do that. We can easily play with a 9 man rotation of Melo, Walsh, Reggie, Chauncey, Harney, Kretzer, Tree, Zeke and Forsythe. Walsh, Reggie, Chauncey and Harney play PG by committee when Melo needs a break. Biggest concern for me the last couple of weeks hasn't actually been the 3 point shooting, it has been the fact that we're getting beat in the transition game so much. Teams have figured out that the Zips crash the glass hard and, if you can get to the rebound, you have a lot of chances for easy run-outs. I would actually like to see us get one or two of our wings back to defend as soon as the shot go up as opposed to sending the PG back to try to defend 3 on 1 fast breaks. On the flip side, we have all but abandoned the transition game ourselves. Too much walking the ball up the court. Even when we had Alex. I would love to see us pick the tempo back up at the Q.

Forsythe worries me. He hasn't done much of anything in the conference season, and he's looked particularly bad over the last few weeks. I don't know if it is just a matter of us leaning on Zeke so much that Pat isn't getting enough minutes, but he looks like he's forcing things when he is out there. Something tells me we are going to need Ike Johnson and Kwan Cheatham to give us productive minutes early next year.

What I think I learned last week: For all KD talks about wanting to go inside more he is still a guy who loves his teams to shoot the 3 ball. Unfortunately this is one of his worst 3 point teams of the past decade. We need to start going inside a lot more. Betancourt can be an effective replacement under the right circumstances, but his conditioning isn't there. We can't have him cramping up after 20 minutes on the floor this coming weekend. Deji at the point is an utter disaster. Turns the ball over, can't get the offense started, misses his FT's (badly) gets lost on defense. You can't tell me Blake Justice could do any worse. The only reason Deji is seeing any playing time is because of his physical tools. He's the Quade Milum of guards. When Betancourt is out we need to run with that bigger lineup of Walsh + McAdams and/or Gilliam. Harney is going to be the key to our success the rest of the season. Zeke and Tree are always going to be there. Harney is the wild card. If he can give us consistent effort on both ends of the floor we still have a chance to make some noise. Last night he was flat out awful. He has to eliminate the perimeter jumpers from his game. Teams know that he doesn't hit them at a very effective rate and they are daring him to take them. He needs to counter with a little up fake and put it on the floor more often. For all Kretzer has done this year, I really think McAdams is going to have the better career here when it is all said and done. He got a lot more minutes last night than normal, and he was fantastic in them (save for the bad foul late). The put back layup off of the miss surrounded by 3 Can't players late in the game was a thing of beauty.

Dave, I appreciate that you and others are trying to stay optimistic, and I apologize if I'm contributing to any tongue swelling you might be incurring, but I just can't find much of a silver lining or really anything to be optimistic about at all in this whole situation. This is bad news for Alex, it is bad news for Dambrot, it is bad news for the team, it is bad news for the athletics department, it is bad news for the University, it is bad news for the fan base. It is just a bad situation all around, and it is very difficult to make anything positive out of it. To those who think that somehow our reactions on this forum are going to tarnish our reputation as a fan base please stop. Someone pointed out that, at it's peak we had a little over 130 visitors on here. 130 people are not going to make or break our reputation. The news story is what happened with Alex, not how people on an internet message board react to it.

http://courts.ci.akron.oh.us/cases/akronco...CASENUM=1012835

This team is deep at every position except one. PG. The vast majority of this forum has seen it and commented on it all year. I appreciate your optimism. I really do, but this isn't a Disney movie where the understudy comes in and lights up the show when the team needs him most. At this point in the year, players are who they are. Betancourt is a decent freshman backup PG who plays pretty good defense on the perimeter but turns the ball over a little too much (as freshmen are apt to do) and has nothing resembling a D-I shot. Find me one guy on this roster that you are comfortable having play 30 minutes a night at PG and I'll buy into the idea that we are going to be ok. I won't be holding my breath.

Might want to check the Akron Municipal Court records.

A little perspective here for those of you holding out hope that Alex will somehow make it out of this and be back for the MAC tournament. Not happening. For comparison. Quincy Diggs was suspended for the entire season for pleading to a second degree misdemeanor, which is a heck of a lot less serious than a third degree felony. I will be absolutely shocked if Alex ever plays another minute for the Zips. Frankly, if the allegations are true, I don't want him back. I hope to god that this doesn't extend further into the basketball program as some have speculated. If it is true I really hope this is an isolated incident of one player screwing up (big time). IF it does go further I honestly don't know how I could continue to support this team and this program. It would be a long time before that kind of disappointment would heal. I can all but guarantee you that Dambrot's career would be over with. No University would support a coach whose had multiple players running a drug ring right below his nose. Again, I hope it isn't true, but you just never know. I honestly just don't know how to react right now. This isn't something you see every day. There is no playbook for how to react to something like this. We're going to learn a whole lot more about this in the next few days and weeks. I can only hope that something good comes out of it. As far as the team goes, you can pretty well kiss this season goodbye, or at least what we were all hoping this season was going to be. Betancourt has made improvements, but he isn't ready to be the starting point man for a team with sweet-16 aspirations or beyond the way Alex was. We have nobody else on this squad who is a true point. Most likely we go PG by committee with Melo, Walsh, Chauncey, Deji, Reggie and even Harney playing some minutes at the point. Our inside game becomes that much more important, but without the PG to get them the ball in the right spots it is going to be a lot tougher on those guys. You can't just lose your starting PG and expect to go on unscathed. Frankly, I would be surprised if we make it out of the semi-finals next Friday.

http://courts.ci.akron.oh.us/cases/akronco...CASENUM=1302345 If I'm reading this correctly he's being charged with a third degree felony. Pretty sure we've seen the last of Alex Abreu in an Akron uniform. Absolute shock doesn't even begin to describe it. This just set the program back five years.

