Western Kentucky (3/14/19)

[DeepGreen]

Too many cream puffs on the schedule gave us a false sense of being a top shelf team.  That, and not enough size.  The big dude for WKU swatted away so many of our shots I lost count.  And I didn't watch the whole game.

I might add, coming off the CBI Tournament success, I sense this years scheduling was to keep the winning momentum going.  And it worked for a while.  Until we faced good CUSA opponents.

Edited March 15, 2019 by DeepGreen

[BillySee58]

13 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Too many cream puffs on the schedule gave us a false sense of being a top shelf team.  That, and not enough size.  The big dude for WKU swatted away so many of our shots I lost count.  And I didn't watch the whole game.

I might add, coming off the CBI Tournament success, I sense this years scheduling was to keep the winning momentum going.  And it worked for a while.  Until we faced good CUSA opponents.

We faltered down the stretch against average CUSA teams. Two of our 8 losses in our 1-8 finish were against WKU. The other 6 losses were against the middle of the pack (2 to FIU, 2 to FAU, 1 to La Tech, 1 to Marshall)

[RiseUNT]

I don't understand the schedule complaining. I would much rather play a weak schedule and win some games. Look no further than MidTenn who had a brutal schedule and lost a lot of games. Their schedule didn't get them ready for conference because they still lost.

Duke with a team full of all Americans lost their best player and looked like a shell of themselves.

Wooly has one good leg and Duffy has 2 bad hips. If you watched all year or in tbe CBI those 2 guys make our offense go. Gibson, Smart, and Smart are not good at creating offense.

Every basketball team from AAU to NBA says we need to get bigger, better, and add more depth. So sayin we need to doesn't make you some basketball genius.

 

[DeepGreen]

21 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

We faltered down the stretch against average CUSA teams. Two of our 8 losses in our 1-8 finish were against WKU. The other 6 losses were against the middle of the pack (2 to FIU, 2 to FAU, 1 to La Tech, 1 to Marshall)

The middle of the pack CUSA costs us 6 games.  And WKU has our number.

[Harry]

I think @BillySee58 is spot on as usual.

To me it is a recurring theme for football basketball heck any sport that we participate in.  We just have to recruit better athletes.  WKU has more of them last night.  Yes injuries can play a part for sure but that hits all of the programs.  

Given our location and facilities there is no reason we can do better in this regard.  It is just going to take more work and support.  We need to hire good coaches who can recruit.  We need to up the recruiting budgets and do everything we can (academic support, facility improvements etc) to get the very best student athletes.

[GMG_Dallas]

1 hour ago, BillySee58 said:

8-3 to 8-10 is a collapse. I’m not saying 8-3 was pretty, or that we appeared to be legit as a 20-4 (8-3) team. Just saying that’s where the collapse happened. Not once the non-con cream puffs stopped showing up.

Fair enough.

 

1 hour ago, CMJ said:

You mean like 24-8 Old Dominion blowing out UTEP by two and Charlotte by six?

Since you bring up 24-8 ODU, how about you bring up that they beat 20-win Syracuse and 25 win VCU who's 1st place in the A-10. They lost a close game to an 18-win Pac 12 team in Oregon State. Meanwhile, our only opponent worth mentioning was Oklahoma who beat us by 16 and just got kicked out of their conference tourney by 14-19 West Virginia. That's cute bringing up 2 of their close wins. You can win close games to bad teams when you're also beating good teams. We won close games to bad teams but beat nobody worth mentioning. Cherry picking really doesn't help you prove your point.

[CMJ]

2 hours ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

It was for sure a combination of many things.

Angelo State - Not D1

Humboldt State - Not D1

Portland - 7-25 

University of Arkansas at PB - 13-19

Texas A&M - Commerce - 14-18

Maryland Eastern - 7-25

Maine - 5-27

Saint Peters - 10-22

Indiana State - 15-16

Best OOC win was vs 18-13 Hawaii. 

So it wasn't enough we were playing cream puffs, we were playing bad cream puffs. And if we would've played a decent schedule we wouldn't be able to hang our hat on "20 wins". But do we want to hang our hat on this, this way? 

