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I was looking forward to these two games and hoping for a split. We had that game won last year if Tayveion hits his free throws at the end and he’s been an 80% plus guy from the line since he’s been here. We have a pretty good squad this year. Bassey is legit legit. His freshman year he really wasn’t. He had good numbers but he wasn’t going to get drafted high so came back. He was playing pretty well until he broke his knee. I honestly (being a lifelong Western fan that expects the worst) didn’t expect much out of him this year being 9 months removed from major surgery. He has far exceeded what I thought we’d get out of him. We’ve got some really good pieces at the other spots also with a bunch of seniors. If Stans is ever going to do something here he’ll do it this year. They’ve announced we’ve picked up a non-conference game at Houston now. I knew from friends close to Stans that we’d been working on it and Houston wanted to but they said something about conference was giving them another conference game or something and couldn’t work it out. That’s what I heard anyway. But now it’s on. UNC tweeted out they were looking for ANYONE to play. Our guys jumped on the horn immediately and got a lot of hemming and hawing out of UNC and the next thing you know they announce they’re playing Northeastern. Stans has called Calipari so many times Cal is not answering any more calls from him. I don’t blame Stans for trying to pick up games. He has to know he’ll probably never have this roster again here. I think he can have some good teams in the future because he simply never stops recruiting. Have you ever watched him in a handshake line? The opposing coach has to physically remove Stans from loving on whatever player went off on us. You never know when a kid might want to txfer out. But this year he has a junior Bassey and some pretty good seniors playing their roles. I don’t think we’ll get blown out by Houston but I doubt Cincinnati expected to lose by almost 40 to them either. But it’s nice to get a game with a ranked team even on their floor. Stans got us the game with Alabama at their place earlier this year by calling everyone. We won that game at the very end and I never cry about refs but we were getting honked that whole game. Amazing that we stayed in it much less won it. I hate we’re not playing these two. Loved playing you guys in the Belt and love playing you guys here in CUSA.

Big congrats to the Mean Green fans that have been waiting for this for awhile. Not a win over us. I’m talking about winning the regular season crown. That’s one hella accomplishment this year. The conference isn’t as good at the top as it was 3 years ago when Middle, ODU, Marshall, and Western were all top 100. But....there are basically no gimmes this year. You have to bring your game every single night. So very impressive job by your squad. I said on our board and CUSA board awhile back of all the teams I’d seen this year in conference you guys were best and La Tech was right there with you. The rest of us can win games but I thought you two were at the top and nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind on it. Do we have a chance to win the tourney? We do but then again we could easily take a loss in the first game in the tourney as well. Even when we had Bassey I thought we could win any game on our schedule but also thought there wasn’t a single game on the schedule I would have marked down as a gimme. Once we lost him we’re the size of a decent high school team. I’ve been amazed at the games we’ve won. I’ve never thought much of Stans as a bench coach and he still drives me nuts but he’s done a decent job with this group. Him adding a press to this group has really helped us. It turns teams over some but what it mainly does is shortens the time a team can get in its offense. Because if they have time they have a pretty easy job of scoring on us in straight up defense. I met Tasty Greek and his boys several years back and know there are a lot of huge hoops fans at UNT so I just wanted to drop by and congratulate you bunch on a job very well done.

Are you sure you’re not thinking of Sergio Kerusch’s pop? I don’t remember OMV’s dad but you couldn’t miss Sergio’s dad. Dude had that hair straightener working and might’ve even had a soul patch. Straight out the streets of Pimphis Tennessee!

