Game 10- Tulane

[clarkwgriswold]

The Zips head to New Orleans Saturday to face the 6-2 Tulane Green Wave. 

 

The Green Wave was chosen to finish 3rd in the AAC preseason poll.  Redshirt junior guard Rowan Brumbaugh was chosen as the AAC preseason player of the year.  Asher Woods, a senior guard was named to the second team.  Brumbaugh leads Tulane at 19.1 ppg and averages 4.5 rpg.  Curtis Williams, a 6’6” junior guard and Georgetown transfer is second in scoring at 15 ppg while leading the team in rebounding at 5.8 rpg.  Woods averages 11 ppg.  On defense the Green Wave plays zone 40 minutes a game.  They average 76 points per game.

[Let'sGoZips94]

This one is big. Tulane is only 228 NET, but that will rise. They have Akron (42 NET) and UC San Diego (63 NET) as the big challenges left in their OOC. Add those and their AAC schedule (Tulsa, USF, Wichita St, Memphis, FAU, etc.) and this could end up being a Q2 opportunity since it's on the road. They are 8 deep and tall/long although a lot of their scoring production comes from the 6'3"-6'6" portion of their roster. 

 

Need to win this to help establish our legitimacy. Cannot be looking ahead to Vegas. 

[ZipsFan31]

This game, Yale, SBC road game are our 3 biggest winnable non conference games. 0-1 so far. Must win if we want an 11 seed 

[Let'sGoZips94]

1 hour ago, ZipsFan31 said:

This game, Yale, SBC road game are our 3 biggest winnable non conference games. 0-1 so far. Must win if we want an 11 seed 

 

Don't forget Murray State. 

[csims0917]

Desperately need quality OOC road games. It’s what we are missing every year. Princeton, Bradley, Milwaukee, UNLV, the list goes on. Tulane doesn’t score at will so I’m hoping to see the defense look a lot better

[Reslife4Life]

4pm tip. Freeze your butt off at soccer at 1, drive home to watch some hoops under 3 blankets at 4. Sounds like a great saturday

[clarkwgriswold]

It will be interesting to see how the Zips handle the Tulane match up zone.  The Zips often seem to have trouble in initially adjusting to a zone.  The Tulane zone is different than what they've faced.  I hope they can adjust quickly to it rather than get off to a slow start. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

43 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

It will be interesting to see how the Zips handle the Tulane match up zone.  The Zips often seem to have trouble in initially adjusting to a zone.  The Tulane zone is different than what they've faced.  I hope they can adjust quickly to it rather than get off to a slow start. 

 

The good news is most zones are mid game adjustments by the opponent, not necessarily their identity. The Zips have several days to fully prepare which should help. 

 

Just read Tulane's board. They want their coach fired yesterday. Here's to hoping we can help get that wish to the finish line! Apparently their coach is Ron Hunter. He's an Ohio native who played 4 years at Miami OH in the 80s.

Edited 1 hour ago by Let'sGoZips94

[Zips1991]

1 hour ago, Reslife4Life said:

4pm tip. Freeze your butt off at soccer at 1, drive home to watch some hoops under 3 blankets at 4. Sounds like a great saturday

This is the plan but it's only a great Saturday if they both win!

[Blue & Gold]

41 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Just read Tulane's board. They want their coach fired yesterday. 

Hmm. Tulane is 6-2 with wins over Samford, Texas State, Louisiana, and Boston College.

They did, however, get run off the court by New Orleans (85-63), so that has to rub the Tulane alumni the wrong way.

[Let'sGoZips94]

3 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

Hmm. Tulane is 6-2 with wins over Samford, Texas State, Louisiana, and Boston College.

They did, however, get run off the court by New Orleans (85-63), so that has to rub the Tulane alumni the wrong way.

 

He has had 2 winning seasons in his first 6 years at the helm. Now, Tulane was an absolute train wreck under their previous HC, Mike Dunleavy, and they did not have much success prior to him, either. Tough spot to win it looks like and I'm sure the fan base is tired of seeing the program struggle to get over any sort of consistently successful hump. Also a tough conference to win in with Memphis, Wichita St., etc., but it's much easier than it used to be with Cincy, Houston, and others departing in recent years. 

[kreed5120]

5 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

He has had 2 winning seasons in his first 6 years at the helm. Now, Tulane was an absolute train wreck under their previous HC, Mike Dunleavy, and they did not have much success prior to him, either. Tough spot to win it looks like and I'm sure the fan base is tired of seeing the program struggle to get over any sort of consistently successful hump. Also a tough conference to win in with Memphis, Wichita St., etc., but it's much easier than it used to be with Cincy, Houston, and others departing in recent years. 

 

It's easier to win in the American now, but it's also very much a mid-major. Before it was in an awkward position where it wasn't a power conference school, but still clearly a step above the rest. 

 

If you actually look at the top 2/3 of both conferences they're pretty much the same now. Those top 8 teams in AAC have an average NET of 122.5 while the top 8 in the MAC are 122. The only thing that separates the 2 conferences is the handful of teams at the bottom of the conference. The MAC has more dead weight.