UAB (1/6/2022)

Gibbz · January 7, 2022

Tough to lose such a big game at the FT line--especially 1/5 from McBride and Perry.

Venson · January 7, 2022

FTs killed us tonight. We possibly win this if we could hit FTs.

BillySee58 · January 7, 2022

Mccasland is a great coach but every season we just have so many wasted scholarships. We brought back Simmons for his 5th straight year of giving us nothing, then used our last three scholarships on Rasheed Browne, Hameir Wright, and Bryce Zephir who all don’t play.

Just still haven’t seen the recruiting pick up like we would’ve thought given the on-court performance. The team we played today has signed legit established double digit scorers.

greenminer · January 7, 2022

We're in every game we play because of defense. But it's sooo good, we get away with not having a very good offense. Would like to see us sign some people that can score creatively around/under the basket.

MeanMag · January 7, 2022

8 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

Mccasland is a great coach but every season we just have so many wasted scholarships. We brought back Simmons for his 5th straight year of giving us nothing, then used our last three scholarships on Rasheed Browne, Hameir Wright, and Bryce Zephir who all don’t play.

Just still haven’t seen the recruiting pick up like we would’ve thought given the on-court performance. The team we played today has signed legit established double digit scorers.

I have though this too during the McCasland era, but wonder if it’s just a cost of doing business type of thing. Some work out while others don’t…. But the ones that do…

MeanMag · January 7, 2022

Just now, greenminer said:

We're in every game we play because of defense. But it's sooo good, we get away with not having a very good offense. Would like to see us sign some people that can score creatively around/under the basket.

You mean like hamlet?

greenminer · January 7, 2022

2 minutes ago, MeanMag said:

You mean like hamlet?

Offensively, why not shoot for more? Hamlet's value, IMO, was not necessarily in his offensive game. Loved his teardrop, though.

GrandGreen · January 7, 2022

10 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

Mccasland is a great coach but every season we just have so many wasted scholarships. We brought back Simmons for his 5th straight year of giving us nothing, then used our last three scholarships on Rasheed Browne, Hameir Wright, and Bryce Zephir who all don’t play.

Just still haven’t seen the recruiting pick up like we would’ve thought given the on-court performance. The team we played today has signed legit established double digit scorers.

I am not sure they are wasted ships, I just think McCasland is only going to play 7 or 8 if he can.

NT certainly could have beat UAB despite them having a basic all star team of transfers.

This is just McCasland's style of play and I don't think it will change no matter how much talent he has on the bench.

emmitt01 · January 7, 2022

We shot 54% from the FT line

We were out rebounded 33-24

They had 15 second chance points to our 1

None of these things are due to whether we recruit locally or visit high schools, or whether we have enough scorers, or whether we gave scholarships to guys who don’t get a lot of PT. These are basketball fundamentals; we clean them up and magically some of you will say McCasland shoots rainbows 🌈 out of his butt again.

Green Lantern · January 7, 2022

Gotta credit UAB. Thought they were as good as advertised. Established dominating physical play inside early, severely out rebounded us on both ends of the floor, made a ton of clutch hustle plays at key times, and shot cold blooded from the FT stripe.

All that said, there is a ton we can learn from and clean up moving forward. Winnable game even as sloppy and undisciplined as we played at points during the game. Lots of basketball still to be played.

Pavlovs Eagle · January 7, 2022

1 hour ago, BillySee58 said:

Mccasland is a great coach but every season we just have so many wasted scholarships.

preach GIF

greenminer · January 7, 2022

Round two will be Saturday February 19th @ 3PM

24 minutes ago, emmitt01 said:

We shot 54% from the FT line

We were out rebounded 33-24

They had 15 second chance points to our 1

None of these things are due to whether we recruit locally or visit high schools, or whether we have enough scorers, or whether we gave scholarships to guys who don’t get a lot of PT. These are basketball fundamentals; we clean them up and magically some of you will say McCasland shoots rainbows 🌈 out of his butt again.

