Louisiana Tech (2/22/20)

[Salsa_Verde]

4 hours ago, greenminer said:

Side note: I remembered today that Karl Malone played at LT.  Not sure if everyone here knows that.

Apparently Karl Malone is not a good person

Edited February 23, 2020 by Salsa_Verde

[BillySee58]

5 minutes ago, Venson said:

You are right. My mistake. My point is that Bracy made a 3 point play at the end by getting the basket and foul. Then we fouled again with .4 seconds which he made one and missed the second on purpose giving them the 73-71 win. If he had not been allowed to make that 3 point play, it would have gone to OT.

He didn’t convert the three-point play (possibly intentionally). We were up one, which means putting him on the line there would have given him a chance to take the lead by hitting two free throws. 

[Stix]

54 minutes ago, greenminer said:

Side note: I remembered today that Karl Malone played at LT.  Not sure if everyone here knows that.

I do.  Kenneth Lyons sure does.

[Mean Green Matt]

So who would hold the tiebreak between us and La Tech now. 

[FirefightnRick]

1 hour ago, greenminer said:

yeah pretty frustrating.

As a teacher, I feel like you should never expect your student/athlete to stop being who they are.  If we abandon the 3, we are no longer a threat from the outside and I speculate LaTech will recognize that and be able to defend us even better on the inside.

We were in this to the very end despite a monumental performance by the LaTech players and our abysmal performance from 3.

Right.  We were hitting 71% (23-32) from the rest of the field.  I felt like we probably should have continued to work the ball inside and lay off the threes the last 5 minutes and we would have won.

But had we hit just two more of those 9 3-pointers we missed and we win anyways.  

Hard pill to swallow.

 

Rick

Edited February 23, 2020 by FirefightnRick

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

5 minutes ago, Mean Green Matt said:

So who would hold the tiebreak between us and La Tech now. 

I’m pretty sure we do since we have the win over UTSA. Both lost to WKU

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

I still think these BONUS games are harmful .. no fan of them  .. Who thought this up.??? 

. Winning the tournament just became more important... ....

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[FirefightnRick]

2 minutes ago, SCREAMING EAGLE-66 said:

I still think these BONUS games are harmful .. no fan of them  .. Who thought this up.??? 

. Winning the tournament just became more important... ....

 

Our moron conference leadership thought it up and your right, it’s a terrible idea.  And just about every tv analyst I’ve heard discuss it has had to tip toe around saying how stupid an idea it is. Supposedly this is the last year of it.

 

Rick

[CMJ]

2 hours ago, SCREAMING EAGLE-66 said:

I still think these BONUS games are harmful .. no fan of them  .. Who thought this up.??? 

. Winning the tournament just became more important... ....

 

They aren't bonus games, even if people call them that.  Pod play is more appropriate.

 

Games that are extra (like say...extra tournament games) are bonus.  These games are part of a regular league schedule.  It's a different way of scheduling them, but we aren't playing more league games than we otherwise would have.

Edited February 23, 2020 by CMJ

[Mean Green Matt]

2 hours ago, SCREAMING EAGLE-66 said:

I still think these BONUS games are harmful .. no fan of them  .. Who thought this up.??? 

. Winning the tournament just became more important... ....

 

Yes and no.  I like that it is the closest thing to a balanced schedule you can get.  First 14 games you play everyone in the conference once plus your travel partner twice.  So pretty even across the board.  Then final four games you play the teams you are directly competing in the final standings with.  That is a pretty fair set up.

It also creates exciting, relatively evenly matched basketball top to bottom for the conference at the end of February and early March.

The negative is that it does not really do what it was put in place to do.  Bonus play is probably more likely to eliminate a potential second NCAA bid for the conference than to produce one.  

EDIT: For what it's worth, winning the conference tournament was going to be the only way into the NCAA for any CUSA team this year whether or not pod play existed.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Mean Green Matt

[meangreenJW]

5 hours ago, emmitt01 said:

Before all the over reactionary people get started we lost this game for one reason and one reason only.

We shot 18% from three...they shot 50%

Man, there's a lot of people on this board with low basketball IQ. That was a HIGH level game between two really good teams. Every analytics program out there predicted this to be a tossup. We came into the day 12-2 in conference play. We've never been 12-2 in any conference. And for those of you only bitching about 3s, the reason we were 12-2 was we shoot really good from 3. We're top 10 in the country shooting 3s. The two by Zach and Deng were bad (even though wide open) but most of the others were good looks. We hit even 1 and we win. La Tech is an experienced team with something to prove. It's the two best teams in the league in my opinion. If we played 10 times, we'd be 5-5. There's a reason La Tech won at Miss State. We still shot over 50% from the field overall which is really good. We're 12-3 with a 1 game league on the two teams tied for 2nd. We control on our own destiny. Bracey made some incredible shots with defenders in his jock strap. Last time we played he was 2-15. Chill out and help the team win a damn trophy.

[meangreenJW]

4 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

B.S.  That was a hell of a game between two obviously pretty even teams. Hamlet hits a game winner at their place and Bracey hits one against us. 
 

