clarkwgriswold

There now. It's nice to get out in the fresh air and see some football. Perfect day. Nice to see they're still bombarding us with unnecessarily loud music. Oh, and get off my lawn.

I've been watching some of the NFL draft and the portal is showing up there in that there are a number of players whose highlights are from more that one team. Just saw a DB who had highlights playing for Alabama and Oregon.

Were it not for a skinny kid nobody knew wandering into open tryouts a half decade ago the Zips transition to a guard heavy offense may have started much earlier!

I mentioned this before, but I suspect this team is built to look more like Toledo did last year when they had four guards and 6'7" Javan Simmons on the floor. Also, I think that sometimes we have unrealistic expectations of transfers. Not every transfer is brought in to be a major piece or a star. Sometimes, they're brought in as quality depth or role players.

Hard to pass up a chance to be a Paladin (what the hell is a paldain?). Maybe they offered his uncle a bench job. According to Wikipedia, The Paladins, also called the Twelve Peers, are twelve legendary knights, the foremost members of Charlemagne's court in the 8th century.

I'm a big fan of the logo on the Penn State football helmets.

Harding, a 6'10" forward averaged averaged 10.2 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 27.7 minutes per game Bishop, a 6'7" forward averaged 11.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 21 minutes Fitzmorris, a 7'0" center and previous Stanford transfer to Stony Brook, averaged 10.9 points, 4.4 rebounds and 25 minutes Trayore, a 6'8" forward, averaged 1.7 points, 1.2 rebounds and 6 minutes per game.

Akron is a nice stopping point between Jamaica New York and Missouri State!

One thing that jumped out at me in the video is how many of those clips are from games that were blowouts and essentially over. Not saying he couldn't be a big help, but he was obviously getting garbage time minutes.

I don't think Prather is a great loss but I will give that kid credit. He went from being Wilson's bench neighbor to playing meaningful minutes on his practice effort.

I think Groce's guard-centric recruiting approach is in part dictated by the market. A quality big man is tough to find and they are swallowed up by the big programs. There's a much larger pool of guards to choose from.

Without knowing what went on inside of the team, given the propensity of kids to quickly move on, I can't call a kid a miss and put it all on the coaching staff. As I recall, Baker was given the option of redshirting and took it. Behind an All-American, there's not much time to be had and I am sure that played into the decision to redshirt. There are a lot of reasons kids transfer and they don't all come back the coaching staff's quality of recruiting or something they did after the kid arrived.

From what I saw of Baker, I thought he could develop into a decent MAC big. This team is going to be deep on the perimeter but shallow inside. I could foresee a Toledo type offense in the Zips' future.

There's a huge baseball complex in Indiana that is planning to host a week of "Portal Games" where kids in the portal can come there and show their talents over a week before college coaches. I wonder if at some point we'll see something similar for basketball.

Dawson headed to Marshall.

Ohio.com article on Gray- https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/college/zips/2024/04/23/college-basketball-transfer-portal-isaiah-gray-commits-akron-zips-recruiting-cornell-ncaa-news/73423573007/

It just seems to have that feel to it.

6'3" guard. Averaged 9.5 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.4 steals while shooting 60 percent from the floor last year. That's a hell of a shooting percentage for a guard. From Brooklyn. Somebody has to be on their way out, right?

More of what we already knew, documenting all of the movement in the portal. The odd part was that it doesn't reference the incoming players and UA or PCCC.

No question. There has to be some middle ground.

I realize that this is the college sports world we live in but I am not a fan. That's by no means a criticism of Bud Wentz. I appreciate all he does for the program. I was a believer of the basic principle that a college athlete should be able to make some pocket money by doing things like doing autographs or showing up for a business outing but it has become the wild west in the the absence of any meaningful regulation. It's really refreshing to get some inside insight into the program. I wish this was a weekly show.

Scott took a while to settle in but he was a very valuable bench player down the stretch, especially on defense. As his play improved, it was obvious Groce's confidence in him increased. I think X and LCJ have skewed our expectations of transfer guards. We all have guys we like and would prefer to get more minutes. I think the way it played out demonstrates no one of that Scott, Thornton. Tavari trio took control to the point of seizing the role as "the guy."

Here's a little secret. P6 body types are usually going to be a little bigger that MAC body types. The LCJs and Alis of the world don't get pursued by the P6 programs out of high school. They look for top skills and body types. I'm sure Creighton's torrid shooting had everything to do with the weight room at Creighton.

No, they've had some open pre-season events in recent years. Also, we see clips through the Zips sites. The last one was right before they left for their pre-season play. They had a breakfast for fans, followed by a practice then a send off.

Other than a kid coming off of an injury like Nate was late in the season, I don't see any Akron kids looking winded or struggling with their hands on their knees. Watch a Zips practice and you'll see Groce working their ***es off. They're not less muscular or physical than their MAC counterparts. Their rebounding and defensive stats are evidence of this.