GP1

Great stats. All of these teams have a tradition of being fast paced teams that score a lot of points. If you force the fast pace with offense, you force other teams into your style of play which may make them uncomfortable and your defense is better. Score a lot of points and other teams fold. Seems simple to me. Another key note, players win games. These schools also turn out one NBA player after another. Talent certainly helps offensive efficiency.

I spent 15 years watching Bill Cowher lose big game after big game with his defensive mentality. It wasn't until he had players who could make key offense plays at key points in games did he finally get over the hump. All defense does is get the ball to the offense. If the offense can't score, it doesn't matter what the defense does. If the offense is struggling, it is up to defense to hold them in the game until they figure their offense. If the offense never figures it out in a 40 minute game, they are not going to win. Northern Iowa won yesterday because they had a good team whose offense made key shots at key points in the game. They got a lead on KS, put pressure on them to score and KS didn't respond to the pressure enough to win. The last time I checked, NIU's offense made a huge three pointer with 35 seconds remaining. NIU's big guy had a huge put back late in the game. None of that had anything to do with defense. NIU is a good team in any conference. They only lost four games all year. They play in a much better conference than the MAC. While the game was an upset, it isn't as much of an upset as it looks on the surface. The truth is, NIU was seeded to low. BTW, did everyone notice the KS player doing his best Adam Morrison post game "look at me crying" imitation. The guy still had his warm-ups on top to bottom so I guess that was the only way he was going to get any air time. I'm so sick of watching these guys cry and even worse yet, the network putting it on TV. His coach should have kicked him when he walked by. BTW, I told you guys how many years ago not Adam Morrison was a crybaby and would never pan out in the NBA. How is career going? Man, some of you really defended that stiff.

This is a darn savvy introspection. Especially coming from a young person. There is hope for the Zips. What does the fact that he is young have to do with anything? Some of the more stupid posts I see on this board are from posters who want to relive the 1950s.

I have no doubt that Keith is driven to win championships. I have no doubt he wants to win every game the Zips play in. I have no doubt his style of play is designed to win against a lot of bad teams and falls short in big games and against good teams.

Amen (for the most part)! OU took charge of the game last night and won. They set the pace with offense. The defense looked good because the pressure to score they put on GTown was so great GTown was desperate to score and was taking low percentage shots (three point shots). Even when GTown went on runs, they were never able to close the gap because the gap was so big and OU's coach was able to manage the game. There is no doubt OU played the best game in school history yesterday. There is also no doubt they did it with offense. UofA is not going to be anything more than a MAC Champion once every six years by focusing on defense. They will never win an NCAA game with defense. We need to get some guys, or stop destroying the ability of guys, who can launch the little orange ball through the little orange ring. It's so simple. If we can do that, there is no reason we cannot win a championship at least every other year. I know this is difficult for some to get their arms around because most are Cleveland fans and have never won anything. It isn't 1950 anymore where teams are playing with talentless slugs.

Everything I have been telling you guys for years has come true tonight. Defense had nothing to do with OU winning that game. They put up a tremendous amount of pressure on GTown to score by scoring a lot themselves. They had nearly 50 at half and nearly scored 100. If you use offense to put pressure on the other team, you will win. You have to hope for too many things to go right if you are expecting defense to win a game for you. I hope tonight was another step forward for some of you in getting away from the 1950s.

I like good ideas. This is a good idea.

Well.....I guess we have to call it something.

Want to make college basketball more exciting? Want to make the conference tournaments more exciiting (let's face it, the major tournaments are meaningless)? Want to make the regulare season more exciting? Step one...Go back to 32 teams. This makes the conference tournaments mean something. Step two...At large bids must have a .500+ record in their conference. I have no interest watching Kansas play whatever garbage team gets the 96th bid into the tournament. If you want to watch that, you have too much time on your hands.

The players aren't going to change and exhausting time trying to change them is a waste. He needs to treat them like adults and demand performance on the court. It is a different generation, and let's face it, KD is a coach at an average mid major program....not exactly John Wooden. That's the kind of respect a coach at his level gets. How can they focus more on defense? Are we going to become a Coles coached Miami? Good luck filling the seats with that style and getting good players who want to play that style. If KD really wants to take it to another level, he needs to loosen up a little and be a little creative.

I've never been so uncertain as to how the Zips will be next year. I'm not even sure what spring ball will tell us because it is such a short period of time. The need to go back to the days when spring practice lasted much longer. It was five games into the start of JD's first year when the kids finally caught on. Actually, it took that long for JD to figure out Biggs was his best shot at winning. If the Zips are going to take a big leap forward between now and next year, it has to take place this summer when the coaches are not allowed to coach. Is there any leadership to lead the team in summer practices? Is PN16 that guy? There are more questions now about the program than I can ever remember. There is enough talent to win in this horrible conference, but will they? I think they are going to either win the MAC next year or have a four win season.

Are you saying nobody is willing to go ugly early and avoid the rush?

I don't want their schedule, but I don't want ours. There has to be another way to line pockets and win.