You can turn those around and it might win us tonight's game. Tough, however, to look at stat sheets from our last several games and not speculate about our offensive woes. If we want to talk about getting deeper into the NCAA tournament, consistently beating Kennedy's teams, etc, ....everything should all be on the table for discussion. Grant talks about winning a national championship, not barely getting through CUSA.

BillySee58 · January 7, 2022

56 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

I am not sure they are wasted ships, I just think McCasland is only going to play 7 or 8 if he can.

NT certainly could have beat UAB despite them having a basic all star team of transfers.

This is just McCasland's style of play and I don't think it will change no matter how much talent he has on the bench.

Maybe we’re still going 8 deep but that doesn’t mean it would be the same 8 if we recruited better. Or with better recruiting we could have kept guys in roles more similar to what they had last year. Abou and Rubin have struggled at times with their expanded roles against the higher end competition. Same for Thomas Bell offensively.

Mean Green Matt · January 7, 2022

Kind of repeating what others have said, but UAB is just a bit better. We are certainly capable of beating them, but the shots just didn’t fall when they needed to tonight for us and they really did for UAB. Wouldn’t be shocking to have this as the CUSA final.

GrandGreen · January 7, 2022

2 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

Maybe we’re still going 8 deep but that doesn’t mean it would be the same 8 if we recruited better. Or with better recruiting we could have kept guys in roles more similar to what they had last year. Abou and Rubin have struggled at times with their expanded roles against the higher end competition. Same for Thomas Bell offensively.

Obviously, McCasland is going to play his best players, but I still doubt he increases the number of his rotation.

If he has better players, I imagine he will put them in his 7 or 8 player rotation; but I doubt he goes deeper than that and someone playing would be moved down.

After last year, I thought McCasland would bring in some big time talent. He only signed one Perry, that would fit that description. Scott had already committed. Hard to believe that Wright who started at a big time program, can't even get on the floor for NT. I wonder why he wasted Stone's redshirt and why Zephyr was even recruited.

meangreenacct · January 7, 2022

5 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

Obviously, McCasland is going to play his best players, but I still doubt he increases the number of his rotation.

If he has better players, I imagine he will put them in his 7 or 8 player rotation; but I doubt he goes deeper than that and someone playing would be moved down.

After last year, I thought McCasland would bring in some big time talent. He only signed one Perry, that would fit that description. Scott had already committed. Hard to believe that Wright who started at a big time program, can't even get on the floor for NT. I wonder why he wasted Stone's redshirt and why Zephyr was even recruited.

I believe Stone can still redshirt because he's played under 25% of the games (i believe that's the cutoff), but definitely some recruiting head scratchers here. I definitely love what Perry and Scott bring. I find myself day dreaming about what things would be like if Hamlet and Reese had stayed another year...

Andrew · January 7, 2022

8 minutes ago, meangreenacct said:

I believe Stone can still redshirt because he's played under 25% of the games (i believe that's the cutoff), but definitely some recruiting head scratchers here. I definitely love what Perry and Scott bring. I find myself day dreaming about what things would be like if Hamlet and Reese had stayed another year...

I thought that was only football and I. Basketball the second you touch the floor you cannot redshirt unless it’s an injury. I thought…

Also my son said the same thing. If we had Reese, Hamlet, and Simmons we would be winning. Haha. He misses those guys and DJ.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Andrew

UNTLifer · January 7, 2022

Hell, I wish we still had Weasel Johnson, Fred Mitchell, Kenneth Lyons, Jessie Ratliff, Tony Worrell, Chris Davis, etc. Recruiting is the key and I too am somewhat baffled by McCasland’s inability to get more to stick. I just feel like we wasted an opportunity to improve this area of the program after thr Purdue win.
That said, I still really like this team. I don’t get the Bell isolation plays because that is not his game. He played much better in the second half attacking the rim and being aggressive. My take away is that we didn’t play our best and we’re right there at the end against one of the best teams in conference. The rematch will be fun.

greenminer · January 7, 2022

37 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Also my son said the same thing. If we had Reese, Hamlet, and Simmons we would be winning. Haha. He misses those guys and DJ.

