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I hope this doesn't evolve into a Post Season Analysis quite yet, but I sure hope everything is on the table, including major personnel changes, when we are going to finish at/near the bottom of the league. Heck, we've made multiple roster changes in the off-season in the past, even after very successful seasons. So, I expect some things to happen. Obviously, whether or not the fans think guys are hustling, filling their role well, or showing some improvement, it's obvious that we need a lot more people here who can win us a lot more games very soon. If we have opportunities to bring in better players and ditch guys who we determine are not going to get us where we need to go, then I hope we do that sooner rather than later. I always hate to see good kids getting pushed out the door, but it's the nature of the beast.

This is a good one to point out to everyone. Starting a few years ago, P5 schools started giving 4-year scholarship agreements. But unless something has changed for us, I think all of our guys are on One-Year Renewable (at the school's discretion) agreements.

The first 2018 recipient of the ZipsNation Creativity Award.

My suggestion is right there in the last line of the post. Maybe reading before responding would be another suggestion?

That was in reference to what people are excluding from the narrative. The actual data on opponents output is factual.

Thanks for the edit. Edit approved.

I think that's up to you to decide. But you'd be incorrect if you're saying that all of our bad defensive games were after Poke and Sayles went down, because we've had good defensive games since that time too.

The "wheels were off" was the term I used. That string of blowout losses earlier this month easily could have convinced guys to pack it in, for sure. I hope they can still get another WIN from all of the efforts before the season ends. I'd also like to encourage everyone to take another look before they make any conclusions from the recent narrative that we've suddenly become a better defensive team. It turns out that we had 4 conference games back in January where we held our opponents to Under 70 points. In fact, it wasn't until recently that we had all of these games where we were giving up around 80 (3 of our last 4 games), to as high as 90-100 points, And both of those happened in Feb., not in Jan. (Yes, I omitted the BSU game because it was 2OT). Have we drawn too many conclusions by just focusing just on the recent Miami and Central games? Maybe so. I know people might be basing this on improvements that they think they are seeing visually. But in terms of opponent output, we had plenty of good defensive efforts closer to the start of conference play too. So, maybe the narrative should be that we've actually gotten "back" to having some good defensive games.

We have wild parakeets in Ohio? I haven't seen those since I made a recent trip to Miami. I hear you. Calling our game a "rout" indicates that someone only looked at the score. But, calling an OVERTIME game a rout too? Again, I don't know if this was just bad reporting, or indicates that Kent is viewed in a more positive light by the ABJ. I'd guess it's both. We all know that the liberal news media has always adored places like Kent State. But I will also stand by my comment that Kent's reporter probably cares more about the team he is covering.

Well, I just got a chance to look at this morning's physical paper, and the headline for this game is very bizarre. "Flashes Crush Redhawks" Was the writer even aware that this was an OVERTIME game when he wrote headline? Either poor journalism (no surprise) or extreme favoritism for Kent (no surprise either). But I will give him credit for one thing. At least the ABJ Kent writer actually shows some enthusiasm for the school he covers.

The number "7" must be Keith Dambrot's lucky number. Duquesne hits another milestone this season by recording 7 conference wins for the first time in the last 7 seasons, with a win tonight over the #4 team in the league. With that roster? Pretty Unbelievable.

Clark, I said this about a week ago. Any games we WIN right now would be beneficial to this team heading into next season. That's why I don't understand why the coach blamed himself for playing the key players too many minutes recently. We should be doing whatever we have to do to win any games right now. Yes, we're not looking to be playing 4-6 extra games after the regular season ends, like in the past. So, there's no reason to "save" anyone. Let it all hang out. Nothing to lose. As a side note about Friday's game: Nobody wants to go into the off season as the last place team in the league. That makes Friday particularly important, as far as I am concerned.

I don''t want to get into any math details. But it looks to me that a Kent win and Akron loss could easily put Kent at 5 and Akron at 12 Or, an Akron win and Kent loss could easily put Kent at 6 and Akron at 11 Maybe there's something in the tiebreakers, etc., that I am not seeing.

