12 Games into the Season - Your Grade?

[Captain Kangaroo]

I would give the Zips a B+ to-date. UALR loss was bad. But, it was the first game of the year...and it was very tight.Oral Roberts win was a good OOC victory, a tad better than the one vs. YSU.UIC loss was bad, but not horrible. We were outplayed by a team that will be upper-middle in the Horizon League.Nevada loss was a tough one. The Zips needed a Top-20 scalp on their resume' and there was never a better opportunity to get one. One final shot by Drew, and all the big shots that we've witnessed over the years at the JAR that have gone against us...Jose Davis...Anthony Stacy...Brandon Hunter...Keith Mc Cloud (@ Gund) all would have been erased. Well, at least dulled a bit.Other games were all double-digit blowouts. And that's really all you can do vs. crappy competition. Dru has been Dru. Plays a good floor game, doesn't make too many mistakes and can stick the "3" if left open.Dials has been playing well. Not outstanding, but solid.Travis has been a bit of an enigma. Capable of carrying the team on any given night, but only showing up in spurts.Milum shows that KD can spot a diamond in the rough. He's making up for Travis' unpredictability.Middleton started off hot, but has slumped a bit lately. Still, overall he's playing well.McKnight - Only getting better.Linhart - Is Conyers bringing out the best in him? Nate's playing well after a so-so start.Conyers - Is he the "X-factor" we needed to dethrone K.e.n.t? Play as of late would indicate, "Yes."Wood - Coming back nicely, but still not in top form.And, how nice is it to have the depth to redshirt McNees and Bardo? It wasn't only 3-4 years ago we were forced to play D-2 talents (term used loosely) like Brian Wood, Matt Seibert and Bryan Hipsher major minutes. Games vs. K.e.n.t, OU, Miami, and Buffalo within the next 3 weeks will tell us alot. I'm betting we win all four. BG's in there too....but they suck.

[Z-P]

Side note to CK's rant.............I've been waiting 6 years to see Senior talent step up and take the team to the next level.................Johnny Hollingsworth, Andy, Mr. T, what's his name from Jackson, and others...............never seems to happen.Rome's play so far (what I know of it which admittidly isn't too much) has been reminiscent of those other cats.........when a guy gets to his final year he's regressed.I hope I'm wrong about Rome and Dru and they show up in conference.......nm

[jeaglet1]

I would give the Zips a C+. I ggenerally agree with your assesment of the zips season so far. However, I do think the UIC loss is a little closer to terrible than to just bad. In my estimation, the games they won they should have won, and the good showing against Nevada is negated by UA-LR and UIC. Maybe I'm just difficult to please haha

[RACER]

not to make excuses because of injury. not to have j.wood in the uic game hurt us big time. if wood plays we probabaly win the game.

[skip-zip]

I like the C+ grade.Every win so far is a game that we should have won.Had we beaten both UIC and UALR, I'd give them an "A" Grade, even with the loss to Nevada. I wished I had seen our effort in the Nevada game every game this year. This team is hard to beat when everyone is giving their all. I like the point about the long list of seniors that have not had their best year in their senior season. I pray that Romeo doesn't get added to this list.

[Dr Z]

I've been waiting 6 years to see Senior talent step up and take the team to the next level. Johnny Hollingsworth, Andy, Mr. T, what's his name from Jackson, and others, never seems to happen.Rome's play so far (what I know of it which admitidly isn't too much) has been reminiscent of those other cats. When a guy gets to his final year he's regressed.

Good point. I'll make one obscure exception, Jawanza Moore. I thought he progressed more in his senior year than anyone I have watched at Akron.Although he wasn't the type of player that could carry a team.Staying on topic, I don't think I have seen enough games to award a grade to this team.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Good point. I'll make one obscure exception, Jawanza Moore. I thought he progressed more in his senior year than anyone I have watched at Akron.

Ryan Andrick improved more from his Freshman to his Sophmore year than anyone I've seen. Senior year...

