Basketball Practice

[skip-zip]

I like the idea of Egner playing now, simply because of our situation. With the departure of Jimmy and Chris, defense and rebounding in the frontcourt could prove to be our biggest hurdle as the season starts. Egner seems to have the ability to help us in that area.

[Captain Kangaroo]

McNees

Roberts

Abreu

Diggs

McKnight

Cventinovic

Marshall

Egner

Euton

I've waited too long to give up on McClanahan. Big season for Nitro in 2010-11. I take him over Egner.

[Quickzips]

I disagree with playing Egner right now. His athleticism is un-questionable, but he still looks like he needs quite a bit of work. It is one thing to do that against the second string of a D-III team in the second half of a blowout. It is a whole other issue altogether putting up a performance like that in crunch time of a big game against Dayton, Temple, Minnesota, Ohio or Can't State. Josh was flying around out there, no doubt, but I never got the impression that he knew what position he was supposed to be in. I think he needs a year of practice to be able to pick up the nuances of the game that will make him a great player. I think if he played to open the season you would see a lot of lines like 2 points, 3 rebounds, 2 blocks and 6 fouls in 8 minutes.

I also disagree with the idea of playing 2 of the 3 forwards. We are plenty deep at the 3, 4 and 5 spots right now with McClanahan, Diggs, McKnight, Cvetinovic, Zeke and Bardo. There are barely enough minutes out there to try and develop one of the freshmen. Trying to get playing time for two of them is going to split the minutes up in such a way that neither one will get a chance to truly develop, hence wasting a scholarship year for two guys. Contrary to what some might say, this is not a re-building year for the Zips where we are just trying to feel out what we have in these new guys for down the road.

Can't say I agree with much of this post!!

Play Egner- if this was the Hipsher era where we needed to save players and years of eligibility, Ok. But this isn't.

I also am not concerned much with positions? Is he a 3 or 4 etc? Match-ups and defensive agressiveness many times determines the combination on the floor.

I also cannot say we are "deep" at any position, but I do like the returners..and I do believe we have enough experience that we could develop more than one freshman.

We all know KD likes to play 9-10 guys...I've aleady know my top nine--Play 'em!

McNees

Roberts

Abreu

Diggs

McKnight

Cventinovic

Marshall

Egner

Euton

I completely disagree with your top nine. McNees, Roberts, McKnight, Cvetinovic and Marshall will certainly be in there. They are established players and guys we are going to have to rely on. That is five. Abreu almost has to play due to our lack of depth at the guard spots. That makes six. McClanahan has been named the starter at SF and had a pretty nice night in the exhibition game. That makes seven. Bardo is a senior (we all know KD likes his veterans) and gives us some size at C when Zeke isn't in there. KD is going to play him. That makes eight. Now ask yourself, who should that ninth (and tenth I suppose) spot go to? Your options are A.) Quincy Diggs - The athletic wing who can handle the ball and break guys down off the dribble that we've been clamoring for for years. B.) Dakotah Euton - A big guy who has 3 point range, is a strong rebounder, sets good screens and is fundamentally sound. C.) Josh Egner - An athletic freak who is better at the defensive end than on offense and according to KD needs some work on fundamentals. or D.) Michael Green - A strong player with diverse offensive talents who is lacking in confidence and looks unsure of himself.

Personally, if it is me and I want to fill out my ninth and tenth positions I'm going with A and B. If you asked me in the offseason I absolutely felt that Josh deserved some playing time this year, but with his ankle injury he is behind the rest of the guys. He won't be able to get by on pure athleticism all season long, he is going to have to know our sets and be able to play the brand of team ball that KD likes to play and I don't think he is going to be able to just pick that up on the fly. Giving him a year to practice and watch how it is done seems like the best idea for him right now.

[Dr Z]

Josh deserved some playing time this year, but with his ankle injury he is behind the rest of the guys. He won't be able to get by on pure athleticism all season long, he is going to have to know our sets and be able to play the brand of team ball that KD likes to play and I don't think he is going to be able to just pick that up on the fly.