Even with my concerns over the Laugh-O-Meters ability to predict the game Saturday, it is still very accurate. Have not run the Level 4 diagnostic on it yet..... Could you try a positive approach for a month, perhaps a day...even a minute? I don't think any Zips fan thought that the MAC Championship game would be anything other than close. But, for you to say that you would predict the way that it worked out is a LAUGH. I'm sure you knew that the Zips would have to score a 3-pointer to send it to overtime and then would lose in overtime. And if you mean that you predicted a loss, than that is a huge laugh. Had the result gone the other way, I could just as easily say I predicted a win. I think you misunderstand the Laugh-O-Meter. At no point did the LOM register a laugh at the Zips on Saturday. It registered several at OU. The Zips should have won based upon the LOM results. If that isn't positive, I don't know what is. I apologize...I did misunderstand. No problem. This should give you a general understanding of how the Laugh-O-Meter works.

If you just look at starters, maybe, but I doubt it. The problem MAC schools have when Vandy rests their seven foot center is, they substitute with another seven foot center who is ready to be the starter next year when Ogilvy departs. Zeke should play more, but he can't play the entire game.

All good points. I've been reading this board for a long time now. My understanding is we are getting kids who are good scorers in high school, but they get here and they can't throw the ball into the ocean. How does that happen? Another thing. Most of us know Jim Boeheim is the coach of Syracuse. He plays a 2-3 defense because he is convinced college players can't shoot anymore so he forces them to play to their weakness. Is the secret to get shooters and play a 2-3?

There are a couple of ways a fan could read this portion of your post. One would be the conferece could move forward to respectability. If so, how? The other way would be we have a long way to go before really sucking and are moving in that direction. If so, how do they stop it? I really don't blame a lot of the problems the MAC/UofA has competing at the highest level on them. Although they do have some blame. The truth is, the NCAA makes deals that so favor major schools in major conferences, it is hard for us to compete so for every step we take forward, the bigger conferences are taking five steps forward.

Even with my concerns over the Laugh-O-Meters ability to predict the game Saturday, it is still very accurate. Have not run the Level 4 diagnostic on it yet..... Could you try a positive approach for a month, perhaps a day...even a minute? I don't think any Zips fan thought that the MAC Championship game would be anything other than close. But, for you to say that you would predict the way that it worked out is a LAUGH. I'm sure you knew that the Zips would have to score a 3-pointer to send it to overtime and then would lose in overtime. And if you mean that you predicted a loss, than that is a huge laugh. Had the result gone the other way, I could just as easily say I predicted a win. I think you misunderstand the Laugh-O-Meter. At no point did the LOM register a laugh at the Zips on Saturday. It registered several at OU. The Zips should have won based upon the LOM results. If that isn't positive, I don't know what is.

Even with my concerns over the Laugh-O-Meters ability to predict the game Saturday, it is still very accurate. Have not run the Level 4 diagnostic on it yet.....

You ever tested the Laugh-O-Meter at a Big Sky game? How about the Mid-Eastern Conference? Perhaps you have seen a ton of SWAC games? Point is, we all know that the MAC is not nearly as bad as those conferences. Why would you even try to argue such? Maybe it isn't as bad, but it is closer to those conferences than major conferences. The Laugh-O-Meter does not get tested much watching those conferences. The MAC is the only mid major conference I will watch long enough to test the meter.

Exaggeration is a common way to make a point in internet debates. But for the sake of accuracy, the MAC is far from the worst conference in the country. The MAC's final regular season conference RPI average was exactly .5, which placed the conference 16th of 33 D1 conferences (actually, 32 conferences plus independents). There are 15 conferences with higher ratings and 17 ranked behind the MAC. I don't know about the rest of the folks reading this, but I don't have to be told that the MAC is the worst conference in the country to make the otherwise valid point that there are about 100 D1 teams in the country, mostly from the big power conferences, that would be likely to beat the Zips in any given game, and that the top teams could be expected to beat the Zips pretty badly. That's just reality. I could really care less what the RPI rankings say. I think the Great GP1 Laugh-O-Meter is a much more accurate indicator of conference quality. I know what I see and I know I laugh a lot when watching MAC games. The MAC is horrible.

It's a lot easier to do at St. V when you have the best high school player in the world playing for you. The risk was very limited.

Sorry for the Monday morning reality check, but the Zips couldn't beat any of these teams on their best day. All of these teams are near the top of their respective conferences. I saw Vandy take apart South Carolina in Columbia this year and they would destroy the Zips. Maryland finished near the top of a real conference as did Wisconsin and Purdue. UofA finished second in the worst conference in the country and was destroyed twice by the regular season champion. The Zips lost to a bad OU team in the MAC Championship. There is no way they beat either of these teams. Next year, I need everyone to do me a favor. I asked a similar favor after football season when I asked everyone to stop posting as if it is the 1950s and it has taken a little. Next year, I need everyone to go to a top level conference game somewhere driveable from NE Ohio...meaning the Big East or Big Ten. Go with an open mind and really think about the Zips position and college basketball and ask whether or not they could really be even competitive in one of those leagues. If you come to the conclusion the Zips fall short, it doesn't make you a bad fan. I go to both ACC and SEC games here in the south and I can no longer convince myself what I watch at a MAC basketball game is even similar.

I just pulled that one out of my ass, so I guess my ass would be the source.

Why can't we just tell everyone KD coached LBJ in high school and get into these tournaments?