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Diamond Head Classic - South Carolina


GoZips88

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I'm upset because I think it really takes away form the excitement of playing them on Saturday, especially if we lose the first meeting on a neutral court.

Frankly, I'm still a little baffled as to why we scheduled this game in SC when there was a chance we'd play them in Hawaii.

We scheduled South Carolina as part of our commitment to ESPN. They needed a home game which we provided.

Our tie in with ESPN gives us three straight seasons of major ESPN TV coverage as next season the Zips will play in the

Charleston Classic another ESPN tournament.

There was a chance that Akron would face either South Carolina or St. Mary's in the Diamond Head Classic. So be it.

It is high time (no pun intended) that the Zips get their shit together and play as team. Enough of the squabbling and petty

antics. We were a two horse team up against a seven horse team and it showed.

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Certainly not the best scenario coming out of Hawaii but I'll take a SEC double to go along with the Pac-12 'W.' Beats the pick-any-two-NC/Arkansas-smaller-school games we've gotten in minor tournaments or non-tournament years in the past. We also have the Charleston tournament to look forward to next year as a result of our odd scheduling this year.

Merry Christmas ZipsNation & Go Zips!

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For those of you hand wringing about playing SC twice in a week, you should worry about something else. I fully expect the Zips to go 2-0 against SC. If the Zips play the way they can and SC plays the way they do, the Zips win easily.

I'm looking forward to Saturday.

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We scheduled South Carolina as part of our commitment to ESPN. They needed a home game which we provided.

Our tie in with ESPN gives us three straight seasons of major ESPN TV coverage as next season the Zips will play in the

Charleston Classic another ESPN tournament.

There was a chance that Akron would face either South Carolina or St. Mary's in the Diamond Head Classic. So be it.

It is high time (no pun intended) that the Zips get their shit together and play as team. Enough of the squabbling and petty

antics. We were a two horse team up against a seven horse team and it showed.

I know how it came about, I just posted that I am baffled as to why we did it.

Don't get me wrong. I love the opportunity to play power conference teams. I just don't think anyone would think it makes sense to play two games against the same non-conference team in 3 days.

Lets just hope it all works out for the best.

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We can beat this team twice as they are nothing special. Now that we appear to be much more settled at the 1 spot what we need is better shooting from the wings. Jake is either hot or cold, we need more consistency from him. He's 3/15 in the Diamond Head so far and that doesn't cut it. A little offense out of Nick would be nice as well although I did see him do some decent things on the other end of the floor.

The defensive intensity also needs to be dialed up a notch or two. The Cyclones simply out worked us and out played us. S.C. is nowhere near their level and I expect us to rebound and handle them.

Watching Frank Martin scowl and yell at his players will be a lot of fun as we take them down.

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I'll take playing weak BCS teams every week over some of the crap we've had on our schedule if if it means we play the same team twice. We can't have a it both ways here....you can't complain when we play the garbage teams we've been playing and then complain because by a fluke we play the same bigger name school twice in a season. Hope the Zips come out of this 2-0.

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Things are much clearer for me this morning about who the Zips will be playing. :D The lesson from last night is that a sinus infection, meds, alcohol and late night posting don't go well together. Having watched the Gamecocks run circles around Saint Mary's on Sunday, I'm not as confident as some others here that they will be a pushover. If they shoot 58% from the field and outrebound the Zips the way they did the Gaels, it could be a tough game. As I posted after watching that game, South Carolina plays aggressively and is loaded with athletes who make up for any lack of skills with high energy, speed and hops. Zips should win if they play a disciplined game on both offense and defense.

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I’m concerned about the full court pressure the Gamecocks might produce. Oregon St didn’t have the athletes to press effectively and Iowa St didn’t have the depth (or need) to even try. Although things looked better against Detroit, the Zips still haven’t shown they can consistently solve a decent press.

