alaskazagnut Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 Congrats to all Zips fans on your team getting in the tournament. This time of year is the best. Better than Christmas, my kids birthdays, and a years worth of Friday nights all put together. As most of you already know the Zags lead the nation in opponents FG% allowed at 36.8%, Akron is 34th at 40.1%. Overall, defense is your strength and if the Zags don't defend or get cold shooting, the Zips can win it.The Zips are 6th in the nation for opponents 3pt% allowed at 29.1%!! Zags aren't even in the top 50 in that stat and that is one of our weaknesses, teams usually keep close if they get hot shooting 3's (see PSU loss at home). But we are 19th in the nation shooting 39.4% as a team from 3pt land and average 78.9 pts per game. Akron averages 66.8 pts per game. Akron holds opponents to 59.8 pts per game, 18th in the nation!!Zags are 6th in the nation for team FG%. When we get hot from outside, defenses open up and then we can go inside. Pargo and Bouldin can do serious damage quickly. See us at UCONN and at TENN. Considering the near home location, I feel the crowd will be primarily for the Zags. However, there is ALWAYS the crowd who roots for the underdog. (no offense). There will be many there rooting for the Zips and some Portland fans who may hate Gonzaga or neutrals rooting for the lower seed upset.The Zips offense seems to be spread out among the starters and bench, and only 2 players average in double digits. That is worrisome for me since we have a relentless and a very long armed defense. However 3 of our 5 losses have been sloppy and heartless losses that still leave many Zag fans dumbfounded. Basically if the Zags can lose to Portland St. at home then Akron can beat us, but.... if UCONN's A.J. Price misses that 3 pointer at the buzzer the Zags are a top 5 team right now and we would be playing some 15 seed. So the Zags are out for blood to redeem a slightly under-achieveing season and we are starving for another Elite 8 appearance. Good luck Zips. May the best team win. BTW, I hear Kangaroos can be pretty intimidating. Wait till Zippy meets Spike!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoZags Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 I'm just glad the game will be played out west (and not in Dayton). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w00t Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 Haha, ZN has been overrun by Zags fans. (I hasten to add that they're a nice and respectable lot).Is it bad to admit that aside of the Morrison years (sorry, didn't care for him) I've always cheered for Gonzaga? I can name you just about every player they've had since the Santangelo/Calvary-led team of '99. It feels like it's been longer than ten years since that team made it to the Elite Eight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyzip84 Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 Haha, ZN has been overrun by Zags fans. (I hasten to add that they're a nice and respectable lot).Is it bad to admit that aside of the Morrison years (sorry, didn't care for him) I've always cheered for Gonzaga? I can name you just about every player they've had since the Santangelo/Calvary-led team of '99. It feels like it's been longer than ten years since that team made it to the Elite Eight.Of course not! Gonzaga was "mid-major" before there even was such a term Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootforRoo44 Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 I'm just glad the game will be played out west (and not in Dayton).if it was in dayton, there would be thousands of the Zipsnation there...it would be a home game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zip Watcher Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 I think Philly and Greensboro would have been the same. :( But when you're the 13 .. you don't get that type of treatment I guess.Go Zips! B) B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UAZips Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 alaskaZagnut:I'm an Akron alum living up in Nome. I've been hearing about our game from a few people in town who either attended Gonzaga or now have kids there. Should be fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outrunu Posted March 16, 2009 Report Share Posted March 16, 2009 I think Philly and Greensboro would have been the same. :( But when you're the 13 .. you don't get that type of treatment I guess.Go Zips! B) B)See Davidson last year. A 10 from NC, and the Zags got them in Raleigh.Good luck to your team, heres to hoping for a great game, and none of the boys get hurt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nevtelen Posted March 17, 2009 Report Share Posted March 17, 2009 I think Philly and Greensboro would have been the same. :( But when you're the 13 .. you don't get that type of treatment I guess.Go Zips! B) B)You'd think, but last year the Zags got shipped to N Carolina to play Davidson in a 7-10 game (not that far off from a 13). Not that I'm still bitter or anything. alaskaZagnut gave a pretty great rundown, but I think it's also important to note that the Zags have had several games where they've started very slowly this season (and past seasons at times, too). They've spotted a couple of WCC teams a 10 point lead or so before they got rolling. They've also had a pretty long lay-off so all us Zag fans are really hoping they don't get off to a horrible start. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Zips run out to an early lead, though. Hopefully (well, hopefully for us), GU can get the engine going after that and burn through the rust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJGood Posted March 17, 2009 Report Share Posted March 17, 2009 As most of you already know the Zags lead the nation in opponents FG% allowed at 36.8%, Akron is 34th at 40.1%. Overall, defense is your strength and if the Zags don't defend or get cold shooting, the Zips can win it.We can say the exact same thing. When we don't play well it seems that we are fundamentally sound but just half a step slow on defense. Our primary achilles heel, though, is cold shooting. In our first round game of the MAC tourney we went for an incredibly long stretch where we didn't make a single field goal yet somehow we ended up with 93 points after 45 minutes of play. That wasn't the first time by any means that we went on a prolonged scoring drought either.Our other issue at times has been rebounding, especially offensive rebounding. That problem seemed to go away for much of our run in the MAC tournament. In fact at times during the last week we looked pretty formidable on the offensive glass. That being said I think we will have problems in that area on Thursday simply because of Gonzaga's size. We went into this year considering it a rebuidling, or I guess I should say reloading, year. I think I can speak for most of us on here when we say we wouldn't have expected to be dancing this year any more than in the prior two years or in the next few years to come. The key for us will be taking care of the ball and shooting well along with playing our usual good defense. Anyway, you look at it though the Zips really have their work cut out for them in this matchup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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