GP1

This game was over at the end of the first quarter when Seattle kept the ball almost the entire quarter and tired out the Denver Defense, but most importantly, kept their defense rested. The less a teams defense plays, the better off that team is in the long run. Seattle converted on almost 60% of third downs. That is an obscene number. I saw a story once that said NFL teams spend 75% of their practice time on red zone offense and third downs. Trent Dilfer made this point really well after the game. Fans over analyze games too much. Games have stopped being about overall stats and about what teams do at critical times of games. The amount of practice time teams spend on certain aspects of the game is enough to tell fans what is important. Seattle executed at the critical moments of the game. On defense, Seattle didn't get caught up in blitzing because they didn't have to. They have four guys who can get pressure without blitzing and that is a DC's wet dream. Pressure is better than a sack because it creates turnovers and turnovers lead to scores, which Denver did twice yesterday. Special teams were great as well. Not only a kick return for a TD, but they kept Denver's KO returner inside of the 20 on the first KO of the game and later in the first half. Denver on the other hand was terrible, with the exception of Demaryius Thomas who should have been the game MVP. If the MVP is the award for best performance, he had it. Broke a Super Bowl record for receptions against a good defense and had over 100 yards. Too bad they don't give the MVP to a player on the losing team anymore. Denver was not prepared and threw in the towel too early on their running game. Any team that becomes one dimensional is easy to stop and half the defenses in the NFL would have looked like Seattle's yesterday after Denver threw in the Towel. Manning's first INT was not forced, but rookie throw on his part. The game was over after that point because it forced Denver completely out of their game plan. I was so bored by halftime, I started switching back and forth between the game and Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown on CNN.

Test

Did it have an impact on the remainder of the game?

Storming the court has become a cliche and nobody should worry about it. Everyone does it and it is now encouraged at a lot of schools.

After many, many, many years of watching sports, I've seen a lot of horrible teams come out early against great teams and put up a fight for a few minutes until the wheels fall off. Sort of like the boxer who comes out swinging wildly early in a fight hoping to get an early knock out against a better fighter only to fail at it and get knocked out mid way through the fight. You seem to be stuck on this whole subbing thing. Sort of an intellectual hurdle you are having trouble getting over. It's really about 2-3 key players and what coaches do around them. Subs are important as they relate to their interaction with the key players. When subs play and their impact on barriers the team needs to overcome is more important than the amount of time they play. But, since you are our residential numbers guy with a lacking aptitude for putting numbers into perspective or action, I'll put it into some really understandable. The Zips season will boil down into two sections: Tinkering and Thinking Bigger. The tinkering part of the season involved KD mindlessly tinkering with his line up and it resulted in the Zips going 11-8 beating their usual bunch of nobodies while getting losing to the likes of MTSU, SC (twice and getting smashed once), getting smashed by Iowa State and getting smashed by Toledo. We won 58% of our games during that period. Post tinker, or Thinking Bigger, has given us three wins in four games (75%). We smashed a team we should smash in Ball State, won at CMU on the road and beat a very good EMU on the road. Losing a rivalry game last night was disappointing, but a couple of plays here or there and they win. I'm sure a lot of the apologists will call it "settling on a rotation". They can call it whatever they want to make themselves feel better. I called it a coach who was sick and tired of getting is butt kicked and decided to go all in. I'm all in with KD going all in after taking my advice.

I'm with KD on this one. Since the EMU game, KD has taken my advice (still brings tears to my eyes to know the influence I can have on the team from long distance) and gone down a road that can lead to more than just winning the MAC.While it is fun to win the MAC, we would like to see more and he wants more. One loss on the road to a rival is not cause for panic.Heck, there were lots of "upsets" at the top of the standings yesterday in the MAC. League play is difficult. Keep thinking and coaching bigger KD.

Couldn't it just be that Ball State is a terrible team and was going to disintegrate even if we had Moe, Larry and Curly on the court along with two other guys? Big picture Dave, big picture.Sometime a good team beats a horrible team because the horrible team is horrible.

Great game even though I had to suffer through the awful lighting in OUs arena. The one thing I really like is watching a guy with a good outside shot. It's been a long time since I've seen a guy the size of Brown get as much elevation on his jump shots.He's really fun to watch.

