RowdyZip

How about Ball State winning handily at Toledo? Crazy MAC this year.

After they lost the initial lead, the effort on the court ceased. We don't have the horses to compete, let alone win, unless everyone is 100% invested.

One of the most fun basketball games I've seen in a long time. Sucks we didn't come out on top. The above statement is 100%. Terrible call, super terrible call at that point in the game and it being a player's 5th foul.

Not to brag, but that was me. You're all welcome.

Yeah, his Instagram is private.

I read a story a while back from cleveland.com regarding grad transfers and how it can kill programs and actually hurt coaching staff job security. Gary Waters had some good quotes. This will exacerbate that problem. There's a reason most mid major coaches have spoken out about these rules. If this happens, it will be nothing but bad for G5 and below schools. Sure, some staffs will be able to foster relationships that keep kids around (I believe Kwan was being recruited as a grad xfer, or that was inferred) and he chose to stay at UA. Those will be the exception, rather than the rule.

And now this game is being called the exact opposite of the first half.

Garbage tech for hanging on the rim. There's showboating and then there's making sure you don't get injured.

Kostelac is playing Thompson wonderfully tonight. Luckily the refs are not calling this game as tightly as that BG matchup.

I just posted in the BG thread that Antino is dedicating the rest of his final season to E-man because his season is over. Situations like this push basketball so far down the list of priorities that it is hardly visible. Get well, big man.

I'm saying that our previous staff was very good at getting the most out of guys who were mostly unheard of coming out of high school. I'm sure some will jump me, but I've been following them and they took an "empty cupboard" and nearly ended VCU's 15 A10 home game winning streak. I'm not badmouthing our team or staff, just different staffs have different strengths. I'm a Zips fan through and through. The recruiting for next year already looks fantastic. I'm just fearful of the damage one potentially terrible year can do to our anemic fan base.

Bingo. Down 21 at the half, and despite "better effort" we still lost the 2nd half. Say what you will about our former staff, but they maximized every drop of talent. Let's hope the recruiting ability of the current staff makes up for that deficit in upcoming years.

Could lose this game by 30 unless something changes quickly. Buffalo looks like it's on another level.

Opened at Zips getting 5, now 7. Maybe we can put together two solid halves tonight?

I thought only Dambrot teams didn't make second half adjustments?

We're probably already eliminated for this year then, because the schedule is even weaker.

Probably more likely to see Duke in the JAR.

I guess we'll all see what we want to see. UT-somethings and Miss Valley States are no different than Arkansas-somethings and NC-somethings. I'll agree that it is nice to see different teams, but a cupcake is still a cupcake, no matter the name. That being said, this should be a double digit win. MVS has lost each game by 13 (3x) or more. I'll be disappointed if we don't match or better that. We really can't take anything for granted this year with the youth and lack of depth on the squad, but if we keep the foot on the gas I see this as a 20+ victory. Just keep winning.

I took a stab at the loser's bracket based on RPI and us losing to USC in the first round. Unless we beat USC and get a matchup with Miami in the final, the numbers will be similar. I'm just tired of all the schedule whining when we've always been right in the middle 1/3 of D1 for the non-conference. This schedule is in the bottom 1/3. And yes, I know it's a new staff and a very young team, but let's not praise this schedule when all we did was whine about cupcakes before. I think everyone will find that in the coming years, getting perennial top 50 (or even top 100) teams in the JAR will be virtually impossible, as hit has been for the past decade.

2016-2017 300+: 2 200-299: 4 100-199: 4 50-99: 0 1-49: 2 Average RPI: 187.25 2017-2018 300+: 3 200-299: 4 (added #260 Princeton) 100-199: 2 (added #159 NM State) 50-99: 2 1-49: 0 Average RPI: 224.1 2015/2016: 185 2014/2015: 206.3 2013/2014" 159.8 2012/2013: 152.2 2011/2012: 142.7 2010/2011: 167.4 2009/2010: 183.0 2008/2009: 166.1 2007/2008: 170.8 2006/2007: 195.0 2005/2006: 167.5 2004/2005: 221.0

Zips 1.5 dogs at home tonight. Vegas thinks it'll be a good game.

I'm proud to say I went 0/4. I'll take an 0-fer every time if it leads to a MAC Championship appearance and a bowl game.

Read through a few pages on their fan site. They've already marked down win 11 (I don't blame them) and they're pissed (I don't blame them). Imagine if we went 10-3 and beat Toledo in the MAC Championship and our reward was the Detroit Bowl vs. 6-5 Georgia State. I did find it curious that they have a similar argument about attendance, though there's not a 4,214 page thread about it. Pretty much dismisses the "weather" factor if FAU is averaging 10k-ish per game. I hate this matchup for us, though from a media attention standpoint, it's probably the best we could do. I expect the Zips to be double-digit underdogs (14-17 points), but hope we can get healthy enough to pull something off like the OU game. 8-6 is worlds better than 7-7.

I was attempting to find a list of at-large teams by tournament year, but couldn't find much. But here's a telling stat: At-Large bids awarded to teams with sub-.500 conference records in tournament history (77 years): 33. 15 of those have occurred in the last 20 tournaments.

Perhaps. It's a gradual process though, as look how long it took to get the play-in games implemented. The next step would be removing the AQ of the low-majors, then pushing MAC/Horizon/MVC type schools into the 16 seeds/play-in games. I'm not one to be conspiracy theorist, but I think the writing is on the wall within the next 20-30 years there will be an additional division in NCAA between the "haves" and the "have nots." Only time will tell.