He just needs to learn our offense, it's easy.

Coach Dambrot runs a combination of different offenses. First he runs a fast break similar to NC which tries to get the ball inside. From there on ball reversal we screen down and the get into baseline runner, with our 4/5 men on blocks and a player running off their screens. If the backside post helps we flush hi for a hi/lo look. We can sprint into on ball screens and either pick and pop or pick and roll. We run a lot of quick hitters always looking to get the ball inside and then play out of the post. Depending on what the defense does will determine which cut we run. We have set plays to isolate individuals in the post, sets designed to shoot the 3 and sets designed to drive the ball. We can run a set that is motion offense, we can spread the floor and use the ball screen to create total defensive rotations. We run a lot of different things to utilize our personnel. Hope this gives you a quick overview of our offense. source

PS You old school typewriter guys do realize there is no need to use two spaces after a period with the invention of proportional fonts right? The Chicago Manual of Style, the AP Stylebook, and the Modern Language Association all recommend using one space after a period at the end of a sentence. Specific explanation from Grammer Girl

[WinZip]

I completely disagree with your top nine. McNees, Roberts, McKnight, Cvetinovic and Marshall will certainly be in there. They are established players and guys we are going to have to rely on. That is five. Abreu almost has to play due to our lack of depth at the guard spots. That makes six. McClanahan has been named the starter at SF and had a pretty nice night in the exhibition game. That makes seven. Bardo is a senior (we all know KD likes his veterans) and gives us some size at C when Zeke isn't in there. KD is going to play him. That makes eight. Now ask yourself, who should that ninth (and tenth I suppose) spot go to? Your options are A.) Quincy Diggs - The athletic wing who can handle the ball and break guys down off the dribble that we've been clamoring for for years. B.) Dakotah Euton - A big guy who has 3 point range, is a strong rebounder, sets good screens and is fundamentally sound. C.) Josh Egner - An athletic freak who is better at the defensive end than on offense and according to KD needs some work on fundamentals. or D.) Michael Green - A strong player with diverse offensive talents who is lacking in confidence and looks unsure of himself.

Personally, if it is me and I want to fill out my ninth and tenth positions I'm going with A and B. If you asked me in the offseason I absolutely felt that Josh deserved some playing time this year, but with his ankle injury he is behind the rest of the guys. He won't be able to get by on pure athleticism all season long, he is going to have to know our sets and be able to play the brand of team ball that KD likes to play and I don't think he is going to be able to just pick that up on the fly. Giving him a year to practice and watch how it is done seems like the best idea for him right now.

+1

[WinZip]

PS You old school typewriter guys do realize there is no need to use two spaces after a period with the invention of proportional fonts right? The Chicago Manual of Style, the AP Stylebook, and the Modern Language Association all recommend using one space after a period at the end of a sentence. Specific explanation from Grammer Girl

[Zip Watcher]

Here's my 10 man rotation:

#1 Double stacked bigs almost all game long. Ideally, there are few if any minutes where both Nik and Zeke are on the bench. I'd hope to have at least one of them on the floor at all times, and see about 20-25 minutes where they're out there together. Other than that, look to get 10+ minutes each from Bardo and Euton. And both of those guys are playing the 5 on defense when they're out there.

The Bigs:

Cvetinovic

Marshall

Bardo

Euton

#2 Start Alex off lightly and see how much he can handle. McNees & Roberts were the starting backcourt for the MAC title team .. so they've got some experience. More and more Alex would keep McNees fresher, and get him more open looks. I'd expect a break down of 30, 25, 25 (Steve, Daryl, Alex) by MAC season. There's clearly an opportunity to run Diggs / McClanahan in spots at the 2 .. but it seems that's probably the exception.

