1981 grad

There are numerous reasons for low attendance. The last few years when KD was the coach we went to the MAC finals, drew a big crowd and then lose the game. A lot of those people did not come back. We lost a slew of season ticket holders when KD left the program. Basically, there is no marketing of the B Ball program. And the price of $15 for a ticket, $10 for parking, and the high concession prices make it an expensive night for families. I like the pricing at the superbowl. Charge less and serve more.

A friend sent me this link and I thought I would share it. Aron Jackson interviews the Zips and at the 4 minute mark Jake gives advice on how to improve your jump shot. Considering how poorly our team has been shooting, Groce may want to follow Jake's advice. It certainly could not hurt. Aron does a great job doing the interviews. It is great seeing Ivey, Antino, E man and Josh as frosh. Antino is playing professionaly in Italy. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjae1p4KXUU

I also saw Riak pulled each time he shot the 3 ball. I liked how they got yanked. I noticed on the box score that LCJ only played 23 minutes. I would like to keep those minutes where they are until he starts making the 3 ball or starts taking better shots. When he is off, Utomi is off, and our centers are offensively challenged, we are only getting scoring from Cheese and Ivey and we struggle. Cheese is doing a good job running the point. I thought Jackson did well beating the press and handling the ball, expecially at the end of the game.

I am not buying the ugly win. I thought the zips played well down the stretch. Tyler Cheese had one of the best games of have seen from a Zip. He was great on offense and defense. He also did a great post game interview giving credit to his teammates who told him to be more aggressive and take more shots. It is difficult to win when 2 of your starters Jackson and Utomi, shoot 2 for 20. Watching Utomi shoot is painful. He drives to the lane and then hesitates. He needs to take the ball straight up. He is missing wide open 3 balls and the shots are not close to going in. However, I give him credit because after the game he went back out and was shooting the ball. On the postgame show they kept indicating how good Riak was on the floor. I thought he was good but he needs to stop shooting the 3 ball. This team does not need our center missing 3 balls. I thought Poke had a really good game. He was very active and made several players miss shots. I thought he outplayed Sayles who looks slow. He needs to move his feet and do a better job boxing out. I cracked up watching Cheese miss a layup when the nearest player was at half court. He got the rebound and then made the second layup. I have done that several times so it is fun watching a college player do it. Of course on the post game he indicated he slipped. Great win for the Zips.

Sarcasm? Riak hardly touches the ball on offense and rarely acts like he wants the ball. Most of his "passes" are handoff 40 feet from the basket. Watching these guys do a high pick and roll is pathetic and Riak never sees the ball nor is he open. Our offense off of our center is zero. If you want to watch offense off of our center watch old clips of big dog passing the ball to Ivey.

I am a season ticket holder and sometimes bring a friend or family member. I always buy my extra ticket at the window. Rarely a line and when there is a short line a person will stop by and give me a ticket that they cannot use. It makes no sense to buy your ticket online because of the added fees.

Am I the only one that feels that way. I watched the football struggle to score and ranked last in offense. Now I am watching another Zips team that cannot score and will probably rank last in offense in the MAC.

Considering recent events, not sure if we have any room to talk.

When I watched Jackson early in the season I was very impressed with his game and noticed that he was a step quicker than everyone else on the floor. He could beat his man off the dribble and had a good outside shot. I also noticed how after penetrating he would find the open man or finish at the basket. He also was rebounding the ball. Yesterday, Jackson came back into the game with a 6 point lead and that lead became a 12 point deficit. He was completely ineffective in the second half. He turned the ball over, played bad defense, and could not buy a shot until the game was long gone. He is having difficulty penetrating and when he can penetrate he cannot finish at the hoop. The one time he did finish is when Groce pulled the center and it opened up the lane. He is also struggling with his 3 point shot like everyone on the team. We need him to play well the entire game. If he is not playing well, pull him and let Cheese play the point. We need more from our point guard if we are going to win a game on the road.

This coach is the one who recruited these players except Ivey, E man and Utomi. If the recruited guys that won't listen to him, it is on him. He has gone the transfer route recruiting players that did not work out somewhere else. The jury is still out on whether that is working. We are still early in the season but this team needs to learn to win on the road.

How about bad coaching! I am so tired of watching Utomi take a 3 pointer with a high arching shot and just stand there like a statute instead of moving his feet toward the basket and going for his own rebound. All of these guys love to stand there and watch their 3 point shot. I was taught at a very early age that after you shoot your ball you move toward the basket. The way we are shooting the 3 ball in MAC play, there is a 77% probability that there will be a rebound. Start moving towards the basket instead of away from it when a shot goes up. Our centers are the only one trying to rebound the ball and they are slow to the ball and not good rebounders. Is anyone on this team a good offensive rebounder? It is tough to win on the road. Last year we were 2 -10 and this year we are 0-5. And we just lost to a team that did not have a win in the MAC.

This must be groundhog day. Same old Same old. We cannot shoot a 3 ball but keep shooting it. Remember, last year we did not get our first road win to mid February. I think it is tough to win on the road and you need experienced players to win. Our only experienced players are Ivey and Utomi. They did not have good games. Cheese is really the only Zip who looked good. I would like to see these guys pound the offensive boards. Instead, they just watch. Groce better find out how to win on the road or we are going to have the same record as last year with another play in game on the road.

That last 3 pointer by Miami was Jackson getting beat on defense and driving the lane and dumping to a wide open shooter. Jackson needs to learn to keep his man in front of him.