There's a great picture of Keith yelling at Mayborg during a timeout in the MAC Semifinal game in 2015, while Mayborg is walking away from him. I wish I could find it. It's another indication of the history with this guy. He has been a problem for us for a long time. Let me preface this by saying that I have always participated in badgering MAC refs during games. I've even gone as far as standing over the railing and yelling at them until I strained my vocal cords as they exited though the NW arena doors at the JAR. And I'm way too old to be doing that crap. But I'm afraid to say that "standing up to them" by the COACHES is going to produce exactly what it did last night. Technical FT's, ejections, and (hopefully not) possibly losing a game at some point. Most people don't know this, but the officials even work with each other to make sure that one of them can avoid a bench that is giving them problems during a game. They have the authority to do a lot of things, at their discretion. So, what can be done? The only thing that's of any use, and contains no negatives, is to utilize your sports administration to make a case to the league. I know it happens. I just don't know how long it would take to really make a strong case that someone is railroading your particular team. Obviously a very long time, because the guy is still around. As I said last night, Groce's reaction is nothing new. And based on the records we can all see, he's never been in this situation with any team as a head coach. Which certainly adds frustration that you can't hold on to any longer. I just can't believe he walked all the way across the court during a game. I'm not sure I've ever seen that one. I hope he doesn't get fined. But as for my opinion on the fouls: I think the Duvivier foul was probably right, if they blew the whistle specifically calling the bump up around the foul line. But there was no foul on the actual shot. But, the no-call on the Kostelac shot was definitely a foul, from what I can see. I hope he doesn't get reprimanded for this too. But, if that's what he actually said on the radio, it's clearly in violation of the rule about criticizing officials.

Right. A couple of us were discussing the possibility of playing Kent again yesterday. We would end up at #12 in this scenario, and Kent might still be able to slip higher than #5. That would obviously eliminate them as our Monday opponent. But regardless of the desire some of us have to play a first round game at Kent, the only important thing that's happened with these 2 latest losses is that we've now eliminated the chance to get to #8, and get the first round home game. I'll say this. A bus trip to Kalamazoo and back would suck. Especially if we were to pull a major upset and have to play again on Thursday.

So, I am looking at the scenarios. I wonder how you and I both would think about wanting to play at Kent next Monday if losing to Kent at home this Friday is what would be needed to make that happen?

I made almost this exact post about a week ago I like the idea of being able to play 20 miles away.

Being a hothead? Yes. Doing what he did and getting tossed? I don't know if I have ever seen anything like that.

And....I see that OU and Central both won tonight. So, now we have to WIN on Friday to try to avoid being the #11 or #12 seed.

That's actually what I meant. He may not have had any desire to make all of the sacrifices of a walk-on anymore, if he wasn't going to play.

Could it also be possible that they discussed next year's situation with him? Several new guys on the roster next year on scholarship, and they told him that opportunities to see the floor may not be there anymore? If that's the case, and we anticipate upgrades that would be good enough to phase him out, that would actually be a good sign.

He might be blaming himself, but I don't see this as some kind of coaching error. Lets face it. Were not loaded with high-production players. ANY team in that situations is going to be playing their top guys for major minutes, to give themselves the best chance to win. No need to "save" anyone at this point. Try to win games however we need to win them. It's not as if we're going to play our usual extra 4 or 5 more games after next Friday.

Could it be possible that he is only a Junior in school, but has indicated that this is the last (only) year he wants to play basketball? Therefore, they want to recognize him as finishing his tenure with the team?

Sorry, my bad on that one. Then I guess he's actually younger than Mark.

I saw a post very similar to this recently. Was it yours? I know I commented that I thought that the numbers could be possible someday, but that I don't believe he'll get the playing time on better Zips teams (hopefully) in the coming years to get the minutes that he would need to hit those numbers.