The Littles:

McNees

Roberts

Abreu

#3 For the 3 hole, we've got 3 guys to use to get 40 productive minutes, hoping for at least 18 ppg & 8 rpg from the position .. with potential to go MUCH higher if McClanahan and/or Diggs can offer some scoring. I'd expect McKnight to play at least half of these 40 minutes, but I can see him starting out slower than that. Ultimately, with 3 guys battling for the minutes at the 3, we're going to get production out of the position, since one will rise above the others.

The Middles:

McKnight

McClanahan

Diggs

Now if / when they go small, you can see McKnight swinging down to the 4 hole, similar to when they go big, McClanahan and/or Diggs can be a 2. It depends on the matchups. I anticipate that in league play, the Zips will force the issue Big, due to the relative quickness of Nik and Zeke, and the difficulty that size will pose for most conference opponents. In general, I like the versatility that KD has with this roster. He's got 7 guys returning with significant playing time under their belts, as well as 1 D1 transfer, and 2 pretty well traveled freshman.

I'm not sure the benefit of playing Egner in the midst of this roster, unless he's dominating guys defensively in practice. Another consideration is the scholi breakdown, which off the top of my head is the following:

4 Seniors (McNees, Roberts, McKnight, Bardo)

2 Juniors (McClanahan, Cvetinovic)

4 Sophomores (Marshall, Diggs, Walsh, Gilliam)

6 Freshmen (Euton, Abreu, Egner, Green, Haney, Treadwell)

Now if Haney & Treadwell go the Conyers route, they're sort of not Freshman .. they'd be Frosh in 11-12 .. but let's consider them Frosh now. We've got 6 guys who will be Sophomores next season. I'd expect that to be either 4 or 5 when we get there. Generally, you'd look to have a breakdown of 3, 3, 3, 4 for the 13 scholarships. So redshirting 2 would not surprise me, since it would balance things out for next year .. leaving 2, 4, 4, 4 (allowing that there's an extra in the mix at the moment).

Any freshmen playing in this system would need to be playing lights out at least in one aspect of the game in order to crack the rotation. Or, as in the case of Euton and Abreu, provide needed depth in a particular size or skill set. Green and Egner are tweeners who are unfortunately behind a lot of bodies. The logjam opens up next year with the departures of Bardo, McKnight, and potentially Nik).

Good roster .. could go lots of ways. Lets hope it goes to the top of the league.

B) B)

Go Zips!

[Zip Watcher]

PS You old school typewriter guys do realize there is no need to use two spaces after a period with the invention of proportional fonts right? The Chicago Manual of Style, the AP Stylebook, and the Modern Language Association all recommend using one space after a period at the end of a sentence. Specific explanation from Grammer Girl

Not sure what prompted that, but whether or not you incorrectly only use one space or not, you'll find that our particular web page software sees any consecutive spaces as single spaces. So as I type this reply, this is a space with 1 space-> and this is a space with 2-> Not much difference online. In fact, there is none. This sentence follows 7 spaces. Try it out for yourself.

Go Zips!

[Quickzips]

Pretty nice breakdown ZW. Only thing I would maybe disagree with is McKnight getting a lot of minutes at the 3. To me McKnight is just not capable of playing the wing forward position for this team. That position requires aggressive defense, a little bit of ball handling, good rebounding and the ability to take a secondary role in the offense. Outside of rebounding none of that describes Brett McKnight. He's well known as a bit of a black hole on offense, isn't a strong ball-handler by any stretch of the imagination and is only an average defender on his best days. Brett, to me, is and always has been an undersized PF. Personally, if we are breaking down minutes at SF I would rather see something like McClanahan-15, Diggs-15, McKnight-10 if that.

[Dr Z]

Not sure what prompted that, but whether or not you incorrectly only use one space or not, you'll find that our particular web page software sees any consecutive spaces as single spaces. So as I type this reply, this is a space with 1 space-> and this is a space with 2-> Not much difference online. In fact, there is none. This sentence follows 7 spaces. Try it out for yourself.

