University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (11/20/17)

[DeepGreen]

Have to say I’m really disappointed in losing this game.  Losing at home to a team I have no idea where they are located???  The season is early, but c’mon man.

[risinggreen]

Someone please tell me that we let a local high school team sub for us tonight. Pathetic.

[GrandGreen]

I think this team would have been better if they could have held on to Benford's recruits Combs, Frazier and Reese.  I never would have thought that NT would be starting 4 Benford recruits.   Season is young, but it doesn't look like McCasland recruited the talent that this team needs.  

[Andrew]

5 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

I think this team would have been better if they could have held on to Benford's recruits Combs, Frazier and Reese.  I never would have thought that NT would be starting 4 Benford recruits.   Season is young, but it doesn't look like McCasland recruited the talent that this team needs.  

We traded a recruiter for a x’s and o’s coach. Both need the support of their assistant. McCasland could use Benford as an assistant to recruit, because McCasland can coach and fire these guys up. 

[Green Mean]

Disappointed to see this loss. Quick question for those more educated in men's college basketball than me but how does a loss like this stack up to the loss against Alabama Huntsville in Benford's first season? Are they in any way equal or similar?

[Mean_Green09]

12 minutes ago, risinggreen said:

Someone please tell me that we let a local high school team sub for us tonight. Pathetic.

Naw. We are about even with UTRGV at this point.  It was a good measuring point.  We win if our guys understand how to attack a zone. Too much standing around 

Edited November 21, 2017 by Mean_Green09

[Andrew]

Benfords loss was worse. He had a team expected to make a run at the conference championship and go dancing. A-H is also a division 2 school. 

The worst part of this loss was that it was at home.

[untjim1995]

Attendance? Announced and actual...

[RushnStudies]

2 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Attendance? Announced and actual...

I don't remember hearing it.

What say you guys... maybe 350 to 400?

[Andrew]

4 minutes ago, RushnStudies said:

I don't remember hearing it.

What say you guys... maybe 350 to 400?

The numbers will increase next year. We don’t have any big time recruits yet, and Benford was a name most if not all local coaches knew. McCasland needs a year to get some chemistry and notoriety. It looks like we will have some ups and downs this year, but chemistry is the key. We only have one senior. 

Edited November 21, 2017 by Andrew

[Andrew]

Anyone know if Army of Dad still goes to the games still? He has been in the same seats for atleast a decade (I think), but I haven’t seen him this year yet. I also haven’t seen him on the boards in almost a year. @Army of Dad you still out there?

[Cooley]

16 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Benfords loss was worse. He had a team expected to make a run at the conference championship and go dancing. A-H is also a division 2 school. 

The worst part of this loss was that it was at home.

This game tonight was worse. Benford was fired/not renewed. He also had never been a coach before. We supposedly replaced him with someone better. This shouldn't happen after Benford.

[Andrew]

3 minutes ago, Cooley said:

This game tonight was worse. Benford was fired/not renewed. He also had never been a coach before. We supposedly replaced him with someone better. This shouldn't happen after Benford.

Sorry. It was just my opinion, but I can see where you are coming from. I see more know after going on Facebook. I kid you not I had a friend who posted after the game that we should have never let Benford walk. I guess this loss is pretty bad to a lot of people. 😕

[chrisfisher]

That loss was in true Benford style. WTF?

[Cooley]

11 minutes ago, Andrew said:

The numbers will increase next year. We don’t have any big time recruits yet, and Benford was a name most if not all local coaches knew. McCasland needs a year to get some chemistry and notoriety. It looks like we will have some ups and downs this year, but chemistry is the key. We only have one senior. 

McCasland is from Irving, coached in Wichita Falls and was a Baylor assistant for a few years. Should know the metroplex. At this time, he only has 1 scholarship to work with next year.

[Aquila_Viridis]

After the disaster our program became, it ain’t gonna be a linear recovery. Speaking of which, that was a loooong flat stretch in the second half.

Hang in there.

[Big E]

30 minutes ago, Green Mean said:

Disappointed to see this loss. Quick question for those more educated in men's college basketball than me but how does a loss like this stack up to the loss against Alabama Huntsville in Benford's first season? Are they in any way equal or similar?

UTRGV is D1, competing in the WAC, so this wasn’t a loss to a D2 team.  It looks like a bad loss, and it certainly isn’t good, but it was against a fellow D1 opponent, despite the lack of name familiarity to us.

[Andrew]

4 minutes ago, Cooley said:

McCasland is from Irving, coached in Wichita Falls and was a Baylor assistant for a few years. Should know the metroplex. At this time, he only has 1 scholarship to work with next year.

I’m sure he will get out more, but Benford showed up to games at Guyer and other local high schools. Shoot, Shaka Smart has been at Guyer twice to talk to the programs. Hopefully Mcasland will get out, but as mentioned; with only one scholarship he may be more intentional with where he wants to go. 

[EagleMBA]

17 minutes ago, Big E said:

UTRGV is D1, competing in the WAC, so this wasn’t a loss to a D2 team.  It looks like a bad loss, and it certainly isn’t good, but it was against a fellow D1 opponent, despite the lack of name familiarity to us.

