GP1

Focused on what? did you see any defense last night?I didn't say the Zips play great defense every game. I just cited the commonly known reality that KD puts a higher priority on defense than offense.Didn't someone put a stat on the board a couple of weeks ago showing how much more UofA is in high scoring games than low scoring games? The Zips played a really good offensive game last year in the MAC Championship and won. Every time they have attempted to win a low scoring game in the Championship they lose. Focus on offense...offense puts pressure on the other team....pressure makes you do things you aren't good at then you lose.

You don't develop good players sitting them on the bench.I go back to Zeke. The kid was a HS All American. If we are waiting to see a little more improvement from him next year, there is a problem. He should dominate this horrible league right now. Other programs that get HS All Americans start them from day one. Major programs get all Americans and they are in the NBA in two years.

Wife just made some Mac-n-Cheese. That should get me back on track.Put some bacon in it too......I just mowed the grass. Feeling better.

I think that may be one of the hazards of having a coach who is so focused on defense. I personally have no problem with stressing D if it results in winning more games. But obsessing over D to the point that it becomes a detriment to offense is not so good.Defense beats all bad and average teams. Defense allows you to beat less than half of all good teams. This is how 20 win seasons are created.I watch sports through the eye of a Steelers fan. Bill Cowher averaged 10 wins a season over a 15 or 16 year career with the Steelers. There is no doubt he is a Hall of Fame coach. With the exception of winning the Super Bowl once, he came up short time and again in AFC Championship games, lost one Super Bowl and lost early in the playoffs more than he should have. Defense is not the answer.

Please stop making sense.

Can't may be more athletic than the Zips, but what they really are is a team with an expectation to win big games.Some teams think they can win big games. Some teams know they can win big games. I think the Zips think they can win big games. Can't knows they can win big games.

So do I because we can't beat them. I would have never thought going into this season with everything we had going for us I would be hoping for such a thing. I really thought we were going to destroy the MAC this year and are out class everyone. Man was I wrong.

I've been saying some time on this board there is some illusion to the 20 win seasons. On the bright side, it would be a Hell of a lot worse if we could NOT win 20 games against the horrible teams we play.The quality of play last night was laughable. Especially in the first half. The "builders" on this board should be happy to know there were enough bricks put up last night to build a large part of a new basketball arena. Someone needs to explain to me why we get kids who are great scorers in high school and can't throw the ball into the ocean after a couple of years at UofA. I don't know why any kid with any offensive ability would want to come and play at UofA.How is the hangover today? I think I drank enough water before bed to fend off any problems today. I'll go out and cut the grass here in a couple of hours and sweat out the rest of last night.

After watching the game last night, a couple of things stood out in relation to the Zips defense. I believe the Zips have a good perimeter defense. They get a lot of deflections and turnovers around the perimeter. They got a lot of offensive chances because of that last night in the first ten minutes of the game. Now if they could just turn those chances into points, we would all be much happier....remember, defense only gets you the ball, then you have to do something with it once you get it.If a team breaks through the perimeter defense and Zeke is not in the game, we are much more easy to score on. Zeke's presence changes shots, gets rebounds and blocks shots. There were some defensive mistakes from him in the second half, but he is still the best we have in the middle. I always talk about players being replaceable. Everyone on that team is replaceable with the exception of Zeke. Players like him don't come around often.I really don't see Zeke as this work in progress that should not play much like I read about on this board. Zeke has some develpment issues, but physically, he is in great shape for his age. He needs some work on his offensive post moves which should be priority #1 for him this off season. He needs to understand he is a good player and play with some confidence.We are almost 25% through the Zeke era and the kid is not playing enough. I think that is a mistake. He was a high school all American and has talent. His talent needs to be used. We only get him for four years.

????????????????????????????????Had too many beers tonight and will not comment until sober. I do have something shattering to say though....If I can only remember it in the AM.Good night my fellow Zips fans.

Would you also agree that water is hot when it is boiling?It depends upon the atmospheric pressure:Water isn't hot when it is boiling?

If he would have bought season tickets, he wouldn't have this problem.

Would you also agree that water is hot when it is boiling?

I normally find Pluto's articles somewhat overly gushy about games like tonight, but this is actually a good article.Interesting quote by KD about MAC teams "earning" a birth into the NIT. I would agree 100%. They earn their way in by not winning the MAC.

Bingo!!!!

If basketball was a mind game, Can't wouldn't have the right equipment.This topic is "Anyone need a Can't State joke this week?" Aren't they a joke every week?

He will get far more support at UofA than in high school.Florida State graduates players that are learning disabled (the LD classification is actually a scam they run to get the kids more help). If they can do that, one kid who was a little lazy early on in high school can graduate from UofA.I could care less about his grades. All indications show the kid does not really want to go to UofA.

Best idea on this board since the Great GP1 posted on how to reform college football.

Will have my gear on at McHale's Irish Pub....always fun to hear southerners mispronounce the word Akron.Go Zips.