To me, this says to take the value of your house and multiply it by 2 to get the amount of money you should bet on the Zips.

How much money would have to be thrown into the "building process" to increase the foot-candle output of the lighting in the Convocation Center to make it look like it isn't lit like a high school gym?

@ Dave, I just want to make sure I have this correct. All of the starters were removed and the subs brought the team back?

Looks real good guys. Well done!

He was sulking around on the court prior to his disappearance. If this writer even took a minute to do some background on this column, he would have found out that there was no question he was not practicing with the team and there was in fact uncertainty from the head coach as to his return. How do I know that, I read it in a George Thomas article. Upon hearing the rumors, George picked up his pen and writing pad, went to the arena and performed this action called "reporting". While "reporting" he asked the coach about Trees return and he said, "no comment". KD calls it like it is. If Tree was coming back, he would have said so and not thrown out a "no comment". Given the uncertainty of the head coach, how could anyone do anything other than speculate as to his disappearance and questionable return at the time?

Link Andrew Sullivan, in my opinion, is and has been the smartest blogger on the internet for quite some time now. He has some links here to the pros & cons of the debate. Good reading. This union debate has actually made the debate over the nature of athlete-students interesting again. Really a smart move by the players at NWestern. There is a reason they got into school there.

Stevens is a great coach who got out just in the nick of time. The truth is, everyone who ever thought going to the Big East was the answer should take notice and admit how in error their thinking was. I'm not sure we would be any better than Butler right now.

My guess is they worry more about the three freshmen, one sophomore and one junior who play the majority of the time.

I have a bias towards liking true centers in games. For a long time, I thought Pat should start and play a lot. He is a productive guy and was last night, but not what the Zips need in the starting line-up.

CK, I know you speak for many on this board and I'm trying to stay humble about this. All I can say is....you're welcome. Enjoy the run up to another MAC Championship. I love a good butt kicking and Akron dished one out last night. Great job guys!

Deadspin Great article on why the ncaa should embrace the union. History shows it has been great for sports leagues. The title of the article should be titled, "Student-Athletes Smarter Than The Average AD". All the members of the ncaa have to do is admit there is a work relationship between the players and the coaches. Anyone with half a brain already knows it. They are just making it official. I'm sure the schools can dip into the Mt. Everest pile of cash schools are making on college football TV rights and make things right. The should dip in now before the lose a couple of games due to a strike and lose some real money at that point. All a school like Clemson would have to do is cut their offensive coordinators salary in half and there would be $7,000 per each player on scholarship. The OC isn't earning the money anyhow. If they have $1.2 million to pay an OC, they have plenty of money to fund some programs for the players.

Why are you frightened of the unknown? What we do know is very good. There is no reason to believe the rest will not be the same if not better.

If Northwestern wins this case and they are the only school with bargaining rights, it could make NW a huge attraction for a lot of players. You can make the NFL from NW just as easily as you can from tosu. Why not go to a school where you get more than a scholarship? If this case could make NW a great program for a few years while other school caught up, wouldn't the school make much more money than they would have in terms of merchandising, etc. than they would have before? This could be a win-win for both parties.

Lots of people having fun with this and that's great. In reality, this tread can still be a good place for those who wish to have a serious conversation about statistics to visit and discuss a game without turning every game into a research project for those who just want to read and discuss the opinions of others.

I have no problem with schools making money off of the games. I have a huge problem with the money that has been created over the past 2-3 decades and the players aren't even allowed to get a small percent of it while there are offensive coordinators making over a $1 a year. Why do we have to live through the farce that since the name of the player is not put on the back of a jersey, they aren't actually making money off of the player. Put the name on the back and give the player a percent of the sales just like they do in the NFL. This is what I mean by players profiting off of their fame. They should not receive money directly from the schools, but should share in some of the revenue produced. It's all of the silly tricks the ncaa goes through to try to hide what they are actually doing that is insulting. The members of the ncaa will have nobody to blame but themselves when the little world they created for themselves comes falling down.

You should lay off of the LSD for a while.

I had trouble getting on the board this morning. Got a Chrome rejection. The Board looks better than before this afternoon. Did you guys do something to it?