skip-zip

Very good. I like that. I so clearly remember how opposing coaches used to bitch about Shaq. They all felt that the size of his body helped him so much in "clearing out" the defenders who were guarding him that they technically should have been Charging calls. Maybe I am a little Old School when it comes to basketball. But if you're guarding someone in the post, you should be limited to whatever you can do without initiating any significant contact. You can knock the ball away from him without touching him, you can block his shot without touching him, and you can establish position and make him go around you. That should be all that is allowed. To me, I think defenders make some kind of body contact with him nearly every time they try to block his shot. And I think far more of those plays should be "And One" situations. Maybe I am too biased. But that's my opinion from what I see.

You're right. I don't want to downplay some of those home win streaks too much. It's impressive to string so many long runs together. But we certainly have plenty of games that help pad those numbers along the way, and make all of this possible. I think it's also important to note that we're certainly not the only one who does it. By a long shot.

By the way, I was looking for an article today in the ABJ, and there was a small article on the BACK PAGE of the sports section, which was actually just the AP story. And it talked about the entire HOF class, with a special mention to Tomlinson in the article title. I think they can do much better than that. Maybe they still will do something. Who knows. I wonder what they would have done if it was a former OSWho player who was just inducted?

I'd bet that they still would remember his NFL career. That, alone, would have value in the fact that they can say...."You know this guy?....he played at Akron". I actually find the same thing with people I know that aren't Akron fans. I can't count how many times he was on TV, and I would tell people "He's a Zip", and they'd say, "I didn't know that". I was even in the Hall of Fame once walking around with a high school football coach, and there was a display the year Jason was Defensive MVP, and I had to tell him that he played at Akron. You'd think more people would know.

I wish. i think the most notable physical characteristics to me are the seats being so close to the floor, and the wall behind the baskets. That could create a little discomfort for an opponent. But most times, your own team just feels more comfortable in front of the home crowd, and in their own gym. But, who knows why we've gotten on these runs so frequently. Like I said recently, the 07-08 was 23 games. Huggins had a 27 streak. We had 18 between 2012 and 2013. I like being spoiled

There were a lot of unusual circumstances in this game, like I mentioned, but this one was surely one of the most puzzling. I wonder what the statistical chances are of a bad 3-point shooter being perfect in a game like this? Especially when you consider that he was carrying the load for his team all day, and had to be exhausted.

Damn. I thought Oregon had the best possible chance they are probably going to have to get a home loss yesterday too. That would have given us the longest home win streak and a little bit more pub. But, man, they destroyed the #5 team in the country. It was pretty impressive to watch. I thought it was pretty funny that one of our announcers said something just last week along the lines of whether Kansas was ever going to lose at home in the foreseeable future. A few days later, it happened. That's college basketball.

I'm actually more disappointed in the loss with the way our big man got hosed with the calls, and 2 of his 5 fouls being technicals. But at the same time, there were so many circumstances (listed in my post above to Bubba) that won't happen again this year. That's why, regardless of the loss, I don't consider OU a threat to our title at all. But gosh, we can't deny that we lost our greatest opportunity for more national attention since the ranking votes are likely to go away, and we'll have to start over. That makes it a pretty damaging loss in that respect. Yes, those 3 games you mention would have worried me more than yesterday's game. I expect them all to be tough to win on the road. Hopefully we learned some things yesterday that will help us in those games.

I just saw that news pop up. Awesome !! We need to get a lot of Zips fans down there.

Bubba. We drilled you twice last year WITH Campbell. Unfortunately for you guys, you've fallen further and further behind us as a MAC power over the last few years, ever since your last so-called elite team got a 20 point spanking against us in Cleveland, while we were playing without a point guard. If you really think this is a preview of some great matchup in the March title game, Good Luck asking for a repeat of a 5-for-5 long range shooting night from your 25% 3-point shooter, getting 4 of our guys in peril with fouls in the same game, getting 2 Technicals called on Big Dog, Cheatham shooting 3 for 18 from the field, and getting more than Double our FT attempts.

Keith obviously knew he couldn't say much in the postgame, but he emphatically said that they could have easily let that go and let the players play. In this case, their desire to "police" the game really hurt one team much more than the other. I don't care if they officiate one game closer than the other. I just want them to officiate equally within the scope of the game that they are officiating on that night.