Cool. Never noticed the auto fix. I notice it when you reply to a post because it does not fix it there. Just a friendly FYI for educational purposes.

PS I know how to trick it too.mmDouble space after the period.

[yazan07]

*Spoiler Alert*

Here I just settled the debate for guys. I'm sitting next to Nik in class and I just asked him who is red-shirting this year. He said that because two of the spots on the roster are occupied by guys who can't play, no one is red shirting this year. In a sense, those guys take away spots normally reserved for red shirts, and so it makes sense to have more players available. MAYBE he is mistaken, but it just makes sense to me that a player on the team is a reliable source.

[Dr Z]

MAYBE he is mistaken, but it just makes sense to me that a player on the team is a reliable source.

Thanks for the info, AND the source.

[WinZip]

*Spoiler Alert*

Here I just settled the debate for guys. I'm sitting next to Nik in class and I just asked him who is red-shirting this year. He said that because two of the spots on the roster are occupied by guys who can't play, no one is red shirting this year. In a sense, those guys take away spots normally reserved for red shirts, and so it makes sense to have more players available. MAYBE he is mistaken, but it just makes sense to me that a player on the team is a reliable source.

Noo

Exciting news for anyone who wants to see Egner make some explosive plays!

[Quickzips]

*Spoiler Alert*

Here I just settled the debate for guys. I'm sitting next to Nik in class and I just asked him who is red-shirting this year. He said that because two of the spots on the roster are occupied by guys who can't play, no one is red shirting this year. In a sense, those guys take away spots normally reserved for red shirts, and so it makes sense to have more players available. MAYBE he is mistaken, but it just makes sense to me that a player on the team is a reliable source.

I am quite surprised by that. Not doubting your source or anything, but it just doesn't seem to mesh with the numbers breakdown. A D-I team is allowed to have 13 players on scholarship and we currently have 12 scholarship players eligible to play (Abreu, Bardo, Cvetinovic, Diggs, Egner, Euton, Green, Marshall, McClanahan, McKnight, McNees, Roberts). As stated earlier in this thread, at most we are likely to get playing time for 10 of them, which leaves two players who won't see the floor much. If we have two freshmen who could use a year to develop, why not allow them to redshirt instead of putting them on the floor in limited minutes that they may not be ready to contribute in? If the injury bug hits, or some other unforeseen circumstances arise you can always elect to burn a redshirt later (see McClanahan '08-'09 season).

[ZachTheZip]

I think it's in preparation for going all-out next year. Next year is supposed to be the year. Not that this year won't be a great year; I think we go dancing this year. But next year Zeke reaches his potential according to Dambrot's plan and our two transfers and two greyshirts all become eligible to contribute and some of them are supposed to have "high-major" talent.

I don't think a redshirt would benefit Egner. He seems to be the kind of guy who needs to actually play to develop. Same with Green. Euton and Abreu are ready to go immediately so why sit them? And even if they only contribute a few minutes a game in the regular season, they become invaluable during the tournament where depth is crucial. These guys would start immediately as true freshmen for at least half the MAC teams.

- Edit: It might also be a plan in the event of an outgoing transfer resulting from the logjam of forwards we have. If one of the players transfers but didn't redshirt then they don't lose a year of eligibility when they sit out because they can call that year their redshirt year. It's a way of being respectful of the player if they leave by not having just wasted a year and helps them leave on more amicable terms.

[Zip Watcher]

Pretty nice breakdown ZW. Only thing I would maybe disagree with is McKnight getting a lot of minutes at the 3. To me McKnight is just not capable of playing the wing forward position for this team. That position requires aggressive defense, a little bit of ball handling, good rebounding and the ability to take a secondary role in the offense. Outside of rebounding none of that describes Brett McKnight. He's well known as a bit of a black hole on offense, isn't a strong ball-handler by any stretch of the imagination and is only an average defender on his best days. Brett, to me, is and always has been an undersized PF. Personally, if we are breaking down minutes at SF I would rather see something like McClanahan-15, Diggs-15, McKnight-10 if that.