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Things are much clearer for me this morning about who the Zips will be playing. :D The lesson from last night is that a sinus infection, meds, alcohol and late night posting don't go well together. Having watched the Gamecocks run circles around Saint Mary's on Sunday, I'm not as confident as some others here that they will be a pushover. If they shoot 58% from the field and outrebound the Zips the way they did the Gaels, it could be a tough game. As I posted after watching that game, South Carolina plays aggressively and is loaded with athletes who make up for any lack of skills with high energy, speed and hops. Zips should win if they play a disciplined game on both offense and defense.

The sinus infection doesn't sound all that fun, but you do your best work on meds and alcohol. :thumb:

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I look at it this way. If the Zips come out of today with a W that will put them 2-1 for the tournament with wins over the PAC-12 and SEC and the only loss coming to a top-15 program out of the Big 12. I think if you asked any Zips fan to give a realistic best case scenario headed into this tournament that was probably it (or close to it). Then we get to go out over the weekend and play the same SEC team we already beat on their floor. If we come out of that with a W then we get to come back home for two straight very winnable home games against Coppin State and Marshall to end the OOC season. Win those two and our OOC record winds up at 10-3 with the worst loss being @MTSU (not a bad loss by any stretch of the imagination). We would have two wins over the SEC, one win over the PAC-12, two over Horizon League opponents and one against CUSA. I can make a strong case that, despite all of the hand wringing that has gone on around here, that this would be our best OOC showing under KD.

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I'd rather play SC multiple times in one week on the road than play bethune cookman, or any other 300+ RPI team at home.

The MAC currently has 4 top 100 RPI teams. Could this be the year we get 2 teams in the tourney?

On your first point.....Absolutely.

On your second point.....Yes, that would be a great breakthrough for the conference. Unfortunately, none of those teams are anywhere close to where they need to be to even get a sniff at an at-large. As always, you need to be looking at about that #30 RPI range. And once any of those teams lose a couple of conference games, it will be very difficult to get to that number.

I think the real question we should be asking as MAC fans right now is: How high can Toledo get if they stay unbeaten for a few more weeks, which would include a win over a ranked Kansas team? That should serve as a gauge for rest of us in the future.

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I look at it this way. If the Zips come out of today with a W that will put them 2-1 for the tournament with wins over the PAC-12 and SEC and the only loss coming to a top-15 program out of the Big 12. I think if you asked any Zips fan to give a realistic best case scenario headed into this tournament that was probably it (or close to it). Then we get to go out over the weekend and play the same SEC team we already beat on their floor. If we come out of that with a W then we get to come back home for two straight very winnable home games against Coppin State and Marshall to end the OOC season. Win those two and our OOC record winds up at 10-3 with the worst loss being @MTSU (not a bad loss by any stretch of the imagination). We would have two wins over the SEC, one win over the PAC-12, two over Horizon League opponents and one against CUSA. I can make a strong case that, despite all of the hand wringing that has gone on around here, that this would be our best OOC showing under KD.

+1. This is exactly how I feel on the subject. We all want to be playing top opponents (and winning those games)...but to steal a term from the Browns coaching staff..."continued, sustained success"...whereas the Browns don't actually show it...the Zips ARE showing it. There was supposed to be a drop off with the loss of Zeke in our performance, I don't see it. In fact, I dare say we're better than last year overall across the board as a team.

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We already know how a MAC team's ranking can rise in the national polls after starting off the season 3-5 and then winning 19 games in a row. Just look back at what the Zips accomplished last season. Long winning streaks absolutely have a lot of value to voters in national polls no matter when in the season the long streak occurs. Should Toledo start the season 19-0, they would likely be ranked even higher than the Zips were last season when their 19-game winning streak moved them to 22-5.

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I'd say a 19-0 start with a road win over Kansas would guarantee Toledo a top 15 ranking and maybe top 10. Not gonna happen, though. The Rockets are good, but not that good.

True. It's not gonna happen. And as much as I'd love to see it, that would mean that they'd be beating us too, wouldn't it?

One interesting things will be to see where they stand going into the Kansas game. They are already getting Top 25 votes.

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