I want to give Kwan a break because he's surprisingly shot the ball so well this year. But his shot selection was pretty poor today. The fade-away 10-foot jump shots when closely guarded were unnecessary. I felt like that was more of the 2014-2016 Kwan.

For me, I felt the critical part of the game was when Josh missed the open 3-pointer when we were up 5 points. With an 8 point lead and Big Dog coming off the bench rested in a couple of minutes, I felt like we wouldn't have lost. We did a heck of a job battling without him on the floor. With that said, someone should be livid about taking a team's best player and fouling him out by making his 3rd and 5th fouls a technical for jawing with opponents, and Keith has already said that he didn't swear. And on his 4th foul, the officials said he was moving setting a screen, and it was actually Kwan setting the screen for him and he was just running past the screen and someone flopped. The biggest travesty is that you don't call a Double Technical after the Halftime buzzer when one player is the best player in the league, and the other is a bench stiff. You can't do that and say that you are penalizing both teams. Period. The MAC will continue to wonder why they can't get more teams in the tournament, yet they will allow games like this, just like our NIU road game unexpectedly stopped our momentum last year.

Geez. That sucks. With most channels, you can log into them if you pay for them. It's great that we are getting more games on TV, and that we get better footage, but it's ironic that they are harder to get tuned into for the fans than the old school feeds.

Yes, but you can only log into it if you pay for the premium package that included that Channel at your home.

It could be all of these factors to some extent. But, don't conclude that fatigue affecting FT shooting shows up only at the end of a game. It could be after a long stint on the floor. It could also be during a frantic series of runs up-and-down the floor, or shooting right after fighting for several rebounds, etc.

I know where you're going with this, and I couldn't agree more. I remember the year we won the Soccer National Title in 2010, we had back to back road games at North Carolina and Wake Forest, and won them both. I think that was the final leap that we needed to gain the respect of the nation. It probably seemed insane to schedule those two games at the beginning of that season, as road games, but that was our way past the stigma of being a MAC team that wasn't getting enough respect. I gave Porter credit for understanding what it took to get to the top, and having the guts to do it. Yes, we were certainly well on our way to top billing by that time in Soccer, but Basketball needs to find a similar path if National Recognition is ever in our future.

We've also made games much closer than they should have been because of our lack of ability to make free throws at the end of games. It all depends who's shooting them. You actually made me look at the FT numbers. Maybe what surprises me the most is that Noah shoots the technicals. I guess coach knows best who he can trust to make them in a pinch, because it looks like he's the #4 FT shooter on this team.

I hope he didn't eat at Robertson this morning. 24 hours on IV can do wonders

Nobody disputes that's the right move. But inbounds plays rarely go as planned.

Yes, it still needs to be a common foul. You can't go and jump on his back or start grabbing his arms as soon as the ball is given to the inbounds passer. That seems like the easy solution. But like I said, you still need him on the floor when you get to the other end to run a play. But when the game gets REALLY late, like with a 5 point lead with 20 second left, you aren't going to be running a play anyway. So, I'm not understanding why he's even out there, if it can be avoided.

It's a tough situation for a coach. First, Noah is the inbounder, but is also the guy you'd probably most want at the line. Secondly, you'd probably not want Big Dog in there late when you are inbounding after an opponent's made basket, but you want him in there once you get into the other half court. If I were an opponent, and it was late in the game and I was trailing, I'd be fouling Big Dog before the ball is even thrown in-bounds.

During the NIU game, I just about collapsed on the floor when the one announcer said something like.. "Akron is a pretty good FT shooting team at almost 70%" I think what's really going on here is just that the guy who gets fouled the most is a horrible FT shooter. There's plenty of other guys we can count on to hit them. The most interesting part if that maybe our best FT shooter is also our best inbound passer. I wish that wasn't the case.

I don't wish for injuries, but I don't feel sorry for OU either. The only thing I regret is that our wins against them won't have as much impact on our RPI.

I hope we can gain something positive knowing we had a 12-point victory we had down there last year, with most of the same players they have now, including a healthy Campbell. We didn't shoot well either. But we beat them on the boards and created 13 turnovers. In fact, Noah, Antino, and Josh (believe it or not) combined for 9 steals. Interesting.