That would’ve been Teeng Akol. He was a transfer from Choklahoma State. It seemed every team in the Sun Belt had a castoff big from the Midget. I always found it hilarious the number of bigs he ran off. He kept a stable of miniature white boy guards doe. I believe ya’ll had a pretty danged good big yourselves from them but I can’t remember his name. Teeng only average around 6-8 points that year but was a serviceable big. He had around 23-25 that game and only missed one or two shots. I believe he outscored Tony Mitchell by 5-6 points in that game. It was by far his best game as a Topper. Sadly Teeng liked the firewater a bit much and he was dismissed from the team about 3/4 of the way through the next year his senior season. I hate seeing anyone with those struggles. No idea whatever happened to him. I’ll go to the Googs and see. He surely could have made some money overseas after finishing up here.

Lol. No sandbagging here. I’ve just learned not to argue with Pomeroy. I will repeat. If we keep turnovers down we will probably give you guys a game. That stat more than any other has been our leading indicator. One of our posters on the home message board is a Pomeroy guru. No other stat come close to defining how we do as the turnover stat. He has broken down every one of our games from Pomeroy’s numbers. But he does it in a way I don’t have to scratch through all of Ken Pom’s numbers. Watch that stat. Our fan base has lost their minds on every loss this year. I haven’t. Early in the year we were 336 out of 353 teams in experience on Pomeroy. I knew we’d struggle but we do have some talent. When that talent doesn’t turn the ball over you can beat West Virginia and Arkansas at Arkansas and Wisconsin in Bowling Green. When it turns it over you lose at home to FIU. Who I’m not hating on. Their VCU tree coach really is committed to that style of ball and it gave us problems. FIU and FAU have been my biggest surprises this year. Even more than UTSA. I saw UTSA beat us down there last year. I knew they had potential.

Even though the official Texas Library of Baloncesta Knowledge CMJ dropped the correct name I enjoyed your version and it tickled me enough I had to quote you. Orlando Mendez Valdez out of San Antonio is long gone. He was a kid we thought would be good but Darrin Horn underutilized him. In Horn’s defense we did have Courtney Lee (PBUH) and Tyrone Brazleton at guard back then. Horn took the South Carolina job and we hired Ken McDummy. McDummy installed OMV at point god and the rest was history as he had a banner season. He had a run from about midway through the season until Gonzaga put us out in the second round of the NCAA that was one of the greatest runs I remember by a guard at Western. Recorded Western’s first triple-double ever. He did stuff in the Sun Belt tourney and in the NCAA tourney that required him to use a wheelbarrow to pack his huevos around. He was unstoppable. I couldn’t stop laughing in Hot Springs listening to the Tasty Greek making fun of the OMV convention that had traveled up from San Antonio all in matching airbrushed tees that looked straight out of a SA flea market. The last I heard of him he was still playing pro ball in Mayheeco. Played for their national team in a big win in international ball. Beat Puerto Rico for gold medal in some tournament. He married a cute volleyball player from Western. It was probably his hair. I never saw a kid that groomed his hair more for a basketball game than OMV. They have kids. With those genes you gotta believe those kids will play somewhere some day. Pretty sure two daughters so maybe they’ll play volleyball. Thanks for taking me down a very good memory of a player.

I’m not so sure it’ll be an easy win. But I believe (following Pomeroy) it will be a win for the Mean Greens. Plus I’ve followed sports long enough to know how tough conference road wins are to come by. We had both ODU and Marshall down big at their places and were still able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This is the most even I’ve seen CUSA since we joined. We had 4 outstanding teams in CUSA last year. I honestly believe any of the 4 could have won a first round game like Marshall did in the NCAA tourney. I don’t think our top team this year could/would beat any of those 4 from last year. But the bottom of our conference is way up this year compared to last. So even when you play a bottom ranked team at their place you are probably walking out with a loss. Look at La Tech. They’re champs at home and can’t find a road win. We can give you guys a game. If you roll us like you did Marshall I’ll be surprised. Our key is keeping turnovers down. Any game we’ve kept turnovers in check we win. When our freshmen start turning it over like they’re shaving points we lose. Bearden has been huge recently.