Solid points, and I think you're assessment of B.McKnight is spot on. However, I'd be surprised to see him log lots of minutes at the 4. We're pretty talented there too.

I look for a few things this year different from last year. First, I think we'll see an emphasis on getting outlet passes out and run more. Second, in the half court, we're going to see lots more inside out initiation of the offense, a la, when Wood was here. This means I think we dump to Nik & Zeke on the block and look to take advantage of the matchups. Zeke in a single team scenario, we're seeing the jump hook .. ditto Nik with the drop step & spin. But if the entry pass is completed and the handler gets doubled, either the weakside big, or the small forward is going to be left open. If this happens often, the 3 man ought to be seeing the ball in open space more this year than last. We know from the URI game that McKnight isn't the right guy to be initiating the inside-out with, but he could be the beneficiary of getting the ball with some room to work.

Lots of ifs, buts & candy & nuts .. but there's some upside here.

Go Zips!

[Quickzips]

Pretty nice breakdown ZW. Only thing I would maybe disagree with is McKnight getting a lot of minutes at the 3. To me McKnight is just not capable of playing the wing forward position for this team. That position requires aggressive defense, a little bit of ball handling, good rebounding and the ability to take a secondary role in the offense. Outside of rebounding none of that describes Brett McKnight. He's well known as a bit of a black hole on offense, isn't a strong ball-handler by any stretch of the imagination and is only an average defender on his best days. Brett, to me, is and always has been an undersized PF. Personally, if we are breaking down minutes at SF I would rather see something like McClanahan-15, Diggs-15, McKnight-10 if that.

Solid points, and I think you're assessment of B.McKnight is spot on. However, I'd be surprised to see him log lots of minutes at the 4. We're pretty talented there too.

I look for a few things this year different from last year. First, I think we'll see an emphasis on getting outlet passes out and run more. Second, in the half court, we're going to see lots more inside out initiation of the offense, a la, when Wood was here. This means I think we dump to Nik & Zeke on the block and look to take advantage of the matchups. Zeke in a single team scenario, we're seeing the jump hook .. ditto Nik with the drop step & spin. But if the entry pass is completed and the handler gets doubled, either the weakside big, or the small forward is going to be left open. If this happens often, the 3 man ought to be seeing the ball in open space more this year than last. We know from the URI game that McKnight isn't the right guy to be initiating the inside-out with, but he could be the beneficiary of getting the ball with some room to work.

Lots of ifs, buts & candy & nuts .. but there's some upside here.

Go Zips!

Yeah, I'm really not sure where McKnight fits on this team anymore to be honest. He's more of a half-court guy while it looks and sounds like we are going to play a lot more of a full court game this year. Not to sound blasphemous or anything, but I rather liked the way the team looked in the scrimmage without him. I know it is just a scrimmage, but the ball was moving in and out of the post pretty well, our defense looked pretty good and we were pretty efficient finishing around the rim. If Brett can't get his head on straight and get over whatever issues he's having off the court I don't know as I'll be that on edge about playing without him for significant periods of time.

[hafner4430]

Here's my 10 man rotation:

#1 Double stacked bigs almost all game long. Ideally, there are few if any minutes where both Nik and Zeke are on the bench. I'd hope to have at least one of them on the floor at all times, and see about 20-25 minutes where they're out there together. Other than that, look to get 10+ minutes each from Bardo and Euton. And both of those guys are playing the 5 on defense when they're out there.

The Bigs:

Cvetinovic

Marshall

Bardo

Euton

#2 Start Alex off lightly and see how much he can handle. McNees & Roberts were the starting backcourt for the MAC title team .. so they've got some experience. More and more Alex would keep McNees fresher, and get him more open looks. I'd expect a break down of 30, 25, 25 (Steve, Daryl, Alex) by MAC season. There's clearly an opportunity to run Diggs / McClanahan in spots at the 2 .. but it seems that's probably the exception.

