Watcher's View: Fairbanks

[Zip Watcher]

I'm enjoying Fairbanks a lot. It's really cool to be travelling (with) near the team .. at the same hotel .. and sit behind the bench. Thanks to all the coaches & parent's fans for including us.I will say that the Portland State team was a solid club. They had some size & quickness and burned up the nets from outside. The 3 ball really kept them in the game .. and ultimately I think provided the margin of victory.Thoughts on Game 2: Portland St.- BirdZip, I agree with you about the time clock at the end of the game. Boals was on him & KD asked a few times. I really thought there should have been something like 1.2 or so left. It really confused me as to why they didn't go to tape. The thing I'm going to look at is whether or not they even have monitors on the scorer's table. They're piping video to the scoreboard, but since it's not really a broadcast, maybe they don't have monitors on the table. Also, I think there's only one camera angle & it's likely that it doesn't have the time clock superimposed on video. So that's probably a non-starter.- The reffing was pretty even I thought most of the night. It WAS very tight. In the first half, they called everything .. every reach, shove .. almost all contact yielded a foul. I can think of 1 or 2 where guys stayed on their feet, with arms up .. and still got called. In the first half, I think both teams were in the bonus w/ about 9 minutes left. In the second, neither made the bonus until the final minute .. when the Zips had to foul repeatedly to put PSU on the line. I think it was more of a case of the Zips realizing they couldn't hand check / body up. Which leads me to ...- PSU KILLED us from outside all night long. My view is that the perimeter Zips were getting pinched a lot in the first half on the hand checks & reaches .. so they gave a little more margin on the shooters to prevent the drives .. which gave just enough room for bombs to be dropped. The Zips were also late on the rotations several times, running at the open guy as he set his feet to drop a 3 ball in. To me, this really was the difference in the game. I didn't see a final box score yet, but they must have been about 45% for the game .. and I would bet almost 60% for the first half.- The Zips are really banged up right now. So much so that it appeared to affect the rotations late in the game last night. I'm not sure of the foul situation while I'm sitting there (makes me really appreciate the scoreboards at the JAR) .. so I have to assume that JWood was coming out a lot due to offense / defense fouls .. although perhaps it was because PSU went a lot smaller late in the game. Off the top of my head, the following guys are not 100%: Dials (ankle?), Cedric (knee), Wood (hip), Linhart (hurt his back in this game), Sallee (nose .. doesn't appear to affect him), Quade (hand / wrist). They played the 6pm game on Friday, the 8pm on Saturday and have the Noon game today .. we're playing Tennessee St., who played on Thursday, had Friday off, and played @ Noon or 2:30 on Saturday .. so they should be rested. I vaguely remember they had a nice season in the OVC last year, but I haven't looked it up.Some General Observations, not specific to either game:- The team defense is still very much a work in progress. There's not yet the smoothness of switching and communication that we've gotten used to the past 3 seasons. I'm certain it will come, but it's a little rough at the moment. We've got some really good on the ball defenders (Conyers & Linhart .. Bardo getting there) .. but our perimeter man defense is pretty ugly right now. We don't really have a guy at the moment that can shutdown a quick PG straight up. This bodes badly for playing Watson @ CMU .. but I think it gets better when we get a couple of guys back.- It's become clear to me why Swiech will be redshirted. I have no idea how ready he is or isn't .. but it's a numbers thing. There's just not any minutes for him .. and most importantly, Bardo is ready to go .. the kid can play. So often you see a big kid who has size and some good shooting, but is a liability defensively and is a little soft. Not so w/ Mike. This guy is tough .. he battles in there & is a pretty good defender & rebounder. I think there was probably about 10 minutes of his 24 last night when he was the 5 and was in there w/ Wood. This is what I was hoping to see this season. It showed promise. He doesn't shoot a ton, but he's around the rim & on the glass .. that stuff will come. Mike is a capable defender and rebounder .. and will continue to improve. Good sign if you ask me.- I must admit that Quade's offensive game really took me by surprise. The guy has legit post moves .. back to basket, hook shot .. and good touch. I think that he's another reason that we won't see Swiech this year .. a capable interior scorer. And some of his dunks against SCU were ridiculous. There was one that he didn't get to go down, where he put the ball on the floor from the corner, beat his guy baseline and went over the help guy that was almost awesome .. think John Starks against the Bulls. One of the ones from Dials in traffic needs to be on YouTube.- Jimmy Conyers is our best defender. I think he had a bit of a rough game against SCU, but he was in there much of when it counted against PSU. He just doesn't get beat one on one .. maybe he can improve in the switching or help stuff .. but on the ball he's been tough. He's had a little bit of a rough start getting his shot to fall .. but he might be rushing it a little. He'll be fine. I still think he can flat out play .. we'll see this year.- We need a PG .. bad. This reminds me (in a small way) of the season that we had about 5 or 6 years ago when we started the season w/ Emmanuel Smith at the point, while we waited for the Fall semester to end so Rashon Brown (and Andre Sims and another) would become available. Then we had that game against CSU where we just blew them out with a reconfigured backcourt. I think this season may be similar. I think KD's preferred rotations are a bit out of whack right now not having Steward available. Roberts may be in the mix .. we need 1 of these guys to contribute. - What we have are 3 guys who are capable of playing the 1 or 2 .. but these guys are all SG's .. and it shows. The Zips turnovers & PG defense right now are quite uncharacteristic of a KD coached team. That's what's held them back the first 2 games. Missing Joyce a lot right now .. and they've got to work to fill that hole. The pieces are there .. and it will take some time to get it resolved.This is getting long .. and I'm getting hungry .. so I'll finish w/ some quick hitters:- It's game 2. I think I felt like the offense would just be back to the smooth, efficient thing it was last year. It will .. but just not yet.- We're banged up .. time will fix this and help the above.- The Zips aren't working completely as a unit yet. There's a little bit of selfish play still .. not always finding the open guy .. perhaps a little to much "ME" and not enough "WE" yet. KD & staff are working on that.- I think they're playing a little tight right now .. they don't seem to be relaxed yet .. - I do think this is Wood's team. CM leads by example and play .. Wood leads the same way, with a little more of a vocal (encouraging others) component.- We're deep. Really deep. I don't know what happens when B McKnight becomes available. We're already playing 9/10 guys. All of whom can play .. there's just not anyone out there that can't play. C McKnight has played well. Jimmy is contributing, McNees seems to be capable & Bardo has been a nice piece. It's just not feasible to play 12 guys .. some folks are going to be losing minutes when the best rotations are found. We'll see who ...I'll post more after today's game .. post here if you have any questions leading into today's game.Go Zips.. even here in Fairbanks, it's clear that