Canisius Postgame

[skip-zip]

Unless I missed something, there is no postgame thread to be found.First for the bad:Most of us probably don't feel that great this morning. And understandably so. In my opinion, we only won that game in the end simply because we had a little more talent than they have. But, that won't be the case when we eventually get into the meat of our MAC schedule. I wouldn't criticize anyone right now who sees this team as a 10-15 win team, in the best case scenario, at this point. I have to admit, with all of the time I have spent in my lifetime around both high school and college basketball teams, that's honestly where I saw this heading even before we stepped on the court this year. KD might have said it best in his post game interview. He said something to the effect of...the guys who can rebound and play defense cannot score...and the guys who can score can't rebound and play defense. That fact is not likely to change overnight. As much as we all wanted to hope that freshmen could fill the huge voids we've had to fill over the last couple of years, and effects are showing. The loss of Dru and Romeo even seems at this point to have been dramatically less of an effect on this team than the loss of the 3 other key pieces of the puzzle after last season. And after the exhibition against Walsh, I saw something very telling in the numbers....the rebounding problem. And it reared its ugly head again. Canisius DOUBLED our rebounding total. Now on a more positive note:I want to try to accept the fact that this team is truly a work in progress. There is great promise, but it's not likely to develop into many wins this year. But we all know that our future still looks bright at this point. We had hoped that this would be a decent year, and we wouldn't have to go through a rebuilding process....but it is what it is. But, I urge everyone to not lose your enthusiasm, keep posting and showing your interest as if we were a potential 25 win team, keep supporting the players and our coaching staff, and wait for better things to happen over the next couple of years. This season very likely will be a struggle for us....but it changes nothing about the direction of Akron basketball. Good things are going to happen.....keep the faith.

[Hilltopper]

Unless I missed something, there is no postgame thread to be found.First for the bad:Most of us probably don't feel that great this morning. And understandably so. In my opinion, we only won that game in the end simply because we had a little more talent than they have. But, that won't be the case when we eventually get into the meat of our MAC schedule. I wouldn't criticize anyone right now who sees this team as a 10-15 win team, in the best case scenario, at this point. I have to admit, with all of the time I have spent in my lifetime around both high school and college basketball teams, that's honestly where I saw this heading even before we stepped on the court this year. KD might have said it best in his post game interview. He said something to the effect of...the guys who can rebound and play defense cannot score...and the guys who can score can't rebound and play defense. That fact is not likely to change overnight. As much as we all wanted to hope that freshmen could fill the huge voids we've had to fill over the last couple of years, and effects are showing. The loss of Dru and Romeo even seems at this point to have been dramatically less of an effect on this team than the loss of the 3 other key pieces of the puzzle after last season. And after the exhibition against Walsh, I saw something very telling in the numbers....the rebounding problem. And it reared its ugly head again. Canisius DOUBLED our rebounding total. Now on a more positive note:I want to try to accept the fact that this team is truly a work in progress. There is great promise, but it's not likely to develop into many wins this year. But we all know that our future still looks bright at this point. We had hoped that this would be a decent year, and we wouldn't have to go through a rebuilding process....but it is what it is. But, I urge everyone to not lose your enthusiasm, keep posting and showing your interest as if we were a potential 25 win team, keep supporting the players and our coaching staff, and wait for better things to happen over the next couple of years. This season very likely will be a struggle for us....but it changes nothing about the direction of Akron basketball. Good things are going to happen.....keep the faith.

Maybe if you posted this in the correct forum, you might get better results. Now onto you "Expert" diagnosis of the team. They are young, they will get better as the season progresses. Take a chill pill already! :blink: :blink: :blink:

[Zip Watcher]

But, I urge everyone to not lose your enthusiasm, keep posting and showing your interest as if we were a potential 25 win team, keep supporting the players and our coaching staff, and wait for better things to happen over the next couple of years. ..... Good things are going to happen.....keep the faith.

I urge you to take your own advice here.Zips won a game in which they didn't play well for 25 minutes .. that's what GOOD teams do. BAD teams lose games like that.Way to predict a failed season after 40 minutes.Go Zips!!! B)

[GoZips]

