The Hip Zip Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 A long slow drive home due to a horrible accident in Pittsburgh that resulted in a Jeep getting hurled over a 4 foot concrete barrier across 4 lanes of traffic.My thoughts on the game. I though we played pretty well. Our composure and toughness was outstanding in the big time enviornment of Petersen.I believe we saw the evolution of Brett McKnight tonight. He was simply terrific, no other way to put it. He had a nice touch on his jumper and went hard into the paint several times. While outmatched physically the results were much better than I expected as I knew we would get killed on the glass. Pitt now is where we want to be. The difference in this one was experience at the guard and a strong presence in the paint. With Marshall in the fold it seems to me that we are well on the way to reaching a much higher level. We will be a force and not just in the MAC. Call me crazy but I very much believe that.A Big thanks to MDZip, I owe you one my friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Let'sGoZips94 Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 Totally agree Hip Zip. I think another person who we saw what he's really all about is Nikola Cvetinovic. That guy had a good game against one of the best paint teams we'll see all season, if not the best. We're going to be fine, the shots will fall and the experience will develop. I mean if you stick Zeke in there last night, we might've won because of the rebounding he can do. Good job last night Zips! Let's push this behind us and look forward to Urbana. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckzip Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 Totally agree Hip Zip. I think another person who we saw what he's really all about is Nikola Cvetinovic. That guy had a good game against one of the best paint teams we'll see all season, if not the best. We're going to be fine, the shots will fall and the experience will develop. I mean if you stick Zeke in there last night, we might've won because of the rebounding he can do. Good job last night Zips! Let's push this behind us and look forward to Urbana.Next year we lose Linhart. Other than that all of these young gaurds will have a year under their belt along with Nikola and Bardo being better. Add Zeke and the redshirts that will ahve a eyar under KD and this team will be great next season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valpo Zip Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 Allright we will be great next season but that's not good enough for me now. This season is still very young and it is not a practice season. It is a real season and guess what? we will be good this season too. We are young this year, we didn't beat pittsburg and we may not beat VCU or Dayton. Also, we may not have a great RPI and we will definitely not get an at large NCAA bid at the end of this season. (We never did anyways). Here is the reality, this team has until March to practice and gel and mature. By March, they may (and should) be very competitive, and then everything is possible at the Q.Call me extremely optimistic, but i am not ready to fantasize about next season yet, my dreams for this year are alive until we loose at the Q, until then, my zips are going to get better, win the MAC tournament and play in the postseason. See you in March at the Q Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoZips Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 If any one of you thinks that anything less than a twenty win season and a post season game is in thecoaches plan, then you just do not know Zips basketball.I completely agree with the assessment that the young Zips will mature and get a lot better by March. The young warriors gave a decent performance all things considered. Especially when you considerthat PITT had to keep their first line in the game most of the time.It was an excellent learning experience that will do them well later on. Consider that a far more senior Miami team lost to PITT by twenty-nine a couple of days before the Zips played PITT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Kangaroo Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 Just returned from Pitt an hour ago. Thoughts on the game --* The Peterson Center is a beautiful facility. It is to the JAR what Macy's is to Big Lots. I really enjoyed it. But, since the court is 84' x 50' at both facilities, and the hoops are all 10ft high, it probably doesn't matter for the players. * The O for a sandwich, beer and fries prior to the game was great. Hit a place called "Fuel and Fuddle" afterwards and had a pretty good pizza. Nice beer selection too. Many places to eat within 4-5 blocks of the arena. * Pitt is a tough team. Great size inside, and long and athletic outside. A tough match-up for this year's Zips. It would have been fun to see what Wood and Travis could have done against them. I think Ced, Dials and Dru would have struggled.* Pitt's version of The AK-Rowdys was excellent. Great showing. Vocal and active the entire game. They showed up in big numbers for an OOC game. They also got a nice chunk of primo real estate at the game, netting about 65% of the lower arena seats.* Good to see Steward finally make a shot. Hopefully that gets him off the schnide. Ditto McNees, who made his first 3 in seemingly forever. Humpty played a good game considering the level of competition. * Brett McKnight was outstanding. Pitt had no answer for him. If he can bring it offensively like that during the MAC season, he'll be a LOAD. That'll open things up for everyone else.* Bardo pretty much got abused. He needs to be more aggressive, IMO. His goal should be 10 rebounds per game. Don't even think about scoring...just crash the boards 20 minutes/game.