 

Again...if that was the issue we'd never have been in the hunt for first place over halfway into the conference season.

 

I'm not talking about 20 wins or whatever in any of this?  The reason we faltered down the stretch was not the easy OOC games, otherwise we would have been destroyed the second we jumped in league play.

Edited March 15, 2019 by CMJ

[CMJ]

3 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Fair enough.

 

Since you bring up 24-8 ODU, how about you bring up that they beat 20-win Syracuse and 25 win VCU who's 1st place in the A-10. They lost a close game to an 18-win Pac 12 team in Oregon State. Meanwhile, our only opponent worth mentioning was Oklahoma who beat us by 16 and just got kicked out of their conference tourney by 14-19 West Virginia. That's cute bringing up 2 of their close wins. You can win close games to bad teams when you're also beating good teams. We won close games to bad teams but beat nobody worth mentioning. Cherry picking really doesn't help you prove your point.

Hey...you were the one pointing out what a good team should be blowing out UTEP and or Charlotte, not I.

[GMG_Dallas]

1 minute ago, CMJ said:

otherwise we would have been destroyed the second we jumped in league play.

I don't understand your logic. Why does being an average team who took advantage of an easy schedule mean we would have been destroyed the second we played CUSA teams? We were a below average team with a good record due to an easy early schedule. How you can deny that I don't understand. My opinion is that we didn't really collapse because we just weren't that good to begin with. We ended up with a conference record indicative of who we really were. Had we played a decent OOC we would have ended up around 15 wins like last season. That's my opinion. You have yours. We don't have to agree. I don't get why this is an ongoing argument. 

[BillySee58]

22 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

The middle of the pack CUSA costs us 6 games.  And WKU has our number.

Right, I’m just saying it wasn’t like our losses down the stretch came to elite teams. We beat USM who finished third. We destroyed Marshall who later beat us down the stretch. We beat La Tech who also beat us down the stretch. It wasn’t like we ran into teams who were better than what we were facing when we started 16-1. 

[CMJ]

2 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

I don't understand your logic. Why does being an average team who took advantage of an easy schedule mean we would have been destroyed the second we played CUSA teams? We were a below average team with a good record due to an easy early schedule. How you can deny that I don't understand. My opinion is that we didn't really collapse because we just weren't that good to begin with. We ended up with a conference record indicative of who we really were. Had we played a decent OOC we would have ended up around 15 wins like last season. That's my opinion. You have yours. We don't have to agree. I don't get why this is an ongoing argument. 

The argument has been our OOC didn't prepare us for league play, and we suffered as a result.

[GMG_Dallas]

11 minutes ago, CMJ said:

Hey...you were the one pointing out what a good team should be blowing out UTEP and or Charlotte, not I.

ODU was 26 collective points away from playing in 11 overtime games in conference play. Recipe for disaster if they get to the big dance. I'll concede those win margins are dissapointing coming from the supposed top team in our conference (I'll stick with my pick of WKU which I made months ago).

Back to our team, the "collapse," if you want to call it that, is not shocking. Just look at who they beat and how they beat them. UNT put a below average team on the court and it proved true as the season went on.

[GMG_Dallas]

6 minutes ago, CMJ said:

The argument has been our OOC didn't prepare us for league play, and we suffered as a result.

We did. My opinion. Good day.

[CMJ]

2 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

We did. My opinion. Good day.

What I have said is....if it DIDN'T we never would have started off so well.  Instead we started well in league play and faltered at the end.  That doesn't indicate the schedule didn't prepare us.

[NorthTexasWeLove]

28 minutes ago, CMJ said:

Again...if that was the issue we'd never have been in the hunt for first place over halfway into the conference season.

 

I'm not talking about 20 wins or whatever in any of this?  The reason we faltered down the stretch was no the easy OOC games, otherwise we would have been destroyed the second we jumped in league play.

We didn't play that well going into conference play either. Our best players played well early on and we were winning nail biters. I think 5 of our first 7 CUSA wins were by a combined 16 points. That's not sustainable and it clearly caught up with us. Once we got into pod play, similar competition, we started eating it. And of course the break down before pod play. Lackluster X and O coaching, roster management, and bone headed game management (R. Smart) led to this. 

