clarkwgriswold

My biggest concern is Young. My worry is that he sees the team's depth as an impediment to his playing time. He certainly won't have any shortage of suitors.

Well stated. A decent team in the tournament won't let them off of the hook when they play like they did in the second half.

The 2024-2025 regular season comes to an end Friday as the Buffalo Bulls come to the JAR to play the Zips. The Bulls are 9-21/4-13 coming into the game. The Zips beat the Bulls 90-58 at Buffalo in January 21st. 6'3" sophomore guard Ryan Sabol leads Buffalo in scoring at 14.4 ppg. 6'3" senior guard Tyson Dunn averages 12.2 ppg as the team's second leading scorer and is the team's facilitator leading in assists by nearly 100. 6'8" junior forward Noah Batchelor leads rebounding at 6.1 rpg. How are we already at the end of the regular season?

Shammah has the ball stolen by Simmons. Unbelievable.

That's not a block. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

My dogs are looking at me like i am losing my mind (because I am).

Awful 15 minute stretch. They need to wake the hell up. Nate playing like he hasn't slept in a week.

Rough stretch for Nate here. Beaten to the basket for an and 1, an ugly turnover, then a bad unnecessary foul.

Awful five minutes coming out of halftime. Simmons should never beat anyone down the court.

On a 5'10" guy nonetheless.

Javon Simmons muscling up and talking trash because he outrebounded Young and Hardman. 😄

The play by play guy just told us that COVID kept Toledo from making a tournament run. Cry me a river you puke.

Wasn't sure where to put this, but it sounds like Taj Bullock can be taken out of the depth charts as he has entered the portal according to Pet Nakos on X.

Thanks for the insight. Have they just quit on Tod?

Ok, if we're giving Groce kudos we have to show some love to Dustin Ford. Dustin is in charge of the defense and despite playing at such a fast pace this year, which results in giving up more points, the Zips have been at or near the top of the conference defense standings (currently 4th in average points surrendered). I could see Dustin getting a head coaching job in the near future if he wants one.

This is a tough one but I am going with Amani. I never expected Amani to be any more than an 8 to 10 minute a game backup. I half expected him to take advantage of the portal. I was very surprised at the Tip-off reception at how his upper body had transformed in the off season and I have been even more surprised in the improvement in his game. Shammah has been great, but I expected it as you could see how much Groce trusted him as the season wound down last year.

It looks like the Rockets may have quit on Tod. They got peeled by Buffalo yesterday, 87-74.

Sullinger caught an OVI in Portage County very early in his time at PCCC.

I may be. I did see Harris with the team at some point with the sling.

There were two or three times where he was up on his feet and pointing and screaming at the refs. He was hot!

Hardman is great when he has time and squares up. His troubles come when he's drifting right or left in his shooting motion. I've become a fan of Seth Wilson. He had trouble getting on the floor early in the season and I suspected it was because he hadn't bought in. However, in the last month or so he's getting on the floor for loose balls, bodying up and hustling on defense and been actively involved with is teammates. If you saw the pregame video of him in the hallway before the team came out last night you could see him pumping up the team. He's become much more of a contributor than I expected him to be. Sharron appeared to reinjure his knee on the fast break layup when he was fouled and went to the floor. He hobbled to the bench from there. Shamon's steal and basket to end the half was huge. Tavari had two huge plays late with the 3 as three as the shot clock expired and the layup as the clock expired. Amani taking the charge was huge too. Groce stopped in the handshake line and took extra time to talk to Sullinger. I like how he does that. The Beacon/Ohio.com article was odd in that it focused a lot on Mr. Pinky and his thoughts on the game with little or nothing from Groce. Maybe it's because they wanted to get out of there and Groce was busy cutting down nets! I thought Bud was going to get a T last night!

One area the Zips need to work on is when Amani draws defenders cutting to the basket. With the emphasis on stopping the Zips threes, teams are trapping our guards with the guard and the big man on the screens out top. This is allowing Amani to cut to the basket without the big following and getting an open pass while he cuts. Kent did a nice job of help defense in collapsing other defenders to stop Amani and last night he occasionally unsuccessfully went at the defenders. In those situations, there will be at least one open guy on the baseline, corner or on the wing. One more pass would bring easy uncovered shots.

Tod's internal clock is a month ahead?

The Zips head to Toledo Tuesday night to face the (currently) 16-12/9-6 Rockets. The Rockets are at Buffalo today, which will likely allow them to end their two game losing streak. They've lost 4 of their last 5, with the only win coming in a one point victory over Ball State. Toledo has been a problematic venue for the Zips over the years. 6'1" sophomore guard Sonny Wilson and 6'6" sophomore guard Sam Lewis are each scoring 15.4 ppg. 6'7" sophomore forward Javan Simmons averages 11.5 ppg while leading rebounding at 6.6 rpg.

For most of the game, PCCC out-physicaled the Zips and did things like get all of the odd bounce rebounds and loose balls, buy when it came to crunch time the Zips made the necessary plays while PCCC wilted. One thing overlooked in the win was Seth Wilson's defense on Davis. He really bodied him up and by and large shut him down. Davis ended up with only 9 points for a total of 16 points in two games against the Zips. One thing I again saw and enjoyed was that when the Zips would make their runs the PCCC players would immediately start griping at each other. Is there any more of a beautiful sight than a dejected Mr. Pinky?