Lol. Reel in? A group named Barstool? I’m from the message board generation. My 2 sons are from the Twitter generation. I know that Twitter is the preferred method these days and message boards are a 1976 Chevy Vega but I don’t spend much time on there. I’ll sometimes check it like I did looking for Stansbury’s bad back. Even looking for that news item I had to wade through tweets on toxic masculinity from someone I’ve surely never heard of. On the upside I did find Josh’s dunk. So it does have that going for it. But a group that calls themselves Barstool might not be in the reeling in business.

I honestly don’t know amigo. I was tryna catch local sports yesterday evening and heard them say “blah blah won’t coach due to bad back” through my mother in law babbling about something. Then when the game was on I had it muted. I can’t listen to the announcers. Some annoy me so I don’t take the chance on any of them. I’ve looked all over the twitter and can only find where it said he wouldn’t be coaching last night. They never detailed where he is. I like Stansbury. He’s a pretty straight shooter in post game interviews and media days. Some coach speak but he’s usually honest. He did say ‘kiney’ the last post game. That was his Kentucky version of ‘kind of’. He doesn’t have a real twang but he’s very country in his speech. I believe some of it’s an act. Tries to disarm with his country charm. Guy could sell ice water to an Eskimo. I don’t know if I can insert this link properly or not. It’s the Josh Anderson poster.

Pomeroy has y’all at 63% chance winning. I’d bump that up to around 99.3% chance. I never bet but if I did I’d never bet against Pomeroy. I’ve subscribed to him for around 5 years and it’s uncanny how accurate his site is. After seeing how you violated Marshall last night I feel even worse about Saturday. Our last trip west we beat USM and had to turn around and play early Saturday against La Tech and got smacked around Peter Dinklage at a Dwarf Tossing Renaissance Festival. I see we play at 5:00. Maybe our guys will be awake by then and give you some semblance of a game. Here’s a breakdown of our starters: #23 Charles Bassey - It’s been a pleasure watching a 5* all year. We’ve had some dipshits picking at every nit on him. He is a rebounding machine. He can also be a turnover machine but he just turned 18 in October. He reclassified to sign. He should be playing high school kids. He has a better shot than you might think. He’s more of an old school inside player. Has a pretty good knack for blocking shots. #4 Josh Anderson - The masked man. Dude from La Tech ‘accidentally’ broke his nose in that game. So now he’s wearing a mask. He’s an X-Factor. His outside shot and free throws improved more than any kid I’ve ever seen here in one year but that’s mainly because he was terrible at both last year. He is very explosive off the dribble. He had a pretty key posterize dunk down the stretch last night. #1 Lamonte Bearden - This guy is one of my all time favorite knuckleheads. He drives Stansbury crazy and a lot of our fans. Dude definitely marches to beat of his own drummer. Last year he quit going to class with a month left in school because he was going to ‘the League’. Lmmfao. Maybe the league of distinguished gentlemen but he found out quickly the offers weren’t flying in. So he came back. But had to sit out a semester to get his grades up. He had arguably his best game as a Hilltopper last night with 16 points 11 assists and 0 turnovers. He does something every game that amuses the hell out of me. I will miss his antics. I expect to see him grab our PA announcers mike on senior night and ask “Are you not entertained?” Antics aside he can play when he’s dialed in. #2 Jared Savage - He couldn’t guard Mr. Cherry’s statue on top of Western’s hill (Mr. Cherry started the university and is honored by a statue. It doesn’t move much). He will jack the ball up early and often. Our fans have been ready to run him out of town for not playing dee. He’s a local Bowling Green boy that spent 2 years at Austin Peay and put up numbers. There’s a reason Ray Harper didn’t recruit the local. He won’t play dee. So you watch whoever he’s matched up against. They’re going for a career night. Book it. But. In his defense he crushed UTSA with 3s in the overtime win. He’d thrown up gangster brick after gangster brick all game long but nailed 3 in overtime. #11 Taveion Hollingsworth - Jivvahn Jackson was the only freshman I saw in the conference last year that I thought might have been better than this guy. He broke Courtney Lee’s (PBUH) freshman scoring record last year. He’s leading us in scoring this year. But he is not himself right now. Really, really struggling from the field. When he’s on there’s not a better mid range shooter (a disappearing skill) in the conference. If we can get him back on track we’ll give anyone we play a game. Our guards are big. But they can’t guard the jet quick guys that litter this conference. There are some really good guards in this conference this year. We play really old school ball. Go to the rim. Try to shoot a ton of free throws. Last night we shot a lot more 3s than normal. Stansbury was not there. Bad back. Assistant Coach took the helm. You know the old saying of when the cat’s away the mice play? Our mice were jacking 3s. That’s not our game. We don’t get the ball to Bassey nearly enough. That has gotten better since LaMonte has entered the starting lineup. I honestly wanted a split out of this trip but I knew Rice was no pushover at home. They are not that bad. Not as bad as their record indicates anyway. So we have our split. I would be thrilled if we give you guys a game but it’ll surprise me if we’re within 10 when the horn sounds. Life on the road is tough. Good luck only not too much good luck.

