Western Kentucky (2/9/19)

[CMJ]

Huge game for Pod seeding purposes.  WKU is always tough and seems to be finding their way.

[Philip Ferguson]

The "experts" are leaning our way for Saturday's big game...

[Philip Ferguson]

Looks like it will be a close one GMG

[dahbeed]

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.

Edited February 8, 2019 by dahbeed

[bstnsportsfan3]

7 minutes ago, dahbeed said:

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.

Dahbeed, did Stansbury make the road trip at all? Or did he stay home all together or just miss the rice game... curious if he would be in Denton tomorrow? He is a fun coach to watch

[DeepGreen]

Is the Western game being streamed, or on TV?  Anything?

[UNTFan23]

1 minute ago, DeepGreen said:

Is the Western game being streamed, or on TV?  Anything?

Game will be on Stadium.

[Philip Ferguson]

3 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Is the Western game being streamed, or on TV?  Anything?

 

[DeepGreen]

Never mind.  Saw that it will be shown on Stadium/Facebook.

[dahbeed]

1 hour ago, bstnsportsfan3 said:

Dahbeed, did Stansbury make the road trip at all? Or did he stay home all together or just miss the rice game... curious if he would be in Denton tomorrow? He is a fun coach to watch

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.

 

 

[MeanGreenHoops]

The fact that @dahbeed thinks we will have an easy win makes me even more nervous about this game. WKU is the one team I fear that if they are on, even if we're on we can't beat them. Hollingsworth and Bassey are two of the matchups who scare me the most in conference.

[RiseUNT]

26 minutes ago, MeanGreenHoops said:

The fact that @dahbeed thinks we will have an easy win makes me even more nervous about this game. WKU is the one team I fear that if they are on, even if we're on we can't beat them. Hollingsworth and Bassey are two of the matchups who scare me the most in conference.

We have the 3 point shooters to beat anyone no matter how good the other team is. 

[UNTFan23]

You need to reel in your Barstool Twitter account, @dahbeed:

 

 

Edited February 8, 2019 by UNTFan23

[EagleMBA]

Rice had WKU at the coroner's cooler and let them come back on them. Then gifted them with a trip to OT on a missed FT a few seconds before the end of regulation. No lead is going to be safe against WKU, IMHO. We desperately need another great shooting night!

 

[dahbeed]

5 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

You need to reel in your Barstool Twitter account, @dahbeed:

 

 

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.

[dahbeed]

56 minutes ago, MeanGreenHoops said:

The fact that @dahbeed thinks we will have an easy win makes me even more nervous about this game. WKU is the one team I fear that if they are on, even if we're on we can't beat them. Hollingsworth and Bassey are two of the matchups who scare me the most in conference.

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.

[DeepGreen]

dahbeed, is Mendex Mendez de Mendez(or whatever his name is) still playing for WKU?  That guy stuck a dagger in the Mean Green several years ago.  I still feel the pain.

[CMJ]

7 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

dahbeed, is Mendex Mendez de Mendez(or whatever his name is) still playing for WKU?  That guy stuck a dagger in the Mean Green several years ago.  I still feel the pain.

Orlando Mendez-Valdez 

 

He actually must be 30 by now, but it sure did seem like he played at WKU for ten seasons and should be pushing 40.

[greenminer]

Biggest game in the history of Sponge Bob Squarepants?

[Matt from A700]

Speaking of pod play, what are the chances that this scheduling format actually stays around for long in C-USA? Can't imagine all the building scheduling, flight plans, hotel booking headaches... all for a tiny difference that probably still won't get us a second team in the NCAA Tournament.

[DeepGreen]

28 minutes ago, CMJ said:

Orlando Mendez-Valdez 

 

He actually must be 30 by now, but it sure did seem like he played at WKU for ten seasons and should be pushing 40.

That's him!!  Orlando Mendez-Valdez.  Man gave me nightmares.

[Mean Green Matt]

@dahbeed always comes on here and acts like WKU can’t play basketball. And WKU usually ends up beating us. 

[dahbeed]

2 hours ago, DeepGreen said:

dahbeed, is Mendex Mendez de Mendez(or whatever his name is) still playing for WKU?  That guy stuck a dagger in the Mean Green several years ago.  I still feel the pain.

 

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.

 

 

[DeepGreen]

2 minutes ago, dahbeed said:

 That's him!!!!!

 

Curse you Orlando Mendez Valdez!!!

 

ps:  he was a damn good player!

[dahbeed]

1 hour ago, Mean Green Matt said:

@dahbeed always comes on here and acts like WKU can’t play basketball. And WKU usually ends up beating us. 

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.