Brett McKnight

[Dave in Green]

Sure it is. Someone always believes that anything is neither as good or bad as someone else does. It's one of the immutable laws of human nature that for every belief there are alternate beliefs with differing levels of perceived validity.

What about a guy who predicts the exact score of a game? What if ten guys predict the score exactly?

Sometimes things are exactly as they appear.

Read it again with the highlighted words.

You should have highlighted "always", "anything", "immutable", "laws", and "every". Those are some pretty black and white words for someone whose sig reminds our faithful readers of his affinity for shades of gray on a daily basis.

I don't use black and white terms lightly, but occasionally they are appropriate.

The shade of gray on this is that those other words did not require highlighting because they were not pertinent to the point GP1 was addressing.

And, by the way, when anyone demonstrates that something I've said is inaccurate, I readily concede the point. I'm more interested in getting smarter than in trying to prove I'm always right, which no one ever is (another pesky black and white assertion).

But if we dig any deeper into this, we should probably move the discussion to Off Topic.

[OZoner]

GoZips, bearer of bad news. Brett McKnight has played his last game as a Zip.

Brett is not likely to suit up again. The reasons are many and not all of his making.

Enough said.

Bad news indeed. I feel more grief for his parents than anyone. Though we'd never met, I loved those guys; seem like great people and terrific parents.

My lasting memory of the McKnight family will be of the MAC tournament two years ago. The Akron section was right behind my seat on media row, and Mr. McKnight was near the front row. Every game, a handful of times, he would stand up and scream, "Integrity of the game, ref! Integrity of the game!" No explanation, no elaboration... "Integrity of the game!

[bandzip]

Anyone else catch this?

[MDZip]

Congrats to Brett for hitting the 1,000 point mark tonight (what is that now, four of the last five years we've had a player do that? - last year no one did although Chris McKnight was pretty close). Nice game by the Zips tonight, althoiugh they did give up 43 in the second half.

[Dave in Green]

It's all about scoring more than the opposition. I could care less if the Zips give up 43 points in a half as long as they have their shooting touch, don't have a big scoring drought, and score 46.

[MDZip]

It's all about scoring more than the opposition. I could care less if the Zips give up 43 points in a half as long as they have their shooting touch, don't have a big scoring drought, and score 46.

Granted, but do you want to rely on that happening every game? As has been stated on this board a bunch of times, even if you are having an off night offensively, defense can keep you in the game. I was just pointing out that after what appeared to be a very good defensive first half (28 points), that was a lot to give up in the second.

[ZIPCODE]

It's all about scoring more than the opposition. I could care less if the Zips give up 43 points in a half as long as they have their shooting touch, don't have a big scoring drought, and score 46.

Granted, but do you want to rely on that happening every game? As has been stated on this board a bunch of times, even if you are having an off night offensively, defense can keep you in the game. I was just pointing out that after what appeared to be a very good defensive first half (28 points), that was a lot to give up in the second.

Western Michigan got 17 pts on 20 free throws in the 2nd half alone. Was starting to look a lot like our game @ NIU when they shot 40 from the line. Not sure they deserved that many free throws in a half...especially in our house.

[GoZips]

It's all about scoring more than the opposition. I could care less if the Zips give up 43 points in a half as long as they have their shooting touch, don't have a big scoring drought, and score 46.

Granted, but do you want to rely on that happening every game? As has been stated on this board a bunch of times, even if you are having an off night offensively, defense can keep you in the game. I was just pointing out that after what appeared to be a very good defensive first half (28 points), that was a lot to give up in the second.

Western Michigan got 17 pts on 20 free throws in the 2nd half alone. Was starting to look a lot like our game @ NIU when they shot 40 from the line. Not sure they deserved that many free throws in a half...especially in our house.

Credit the three not so blind mice for all the WMU free throws. They "homered" the Zips repeatedly.

If you were paying attention or watch the replay on STO you can observe that the refs repeatedly tried

to get WMU back into the game with bad calls/no calls etc. Every run the Zips made the refs countered

with calls to stop the bleeding. Or, the classic no call.

WMU made grabbing Zips jerseys an art form and not once were they flagged. Traveling? You bet.

Calls for traveling? Get serious. Zips flagged for "touch" fouls while WMU needed to draw blood

for a Zip to get a free throw.

I hope we never see any of those clowns again. They need to go back to reffing CYO ball.

And, here is a clue for the lame. The lame, the folks that bleat, "but, but, the total fouls were nearly

the same". Review the play-by-play and discover that Zips fouls came in bunches during the heat

of battle while padding the stats with WMU calls when the game was lost come at the end of the

game. Most officials are dishonest, not stupid.

Yes, I said it, "most officials are dishonest".

[Dave in Green]

Granted, but do you want to rely on that happening every game? As has been stated on this board a bunch of times, even if you are having an off night offensively, defense can keep you in the game. I was just pointing out that after what appeared to be a very good defensive first half (28 points), that was a lot to give up in the second.

I never rely on the Zips consistently doing the same thing two games in a row. If the offense is running smoothly, then defense is not as important. If the offense isn't running smoothly, then defense becomes more important. Point is, no two opponents are the same and no two games are the same.

The Zips have to be capable of playing both good offense and tough defense if they want to be consistent winners. Offense is generally more fun than defense, which is more like hard work. Playing tough defense takes a lot of energy, and I don't expect to see them expend as much energy on defense when the offense is clicking and they have a healthy lead. If the offense starts to sputter and a lead begins to evaporate, I expect to see them double down on defense.

Neither the offense nor the defense needs to be great to win most games unless the other component stinks. It's the combined offensive/defensive effort that wins games, and just being good at both will result in more wins than losses.

That's why I'm not hung up on the concept that the Zips absolutely must have a great defensive effort or a great offensive effort every single game. I'm perfectly satisfied with a combined offensive/defensive effort that's superior to whatever their opponent throws at them in any given game.

In other words, I would just like to be able to rely on the Zips consistently producing a combination of offense and defense that leads to scoring more points than their opponents.

[Captain Kangaroo]

In other words, I would just like to be able to rely on the Zips consistently producing a combination of offense and defense that leads to scoring more points than their opponents.

Our offense isn't good enough to win much...we really have no scorers. Our best offensive players range from mediocre, to streaky.

We need a supreme defensive effort in order to beat any decent opponent. Defense needs to be there night-in-night-out.

[Dave in Green]

Our offense isn't good enough to win much...we really have no scorers. Our best offensive players range from mediocre, to streaky.

We need a supreme defensive effort in order to beat any decent opponent. Defense needs to be there night-in-night-out.

I agree that the Zips have not consistently shown the kind offense required to consistently win. When the offense is off, as it has been more often than not, defense is the only hope of keeping the Zips in games.

I believe the Zips players have it in them to produce better offense, and that they just haven't executed to the best of their abilities. The Zips have a fair number of potentially good scorers. If they can learn to execute offense better, they wouldn't be so dependent on defense to win.

Practically speaking, tough defense currently needs to be there night-in-night out in order to win most games. But I'm not giving up on the possibility of the offense getting better before the end of the season and playing a bigger role in the Zips' combined offense/defense.