Blue & Gold

I wasn't complementing Ivey. I was trying to say that if LePear is playing even close to the level Ivey is come his senior year, I'll be very pleasantly surprised. LePear has a lack of self-confidence Ivey never did. LePear has a tendency to hang out beyond the 3-line & he didn't start driving to the hoop even against high school competition until the state tournament of his senior year. That's just my prognostication and of course I hope I'm wrong.

^^Fully agree. Watching him develop mentally and emotionally into one of the best leaders I’ve seen in a long time has been a joy.

Nice. And thank you! I don't know if Zip Watcher (who started this thread & maintained the up-to-date scholarship chart) is on here anymore.

I love LePear & enjoyed watching him in high school. But Ivey’s on a different level than LePear right now.

+1. This past year’s OOC schedule was perfect.

We must have already had our 3 verbal commits last year before it became obvious Cotton wasn’t going to mesh with the culture Groce was looking to implement?

ABJ: Zips struggling offensively in MAC play Pretty good article concerning our offensive woes. I'm not surprised by this; the MAC is a physical conference and this is the 1st go-around for a number of our guys. They'll adjust. But I'm not optimistic about tonight. EMU's really feeling their oats right now.

We desperately need another PG & we don't have one coming in for next year either.

I liked Cheese coming off the bench as 6th man.

Northern Illinois dominates second half to rally past Zips 73-56. Give this a read. Brief, utterly demoralizing article. GT lays out lots of troubling stats.

My ESPN+ playback wasn't working properly, so I wasn't able to see most of the second half. However, I thought this team might struggle once MAC play started. It's the first MAC go-around for most of our players and the MAC is a tough, blue-collar league where you have to be physical & give it 100% every game to win. LCJ is struggling right now & I think he will struggle a bit more in the MAC than the OOC just because MAC guards are going to be physical with him & beat him up. Cheese & Banks are struggling w/ their shots but they have MAC bodies & I'm confident they'll come around. Ditto with Roscoe (glad to see him being worked back into the rotation). Utomi's built like a Greek god, but looks slow & isn't a very explosive player - to say the least (I wonder if he can even dunk the ball in open gym?). What surprises and disappoints me is hearing you guys describe the poor body language and making it sound like the team's unravelling & regressing (again, I couldn't watch the majority of the second half). If true, I would not have guessed that with this bunch. I really like the personalities of most of the guys on this team. Cheese & Banks seem like really nice guys who have good, competitive streaks. Ivey is a good leader. Utomi gets down on himself pretty easily. LCJ seems like a good leader. I know LePear Toles, though taking a redshirt, has a fantastic, positive attitude. Idk, I wish I could have watched the second half. I'll probably give it another try this afternoon. Another point: this is the second game in a row we've laid an egg in the second half. Idk what's up with that, but I'd say it either has to be tired second-half legs (both games have been on the road) or getting out-coached. We played excellent D the 1st half last night & then NIU went on to score the 1st few baskets of the second half. The announcer said something like, "This is where you kick yourself in the pants as a coach; the Zips played great D the 1st half, then they come out playing a different D in the second half and NIU gets right back in the game." If true, Idk why Groce would do that. 1st half we had NIU out of their game; 2nd half we let them get into rhythm offensively.

Thanks, @zzx, you've really been on top of things.

I forget in which thread we were recently discussing Khadim Gueye, but... Ohio dot com

This surprises me. Good for Torrey!

Man, quite an athlete.

In an interview a week or two ago I’m pretty sure Groce said they were flying. FWIW, Khadim Gueye is still listed on the GoZips dot com roster.

And this coming from a WR. Lol. I've got nothing against Oscar Rodriguez, of course. In fact he looks like a really nice guy. But the young guys obviously loved Otis. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall of Tom Arth's office when he was deciding which of the previous staff to consider. Pure speculation: Tom being so young, probably wants a staff of guys whom he feels like he can fully command. Just by following Otis on twitter, he kinda appears to be a Samuel L. Jackson-esque bad motherf**ker. The kids obviously ate it up, but Tom apparently wanted a clean break & a completely fresh start in the locker room. Idk. I'm just rambling b/c Otis seemed like a rock star no-brainer to keep. He was stacking quality DB's like pancakes. Has to be more to the story.

As a recruiting buff, I already miss Otis Mounds.

^^I think this has a lot to do with it.

I saw that last night. Though I've lifted my entire life, I don't know squat (pun intended) about D-1 level, sport-specific strength and conditioning. But I could at least tell the players liked Gildersleeve. I hope Coach Arth has a great hire up his sleeve for Sleeve's replacement, b/c, (along with Otis Mounds & Marcus Wattley), I was thinking we should give Gildersleeve strong consideration for staying on.

It would. Ivey and Sayles are our only players who play consistently above the rim. Utomi is especially earth-bound. Riak plays offense like he's afraid the rim's gonna bite.

Anyone know what's up with Roscoe's lack of PT? Earlier in the year I liked what he gave us, but he's beginning to look tentative while he's in there. A lack of PT & a short leash will do that. I hope Groce doesn't ruin his psyche. Walter getting meaningful minutes. I like his D. I'd like to see him hoist a 3 once in a while.

That’s good news, right?

I voted for the American Athletic Conference. Since we don't really have a realistic shot of ever being invited to join the B1G for all-sports, my thinking was it may be a good move to get our foot in the door & develop relationships w/ the member schools of the AAC.