Benford Taking Mean Green Basketball To New Levels

greenit · January 1, 2015

Benford's patented Green Slime zone defense holding opponents to historic lows.

https://www.facebook.com/MeanGreenMBB/photos/a.165323383498084.32686.123280294369060/864559676907781/?type=1

emmitt01 · January 1, 2015

Benford's patented Green Slime zone defense holding opponents to historic lows.
https://www.facebook.com/MeanGreenMBB/photos/a.165323383498084.32686.123280294369060/864559676907781/?type=1

Love Steven Glickman's comment.

greenit · January 1, 2015

Should have known Kram would ignore the positive and immediately point out the negative...

Andrew · January 1, 2015

Benford's patented Green Slime zone defense holding opponents to historic lows.
https://www.facebook.com/MeanGreenMBB/photos/a.165323383498084.32686.123280294369060/864559676907781/?type=1

If we could get our offense going we could easily turn things around! Benford preached defense and he brought it. Now he needs to bring the offense. Benford is definetly the best defensive coach in recent school history!

greenminer · January 1, 2015

If we could get our offense going

Andrew · January 1, 2015

Wow that's a big IF!

Mean Green Matt · January 1, 2015

I was sure this was going to be the title of a Vito blog post.

Andrew · January 1, 2015

My guess is that NT90 is still upset even though he bashed Benford for having a poor defense. We have the best defense in the history of the school to this point and had a pretty tough scheduale.

The bigger question is why have people been bashing Benfords zone when it has been the best defense we have seen in the history of the school? If shots start dropping we are going to be a very dangerous team.

GMG24 · January 1, 2015

The defense, while numbers may be low, is still not great. Way to many wide open uncontested looks, rebounding (more specifically boxing out) is non existent in the 4 games I watched. Creighton couldn't throw it in the ocean in the first half, otherwise it would have been ugly. While he does receive some credit, I Wonder what those look like without the powder puffs? Honest question. I'll look and post in a second.

Edited January 1, 2015 by GMG24

Andrew · January 1, 2015

The defense, while numbers may be low, is still not great. Way to many wide open uncontested looks, rebounding (more specifically boxing out) is non existent in the 4 games I watched. Creighton couldn't throw it in the ocean in the first half, otherwise it would have been ugly. While he does receive some credit, I Wonder what those look like without the powder puffs? Honest question. I'll look and post in a second.

That's the way they have run this 3-2 offense. They force the opposing teams to swing the ball and burn a lot of clock in order to force late shots or allow semi open shots after players have been fatigued trying to break the zone. It seems it is being run this way to facilitate our quick guards and lack of size. I wanted our team to shoot more threes but many people including CMJ jumped all over my post and said its wiser to take the ball inside. If that logic stands true then should our defense not want opposing teams to shoot semi contested shots from the outside after fatiguing during the game? Especially when deeper shots lead to longer rebounds which play to our advantage of speed and athleticism. If we allowed more shots inside we will get destroyed with our lack of size and ability to bring down the rebound in the post. The coaches are smart veterans. They know what they are doing and what is in the best int rest of the team. You have to play to your strengths and avoid your weakness. This is something people on the boards just flat out do not understand. Regardless of if you like Benford or not he has done everything he can with the roster he has (which ues he assembled himself) to put this team in a position to be successful.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Andrew

untbowler · January 2, 2015

My guess is that NT90 is still upset even though he bashed Benford for having a poor defense. We have the best defense in the history of the school to this point and had a pretty tough scheduale.
The bigger question is why have people been bashing Benfords zone when it has been the best defense we have seen in the history of the school? If shots start dropping we are going to be a very dangerous team.

WTF are you kidding me???

greenminer · January 2, 2015

I would be interested in two stats to compare between this year and previous Benny seasons at UNT:

1) Seconds (time) per offensive possession

2) Points per possession

Call me nuts, but there is likely something going on within other areas of the game that lend itself to these defensive stats. Other things come to mind, like how are the current opponents doing offensively compared to what other UNT teams have faced?

Andrew · January 2, 2015

WTF are you kidding me???

Arkansas, Creighton, IONA, SFA, Tech, and Arakansas. When was the last time UNT played 6 teams in out of conference play that were that good? I'm guessing you loved playing UTA, Jackson State, Cameron, Sam Houston, SE Louisiana, Grambling etc.... We played 2 solid teams a year and then cupcakes (including 1 to 2 D2 or lower schools every year) for the past decade or more. My guess is you have never gone back and looked at any of our previous schedules and just love to jump on any bandwagon you can even if it's the attack a coach for any reason bandwagon.

mgfan · January 2, 2015

Arkansas, Creighton, IONA, SFA, Tech, and Arakansas. When was the last time UNT played 6 teams in out of conference play that were that good? I'm guessing you loved playing UTA, Jackson State, Cameron, Sam Houston, SE Louisiana, Grambling etc.... We played 2 solid teams a year and then cupcakes (including 1 to 2 D2 or lower schools every year) for the past decade or more. My guess is you have never gone back and looked at any of our previous schedules and just love to jump on any bandwagon you can even if it's the attack a coach for any reason bandwagon.