That was a big win for us Saturday. I wasn’t surprised. This group has shown they can play pretty well when they’re up for a game. But then can lay down when they’re not. It’s what comes with being so young and inexperienced. We’re #334 out of 353 teams experience wise. But there is talent. No true point god killed us early. I think we’ve found one in 6’8 Dalano Banton. Everyone knew about Bassey but Banton was a top 100 recruit as well. He truly looks pass first and at 6’8 sees the floor really well out front. Still screws up but he’s a freshman. We could easily lose at Charlotte tomorrow night and then get up of ODU and pull off the upset at their place Saturday. We had people losing their mind when we lost to Mo State and Indiana State and Troy. I didn’t like it but didn’t lose my mind a bit. I knew what we’d be like early this year. We can be really really good when we’re dialed in. When we don’t come ready to play we can lose just like anyone else. Bassey has outplayed every ‘name’ big he’s gone against. Our guys still have a problem getting him the ball. I enjoyed the hell out of our NIT run last year. I’m enjoying the process this year. Josh Anderson is a matchup nightmare. We didn’t get him until around game 20 last year due to eligibility issues but he’s getting better and better every night out. I rewatched the Wisconsin game as I had taped it. It was no upset. Go watch the Arkansas game too. Our talent is as good as theirs. They just need to learn to play as a team. The Wiscy game was probably the most unselfish I’ve seen us play this year. Btw, congrats on the great start. I know the Mean Green fans love their hoops and deserve a winner after the pain of the last several years.

Congrats again Mean Green fans. I meant to get on here last night but didn’t. Looks like hella first year for McCasland. Nice start, a rough stretch when the schedule got very rough. One hella nice run at the end. You guys gotta feel good about the direction you’re headed. I know how we felt when we got rid of Ken Pol Pot McDummy McDonald and Ray Harper took over. It’s a relief to get rid of someone that you knew early on was a train wreck. I’m talking about McDummy. I’m sure some of you felt early on that Benford wasn’t the guy. It’s hard to go through it. So enjoy the championship. Hang a banner. Be better next year. With Middle having a new coach and with ODU losing Porter we’ll need everyone to step up a bit more if we’re to match what we did as a conference this year.

Congrats Mean Green. I wish we could have joined you still playing. I enjoyed our run. I’ve enjoyed your run as well. Great job forcing game 3. Unbelievable what your coach has done after a tough end to the season.

Good luck Mean Green. It would be awesome for you guys to win this thing. I can’t think of one negative that came from your participation. Maybe the bean counters don’t love it but I honestly have no idea how ya’ll came out on that side of it. I’m very happy for my boys I met down in Mobile years ago. They know who they are. Big time hoops fans in a football state. And funny as hell too. I know ya’ll have been waiting for something good to happen since JJ left. I think this counts in that column.