True. And they ain't done nuthin' in recent years. But when I was there they had a coach named Sam Williams who won 244 games. Two of the guys I lived in the dorm with went on to NBA careers, namely this guy  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Moore

and most notably this guy  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucious_Jackson

Being a white boy from Indiana who grew to love that South Texas climate and sun, they gave me a nickname..."Two-tone". :)

Other coaches you may have heard of that came through there after I graduated are Abe Lemons (left for Texas) and Lon Kruger (left for K-State).

I was enjoying what JJ was doing for us and was disheartened when he left.  Hang with McCasland because I feel he is going to turn this ship around...maybe not in one season, but he is going to get the job done and return North Texas to relevance in basketball.  I believe.

 

Edited November 21, 2017 by EagleMBA

[TreeFiddy]

Lew Hill is a good coach that has been involved with a lot of winning teams.  He made some adjustments tonight that UNT did not overcome.  UTRGV packed it in and eliminated the drives to the lane and our guys went ice cold.  Maybe should have pushed the pace more and tried to get into early offense or get to the foul line. 

Definitely had a Benny ball look to it in the 2nd half where they passed the ball around aimlessly until late in the clock and then took a low percentage shot.  It didn't help that they even missed the wide open looks.

Yuck.

[Mean_Green09]

33 minutes ago, Cooley said:

This game tonight was worse. Benford was fired/not renewed. He also had never been a coach before. We supposedly replaced him with someone better. This shouldn't happen after Benford.

I don’t think it was worse. We lost to team comparable to ours at this point. We let the game slip away. I don’t think tonight was anything alarming. 4 games in bunch of dudes that never played together. 

Benford coached teams loses tonight by 20 and gives up 90  

Ive seen rankings where UTRGV was ranked ahead of us. 

[BillySee58]

1 hour ago, Andrew said:

We traded a recruiter for a x’s and o’s coach. Both need the support of their assistant. McCasland could use Benford as an assistant to recruit, because McCasland can coach and fire these guys up. 

Not entirely true. Mccasland has a good track record as a recruiter, including some of the guys on the roster (Duffy, Tikhonenko, Smart). Look at their offer lists. It's a tough loss. The shooters were very, very off (Duffy and Smart), two of our other shooters are out (Gibson and Tikhonenko), and we really only have one guy who can break down a defense in Woolridge, with Gibson out.

I don't know why we didn't have Temara take more from the outside. He's been solid from out there this year, and he's really one of three shooters we have right now. The other guys Mccasland inherited from Benford are not bad basketball players, but they are bad shooters and it hurt. Lawson, Woolridge, and Holston give no outside shooting threat, and their zone played to that.

Everyone needs to pick up their game, but we really need Duffy to start being a consistent threat from deep, and Smart and Lawson cannot both be off in the same game. And if they are, they have to be able to get to the line. We rely on just a few guys for scoring, and they were all of tonight. I'm not convinced we should give up on them yet, but I do want to see us get another shooter with Temara's scholarship spot this recruiting class.

[BillySee58]

7 minutes ago, Mean_Green09 said:

I don’t think it was worse. We lost to team comparable to ours at this point. We let the game slip away. I don’t think tonight was anything alarming. 4 games in bunch of dudes that never played together. 

Benford coached teams loses tonight by 20 and gives up 90  

Ive seen rankings where UTRGV was ranked ahead of us. 

Yeah, at home it's definitely a game we need to be able to win, even in year 1, but it wasn't a team that we were expected to steamroll. Key is that we get better from it and not regress. Benford's D2 loss was coming off of 3-straight Sun Belt Championship game appearances and all 5 returning starters. This is a lot different situation. Still a bad loss, but nowhere near the coaching disaster that loss signaled.

[Andrew]

3 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

Not entirely true. Mccasland has a good track record as a recruiter, including some of the guys on the roster (Duffy, Tikhonenko, Smart). Look at their offer lists. It's a tough loss. The shooters were very, very off (Duffy and Smart), two of our other shooters are out (Gibson and Tikhonenko), and we really only have one guy who can break down a defense in Woolridge, with Gibson out.

I don't know why we didn't have Temara take more from the outside. He's been solid from out there this year, and he's really one of three shooters we have right now. The other guys Mccasland inherited from Benford are not bad basketball players, but they are bad shooters and it hurt. Lawson, Woolridge, and Holston give no outside shooting threat, and their zone played to that.

Everyone needs to pick up their game, but we really need Duffy to start being a consistent threat from deep, and Smart and Lawson cannot both be off in the same game. And if they are, they have to be able to get to the line. We rely on just a few guys for scoring, and they were all of tonight. I'm not convinced we should give up on them yet, but I do want to see us get another shooter with Temara's scholarship spot this recruiting class.

Any news on the Russians eligibility?

When you say shooter do you mean a post shooter, because without Temara we won’t have much of a post presence. 

[Andrew]

12 minutes ago, Mean_Green09 said:

I don’t think it was worse. We lost to team comparable to ours at this point. We let the game slip away. I don’t think tonight was anything alarming. 4 games in bunch of dudes that never played together. 

Benford coached teams loses tonight by 20 and gives up 90  

Ive seen rankings where UTRGV was ranked ahead of us. 

I would trust Cooley on this. I’m not sure I agree with him, but he knows what he is talking about.