w00t

You are correct, we played the best defense in the MAC last year... but guess what? We played the best offense too. Can you guess who had the best offense in the MAC this year? I'll bet you can.

1 - You're employing the DiG strategy of picking one game as evidence to whatever point you're trying to make. (By the way, UK has been a mediocre three-point shooting team all year). Sure I saw WVU play good defense on Saturday, I also saw UNC run up and down the floor like gazelles and lay a 17-point beatdown on Michigan St. last year in the CHAMPIONSHIP game. What's your point? 2 - Slowing the tempo down is a legitimate strategy, but it doesn't speak to how well a team plays defense, nor did I ever say that it's because they have proficient offense. 3 - The offense vs. defense discussion doesn't have much to do with the Zips, as it's been framed in the context of winning a championship, something they haven't done. I think the reason this discussion came up was regarding where the focus should be for the Zips... and the focus should be on winning. They need to be better on both ends of the floor. I really don't know what point you're trying to make, but if all you're doing is challenging GP1's assertion that the "defense wins championships" mantra is outdated, you're probably fighting a losing battle. It's pretty clear that in college hoops, teams with high-powered offenses have been cutting down the nets for at least the last decade. I'm not saying they didn't play good defense, but it would be kind of silly to think that a team could be downright poor on either end of the floor and win a title.

Three things... 1 - See above, PPG (offense or defense) can say as much about offensive or defensive pacing as it does actual scoring or defending. 2 - This year's final four is the exception not the rule (check out the other thread where this was debated out the wazoo) and despite that three of the four teams rank better on offense than they do on defense. 3 - Quit making me agree with GP1.

Man...that really sucks for ZipWatcher. If Butler makes the Final Four, he doesn't get the $50.00 from woot? To be perfectly honest...Northern Iowa was ranked in the top 25 all season, so they exactly a mid-major either. That leaves St Mary's and Cornell. If Zach has any arguments to support these two not being mid-majors, woot might just be able to put the Ulysses S. Grant in the mail this afternoon? These are all midmajors .. and when one of them gets to the Final 4 this weekend, the payout is $500 (10:1 odds baby!). Ha, I just re-read that thread, I feel bad now for disclosing my hatred of UConn... at the time I had no idea about your roots with the dreaded Huskies. I also thought I was on the hook for $50 as opposed to $500 this whole time. *gulp* I still hope Cornell make the Final Four.

Haha at this too! Had to look it up. This tourney and next before ZW owes w00t $50. Go Zips!! B) I hadn't forgotten... but as much as I hope one of the remaining four MM's wins two more this year, I think that you've already come as close as you're going to get to my $50 when Davidson was within two points (and got the last shot) of going to San Antonio.

I love clear English, I also love statistics... Ken Pomeroy's defensive EFFICIENCY rating for today's contestants (y'know, the defensive stat that matters, any team can take 30 seconds on every OFFENSIVE possession and hold their opponents under 60). Kansas #5 UNI #18 Last Six National Champions (per the thread title) offensive EFFICIENCY... 2004 - Connecticut #4 (#5 defense) 2005 - UNC #1 (#5 defense) 2006 - Florida #2 (#5 defense) 2007 - Florida #1 (#12 defense) 2008 - Kansas #2 (#1 defense) 2009 - UNC #1 (#16 defense) Your clearly underlined and bolded assertion is dubious at best.

So you think NIU will still be playing after next weekend is said and done? Give me a break, you make a pretty wild general statement based on two lousy games. Take a look at the last ten national champions and then tell me how many of them demonstrate that defense is "king". Scoring more points than your opponents is king. That's actually the way it is.

What wins championships is scoring more points than your opponents in successive games. Very few teams do it by employing the late 80's Loyola Marymount strategy, and very few teams do it by employing the Miami Redsweaters strategy... most championship teams are pretty competent on both ends of the floor. I don't really care what strategy KD uses as long as it's a winning one. Our defense generally looks competent enough, but our offense struggles mightily sometimes, and for long stretches.

I'd like to remind the board that we have a flag line... it's easy to forget.

