Putting out the Fire

[Quickzips]

Two games worth of shooting stats from McNees.

In the game Wednesday against Detroit: 2 of 4 from the field, 2 of 4 from three, 4 of 6 from the free throw line for 10 points in 28 minutes.

In the game today against UIC: 2 of 10 from the field, 2 of 7 from three, no free throw attempts for 6 points in 32 minutes.

Wednesday we pretty well manhandled a better Detroit Titans team. Tonight we barely escape by the skin of our teeth against UIC. Someone want to argue with me again that we need McNees to be taking 12+ shots per game? If Steve is hitting his shots he can have all the three's he wants, but if his shot isn't off we HAVE to find another option. Luckily for us tonight the Zips found Nikola in enough time to squeek out a win.

The only other thing that can really be taken from this game is that something has to change with the three freshman forwards and it has to change now. Quite frankly, it has to change yesterday. Between them they played 16 minutes, took (and missed) 3 shots and scored 0 points. On a night when we desperatly needed some people to step up these guys were mostly glued to the bench and apparently nobody had the green light to shoot. If we are going to recruit these guys, then burn their red-shirt years we have to trust them to play and get over this whole short leash syndrome that we seem to constantly have to deal with from KD. If these guys weren't ready to play then we should have red-shirted them and let C.J. Oldham play some minutes. I'm sure he could give us 16 minutes with no points and 4 boards, which is what we got out of Dakotah, Josh and Quincy tonight. I love ya Coach D, but you recruited these guys, you made the decision to burn their redshirt years, let them play a little and let's see what they have.

[Valpo Zip]

Two games worth of shooting stats from McNees.

In the game Wednesday against Detroit: 2 of 4 from the field, 2 of 4 from three, 4 of 6 from the free throw line for 10 points in 28 minutes.

In the game today against UIC: 2 of 10 from the field, 2 of 7 from three, no free throw attempts for 6 points in 32 minutes.

Wednesday we pretty well manhandled a better Detroit Titans team. Tonight we barely escape by the skin of our teeth against UIC. Someone want to argue with me again that we need McNees to be taking 12+ shots per game? If Steve is hitting his shots he can have all the three's he wants, but if his shot isn't off we HAVE to find another option. Luckily for us tonight the Zips found Nikola in enough time to squeek out a win.

The only other thing that can really be taken from this game is that something has to change with the three freshman forwards and it has to change now. Quite frankly, it has to change yesterday. Between them they played 16 minutes, took (and missed) 3 shots and scored 0 points. On a night when we desperatly needed some people to step up these guys were mostly glued to the bench and apparently nobody had the green light to shoot. If we are going to recruit these guys, then burn their red-shirt years we have to trust them to play and get over this whole short leash syndrome that we seem to constantly have to deal with from KD. If these guys weren't ready to play then we should have red-shirted them and let C.J. Oldham play some minutes. I'm sure he could give us 16 minutes with no points and 4 boards, which is what we got out of Dakotah, Josh and Quincy tonight. I love ya Coach D, but you recruited these guys, you made the decision to burn their redshirt years, let them play a little and let's see what they have.

100% with you QZ. Those guys will stay on short leash while KD is trying to develop Bardo i guess !!!!!. Then in their senior years. KD will say that Egner/Euton is finally playing good... and that it is his fault for keeping him on a short leash.

[hafner4430]

Looks like they got the 2 point spread right

[WinZip]

Some Highlights :

[GoZips]

Two games worth of shooting stats from McNees.

In the game Wednesday against Detroit: 2 of 4 from the field, 2 of 4 from three, 4 of 6 from the free throw line for 10 points in 28 minutes.

In the game today against UIC: 2 of 10 from the field, 2 of 7 from three, no free throw attempts for 6 points in 32 minutes.

Wednesday we pretty well manhandled a better Detroit Titans team. Tonight we barely escape by the skin of our teeth against UIC. Someone want to argue with me again that we need McNees to be taking 12+ shots per game? If Steve is hitting his shots he can have all the three's he wants, but if his shot isn't off we HAVE to find another option. Luckily for us tonight the Zips found Nikola in enough time to squeek out a win.

