MBB First Practices

[dboze]

The Zips begin practice on Friday 10/14!!! Hoping that GoZips and others will use this thread to provide updates, insights, and information on the initial weeks of practice leading up to the season opener.

FYI -- I did hear that the MAC Championship rings were in!!

[Captain Kangaroo]

FYI -- I did hear that the MAC Championship rings were in!!

The 2012 ones?

[Dave in Green]

Thanks for posting the Oct. 14 date, Zip2Go. I'd like to attend some of the practice sessions if they aren't closed.

[Doug Snyder]

Thanks for posting the Oct. 14 date, Zip2Go. I'd like to attend some of the practice sessions if they aren't closed.

l think most are closed but they will allow you to stay if you look like you are an Alumni. That is the feeling I got when I wathced a practice a few months ago. It was closed but I was allowed to stay. It was a great time and spent an hour after the pratice talking with the coaches.

PM me if you want to go...I really enjoy the practices.

[GoZips]

Friday evening after 5 PM the team can practice according to NCAA rules.

The first practice probably will not be on campus as the volleyball team

has a match at home Friday evening.

Practice is likely to be at a local high school. I will check and see if KD

cares to reveal its location. At this time I do not know where it will be held.

[Doug Snyder]

Friday evening after 5 PM the team can practice according to NCAA rules.

The first practice probably will not be on campus as the volleyball team

has a match at home Friday evening.

Practice is likely to be at a local high school. I will check and see if KD

cares to reveal its location. At this time I do not know where it will be held.

If some are going...count me in. Planning to see the Massillon-Warren Harding game but it is in Thursday. I don't want be the only old, bald, fat guy standing on the sidelines

[johnnyzip84]

Friday evening after 5 PM the team can practice according to NCAA rules.

The first practice probably will not be on campus as the volleyball team

has a match at home Friday evening.

Practice is likely to be at a local high school. I will check and see if KD

cares to reveal its location. At this time I do not know where it will be held.

If some are going...count me in. Planning to see the Massillon-Warren Harding game but it is in Thursday. I don't want be the only old, bald, fat guy standing on the sidelines

Hey Doug, how do we know you're not scouting for Charlie?

[Doug Snyder]

Friday evening after 5 PM the team can practice according to NCAA rules.

The first practice probably will not be on campus as the volleyball team

has a match at home Friday evening.

Practice is likely to be at a local high school. I will check and see if KD

cares to reveal its location. At this time I do not know where it will be held.

If some are going...count me in. Planning to see the Massillon-Warren Harding game but it is in Thursday. I don't want be the only old, bald, fat guy standing on the sidelines

Hey Doug, how do we know you're not scouting for Charlie?

My first love are the Zips. Although I would love to see a Miami-Zip game for the MAC championship...I would do nothing to help or hurt the other side. And when I spent time with the coaches after the last practice, I told Dambrot and Peters I also graduated from Miami. They were OK with it.

[wadszip]

Friday evening after 5 PM the team can practice according to NCAA rules.

The first practice probably will not be on campus as the volleyball team

has a match at home Friday evening.

Practice is likely to be at a local high school. I will check and see if KD

cares to reveal its location. At this time I do not know where it will be held.

Anyway it's at Wadsworth? Or Barberton? If so, I'd like to check it out.

[johnnyzip84]

Friday evening after 5 PM the team can practice according to NCAA rules.

The first practice probably will not be on campus as the volleyball team

has a match at home Friday evening.

Practice is likely to be at a local high school. I will check and see if KD

cares to reveal its location. At this time I do not know where it will be held.

If some are going...count me in. Planning to see the Massillon-Warren Harding game but it is in Thursday. I don't want be the only old, bald, fat guy standing on the sidelines

Hey Doug, how do we know you're not scouting for Charlie?

My first love are the Zips. Although I would love to see a Miami-Zip game for the MAC championship...I would do nothing to help or hurt the other side. And when I spent time with the coaches after the last practice, I told Dambrot and Peters I also graduated from Miami. They were OK with it.

So would a lot of us, but with a very different result this time!

[Doug Snyder]

Me too. The last result was disappointing to me too...just not as much as the rest of this forum. I root for the team I think can go the deepest in the tournament. It was NOT the RedHawks that year. The Zips have a better basketball program

[RowdyZip]

This is as good of place as any for this little tidbit.