The Littles:

McNees

Roberts

Abreu

#3 For the 3 hole, we've got 3 guys to use to get 40 productive minutes, hoping for at least 18 ppg & 8 rpg from the position .. with potential to go MUCH higher if McClanahan and/or Diggs can offer some scoring. I'd expect McKnight to play at least half of these 40 minutes, but I can see him starting out slower than that. Ultimately, with 3 guys battling for the minutes at the 3, we're going to get production out of the position, since one will rise above the others.

The Middles:

McKnight

McClanahan

Diggs

Now if / when they go small, you can see McKnight swinging down to the 4 hole, similar to when they go big, McClanahan and/or Diggs can be a 2. It depends on the matchups. I anticipate that in league play, the Zips will force the issue Big, due to the relative quickness of Nik and Zeke, and the difficulty that size will pose for most conference opponents. In general, I like the versatility that KD has with this roster. He's got 7 guys returning with significant playing time under their belts, as well as 1 D1 transfer, and 2 pretty well traveled freshman.

I'm not sure the benefit of playing Egner in the midst of this roster, unless he's dominating guys defensively in practice. Another consideration is the scholi breakdown, which off the top of my head is the following:

4 Seniors (McNees, Roberts, McKnight, Bardo)

2 Juniors (McClanahan, Cvetinovic)

4 Sophomores (Marshall, Diggs, Walsh, Gilliam)

6 Freshmen (Euton, Abreu, Egner, Green, Haney, Treadwell)

Now if Haney & Treadwell go the Conyers route, they're sort of not Freshman .. they'd be Frosh in 11-12 .. but let's consider them Frosh now. We've got 6 guys who will be Sophomores next season. I'd expect that to be either 4 or 5 when we get there. Generally, you'd look to have a breakdown of 3, 3, 3, 4 for the 13 scholarships. So redshirting 2 would not surprise me, since it would balance things out for next year .. leaving 2, 4, 4, 4 (allowing that there's an extra in the mix at the moment).

Any freshmen playing in this system would need to be playing lights out at least in one aspect of the game in order to crack the rotation. Or, as in the case of Euton and Abreu, provide needed depth in a particular size or skill set. Green and Egner are tweeners who are unfortunately behind a lot of bodies. The logjam opens up next year with the departures of Bardo, McKnight, and potentially Nik).

Good roster .. could go lots of ways. Lets hope it goes to the top of the league.

B) B)

Go Zips!

What do you mean by potentially Nik? Why would he leave?

[WinZip]

What do you mean by potentially Nik? Why would he leave?

I have done some snooping tonight with "people who know" (to use a Terry Pluto term) and here are some Zips rumors. 1) This might be the last season you see Cvetinovic. He is only a junior, but will have graduated in advance of next season. His goal is to play professionally in Europe. If that can happen, it will be a difficult decision for him.

source: http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/zips/2010/11/a...rroll-liveblog/

[zippyfan34]

What do you mean by potentially Nik? Why would he leave?

I have done some snooping tonight with "people who know" (to use a Terry Pluto term) and here are some Zips rumors. 1) This might be the last season you see Cvetinovic. He is only a junior, but will have graduated in advance of next season. His goal is to play professionally in Europe. If that can happen, it will be a difficult decision for him.

source: http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/zips/2010/11/a...rroll-liveblog/

More details on Nic. http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/in...nting_on_f.html

I love this guy. He knows what he wants including "making babies". Hopefully he can help the Zips win a MAC championship and a tourney run this year and then best of luck to him whenever he decides to go play in Europe.

[Dave in Green]

Wow, lots of action in this thread since last I visited, and some really interesting and informative data and opinions.