The only other thing that can really be taken from this game is that something has to change with the three freshman forwards and it has to change now. Quite frankly, it has to change yesterday. Between them they played 16 minutes, took (and missed) 3 shots and scored 0 points. On a night when we desperatly needed some people to step up these guys were mostly glued to the bench and apparently nobody had the green light to shoot. If we are going to recruit these guys, then burn their red-shirt years we have to trust them to play and get over this whole short leash syndrome that we seem to constantly have to deal with from KD. If these guys weren't ready to play then we should have red-shirted them and let C.J. Oldham play some minutes. I'm sure he could give us 16 minutes with no points and 4 boards, which is what we got out of Dakotah, Josh and Quincy tonight. I love ya Coach D, but you recruited these guys, you made the decision to burn their redshirt years, let them play a little and let's see what they have.

You want an argument? Fine; I will give you one. Steve McNees is the shooting guard. It seems that

he has not yet fully accepted his new position. I could be wrong, but, it sure looks like Steve is fighting

to remain the point guard. That must not happen or the Zips repeat last year.

Steve is going to continue having the green light to shoot the ball. Sooner or later (sooner preferred),

he is going to hit his stride and be productive points wise. Steve is an excellent all round player

who brings intensity and a winning attitude to the Zips. Just give him time. This is a huge change

for him. I believe that as a team player and a winner, Steve will be playing great ball at the

shooting guard position soon.

A shooting guard must be without conscience. That is, he must have the attitude that his next shot

is going in. That he has missed ten in a row cannot phase him or alter his attack.

Akron's success this season depends on Steve playing the shooting guard position well. Abreu is

not a shooting guard. Alex is a point guard and a good one. Darryl is a true combo guard that

can play either position. Granted, Roberts is a better shooting guard than point guard.

Akron is extremely thin at the guards. The best fourth guard is surprisingly, Nikola. However,

as well as Nik is playing down low it would be insane to move Nik up top at this time. Now, some

of you might find my statement regarding Nik as crazy, it is not. Nik has played the guard

spots in practice on a number of occasions. There is a reason for this. Remember Pardo of

Gonzaga? His size allowed him to simply go over the top of Steve. Not pretty. Nikola would

stop Pardo in his tracks.

As for the kids. The only way they develop is to play them. What? You expect these mid-major

caliber freshmen to be instant super stars? In due time, in due time. Remember, too, that one

freshman had his red shirt burned because of unforeseen events with regards to Brett McKnight.

Starting Abreu in the Detroit game and now the UIC game gives him the experience and confidence

he is going to need for the up coming games against quality opponents. That coach (KD) is a

crafty dude hell bent on winning. Put your trust in him.

[Dr Z]

Vegas was correct in predicting the Zips would win by 2.

"Vegas" does not try to predict winners, "it" only tries to keep an even amount of money on either side of the bet so "they" can make money. I'm sure there was very little money on either side as to move the line one way or the other. I'm guessing many times throughout history, I may have been the only one betting an early season Zips OOC game in the country.

[UA Fan]

I was watching the basketball and soccer webcasts side-by-side. I may not do that again, as it was extremely stressful today. Fortunately, good final results in both.

Turns out both Vegas and Pomeroy were correct in predicting the Zips would win by 2.

It's a good thing Nik didn't catch what Zeke has, as he kept the Zips in the game with great shooting (8-11 from the field), defense (4 steals and only one personal foul) and ball handling (only 1 turnover).

After cold shooting nights, McNees and Nitro both hit their last and most important 3-point attempts, which tied the game prior to Nik hitting the winning shot.

It's pretty hard to win a game with cold shooting, too many fouls and not enough rebounds. No style points for this win.

If the Zips play like this in either of the next 2 games, they'll get blown out big time.