It's rather disconcerting that CBS Sports ranks the MAC 20th out of 32 D1 conferences. If you don't feel like clicking, the link leads to the basketball preview schedule on cbssports.com. The MAC will be published tomorrow (October 12th).

[RowdyZip]

This is as good of place as any for this little tidbit.

It's rather disconcerting that CBS Sports ranks the MAC 20th out of 32 D1 conferences. If you don't feel like clicking, the link leads to the basketball preview schedule on cbssports.com. The MAC will be published tomorrow (October 12th).

No love from a half-asked CBS MAC preview. They list the Zips 4th behind Ohio, Can't and Buffalo in the East. They also pretend WMU, minus Howard, is the best in the conference.

[johnnyzip84]

This is as good of place as any for this little tidbit.

It's rather disconcerting that CBS Sports ranks the MAC 20th out of 32 D1 conferences. If you don't feel like clicking, the link leads to the basketball preview schedule on cbssports.com. The MAC will be published tomorrow (October 12th).

No love from a half-asked CBS MAC preview. They list the Zips 4th behind Ohio, Can't and Buffalo in the East. They also pretend WMU, minus Howard, is the best in the conference.

Wow, no kidding. That review is almost baseless.

[MaxZIP]

This is as good of place as any for this little tidbit.

It's rather disconcerting that CBS Sports ranks the MAC 20th out of 32 D1 conferences. If you don't feel like clicking, the link leads to the basketball preview schedule on cbssports.com. The MAC will be published tomorrow (October 12th).

No love from a half-asked CBS MAC preview. They list the Zips 4th behind Ohio, Can't and Buffalo in the East. They also pretend WMU, minus Howard, is the best in the conference.

Wow, no kidding. That review is almost baseless.

To be quite honest the Zips may struggle out of the gate. I expect that they will be a better than average team early in the year but will be as good if not better than last year's squad by tourney time. It will be interesting to watch the team learn to play together. I can't wait.

[ZachTheZip]

If the Zips struggle out of the gate, then that Canada trip was worthless.

[Valpo Zip]

Oh boy! Here we start with the excuses again.

[MaxZIP]

If the Zips struggle out of the gate, then that Canada trip was worthless.

I don't think it would ever be considered a waste as we would not know what would have happened without the summer play. I am sure the Zips will lose a few games this year and certain fans will go nuts like they have year in and year out for KD's entire tenure. remember before KD there was no optimism and losses were expected. I am excited either way for the season. The MAC Championship game last year was easily the best time I have ever had at a sporting event. Absolutely awesome. You can't beat a Zips basketball game for excitement and they will always run the full gamut of emotions over the course of a season.

[Dave in Green]

The Zips have a lot of potential that needs to be realized before they will catch the attention of a New York City-based sportswriter like Matt Norlander. At least Norlander has the good sense to rate Javon McCrea as MAC Player of the Year, which is pretty hard for those of us who watched McCrea play last season to argue against.

The Zips have at least four new players to work into the regular rotation this season, which will take some time to get working smoothly even considering the Canadian exhibition games. The only thing I'm counting on for sure from the Zips this season is that they will be a little more dynamic and fun to watch on offense.

Whether or not they develop into a superior team on both offense and defense remains to be seen. At this point they only have the potential to be a better overall team than last season.

[Quickzips]

The Zips have a lot of potential that needs to be realized before they will catch the attention of a New York City-based sportswriter like Matt Norlander. At least Norlander has the good sense to rate Javon McCrea as MAC Player of the Year, which is pretty hard for those of us who watched McCrea play last season to argue against.

The Zips have at least four new players to work into the regular rotation this season, which will take some time to get working smoothly even considering the Canadian exhibition games. The only thing I'm counting on for sure from the Zips this season is that they will be a little more dynamic and fun to watch on offense.

Whether or not they develop into a superior team on both offense and defense remains to be seen. At this point they only have the potential to be a better overall team than last season.

These preseason rags are a joke and, frankly not worth the paper they are printed and/or the bandwidth they take up. Especially when it comes to conferences like the MAC. The writers take a look at last seasons record and how much each team lost to graduation. Nothing more, nothing less. That is why traditionally the conference and division champions end up being teams that were picked to finish 3rd or 4th by the preseason rags.