* Nikola was AWESOME. Period. Fought for, and got rebounds. Hit free throws. Nice touch inside. He's got to get 20+ minutes/game. * Chris McKnight needs to get into the offensive flow more too. KD said he needs to get both McKnights on the floot together more often. I agree. That's a great offensive 1-2. * Linhart was Linhart. Too bad we only have one of him. * Coaching? I thought we were as prepared as we could be. We stayed poised throughout the entire game and never became unraveled. We were just overmatched...which is to be expected from a team with 10 of it's top 13 players being Fr's and Soph's...who's competing against the #6 team in the nation.Will this team get better as the year progresses? I think so. I've seen bad Zips teams over the past two decades, and this edition is far from bad. I think 20 wins is possible. 25? No. But I think 20 is certainly achievable. Nice effort, Zips! More Cventinovic...more McKnight/McKnight combo...improved shooting from our guards...SOMEONE to pound the glass. That's what I want to see as we roll into December. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Hip Zip Posted November 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 I agree with all about Nik, I liked what I saw, another young Zip that was not afraid to go inside and mix it up. He's going to be a good one.Also, in no way did I mean to imply that we could not have a good season THIS YEAR. I think this bunch is progressing well and can go toe to toe with anybody in this conference right now. What I was trying to say is that Pitt's program is a model of where we want to be. This clearly will not be the case this year but I think we can be looking at a top 25 team in the future when Zeke comes to town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skip-zip Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 After 4 games in the books (including the scrimmage), a couple of things are sticking out at me.1) We likely will not iron out the rebounding problem anytime soon. And I'm sure with the way we are coached, it probably is more a problem with personnel than with effort. I really believe this is why you are seeing so much of Cventinovic so early in the season, because he does have the potential to pull down 10 rebounds for us in a night. Nate can sometimes rebound in big numbers, but has so much more he needs to do for us this year. Beyond that, where's the guys who can show potential to possibly be 10 rebound per night guys? I love Chris McKnight, and think he will do great things for us, but I don't see him as a strong nightly rebounder. I don't see it with Brett either. I'd wished Bardo would be one of those guys, but I'm not so optimistic right now. I just think this will be a problem with this personnel. And if Zeke is the solution, I believe he only averages 10 rpg against high school kids. So, it might be some time before we see this team be a dramatically better rebounding team. I just hope we can make up for it in other areas until that time.2) I was hoping early in the season that we would see a couple of guys emerge as the guys we can count on to score points every night. But I am seeing wide swings in almost everyone's point production. I hope this gets much better soon. Teams need to know who they can count on to carry the load every game, and I don't believe this team is anywhere close to knowing who those guys are on the scoring end. If this can happen soon, we stand a chance of winning a good amount of game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Hip Zip Posted November 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 * The Peterson Center is a beautiful facility. It is to the JAR what Macy's is to Big Lots. I really enjoyed it. But, since the court is 84' x 50' at both facilities, and the hoops are all 10ft high, it probably doesn't matter for the players."Yep, its really something. I had never been there and its just a great place to watch a college basketball game. My wife was even more impressed than I was. We didn't have time to dine before we arrived but that was not a problem with the great variety of chow in their food court. The Macy's to Big Lots analogy is spot on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zipsrifle Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 I would just like to beat Can't this year! Hopefully, in the MACC game! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Let'sGoZips94 Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 I would just like to beat Can't this year! Hopefully, in the MACC game!Don't we all... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zipsbandman Posted November 23, 2008 Report Share Posted November 23, 2008 With the rebounding, I think 6'8 andrew parrish is a big shot blocker and rebounder, and I also think he is being redshirted. With him and Zeke in the mix next year we should improve greatly in that area. This year...we don't have the guys, but against the much smaller MAC we should hold our own with Bardo and the McKnight brothers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UAZipster0305 Posted November 23, 2008 Report Share Posted November 23, 2008 * The Peterson Center is a beautiful facility. It is to the JAR what Macy's is to Big Lots. I really enjoyed it. But, since the court is 84' x 50' at both facilities, and the hoops are all 10ft high, it probably doesn't matter for the players."Yep, its really something. I had never been there and its just a great place to watch a college basketball game. My wife was even more impressed than I was. We didn't have time to dine before we arrived but that was not a problem with the great variety of chow in their food court. The Macy's to Big Lots analogy is spot on.But the rest of the campus is a while ours is gorgeous. I'd personally rather have a nice campus than just a nice arena. Good showing by the Zips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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