I keep pointing out the schedule because though a disappointing ending, some still are viewing this as a successful season. And should we view it as successful? 

[GrandGreen]

 

The early schedule had little or nothing to do with the conference play.  Does anyone really think that if NT had switched out the 3 worst opponents with top 10 teams, it would have helped late in the year? 

NT would then be credited with the toughest oc schedule in CUSA.  There then would be those that opined that the opening schedule just wore out the team and contribute to the late in season loses. 

To lambaste a team and ignore the injury situation is IMO unreasonable.   To read some of the quotes above you would think that NT's players and staff just didn't care and tanked the conference tournament.  The truth is just the opposite of that. 

Some suggestions like get more talent, is really helpful.  The facts are that started out with a seven player rotation: Simmons, Simmons, Miller, Duffy, Smart, Woolridge and Gibson.   These were backed up with Arikawe and Draper.  

The problem in the late year is that four of those seven players in the original rotation had serious injuries.   All four missed multiple games and played hurt in others.   Woolridge crawling off the court in the last game and Miller on crutches might give some a glue. 

[CMJ]

10 minutes ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

We didn't play that well going into conference play either. Our best players played well early on and we were winning nail biters. I think 5 of our first 7 CUSA wins were by a combined 16 points. That's not sustainable and it clearly caught up with us. Once we got into pod play, similar competition, we started eating it. And of course the break down before pod play. Lackluster X and O coaching, roster management, and bone headed game management (R. Smart) led to this. 

I keep pointing out the schedule because though a disappointing ending, some still are viewing this as a successful season. And should we view it as successful? 

It might not seem sustainable, but I've seen plenty of teams win close games all season long.  It's not like good teams always beat everyone by ten or more.

 

I view the season as a massive disappointment, but still relatively successful.  It might seem like a contradiction, but there it is.

[NorthTexasWeLove]

13 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

 

The early schedule had little or nothing to do with the conference play.  Does anyone really think that if NT had switched out the 3 worst opponents with top 10 teams, it would have helped late in the year? 

NT would then be credited with the toughest oc schedule in CUSA.  There then would be those that opined that the opening schedule just wore out the team and contribute to the late in season loses. 

To lambaste a team and ignore the injury situation is IMO unreasonable.   To read some of the quotes above you would think that NT's players and staff just didn't care and tanked the conference tournament.  The truth is just the opposite of that. 

Some suggestions like get more talent, is really helpful.  The facts are that started out with a seven player rotation: Simmons, Simmons, Miller, Duffy, Smart, Woolridge and Gibson.   These were backed up with Arikawe and Draper.  

The problem in the late year is that four of those seven players in the original rotation had serious injuries.   All four missed multiple games and played hurt in others.   Woolridge crawling off the court in the last game and Miller on crutches might give some a glue. 

I think it created a false sense of expectations. And it was a calculated decision by the athletic department to do just that. 

When a program schedules like this it's basically putting all your eggs in the conference tournament while trying to garner interest/revenue during the regular season. It's wrong to do to the fan base. But I do think with proper scheduling this conference can be a 2 bid league. I don't think even a 20 win power team makes the tourney with our OOC. 

[RiseUNT]

20 minutes ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

We didn't play that well going into conference play either. Our best players played well early on and we were winning nail biters. I think 5 of our first 7 CUSA wins were by a combined 16 points. That's not sustainable and it clearly caught up with us. Once we got into pod play, similar competition, we started eating it. And of course the break down before pod play. Lackluster X and O coaching, roster management, and bone headed game management (R. Smart) led to this. 

I keep pointing out the schedule because though a disappointing ending, some still are viewing this as a successful season. And should we view it as successful? 

Ding ding ding. Our best 2 players carried us and Miller won some games for us. Our 2 best players are injured and Miller is not a weapon to lean on.

We can all agree Coach manufactured 2 20 win season and does not deserve an extension yet. But we have to admit we have improved as a program.