As far as expectations. I do think we may have a few growing pains out of the block. That Miss. State game is going to be a tough one. 4 or 5 games in Canada against mostly overmatched competition is not exactly a great measuring stick for going against a team like Miss. State. If there are issues to work out though I don't expect it to take too long to work out. I would hope by the time we get to the Duquesne/Valpo. series we have a pretty well set rotation and most of the bugs worked out. People do have to remember though, that for all the talent we brought in, there is going to be quite a bit of inexperience in the Zips rotation this year. McNees, Roberts, Brett McKnight and Bardo may have all had their flaws, but they were a veteran bunch that had logged a LOT of minutes for the Zips over the years.

[johnnyzip84]

The Zips have a lot of potential that needs to be realized before they will catch the attention of a New York City-based sportswriter like Matt Norlander. At least Norlander has the good sense to rate Javon McCrea as MAC Player of the Year, which is pretty hard for those of us who watched McCrea play last season to argue against.

The Zips have at least four new players to work into the regular rotation this season, which will take some time to get working smoothly even considering the Canadian exhibition games. The only thing I'm counting on for sure from the Zips this season is that they will be a little more dynamic and fun to watch on offense.

Whether or not they develop into a superior team on both offense and defense remains to be seen. At this point they only have the potential to be a better overall team than last season.

McCrea would be my easy choice as pre-season POY as well. But this guy lists him as a GUARD on the all-conference team. Nothing about McCrea's game is guard-like in the least. I know it can be tough sometimes to squeeze the players you think are the 5 best into an "all-conference 1st team".

I've said before that the MAC East is going to be extremely competitive this season, even more so than usual. My biggest beef with these predictions is the over-rating of WMU.

[GoZips]

McCrea would be my easy choice as pre-season POY as well. But this guy lists him as a GUARD on the all-conference team. Nothing about McCrea's game is guard-like in the least. I know it can be tough sometimes to squeeze the players you think are the 5 best into an "all-conference 1st team".

I've said before that the MAC East is going to be extremely competitive this season, even more so than usual. My biggest beef with these predictions is the over-rating of WMU.

Please explain how a team that won twenty-one games last season and returns all five

starters, and has a veteran, respected coach is 'overrated'.

I seriously doubt that any MAC coach will take Western Michigan lightly.

[GoZips]

As promised: First basketball practice will be held at Barberton HS starting at five PM Friday.

Better practice to watch is Saturday morning in the JAR.

[johnnyzip84]

McCrea would be my easy choice as pre-season POY as well. But this guy lists him as a GUARD on the all-conference team. Nothing about McCrea's game is guard-like in the least. I know it can be tough sometimes to squeeze the players you think are the 5 best into an "all-conference 1st team".

I've said before that the MAC East is going to be extremely competitive this season, even more so than usual. My biggest beef with these predictions is the over-rating of WMU.

Please explain how a team that won twenty-one games last season and returns all five

starters, and has a veteran, respected coach is 'overrated'.

I seriously doubt that any MAC coach will take Western Michigan lightly.

I spoke a little too quickly. Losing Juwan Howard JR might hurt a little, but they do have some quality players in Ward and Whitfield coming back.

[Z.I.P.]

McCrea would be my easy choice as pre-season POY as well. But this guy lists him as a GUARD on the all-conference team. Nothing about McCrea's game is guard-like in the least. I know it can be tough sometimes to squeeze the players you think are the 5 best into an "all-conference 1st team".

I've said before that the MAC East is going to be extremely competitive this season, even more so than usual. My biggest beef with these predictions is the over-rating of WMU.

Please explain how a team that won twenty-one games last season and returns all five

starters, and has a veteran, respected coach is 'overrated'.

I seriously doubt that any MAC coach will take Western Michigan lightly.

I spoke a little too quickly. Losing Juwan Howard JR might hurt a little, but they do have some quality players in Ward and Whitfield coming back.

It seems to me that WMU under Steve Hawkins tends to excede expectations when they are low, and disappoint when the are raised. What's the highest finish for a Hawkins-coached team?