NIT = Fort Worth Bowl

Thanks for the credit where credit is due. The Great GP1 didn't just come up with something similar, the Great GP1 came up with an idea for superior to what this hack at SI offers. The only thing worth quoting in his article is:"The NCAA began with the noblest intentions, but it has grown into a bloated beast of an organization that routinely does harm even when it tries to do good."The NCAA is a complete fraud. The answer is not for a certain number of schools to leave the NCAA. The answer is for those schools is to have their own division. And why does this hack think 64 is the right number? First of all, it is too many. Secondly, what else does the number 64 remind everyone of? SI should stick with photographing half naked girls. At least what they would be printing would be interesting.

Yes, yes and yes. They aren't going to build a fan base by starting out the season 1-3 every year.Our basketball team just got smashed by a mid level mid major and they are a much better program than our football program. That game should have been an awakening for football fans as well. UofA does not have the players to compete against BCS level schools at this stage in college football. BCS schools have gotten better and MAC schools have gotten worse.Let's put the program in a position to succeed in lieu of ongoing failure in the hopes that once every five years, some BCS school in horrible circumstances will fall apart against the Zips. When you start out the year 1-3, casual fans think you are a 4-8 team so why bother?

It was similar, but Faust had an additional problem. Faust had a problem with the number of scholarships he had to offer and the number of partial scholarships being used. Keep in mind Faust took over a I-AA team with I-AA talent. I wasn't quite in school yet, but I believe Dennison had 65 scholarship players and not all of them were full scholarships.The first step Faust took was to dare to have an honest discussion with each player from the Dennison era and tell most of them they were not D-I talent and they would never see the field. A lot of these players were on partials and weren't D-I talent. This pissed off a lot of players and caused it's own problem, but Faust did the right thing. Combining enough partials freed up enough money to start to offer more full scholarships. If anyone can remember, I would like to know the answer to this. When did UofA finally have enough money to field the NCAA limit of scholarship players? If my memory is correct, it was about half way through the Owens era. Reason 287 why this program has done little in the last 20 years.You are correct. The NCAA didn't let the Zips automatically jump from 65 scholarships to 85. We could only offer 25 scholarships per year, working our way up to 85. If 8 kids quit the team...to bad...you got your 25 per season, maximum. It took us forever to get up to 85. It might not have happened until the Owens-era.Nothing like playing against schools like Auburn and Florida with 70 only scholarship players.But when did we finally have 85 endowed scholarships? I know we could have offered them, but I think it took some time before we could actually pay for that many so we in fact did not have 85 scholarship players on the team.Several years ago -- maybe around 2003/2004 era, someone (I think it was the Michiganlive website -- is that the FreePress?), published the actual number of Am. football scholarships provided by MAC schools. Remember, this was a period when the league was more successful than more recently -- the BigBen era. Only one or two schools came close to providing the full number available under NCAA max's, and I recall that EMU then was only giving between 45-50 total, several were around 60-65. I would guess than Akron was in the mid-upper 60s, maybe 70ish. These numbers -- or the lack of NCAA maximums isn't primarily due to players dropping out (although that accounts for a secondary loss), but rather to budgetary restrictions. Based on that I would be surprised if MAC schools are today very close to the 85 scholarships limit. Someone do some research -- Mike Razor, where are you?My understanding is UofA now has 85 endowed scholarships. Could be wrong though.Everyone complains we did not have the facilities to win....Hell, we didn't have the people to win.

Terrible schedule. At no point do the Zips play two home MAC games in a row until the end of the year. Twice they play two MAC road games in a row.The Zips will start the season 1-3. Let's hope someone shows up for the NIU game.Until we know whether or not Coach I can turn talented kids into players, I'm goin with a five win season.

It was similar, but Faust had an additional problem. Faust had a problem with the number of scholarships he had to offer and the number of partial scholarships being used. Keep in mind Faust took over a I-AA team with I-AA talent. I wasn't quite in school yet, but I believe Dennison had 65 scholarship players and not all of them were full scholarships.The first step Faust took was to dare to have an honest discussion with each player from the Dennison era and tell most of them they were not D-I talent and they would never see the field. A lot of these players were on partials and weren't D-I talent. This pissed off a lot of players and caused it's own problem, but Faust did the right thing. Combining enough partials freed up enough money to start to offer more full scholarships. If anyone can remember, I would like to know the answer to this. When did UofA finally have enough money to field the NCAA limit of scholarship players? If my memory is correct, it was about half way through the Owens era. Reason 287 why this program has done little in the last 20 years.You are correct. The NCAA didn't let the Zips automatically jump from 65 scholarships to 85. We could only offer 25 scholarships per year, working our way up to 85. If 8 kids quit the team...to bad...you got your 25 per season, maximum. It took us forever to get up to 85. It might not have happened until the Owens-era.Nothing like playing against schools like Auburn and Florida with 70 only scholarship players.But when did we finally have 85 endowed scholarships? I know we could have offered them, but I think it took some time before we could actually pay for that many so we in fact did not have 85 scholarship players on the team.