clarkwgriswold

I'd love to see Dawson occasionally take it to the hole. It might actually result in defenses giving him more space on the perimeter. To date, 129 of the 152 shots he's taken have been threes. That's 91%!

The Zips head off to Harrisonburg, Virginia Saturday to face the James Madison Dukes in part two of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge. The Dukes are 20-3 heading into a game tonight against Arkansas State. Their three losses have all been in conference play, two to App. State and one to Southern Miss. As to common opponents, they lost to Southern Miss as mentioned and to Brimfield Tech in double OT in round one of the Challenge and beat Buffalo handily in late November. They are currently tied for third in the Sun Belt. This year's version of the Dukes reached 20 wins at the earliest date (Feb.2) in program history. 6'6" redshirt junior guard/forward Terrence Edwards, Jr. leads Dukes scoring at 16.8 ppg. 6'9" graduate forward TJ Bickerstaff is their second leading scorer at 13.9 ppg while leading rebounding at 8.9 rpg.

Amen. I didn't think he had it in him as it is not easy to overcome over a decade of bad form and muscle memory.

Not a great night shooting. Very pleased by how Tavari continues to develop. He could have packed it in when he was sitting early in the season and watching Kaleb and Shammas taking his minutes but he's stuck with it and really come along well.

Sore knee keeping Sammy out.

Amen. They've had a propensity to do that.

Sammy in sweats.

Thornton starting for Sammy.

I saw a picture of him participating in the shoot around so I assume he's okay.

No idea. Their 6th man, McMillan, has stepped in for Pritchard. He led the Chipps with 19 points against BG.

Oops. That would be quite the shootout!

Against BG on Saturday, they played yesterday without Pritchard, their leading scorer, and Harding, their big man, only played 3 minutes. Pritchard suffered a foot injury a couple of games ago.

Just saw that. Under/over yet is only 134. That's an implied point total of 159.5-160 for CMU. Wow.

We'll find out how good CMU really is tomorrow night but I have to give them credit. They were picked to finish last in the MAC pre-season poll yet here we are half way through the season and they are tied for second place.

I'd sure like to see more out of Sammy. I expected him to be the Zips' 3rd scoring option, but other than in the WMU game when I thought he'd turned the corner, he's been inconsistent and generally underperformed in MAC play. At this juncture, even with the 19 point game against Western, he's averaging 7.3 ppd and 3.5 rpg a game in MAC play. I wouldn't be surprised to see his minutes decrease as Shammah and Tavari's increase.

Okay, so you weren't a bookworm but you did learn "ipso facto."

...and the best representative of Zips sports in recent memory.

I went back over their last three or four boxes and noticed that they played yesterday without Pritchard, their leading scorer, and Harding, their big man, only played 3 minutes. Sophomore guard Paul McMillan stepped into the starting lineup and led the Chipps with 19 points, including the shot that took it to OT, though he was pretty inefficient at 7/21 from the field, 0/5 from 3 with 4 turnovers. Pritchard suffered a foot injury in last week's game against NIU.

6'2" junior guard Anthony Pritchard, leads the Chipps at 14.6 ppg. 6'6" grad student guard Brian Taylor leads rebounding at 7.5 rpg while also being the team's second leading scorer at 12.5 ppg. They are 10th in MAC offense at 68 ppg and 5th defense surrendering 71.7 ppg.

CMU/BG in their second OT!

After Ali got his tech he walked down towards the Toledo bench and appeared to be saying something or motioning towards them and Kowalczyk was whining at the refs to T him up again. It was a pathetic display by old Tod.

...and I had them at +7.5!

Takes me back to the days of Zeke Marshall. That guy really cleaned up for guys getting beaten to the basket. He had 122 blocks his senior year for the Zips!

This team has had issues facing pressure this season. There are spots on the floor that you teach grade school kids not to get trapped in and this team seems to somehow fall prey into getting pressured into those areas. Also, the perimeter defense lacks lateral quickness, maybe with the exception of Tavari and Thornton (who can get pushed around) to slow down the penetration. Tribble bodies up to make up for it but others have issues. The good news is these issues are fixable to some extent by better technique or adjustments I'm confident Groce and staff can make. I did like the switches to the 1-3-1 at times last night, though Toledo did a good job of combatting it a couple of times.

The Chippewas come to the JAR Tuesday night to face the first place Zips. The Chips are 12-9/7-2 headed into today's contest at Bowling Green. After that game I'll update the thread.