[InTheZone]

Should only have one loss right now. I'll go with C, but a win this weekend will upgrade to B.

[Zip Watcher]

My grade thus far is I - Incomplete.This is a process & I attribute the two losses on the road to that process. KD has to figure out who can play & where & in what combinations. UALR was the first game out .. UIC a month later & Keith is still tinkering.My observations thus far:- Best Zips roster I have seen (been watching since Jakubick), maybe ever. KD has 9 guys he can run out there without anyone muttering "oh no .. here we go with this scrub" ... team goes 9 deep with legit DI players. First time ever for that. Worked for Waters @ Can't State .. hope the same for us.- I think even the walkons don't ellicit a groan or hands over the eyes from me. We don't need them for extended minutes, but I haven't had any problems with the use of Goddard, Sallee & Carroll to date. Sowers never embarassed himself in the past either .. these are the walkons, but it reflects the overall status of the team.- Buy in by the players into KD's defense-first team approach has been good also. Only a few bumps to iron out here, but the YSU game showed that those issues are disappearing on the court. So long as the buy-in continues .. this team will continue to get better.- I think our SF position may well be the best in the conference by the time the season's over. [YSU Line: 40 min, 24pts, 8rbs, 4asts, 3PF]. I feel that opinions that last year's recruiting class was a bust are totally misinformed. Nate & Jimmy are just about using all 40 minutes between them & there's no drop off from one to the other. They do different things, but they both defend well. A real strength on this team. Jimmy's on the rise & even KD talked about finding a way to play both guys. I have a dream of seeing Jimmy @ the 2 next year .. matchup nightmare for most conference foes.- Zips appear to have turned the corner on quickness. I think the Can't State game will be a good gauge of this. Usually the past few years, we've been unable to even consider guarding them man-to-man due to the quickness difference. This year so far, I don't recall seeing any zone from KD. Even in the Nevada game, we went man against a top 25 and it was pretty effective. It was Fox of Nevada that had to go zone to protect Fazekas from J. Wood. We didn't get beat by quickness at any position other than possibly the point. Kemp (the SF) was a non factor. The bonus here is that there isn't too much thinking required on the D side .. gotta keep track of switches & help, but the guys can now get down to just shutting down their guy .. that makes the team D better.- The size factor will win some games this year just on a numbers basis. We don't have any 6-10 guys. We also don't need them. What we DO have is 4 good players that play about 6-7 / 6-8 to split 2 positions (80 minutes). You could see it in the faces of the guys from Nevada, Loyola & YSU that they were busting their asses to defend and play against Milum & Wood, only to have a fresh Travis & McKnight come off the bench (put them in any combo you like .. mix & match). It clearly wore on the opponents in the 2nd half. Add in the SF being the same way and our whole front court, from a numbers perspective is pretty deep. Foul trouble by one guy up front isn't going to cost this team any games. That's what I got for now. I think the Zips look pretty strong & will only get stronger. Continuing to play DISCLIPLINED, TEAM DEFENSE will keep this team in every game. There isn't a game on the schedule the Zips can't win if they defend and play together. These are strengths of the Zips .. I'm not sure the same can be said for the other MAC East contenders .. purely speculation on my part .. but we'll see in the next 2 weeks.I really recommend that folks get buckled in for a nice ride w/ KD. I look at the roster & the play on the court & consider the talent that is signed .. and it's hard for me not to think down the road a bit. I believe this team will be the best DI Akron team ever .. until next year's club. KD's got some work to do in order to merit a Wyatt Webb comparison as far as overall success .. but the Huggins era will be an afterthought pretty soon.Ciao. Go Zips.

[Hilltopper]

Nice post ZW.

[RACER]

a good point about having 6-7 guys who can actually play, and jump like milmum.it would be nice to have a 6-10 big man.the reality is most d-1 school don't have one,and if they do they are usually just taking up space.that's ben the one weakness most mac schools have.if kd is able to get one big guy who is decent the rest of mac is in trouble.