On the subject of how many players can get meaningful PT, last season 11 Zips played in 29 or more games, and a 12th player saw action in 16 games. Nine of those players averaged double-digit minutes, and the other three averaged 6, 5.5 and 3.1 minutes. I'd say that any player who can contribute for 5-6 minutes in 25-30 games is going to learn important lessons that will help them contribute a lot more next season than if they were redshirted.

The PD story on Nik increases the odds in my mind that he may not be back next season. That's a compelling reason to get as much experience as possible for the three freshman forwards, who will not only have to fill the gap left next season by the graduation of Bardo and McKnight, but also quite possibly Cvetinovic. Harney and Treadwell remain big question marks at this point, and can't be counted on until they prove they can qualify academically to play.

Zach is right on in pointing out that Zeke's junior and senior seasons offer the greatest opportunities for the Zips to break through and potentially win an NCAA tournament game or two. That's not going to happen without an experienced supporting cast, and Euton, Egner and Green will all need to make significant contributions. They are much more likely to do so even if they only get 5-6 minutes in 25-30 games each this season than if they redshirt.

Another factor is that KD is raising the bar every year with the level of recruits he's bringing in. There appears to be no need to put a player in storage for a year to push their eligibility off another year into the future when there are more good players on the way in every recruiting class.

What a great time to be a Zips basketball fan!

[Zip Watcher]

Wow, lots of action in this thread since last I visited, and some really interesting and informative data and opinions.

On the subject of how many players can get meaningful PT, last season 11 Zips played in 29 or more games, and a 12th player saw action in 16 games. Nine of those players averaged double-digit minutes, and the other three averaged 6, 5.5 and 3.1 minutes. I'd say that any player who can contribute for 5-6 minutes in 25-30 games is going to learn important lessons that will help them contribute a lot more next season than if they were redshirted.

The PD story on Nik increases the odds in my mind that he may not be back next season. That's a compelling reason to get as much experience as possible for the three freshman forwards, who will not only have to fill the gap left next season by the graduation of Bardo and McKnight, but also quite possibly Cvetinovic. Harney and Treadwell remain big question marks at this point, and can't be counted on until they prove they can qualify academically to play.

Zach is right on in pointing out that Zeke's junior and senior seasons offer the greatest opportunities for the Zips to break through and potentially win an NCAA tournament game or two. That's not going to happen without an experienced supporting cast, and Euton, Egner and Green will all need to make significant contributions. They are much more likely to do so even if they only get 5-6 minutes in 25-30 games each this season than if they redshirt.

Another factor is that KD is raising the bar every year with the level of recruits he's bringing in. There appears to be no need to put a player in storage for a year to push their eligibility off another year into the future when there are more good players on the way in every recruiting class.

Nice post & perspective.

For selfish reasons, put me in the group of people who want to see a team with Zeke, Nik, Gilliam, Walsh, Abreu, Treadwell & Harney run together. Maybe we can convince Nik to get his MS in public policy or something for another season of UA hoops.

What a great time to be a Zips basketball fan!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Go Zips!

[Dr Z]

More details on Nic. PD Article

I love this guy. He knows what he wants including "making babies".

Nice article by EA...

A lot can change in one year. Especially when it is dealing with a new relationship. I'm not going to worry about him leaving, hopefully he matures on the court and scores points.

[Blue & Gold]

For selfish reasons, put me in the group of people who want to see a team with Zeke, Nik, Gilliam, Walsh, Abreu, Treadwell & Harney run together.

+1. And add the athletic freaks Josh Egner and Deji Ibitayo to that list!

Man, is that team gonna be FUN to watch!!!

[Quickzips]

I really hope the Nik that comes out in that article is the Nik that shows up on the floor from now on. Even if this does end up being his last year. The Nik that harnesses all that energy into positive contributions on the floor and takes a leadership role on this team is a very positive thing for the Zips. We can't, and Nik can't afford another year like he had last year where one bad call or one little mistake would send him over the edge to the point where you really couldn't even play him anymore. If we truly are looking at a more mature, more focused Nik Cvetinovic then we are in for a pretty darn good season.