I would say it is a pretty easy schedule . We have an sos of 221 out of 321. Benford is not a good coach. You have to be the biggest troll of all time or the dumbest poster.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/page/4/sort/sos

This year we beat 1 team with an RPI of 150 or better and that is Creighton.

Here is some info on your "hard" schedule

Wins (RPI 1-50) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE No current wins in this range.

Losses (RPI 1-50) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE 24 Nov. 28 @ Arkansas 73-89 47 Dec. 3 @ Oklahoma St 61-87

Wins (RPI 51-100) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE 100 Dec. 21 Creighton 62-58

Losses (RPI 51-100) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE 63 Dec. 14 @ Stephen F. Austin 48-59

Wins (RPI 101-150) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE No current wins in this range.

Losses (RPI 101-150) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE 103 Nov. 23 Iona 58-78 134 Dec. 29 @ Texas Tech 45-60

Wins (RPI 150+) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE 313 Nov. 17 Nicholls St 71-57 155 Nov. 19 Delaware St 62-55 271 Nov. 26 Miss Valley St 67-52

Losses (RPI 150+) RPI DATE OPPONENT SCORE 203 Dec. 23 Prairie View 67-70

Edited January 2, 2015 by mgfan

NT03 · January 2, 2015

Real Time RPI -

http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_cusa_Men.html

NT03 · January 2, 2015

RPI has us at 5-6 , but we are 4-6 ( only counts DI games). Has us with 2 wins over Nichols St

Andrew · January 2, 2015

So it's safe to say people are ok playing jackson state, SELA, Grambling, UTA, cameron and a whole bunch of other no names... As long as it's someone else who is the coach? Again.... When was the last time we had the likes of Texas tech, Arkansas, OSU etc on the schedule all in the same year? Sure we played a LSU or a oklahoma state etc.... But never more than two well known good teams in a season.

What have our previous Strengths of scheduale been in years past. If anything it tells me no on has payed attention to UNT baskwtball until Benford got here. That or they blinded themselves to the scheduling we had over the past decades. We played terrible teams. The only difference is we beat the teams by 15 or more.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Andrew

Andrew · January 2, 2015

2010-2011 has come to my attention as a schedule which was tough and had some big name teams. Any other years come to mind? My point is stop trying to down play the schedule when it's been pretty legit compared to the past.

BillySee58 · January 2, 2015

I think people don't give a damn and we're not discussing OOC schedule if we're winning conference games and making noise in the conference tournament. Because that's what matters.

mgfan · January 2, 2015

2010-2011 has come to my attention as a schedule which was tough and had some big name teams. Any other years come to mind? My point is stop trying to down play the schedule when it's been pretty legit compared to the past.

No is one playing down the schedule. I am saying I don't care who we play I wanna WIN, and we are not. I apologize, I didn't realize Prarie view was such a power house btw. As far as people paying attention to the the program before Benford, have you looked at the attendance numbers? Because according to those MORE PEOPLE were paying attention.

I love unt, but I am a realist. Reality says we aren't very good and Benford isn't good either. Wake up son. I am not saying stop supporting them, I am saying our record under Benford is unacceptable on all levels and our sos isn't that tough.

UNT90 · January 2, 2015

You have to be the biggest troll of all time or the dumbest poster.
]

He isn't a troll and isn't Tasty's alter ego, as I suspected for a long while.

He is either a close, personal friend of RV or just extremely basketball stupid...

Edited January 2, 2015 by UNT90

Green P1 · January 2, 2015

He is either a close, personal friend of RV or just extremely basketball stupid...

The two are mutually exclusive?

greenminer · January 2, 2015

So it's safe to say people are ok playing jackson state, SELA, Grambling, UTA, cameron and a whole bunch of other no names... As long as it's someone else who is the coach? Again.... When was the last time we had the likes of Texas tech, Arkansas, OSU etc on the schedule all in the same year? Sure we played a LSU or a oklahoma state etc.... But never more than two well known good teams in a season.
What have our previous Strengths of scheduale been in years past. If anything it tells me no on has payed attention to UNT baskwtball until Benford got here. That or they blinded themselves to the scheduling we had over the past decades. We played terrible teams. The only difference is we beat the teams by 15 or more.

Benford has dug himself into a big enough hole that particulars like records and scheduling will not win anyone over. It appears you are just now realizing this.

That's what happens when your program completely reboots itself instead of continuing success, and you see attendance drop to the likes of a 2nd grade PE class.

CMJ · January 2, 2015

It's too early to say our our SOS will stack up by the end of the season. However, many rankings do not count lower division games at all...in other words you do not get penalized for playing them. Basically, the SOS number when you play an NAIA or a D2 is somewhat artificially higher than it otherwise would be (same for RPI for that matter).