I wish we could get the ball down low to our center and he would take it to the hoop. The first shot from our 2 centers is a 3 ball. The second shot was a missed layup. In the last possession, Groce said screw it and went small and we played with no center. It opened up the middle and Jackson was able to beat his man and get a layup. Our centers are not in the flow of the offense. When Utomi posted up his man the defender in the middle just clogs the lane and Utomi cannot penetrate. Our offense is struggling on the road but we are playing good defense. Cheese had some great drives. WE are shooting our MAC average, 23% from the 3 line. Worst in the country. If we could shoot the 3 ball anywhere near average we would be up by 6

Basically, we are all guessing what happened. I wish him good luck and hope that he recovers fully and finds the right basketball situation. I know that he spent a year in Florida to improve his game and was of Groce's first recruits. He had some good moments last year. I hope the good memories of his playing time in Akron outweigh the recent incident.

With all the bricks our players have been shooting the last 3 games, by the end of the season we will have enough materials to build that wall.

Illini Zip: I like reading your posts but you have only been posting for over a year. I have been a Zips B Ball fan for a long time and I have never seen a post by a Zips fan where we blame the refs for our loss. Never! Especially when we lose by 17 points. However, looking at the minutes played by our starters on Tuesday, Ivey 41, Utomi, 40 Jackson, 40, Cheese, 31. They then had to fly to a road game on Friday. They then played a trap zone using a lot of energy. It is possible that they got tired and that is the reason they fell apart in the second half. Our former coach, KD, rarely played anyone more than 30 minutes and his goal was always to play 9 players. People on this board would get upset because a guy would get hot and then he would pull him from the floor. By the way, the 2 guys that did not play heavy minutes on Tuesday, Roscoe and Banks, shot the ball well and were 4 for 10 from 3 point land. Conincidence? I apologize for the sarcasm but my point is that the refs had nothing to do with our loss. I believe that Groce played our guys heavy minutes on Tuesday and it came back to haunt us on Saturday. He needs to get more players in his rotation because the MAC schedule is a grind. Also, he needs to play Jackson less minutes because he certainly is not playing as well as he was in the beginning of the season.

If you need a reason why this team is playing so poorly, just look at the 3 point stats. We are 26th in the nation for 3 point attempts. But we are 217th in 3 point percentage makes. If you just look at just the MAC stats, we would be dead last in the country on 3 point field goal percentage. WE love to take 3 point attempts but cannot make them at a high percentage. This was the same problem last year. Different players, same problem. One of the problems is that we do not have a center who like to take shots in the paint. We just have more guys taking 3 ball shots. Loren Jackson has been terrible shooting the 3 ball and is 3 for 25. Hopefully, when they get home this percentage will improve. If not, this will be a long season. Groce always indicates that his players are great shooters. It is time to prove it or work on a different offense that does more than shoot 3 balls.

We sucked on the road last year. We have sucked on the road this year. It is difficult to win on the road, especially with inexperienced players. Ivey and Utomi are our experience and they did not play well in the second half. As soon as I compliment Utomi for his inside game he starts the second half with an air ball. All of these players like to shoot the three ball and when they are cold they seem to fall apart. I think Jackson is a great player but he has struggled, expecially his shooting. Our shooting stats on MAC play are horrendous and we are going to struggle until we shoot better.

I do not know why when there is a screen to the left a player jumps to the screen and allows a free lane to the basket. I saw it on Tuesday with Jackson and I just saw it with Ivey. What is Groce telling these guys when he teaches them defense. Once again, this team is not a good 3 point shooting team but they love to shoot them. Have not seen a team fall apart like this in a long time. The talent is ther but they look bad.

Groce needs to work on his half time speech. For the second game in a row we come out flat in the second half and lose the lead. I have seen more Roscoe this game than any other game. Glad to see Sayles look like he wants the ball and going to the hoop. Utomi cannot buy a 3.

Great to see Utomi attacking the basket. Lately he has only been shooting the 3 ball. He is so strong he should be scoring more inside. When he misses his 3 ball they are usually short. If he would follow his shot he would get at least 1 offensive rebound a game. I hate watching players pose after they take a 3 . If I were a college coach I would make them run if I ever saw a player posing during a game.

Wow! Based on the severity of the attack he is lucky to be charged only with Assault and not Felonious Assault. Does a transfer student who is sitting out practice with the team? I wonder if something happened at practice that precipitated the attack. I do not think that you would punch another player for no reason.

It may not look pretty but I have seen Sayles and Riak make some nice post moves. However, the other guys have to be coached to get them the ball and they have to want the ball.

When you look at the box score you can see where we lost the game. Utomi shot 6 for 13 from the 3 line. All his makes came in the second half. The rest of the team shot 4 for 22 from the 3 line. I keep hearing Groce talk about how good these guys are from t he 3 line. I just do not see it. This team is better at driving to the basket than shooting the 3 ball. When KD coached the team I always complained that we did not have athletic players that could attack the hoop. We now have those type of players. We need to play to our strength. Four of the starters played big minutes, 34, 36, 41, 40. I just wonder if the defense got worse as these guys got tired. Banks only played 19 minutes. Center production: Our 3 centers took only 4 shots. Can anyone even remember a pass into the post. THe center seta a high pick and rolled to the basket and never saw the ball. Finishing the game. I remember one possession with 2 minutes left where we tried to drain the clock with a 6 point lead. It did not work and resulted in a bad shot and score on the other end. I like how when we needed a basket we went to Ivey. He made 2 clutch free throws and a clutch drive. (okay, he missed a clutch free throw and committed the dumb foul) Still he is my go to guy at the end of the game. Defense: Our defense got worse in the second half. We did not defend their high pick and roll. I hated the way Jackson did not keep his man in front of him. Gave up 16 more points in the second half. I enjoyed watching this team play and was very impressed how we did not turn the ball over. As they play together more they should get better. I would like to see our centers get more involved in the offense.