GP1

Carolina looks like the kind of team that is scared of their coach. Martin is so unbalanced his hands shake all the time.

Player development. His physical conditioning is poor and impacts is mobility. No excuse for it.

For those of you in Charleston, any thoughts on TD Arena?

Miami hit almost 50% of their 3 point shots. I haven't been to too many college basketball games where the passing to guys positioned for 3 point shots was so good. In addition, Miami's shooters were almost always in a "ready to shoot" position with their bodies and the passes were hitting them in their torso region. Excellent fundamentals.

Good post skip. In addition, we need to hit open shots. One of the nice things about the TD Arena is it posts FG%. Ours remained relatively the same for the two halves. We aren't going to beat anyone shooting 33%. We weren't missing difficult shots either. Guys were put in a position to hit the types of shots that player should be able to hit and they didn't execute. This is D1A basketball and we need to shoot better. Miami's FG% went up in the second half and after their run to start the second half it was up at 60%. Lots of layups helped, but they still were able to move an already high number higher...sign of a team that came out prepared in the second half. Moving forward, some things need to change. First, if Reggie Mcadams can't hit open shots, or even come close for that matter, he needs to find more time on the bench. Three point shooting is his only attribute. God knows he isn't a very good defensive player. If he can't shoot better, don't play him, let alone start him. A starter shouldn't be limited to 12 minutes. KD must know he is coming up short, both literally and figuratively. Second, Pat needs to get better at the following because right now he is their best hope and all of us can always get better at something. I really like what I see out of him, but like the rest of the team, his FG% was too low yesterday. One, less dribbling in the post. A couple of dribbles are OK if you need to, but not 5-6. If a center has to dribble 5-6 times, he is either missing out on a passing opportunity or indecisive. Don't press. Second, Pat gets all of the rebounds that come his direction. Really good rebounders get those and many that don't come their direction. Development in this area is important. Third, develop a turnaround finesse shot. The Miami center was no world beater, but he had a variety of shots he could take including a nice turnaround shot. Third, bring the energy level of the team up early to start the game by shaking up the starting line up. With the loss of Tree, options are limited as I look at the roster, but one kind of stands out. #4 displays good energy. Bench Mcadams and play Deji. He may not be a world beater, but he tries hard from one end of the court to the other and can provide some senior stability. The other players can feed off of that. Right now, we don't need a streak shooter standing around the three point line and missing shots. We need higher percentage shots and a guy who could increase FG% with some quick points off of turnovers. Points off of turnovers are important in lots of sports. Develop some defensive traps that could do this for the team. Lastly, this is not an opportunity for improvement, but a concern. Every game is on video. Every team we play gets to see our games. Miami uncovered a lot of deficiencies in our game yesterday and we need to get better and get better quickly. Specifically, we had better start making wide open shots or our best player, Pat, is going to have so many defenders around him he will never get the ball or when he does, he won't be able to get a shot off. We can't just sit back and wait for the opponents to get worse.

He is the only guy who played with any energy in the second half or for the full game yesterday. Pat is good player, but the other guys are going to have to step up their games this season. It takes zero talent to try hard for two hours. It all starts there and some of the guys need to look in the mirror this morning and think about whether or not they really tried as hard as they could yesterday.

If you really want to feel like a dirty old man in Charleston, go hang out at the Starbucks on Calhoun across the street from the University between 10 AM and noon. Stream the old The O'Kaysions song "I'm a girl watcher" while you are sitting there. A customer of mine recently retired and that is the only place he would meet anyone. Always wanted to go to Lana, but didn't know much about it. Will go next time in town. Seasonal fish right now are Wahoo, Tile Fish and Wreckfish. Flounder is always in season.

Maybe they committed 7 more fouls.

Let's hear about the travels.

Miami won't make the NCAA tournament.

Didn't match intensity.

It's very simple. Make wide open shots and we win.

USC was woefully coached and organized yesterday, but they had some good young talent. Truly one of the worst team I have ever seen at the mid major or major level. Regardless, the Zips performed well. I see them coming out today and playing as well as they did yesterday, which is pretty good. What I don't know is the talent level of The U or how well their coach is able to deploy the talent. If they are better organized than USC was yesterday and have better talent, the Zips can still win. Or, if they are better organized than USC and the Zips struggle, it could be a long day. I only see two results and I think each are equally as likely to happen. Either the Zips win or Miami covers. Not sure Miami wins a close one because that will mean Akron is clicking on all cylinders and they had to eek one out. If the Zips can keep it close, they can win if they are as well organized as yesterday and lay off of some of the nutty 3-point shots they take. No way do they win making 8 of 27 three pointers. Make 8 of 20 three point shots and turn those other seven into high percentage two pointers, keep the game close and like all average teams wait for Miami to poop their pants. Play hard. Play smart.

Or, it could have to do with both the quality of the official and the quality of fans attending games. Maybe the NCAA is trying to get control over this behavior. Fans watch coaches and if their confrontation towards officials escalates (I didn't think any Zips coach looked over the top yesterday, but fans can't always hear what is said.), so does their abuse of officials. It's one thing to try to get control over students, but when they have to go out of their way to discipline someone in the stands who is old enough to have a grandchild, it says a lot more about the fan than the ref. I don't applaud the NCAA for very much, but if they are making an effort to get adults to start behaving like adults at a public event, I'm all for it.

These weeknight games are a disaster for the league. OU was just as bad. I used to be embarrassed by it, now I'm just made depressed by it.

I would like to say I was writing about myself, but I'm reserving making an ass out of myself until later in the evening.

As the early season progresses, this should take care of itself. Lots of young guys come in and take poor shots. As these guys earn more time on the bench, there will be fewer bad shots.

Good post Dave. I don't know what the forecast was, but if they knew this weather was going to happen, it was irresponsible and stupid to take a couple of busloads of college kids on a trip to Buffalo in that kind of weather. As soon as the roads clear, they should pack their bags and head back to Can't.

The guy was making an ass of himself.

One request for the douche who almost got thrown out for heckling the refs non-stop. Please join the adult world. I stopped heckling refs when I turned 30...and I stopped wearing jerseys to games before I turned 20.

Good post. The Zips were organized, well conditioned, physical and hard working. They can win a lot of games with those characteristics.

I think you are asking the wrong question as it relates to networks. The TV ratings are going to be what they are and there is some risk to televising bowl games as it relates to unknown match-ups. Early bowl games are for gambling degenerates, filler for the down the trough ESPN networks and people who absolutely love football. I'm sure the advertising slots for games have already been sold. The sponsor of the bowl itself gets three hours, but they get their name on the bowl all year long so there are additional advertising benefits to sponsoring the game. The bowl committee gets to decide who plays in the game. Bowden might even know some people personally who sit on the two bowl committees in Alabama. The politics are very important at this point. I think the question is, who would draw more locals to the game?

Wouldn't it be just as easy to have them smoke some Skywalker OG?

Link Teams allowed a maximum of 15 practices. Most impressive is after one particular season, 51 of 70 teams that made bowl games made post season again the following year.

This is a very important question. A coach puts some thought into what he would do if his best player went down due to fouls and can make adjustments around that. A coaches best option and game plan assumes his best player and captain is in the game. Remove that first option and some other option of lesser quality becomes the best option with an even lesser option then becoming the adjustment. The season just started and they have been going through training camp planning around Tree being with the team. So much of what they have been doing leading up to this is a waste of time and to retool once the season starts is very difficult. It puts KD in a really bad spot. It will be interesting to see if in the next few days the team can adjust on the fly to these circumstances. Young teams normally don't find adjustment easy.