Official Western Michigan Thread

[Captain Kangaroo]

Tough match up tonight. To me, it is like playing into a mirror. Two of the top 3 centers in the league. Two of the top three 3-point shooting teams in the league.Advantages?WMU is the league's best rebounding team, while UA is 8th.Zips have the best assist-to-turnover margin, while WMU is 9th.If we are to win, I think we need the same bench production we saw last night. And Linhart needs to be "on."Can Bardo give quality minutes to rest Wood? He'll need to, because Reitz will work wood hard. My prediction -- Buzzer-beater. This game won't be decided until the final 10 seconds.F K.e.n.t.

[bUAkronG]

gonna be a tough one tonight, that's for sure. I can't say I'm as confident this year as I was last year around this time... However I certainly think we can match up and pull it out.what did you say? yeah I think that's what I heard.

[Marty McFly]

I agree that it is going to be a tough one, but I was thinking this - Central Mich may have been the best opponent for us to prepare for the WMU game tonight. They are small, and forced our guards to play outstanding, and we did. Ced, Nick and D Roberts (who I defended after the Can't game, by the way...haha) all played awesome. Central is not a big team, so we used J Wood and the McKnights inside, which is what we are going to need tonight - an inside presence and answer, and some great back court play.Think about it this way - They will prob win in the front court scoring, so by Nick, Ced and D Roberts getting some confidence from last night, we should exceed the point differential that we lost inside. What I'm saying is that they should hold the front court edge, but not by much. We should hold the back court edge, and the difference.

[Quickzips]

This is kind of a pick your poisin kind of game for us. You can either try to stop Reitz inside or you can try and shut down Kool on the outside. I don't know which way you try to go. Logic says you try and shut down the inside game and make them beat you from the perimeter, but I'm not sure if we have the bodies to man up on Reitz all night long. Kool is their facilitator and if you can keep him in check maybe it cuts down on the touches for Reitz and contains him to a certain degree in the process.As Cap'n already stated, bench production will be the key. If we can continue to get production out of guys like B.McKnight, Roberts, McNees and Company I think we'll be ok. If not, then we are really gonna need Nick, Cedrick and Wood to have career style games.

[w00t]

If Wood (Reitz) and Linhart (Kool) play solid defense tonight, I think Akron wins by ten.

[Zip Watcher]

This is kind of a pick your poisin kind of game for us. You can either try to stop Reitz inside or you can try and shut down Kool on the outside. I don't know which way you try to go.

Why would you ever have to make this choice? Linhart can take Kool out of the game man to man .. we don't need to double Kool. If you need to double Reitz, you do it from somewhere else, and force someone other than Kool to make the shot.I don't think this is that type of pick poison thing at all. We attempt to take Kool out of the game, and force Reitz to find someone else to take the open look

[Quickzips]

This is kind of a pick your poisin kind of game for us. You can either try to stop Reitz inside or you can try and shut down Kool on the outside. I don't know which way you try to go.

Why would you ever have to make this choice? Linhart can take Kool out of the game man to man .. we don't need to double Kool. If you need to double Reitz, you do it from somewhere else, and force someone other than Kool to make the shot.I don't think this is that type of pick poison thing at all. We attempt to take Kool out of the game, and force Reitz to find someone else to take the open look

I don't have quite as much confidence in Linhart as some on here. I've seen him lock down on the opponents best perimeter player (last night and against Dayton are the two best examples I can think of), but I've seen his struggle on the defensive end too. Until he gets to the point where he can bring that clamp down defense every night I'm always going to be worried about him. Don't get me wrong, he's a great role player for us and I love the hustle and energy he brings, but I'm not quite into the MVP thing that goes around for him. If he clamps down on Kool again tonight and can take him out of the game w/out us sacrificing anything inside, definitley a big advantage for us.

[GoZips88]

As others have said, put the pressure on Kool - make it difficult for him to shoot and create for others. I think we have the horses to deal with Reitz inside. Bardo has been playing decent defense (blocks, changing shots) and I have to believe that the McKnights are there as well to help Wood on Reitz. Bring the defensive effort we've come to expect, shoot somewhere between what we did last night and our pathetic performance against Can't and I think we'll be OK. Very nice effort yesterday ... need to bring that kind of game on both ends again tonight.Starting to get nervous ... must be getting closer to wrapping things up at work and heading north. GO ZIPS!!!

[johnnyzip84]

Obviously this game has the makings of being one of the best in the entire tournament. I have a feeling that one team will race off to a pretty good lead, but that the other team will methodically claw back into it and force at least one overtime. The team that fought back will run out of gas in OT. Just a hunch of course.If we can get Reitz concerned about his own defense (couple of early fouls would work wonders), then I think that will partially temper his offensive production.

[west virginia Zips fan]

the rowdies need to be into it all night. last years semi finals against Can't was so memorable, i only hope same result tonight, with a different one tomorow night.