+1

Percentages: .379 (FG) .238 (3PT) .500 (FT) ... almost as hard to watch (listen to) as the football team

[Dave in Green]

On the issue of playing the freshmen more, KD is on record in a previous post-game interview that they will be playing more in January. We fans may be a little impatient with KD's plan. But I'm sure he has some good reasoning behind his schedule for the new players. In any case, 4 weeks is not a long time to wait.

While Diggs is not a freshman, I'm starting to look at him more and more as a freshman equivalent despite his year of freshman play at UNO. I get the feeling that Diggs did not get the kind of coaching at UNO to prepare him for KD's system, and that UNO may have had more of a run and gun offense without a lot of focus on defense. So I don't expect Diggs to be much more advanced in his game than the 3 true freshmen alongside him on the bench.

[Quickzips]

Two games worth of shooting stats from McNees.

In the game Wednesday against Detroit: 2 of 4 from the field, 2 of 4 from three, 4 of 6 from the free throw line for 10 points in 28 minutes.

In the game today against UIC: 2 of 10 from the field, 2 of 7 from three, no free throw attempts for 6 points in 32 minutes.

Wednesday we pretty well manhandled a better Detroit Titans team. Tonight we barely escape by the skin of our teeth against UIC. Someone want to argue with me again that we need McNees to be taking 12+ shots per game? If Steve is hitting his shots he can have all the three's he wants, but if his shot isn't off we HAVE to find another option. Luckily for us tonight the Zips found Nikola in enough time to squeek out a win.

The only other thing that can really be taken from this game is that something has to change with the three freshman forwards and it has to change now. Quite frankly, it has to change yesterday. Between them they played 16 minutes, took (and missed) 3 shots and scored 0 points. On a night when we desperatly needed some people to step up these guys were mostly glued to the bench and apparently nobody had the green light to shoot. If we are going to recruit these guys, then burn their red-shirt years we have to trust them to play and get over this whole short leash syndrome that we seem to constantly have to deal with from KD. If these guys weren't ready to play then we should have red-shirted them and let C.J. Oldham play some minutes. I'm sure he could give us 16 minutes with no points and 4 boards, which is what we got out of Dakotah, Josh and Quincy tonight. I love ya Coach D, but you recruited these guys, you made the decision to burn their redshirt years, let them play a little and let's see what they have.

You want an argument? Fine; I will give you one. Steve McNees is the shooting guard. It seems that

he has not yet fully accepted his new position. I could be wrong, but, it sure looks like Steve is fighting

to remain the point guard. That must not happen or the Zips repeat last year.

Steve is going to continue having the green light to shoot the ball. Sooner or later (sooner preferred),

he is going to hit his stride and be productive points wise. Steve is an excellent all round player

who brings intensity and a winning attitude to the Zips. Just give him time. This is a huge change

for him. I believe that as a team player and a winner, Steve will be playing great ball at the

shooting guard position soon.

A shooting guard must be without conscience. That is, he must have the attitude that his next shot

is going in. That he has missed ten in a row cannot phase him or alter his attack.

Akron's success this season depends on Steve playing the shooting guard position well. Abreu is

not a shooting guard. Alex is a point guard and a good one. Darryl is a true combo guard that

can play either position. Granted, Roberts is a better shooting guard than point guard.

Akron is extremely thin at the guards. The best fourth guard is surprisingly, Nikola. However,

as well as Nik is playing down low it would be insane to move Nik up top at this time. Now, some

of you might find my statement regarding Nik as crazy, it is not. Nik has played the guard

spots in practice on a number of occasions. There is a reason for this. Remember Pardo of

Gonzaga? His size allowed him to simply go over the top of Steve. Not pretty. Nikola would

stop Pardo in his tracks.

As for the kids. The only way they develop is to play them. What? You expect these mid-major

caliber freshmen to be instant super stars? In due time, in due time. Remember, too, that one

freshman had his red shirt burned because of unforeseen events with regards to Brett McKnight.