Hmm... Georgetown didn't know what to do, OU was scoring inside and out, Hoyas didn't know which way to turn... That sounds like you admitting that they played bad defense to me. Sounds like you're saying that every time a team scores it's because the other team played bad defense. Why can't it be that OU played good offense? OU won that game because they continued to attack for 40 minutes. They didn't get a 15-point lead and go into a shell and run 32 seconds of shot clock on every play and pray that the defense held up.

That's because they put them all on one side of the arena. The other side was less than half full.

I read it as beefing up the schedule. It's the only thing I can think of right off that he's been vocal in the past about not wanting to do (except on his terms anyway).

Amen. For the most part, very classy Zips fans! B)You don't go to 4 straight MACC games with a bad coach. Yes, I would like to see the schedule upgraded and don't want to see losses to Austin Peay or Eastern Michigan either. However, the program is as good as it ever has been and I believe the growth will continue under KD. This WILL be the case.Here's to a couple more wins this season... A tough loss always draws a few comments that take it too far or that people really don't mean.On the whole, I thought UA was well represented tonight... on the court and off.

Excellent game, no margin (besides the final score) greater than five points from start to finish. I don't know that I've ever seen a game that closely contested all the way through.Hats off to Ohio, they made their way through three tough teams in three days. Cooper and Bassett make one helluva backcourt, and both played every minute of the game tonight. It's always disappointing to lose on the big stage, but no one can question the effort that UA put in tonight. Many thanks to Chris, Jimmy, and Tim for a great four years... all four of which saw them play in conference title games. The future still looks bright to me, and if I had to guess I would say these two teams will meet again a year from now. ...oh, and at least it wasn't Ken+.

The only consolation for last Friday's atrocious performance was that Ken+'s reward was being placed on the same side of the bracket as Miami, Buffalo, and OU... that worked out OK.

...and 35 minutes! Good to see the big guy on the floor for an extended period of time, and it was apparent from his attitude that there was nowhere else he wanted to be. Even observing him on the bench you could tell that he was impatiently waiting to get back in the game. He couldn't have picked a better game to turn in his best performance of the season so far, let's hope it instills the confidence in him to dominate the rest of the weekend. If Conyers locks down Kool and Zeke controls the paint and we win by double digits tomorrow!

Did he make any mention of the "ACK-Rowdies"?

Zippy rode the bull last year... it was epic.

It's a classic...

Top Drawer is listing Reinaldo Brenes' teammate (and leading scorer) from the IMG Academy Martin Ontiveros as a Zip commit as well.

Bring him here, we'll take him, especially since he's a forward and our stock of those seems to keep running low. Since I was the first one -- a year or just more ago to suggest Teal Bunbury as the successor to Zakuani's scoring mantle, ladies and gentlemen, can you say, "Yoram Mwila"?Really? I'm thinking Nagbe is much more likely to be next year's leading goalscorer (I think he could even put in 20). I think Speas, Nanchoff, and Ampai will all increase their goal tally from last year too.

Not so fast my friend...http://akron.scout.com/a.z?s=333&p=8&a...amp;nid=4266308#165 DE in the country...2 stars. Nothing to brag about, but nice size and like someone said earlier= if he is playing basketball (and his biography on the page says, "standout basketball performer") he is probably a darn good athlete.Apparently when you get stars you get an inch taller and lose 10 pounds.Nice! Rivals and Scout OFTEN have differences there..who the hell knows why.You look at three sneetches...they all look the same. But some have stars, and some don't? It's an age-old question...All Ianello needs to do is add the esteemed Sylvester McMonkey McBean to his recruiting staff... voila, more stars.

If there are enough people who have said this that it's "dead horse" material, then whoever the hell is running the team shop now should definitely take some notice that people would line up to spend $75 on soccer jerseys. Maybe those jersey sales could even help them surpass that lofty $8,200 mark this year.

Hey we found a dead mouse in our beer, eh. That means you owe us a free case.

All I've wanted for years is an Akron soccer jersey... still out of luck.