That's fun to think about, having fun with hypothetical rosters and nostalgia, but let's remember we lost to UAB by 14 last year, and this year's Blazer team is probably better.

Cooley · January 7, 2022

3 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

I am not sure they are wasted ships, I just think McCasland is only going to play 7 or 8 if he can.

NT certainly could have beat UAB despite them having a basic all star team of transfers.

This is just McCasland's style of play and I don't think it will change no matter how much talent he has on the bench.

Much easier to only play 7-8 when you only have 7-8 kids on the roster that can play. The point was that he appears to just squander 3-4 scholarship a year to only use for practice. A lack of bench will bite him in the ass.

Big Z · January 7, 2022

We will be ok

Clean up the free throws and this would of been a different game.

It didn’t help us not having the Tulsa or LSU whatever branch games to get some more reps and playing time.

GMG!….then I proceeded to take a shot of whiskey

Edited January 7, 2022 by Big Z

BillySee58 · January 7, 2022

8 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

Obviously, McCasland is going to play his best players, but I still doubt he increases the number of his rotation.

If he has better players, I imagine he will put them in his 7 or 8 player rotation; but I doubt he goes deeper than that and someone playing would be moved down.

After last year, I thought McCasland would bring in some big time talent. He only signed one Perry, that would fit that description. Scott had already committed. Hard to believe that Wright who started at a big time program, can't even get on the floor for NT. I wonder why he wasted Stone's redshirt and why Zephyr was even recruited.

That’s what I’m saying. We still might go 8-deep but that doesn’t mean it’s the same 8 that it is now had we used our scholarships better. Had we used our scholarships better, guys who are struggling with bigger roles might not have had to take on those bigger roles (Abou, Rubin, Bell).

And Wright may have started but his field goal percentage was terrible and he often didn’t play starter minutes at Washington. Still thought he would at least be a rotational guy but that one I’m the least mad that one didn’t work out. At least it made sense.

Andrew · January 7, 2022

6 hours ago, Cooley said:

Much easier to only play 7-8 when you only have 7-8 kids on the roster that can play. The point was that he appears to just squander 3-4 scholarship a year to only use for practice. A lack of bench will bite him in the ass.

Man I said this to start the year and everybody was like nah… we good… we got great players on the bench…

BillySee58 · January 7, 2022

6 hours ago, Cooley said:

Much easier to only play 7-8 when you only have 7-8 kids on the roster that can play. The point was that he appears to just squander 3-4 scholarship a year to only use for practice. A lack of bench will bite him in the ass.

Exactly, thanks

Censored by Laurie · January 7, 2022

4 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

That’s what I’m saying. We still might go 8-deep but that doesn’t mean it’s the same 8 that it is now had we used our scholarships better. Had we used our scholarships better, guys who are struggling with bigger roles might not have had to take on those bigger roles (Abou, Rubin, Bell).

And Wright may have started but his field goal percentage was terrible and he often didn’t play starter minutes at Washington. Still thought he would at least be a rotational guy but that one I’m the least mad that one didn’t work out. At least it made sense.

I like a tight rotation, but the rotation has also gotten a lot tighter this year...it's legit 7 dudes at this point...starters + Perry & Scott. last season Rubin & Abou were the primary bench players, but you got decent minutes from Terrence Lewis, Jalen Jackson, Mykell Robinson...most of the time in how you're describing...like a match-up based 8th man...some nights you need a guard, some nights some fouls from a PF.

I do think that speaks to trust...which then in turn speaks to recruiting. it looks like Grant had some swings and misses this year.

that said, he's also landed Perry and Scott this year...Hamlett, Reese, Abou, Rubin...it's not like he can't recruit and with the nature of college sports right now, it's not like missing on scholarships is terribly punitive long-term...if kids aren't playing they leave and you get your scholarships right back.

I'd love to have one more trusted rotation player, but it's unlikely at this point.