Starting Abreu in the Detroit game and now the UIC game gives him the experience and confidence

he is going to need for the up coming games against quality opponents. That coach (KD) is a

crafty dude hell bent on winning. Put your trust in him.

While I agree with you that Steve needs to accept turning over some of the PG duties to Alex I don't agree with much more. The fact is that Steve is NOT an all around player. His defense is passable, but he is far from a lock down defender, he isn't going to score off the dribble, he doesn't have much of a mid-range game. What he is is a very streaky shooter who can bury a team when he is hot from long range and can get the Zips in to a lot of trouble when he isn't hot and he's allowed to try and shoot himself out of the slump. That is what we saw a bit last night as the shots clearly weren't falling for him, yet he was allowed to take nearly 1/6th of the teams shots. Maybe I want it both ways a little bit in saying that when Steve is hot he should have the green light to put up as many shots as he wants to but when he's not on we need to move to different options, but what the heck. I want my cake and I want to eat it too. There are plenty of teams around the country that win ballgames without having their SG lead the team in shot attempts, and you will never convince me that Steve AVERAGING 12 shots per night is a recipe for Zips success.

[Quickzips]

On the issue of playing the freshmen more, KD is on record in a previous post-game interview that they will be playing more in January. We fans may be a little impatient with KD's plan. But I'm sure he has some good reasoning behind his schedule for the new players. In any case, 4 weeks is not a long time to wait.

While Diggs is not a freshman, I'm starting to look at him more and more as a freshman equivalent despite his year of freshman play at UNO. I get the feeling that Diggs did not get the kind of coaching at UNO to prepare him for KD's system, and that UNO may have had more of a run and gun offense without a lot of focus on defense. So I don't expect Diggs to be much more advanced in his game than the 3 true freshmen alongside him on the bench.

I really don't understand this. What exactly is going to change between now and January for these guys when they aren't getting any playing time? Is the D-I game really going to slow down much for them between now and January when they are only getting 5 minutes per night? I just don't see how that is possible. I said it earlier in the year and will say it again, not redshirting Egner OR Euton, one of the two, was a mistake. We could have had a pretty good nine man rotation with Abreu, McNees, Roberts, McClanahan, Diggs, Cvetinovic, Egner/Euton, Zeke and Bardo and still redshirted one of them, yet we are letting both of them waste away on the bench because coach isn't willing to give either of them enough minutes for them to develop. I may have to eat crow on this one if January roles around and both guys are playing 15-20 minutes and making major contributions, but I just don't see what is going to change.

As far as Diggs goes, he has some serious work to do. He has shown flushes of that explosion off the dribble going to the rim, but he's too often out of control. He's made some very silly turnovers and offensive fouls this year by being way too aggressive and getting himself into horrible positions. I love seeing the aggressiveness, it is something we've all been looking for the last few years from the Zips, but there is a fine line between agressive and out of control. Nikola seems to be finding that line recently, let's hope Quincy finds it soon.

[Dave in Green]

I can't read KD's mind as to the precise details of his plan for the younger players' PT. But I'm guessing what he meant is that he's planning to slowly ramp up their PT as they demonstrate they're learning from limited minutes, and that he expects them to be more up to speed by January. In other words, they don't suddenly go from 5 minutes per game to 15 starting Jan. 1. We'll see if their PT gradually increases in the remaining December games.

I don't think it takes a mind reader to understand the redshirt situation. KD initially wanted to redshirt 2 of the 3 freshman forwards. He picked the most athletic and best rebounder/defender of the 3 to play this season -- Egner. When McKnight was suspended indefinitely, KD lost his top scoring forward off the bench, and was down one frontcourt player from what he wanted.

Egner and Euton are not interchangeable pieces. They have different skill sets. Euton is best known for his shooting from any range. Therefore, Euton's skill set better matches McKnight's team role than Egner's does. I think Euton and Egner will be used in different situations against different matchups. One of them alone would have left the Zips a weaker team in one area or another after McKnight was suspended.