Doom 'n GloomReally? I saw the game in a different light. I saw two different Akron teams. A floundering, confused,insecure bunch of kids stumbling around through out the first half. The second half was played by acompletely different team.Steve (I never saw a defense I can play) McNees actually showed flushes of understanding what defenseis in the second half. Steve better learn to put his hands in the defensive posture if he wants to see playing time. As only an average offensive weapon Steve has been playing himself to the deep endof the bench. Steve gave a decent second half performance including a couple of nice defensive stops.His quick hands picked at least two loose balls on the defensive end. My only disappointment with Stevein the second half was bricking the front end of a one-and-one. Steve, you were on the floor for youroffense. If you want to stay on the floor, take a deep breath, relax and knock down the free throw(s).Our hero was the very man coach D singled out at the end of last season as the go to guy for thisseason. Brett McKnight played his tail off the last six minutes of the game. Brett was the differencemaker. Sure, he was pulled when the Zips went on defense. And, why not, with Mike Bardo emergingas a force in the post on defense. It was an excellent move by the coaches and the kids handled it well.Solid, though not spectacular games from CMac and Nate. They did their jobs well enough to be the glue or bonding agent for the team. The guards are still earning their craft, except Darryl Roberts who already is the man in the back court.Give the kids a chance. Floor time will allow Humpty and Ronnie to get synced in. This game, evenagainst a weak Canisius is a heck of a lot faster than high school.Rebounding may be a problem. Certainly CMac and Nate need to haul in more boards. Against Canisiusit was darn tough with the giant slug glued to the paint. The officials did not call Canisius for laneviolation ever. And they were camped in the paint all night. I was surprised that the officials evencalled any held balls. It took a minimum of eight seconds to get a five second call. Even the inboundheld ball ran over seven seconds before being whistled. Poor officiating.Give these kids a chance to grow and jell into a team. I have a hunch that they will defeat Winthropon Tuesday and give PITT more than they want or expect on Friday.It was nice to see Nik Cvetinovic on the floor. Looks like my predictions on who gets red shirtedare pretty accurate. Leaves only Brett McClanahan or Andrew Parrish with any chance of escapinga season of waiting. At this point, I would red shirt both of them even though both are sufficientlygood enough to play this year. KD played ten last night. That is a pretty deep rotation with EricCoblenz and Tim Carroll a couple of good reserves available.

[Z-Pouch]

Does anyone remember how bad last year's team looked in Alaska? or a couple of years ago when Romeo and company laid an egg in the opener.Give it a break and some time, the sky is not falling......40 minutes of basketball and someone's predicting 10 wins! WOW- now there is some faith in your program, coach and new recruits. KD's teams have always progressed with the season - this year will be no different especially with such a young team. Was it a classic that anyone would want to watch again? No. But..We came within one possession of covering the spread. The last 5 minutes of the game, you saw this team's defensive potential with ball pressure from the quick guards. From what I understand overall shooting wise, this team will hit OPEN shots and 3's in the future (if they had in this game, it would have been a blowout earlier). AND most importantly in my mind, the key to this year's success, Brett McKnight will learn to play D.

[Quickzips]

I can't say I'm that concerned. Wasn't at the game, but listened in on French. Like I said in the gameday thread, this team is not going to shoot 35% from the floor all season. They just aren't. The defense sounded a whole lot better last night forcing TO after TO. That to me is a GREAT sign. We've got to get out of this habit of sitting behind the 3 point line and settling on jacking up 3's. That is also a contributing factor to the rebounding issues. Like others have said, the young guys need to get some more time under their belts. This is the 2nd time this team has been on the floor together. Rome wasn't built in a day. That said, there are a few changes I would like to see made. I think Roberts needs to start at SG instead of Steve. Steve is a guy you can put in to that microwave role from some instant offense off the bench, but Roberts is a more well rounded player and it seemed that KD trusted him a lot more last night. I also think that we need to start the game by establishing C.McKnight in the post. He's got some great post moves and we didn't look to take advantage of that nearly enough last night. I see Chris taking on a similar role as Wood had last year. Use him down low early on to loosen things up for the perimeter players later.

[zippyrifle32]

Our hero was the very man coach D singled out at the end of last season as the go to guy for thisseason. Brett McKnight played his tail off the last six minutes of the game. Brett was the differencemaker. Sure, he was pulled when the Zips went on defense. And, why not, with Mike Bardo emergingas a force in the post on defense. It was an excellent move by the coaches and the kids handled it well.

I thought the same thing.

[bigzipguy]

Winning teams don't depend solely on outside shots. The Zips, in my opinion do not have true inside scoring players(gone are Romeo and J.wood).

[zippypitt]

I don't think that we can ignore the rebounding deficiency. We have been out-rebounded by a wide margin against a 6 win team (Canisius) and a sub-D1 team (Walsh). This team will certainly shoot better over the course of the long season, but the rebounding issue will kill this team versus quality competition. I'm certainly not giving up on the season after one game, but this is a HUGE issue that I'm not exactly sure how to address with this current roster.

[skip-zip]

Yes, I know I have an alarming level of concern here about where this season is headed. I wish I didn't feel that way. But after our exhibition game troubles, and after trying to remove that from my memory, we had similar issues last night.Let me remind everyone...Canisius is coming off of a 6-25 season, with an RPI in the 300s, and is picked this year to finish near the bottom of the 17th ranked conference in the country. You'd probably expect us to look pretty good against teams like Canisius and Walsh, especially since the schedule gets tougher as we go along. I sure wish that had been the case, and it certainly was not. Once again..I'm only giving an honest assessment of how I feel about where we are headed THIS SEASON. It's not a knock on the program, the potential of these players, the coaching staff, the direction of the program, or where I think we will be a couple of seasons from now. Both as a fan, and a financial supporter of this program for nearly 3 decades, I'm simply saying how I feel about where I believe we are headed over the next 20+ games this year. And of course, I sure hope that's not the way it goes. And I sincerely hope that everyone who's also feeling this way will continue to support the program and ride the storm out and be there for us when we need you in the coming years.

[MDZip]

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Neither was Dru. I think we need at least a half dozen games under our belts before we can start making any realistic assessment, especially with as young as this team is.