And it all falls apart.

Chauncey's performance was one of the few bright spots for me last night. I've been critical of him the last few weeks on here, so when he plays well I have to make sure I acknowledge it. I really think he is going to be a big key for us down the stretch. When he has it going he brings an edgyness that is lacking with the rest of our wings. Still disappointed overall (as much as you can be with a double-digit win at home) with last night. This team just doesn't seem to want to give a full 40 minute effort. As much as I'm trying to convince myself that we will be ok even if they don't, I'm still very uneasy about it. And BTW, anyone who would even suggest that a game against Can't, at home, on senior night and on national TV could be meaningless needs to have their head examined.

While it is nice to get the win to get back on track, I don't find a lot to be too excited about in this one. We let one of the worst teams in the conference, playing without their leading scorer hang around WAY too long. This team has some maturity issues that they need to get over and quick. Too much street ball tonight for my taste. Too many trick passes when the simple pass will do. If they had played focused for 40 minutes tonight Miami would have had a tough time keeping this one within 40, but we still can't seem to do it for more than 3-4 minutes at a time. One other thing that I'm starting to notice with this team, they don't like it when opponents give them a taste of their own medicine. We pretty well wet ourselves in the second half when Miami threw pressure at us. On top of that the last couple of games we have given up WAY too many points to big guys leaking down the floor off of our misses. Those are two pretty significant staples of this team, but they don't seem to be able to counter it when the opponent throws the same thing at us. I'm really hoping to see a better effort against Can't on Friday night. I would hate to have Zeke's last game in the JAR be a loss to those turds.

Chauncey needs to get his head on straight. I watched him extensively against NDSU before the game, during the game, at half-time and after the game. He had not interest in anything that was going on. I personally watched a 3-4 minute stretch in pre-game warmups where he was holding a long distance conversation with someone in the stands. He passed up his turn in the layup line at least half a dozen times and when he did take shots they were half-hearted or they were Nick Goddard style 3's from the bench. Memo to Chauncey. You will not see minutes from KD if that is the attitude you bring to the table. You're a senior. Wake up and start acting like it.

I don't know about that. Miami isn't a good team, but this Zips team hasn't lost in so long it is hard to know how we are going to respond. We've been playing with fire far too long with these early deficits and these long scoring droughts. If this team is as mentally tough as some claim them to be it will be an absolute beatdown on Tuesday. If not, this could turn into a 2 or 3 game losing steak in a hurry and the wheels will come off this team. I didn't like the body language against NDSU, and I didn't like it again tonight. Right now is when you need your seniors and your leaders to step up. Unfortunately one of those seniors (Chauncey) has all but packed it in at this point. I don't know what is wrong with him, but he's shown no effort at all since the knee injury. You aren't going to get minutes to KD without consistent effort.

Talk about buying in too your own press clippings. Zips came out tonight looking like they expected to be handed this game just for showing up. Everything that has concerned people about this team despite the long winning streak showed up tonight. Missed FT's. Getting yourself into big holes. Not always the best from 3 point land. The occasional defensive lapses. It was all there. Only problem was that we never did manage to turn the switch on and get it done. Nothing but disappointment right now in our guys. They flat out got out-played in every facet of the game tonight. It isn't even worth analyzing individual performances because tonight was about the team. The team just flat out let us all down. It's gut check time right now for this team. It has been so long since we've lost a game. Do we use this as the wake-up call that we aren't as good as we thought we were, re-group and come out and steamroll some teams the way we should be or do we get frazzled by this one and start falling apart?

Over on the Bobkitties board they are clinging to any type of hope they can. Many are expressly or impliedly stating that they will get us in Cleveland because it is difficult to beat a team three times in one season. So I decided to look into it. In the past 5 years in the MAC (2006-2007 through 2011-2012) there have been 16 occasions when one team beat another twice during the regular season only to have them meet up again in the conference tournament. In those tournament games the winner of the previous two wins 75% of the time (12-4). Last year alone it happened 4 times with the winner of the previous two going 3-4. And these aren't just games where the tallest midget in the MAC West beats up on the shortest midget. These include at least a couple of conference finals matchups. 2011-12: Akron vs. Can't State - Akron 3-0 2011-12: Eastern Mich. vs. N. Illinois - EMU 2-1 2011-12: Ohio vs. Buffalo - Ohio 3-0 2011-12: Western Mich. vs. N. Illinois - WMU 3-0 2009-10: Akron vs. Ohio - Akron 2-1 2009-10: Can't State vs. Ohio - Can't 2-1 2008-09: Bowling Green vs. Ohio - BG 3-0 2008-09: Eastern Mich. vs. Central Mich. - EMU 2-1 2007-08: Central Mich. vs. N. Illinois - CMU 3-0 2007-08: Can't State vs. Akron - Can't 3-0 2007-08: Can't State vs. Miami - Can't 3-0 2007-08: Miami vs. Buffalo - Miami 3-0 2006-07: Akron vs. Can't State - Akron 3-0 2006-07: Eastern Mich. vs. Ball State - EMU 3-0 2006-07: Ohio vs. Bowling Green - Ohio 3-0 2006-07: Toledo vs. Eastern Mich. - Toledo 3-0 Hate to burst the bubble of some of them over in Bobcat land. But the facts don't exactly support the theory on this one.

HE'S HANGING ON THE RIM! THAT'S A TECHNICAL!