 

Agree. I'm heartbroken we lost although I'm 4 beers into making it better. However, that was a BIG time game. Anyone that wasn't entertained didn't know what the hell they were watching.

[greenminer]

2 hours ago, CMJ said:

They aren't bonus games, even if people call them that.  Pod play is more appropriate.

 

Games that are extra (like say...extra tournament games) are bonus.  These games are part of a regular league schedule.  It's a different way of scheduling them, but we aren't playing more league games than we otherwise would have.

I replied to Screaming with this very same explanation on Friday.

not sure if he’s ignoring notifications of replies, or if he is determined to misunderstand this no matter what he reads.

[TheColonyEagle]

My only complaint was on Bracey’s game winning shot. Hamlet was guarding him. Hamlet was basically playing on 1 leg at that point. Admired his guts on the offensive end. Didn’t like seeing him 1 on 1 trying to defend a guy in crunch time that couldn’t miss. 
 

[TIgreen01]

Shooting from pregame carried over into the game.  I sat there watching LaTech practice threes.  Seemingly their entire team didn’t miss for several minutes on end. Meanwhile on the other end we were clanging bricks, esp Gibson.

Sometimes it carries over into the game and sometimes it doesn’t.  Yesterday, LaTech was just feeling it from the first minute they stepped onto the court and we weren’t.  

My only complaint is that I would’ve liked us to recognize that and do more to work the ball around and inside.  We are a fantastic free throw shooting team.  We need to leverage it in games like this one where the other team is killing it from outside.  Slow the game down and try to get them out of rhythm while playing to one of your strengths.

[KRAM1]

17 hours ago, emmitt01 said:

Before all the over reactionary people get started we lost this game for one reason and one reason only.

We shot 18% from three...they shot 50%

Yep...just a really off second half of 3-pt shooting. When Mo is, what, 1 for 8 from 3 you know it is an off night. Even with that it came down to one play that La Tech made at the very end. This was a really good game to watch in person.  Nice crowd...loud students...and alums and a nice La Tech contingent as well. Yep, we lost, but so did WKY on their home court, so still in first place. This is still UNT's to win. Obviously, sorry we lost, but chalk this one up to what Emmitt said...it really is that simple.

[KRAM1]

By the way...Pod play sucks and was last year and will be this year a complete disaster! Dump it and dump it NOW! Just sayin....

[Andrew]

13 hours ago, SCREAMING EAGLE-66 said:

I still think these BONUS games are harmful .. no fan of them  .. Who thought this up.??? 

. Winning the tournament just became more important... ....

 

I much rather lose to La Tech and WKU than Rice. Last year I wasn’t a fan but after another season and really trying to explore the idea I really like it. It also makes it better for the bottom seeds who are trying to fight for the last spots into the conference tournament. It benefits everyone. 

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

So last thought on the La Tech game.

The “wear white” thing sucked because they don’t know how to properly do a theme. That is all

[UNTLifer]

Just now, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

So last thought on the La Tech game.

The “wear white” thing sucked because they don’t know how to properly do a theme. That is all

Who is "they" and what was the problem other than it didn't appear anyone wore white?

[TheColonyEagle]

If UNT and La Tech both win out....it looks like we'll be #1 and #2 seeds in Frisco.....

Would sure make for an entertaining championship game if they get to the finals.....given how our 2 matchups went this year. I would imagine that game would be packed.....

I know that's a long way away but I sure hope we end up there.

 

[greenminer]

In case you missed this (I did, until just now) the game appears to be available to replay via FB stream.
 

 

[TheNewEra]

Late response but that was a great basketball game. We shot terribly from 3, got in foul trouble, & still hung in there. We should’ve played through Simmons more in the post but that’s all that bothered me. That kid went insanity at the end & hit one more shot than hamlet. Would rather this happen now than in conf tourney. This team has the guard play, defense, & shooting to win it. Could even make noise in first round if not matched up with a team that has elite bigs. Most excited I’ve been watching a team since I’ve been enrolled or alumni. 

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

19 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

Who is "they" and what was the problem other than it didn't appear anyone wore white?

My context of “they” is the athletic department. Usually you see these type of themes with shirts on the seats because not many people have white UNT stuff clearly. I mean they could’ve put it on the bottom bowl. Idk 

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

12 hours ago, TheNewEra said:

Late response but that was a great basketball game. We shot terribly from 3, got in foul trouble, & still hung in there. We should’ve played through Simmons more in the post but that’s all that bothered me. That kid went insanity at the end & hit one more shot than hamlet. Would rather this happen now than in conf tourney. This team has the guard play, defense, & shooting to win it. Could even make noise in first round if not matched up with a team that has elite bigs. Most excited I’ve been watching a team since I’ve been enrolled or alumni. 

Speaking of Simmons, I get frustrated (I know sometimes he can’t help that he gets switched) when he guards the perimeter. He’s too slow, and it happened several times last week and of course the Doolittle Dagger