Louisiana Tech (3/11/22)

NorthTexasSportsNetwork · March 11, 2022

A few things:

Lofton pisses me off so much, and I will be cheering for the winner of the MTSU/UAB game.

They looked nervous. JJ among others looked rattled, even when up 10-2. Preparation wasn’t the problem, just a quick turnaround and an offense that hasn’t even been good this year in general.

Physicality on offense lacked big time. Letting La Tech get everything they wanted on defense, and when open opportunities were given, they couldn’t hit the shots.

This defensive unit is still good, but they can only do so much.

JJ played his worst game ever. Looked out of place and couldn’t buy a basket to save his life. Can’t fathom how he feels though.

They need to find more scorers.

Really heart ripping loss, but the NIT is not too bad. Home game wouldn’t be the worst thing.

dawgxas · March 11, 2022

1 hour ago, texx2818 said:

Expect greatness. This is a massive, significant choke job by the best squad to ever take the court at the Pit. Make excuses about the NIT or whatever but that’s just a fact. Choke job for the ages.

Greatness doesn’t happen every game

UNT was down 17 in the second half against Tech in Ruston. Perry hits a 3 with 6 seconds left to take the first lead in the second half and win. You can’t expect that every game especially without prolific scorer

Green Otaku · March 11, 2022

12 minutes ago, Pavlovs Eagle said:

You mean like 6'8" 208lb P5 transfer forward Hameir Wright?

This dude had TONS of playing time at Washington and he didn't do jack squat here. I'm still all ears why he couldn't be effectively worked into the rotation.

Lord Jesus this team need more size.

We've all wondered why he hasn't gotten more minutes. Even easy rest minutes when the team is up by 10. I can only guess that he isn't giving Coach Mac what he wants in practice since a freshman in Scott is beating him for minutes.

dawgxas · March 11, 2022

2 minutes ago, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

A few things:

Lofton pisses me off so much, and I will be cheering for the winner of the MTSU/UAB game.

They looked nervous. JJ among others looked rattled, even when up 10-2. Preparation wasn’t the problem, just a quick turnaround and an offense that hasn’t even been good this year in general.

Physicality on offense lacked big time. Letting La Tech get everything they wanted on defense, and when open opportunities were given, they couldn’t hit the shots.

This defensive unit is still good, but they can only do so much.

JJ played his worst game ever. Looked out of place and couldn’t buy a basket to save his life. Can’t fathom how he feels though.

They need to find more scorers.

Really heart ripping loss, but the NIT is not too bad. Home game wouldn’t be the worst thing.

Yeah it’s no time to celebrate. We haven’t played well enough like UNT to get an NIT bid. So we have to win tomorrow

The NIT will have some excellent teams including UNT and hopefully UAB. Many schools that could easily be 10-12 seeds

Greenrex · March 11, 2022

Live by the clutch shooter, die by the clutch shooter.

UNT Texas Hooligan · March 11, 2022

48 minutes ago, golfingomez said:

by your math, if we hit two additional 3 point shots, we are, at the minimum, in this game...

so not hitting two additional 3 pointers, at any point of the game, is choking against the 3rd best team in the league?

We lost by 6 so I’ll let you do the math on that one, buddy

greenminer · March 11, 2022

1 hour ago, Gibbz said:

Yep, highest-rated team in school history and no tournament bid--lost final two of three. The team melted down under pressure no question about it.

Coming into today, our 2022 score with LT was 119-111, 293-282 if you go back to 2021. That's an 5 game average of 58.6-56.4. 2.2 points between the best two year run in school history, and the third place team in the West.

I'm with everyone on the disappointment, but don't relate to any suggestion that we are astronomically better than UAB or LT.

UNT Texas Hooligan · March 11, 2022

That was just the 13th Mens D1 basketball game with 78 or fewer points since 2010, so tonight, was by definition, a historically bad offensive performance

Gibbz · March 11, 2022

9 minutes ago, greenminer said:

don't relate to any suggestion that we are astronomically better than UAB or LT.

I didn't say that. We should, however, be somewhat better than 36 points against them with a homecourt advantage in Frisco with net rankings of #41 vs. #103.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Gibbz

CMJ · March 11, 2022

6 minutes ago, UNT Texas Hooligan said:

That was just the 13th Mens D1 basketball game with 78 or fewer points since 2010, so tonight, was by definition, a historically bad offensive performance

By both teams.

Glory to the Green · March 11, 2022

10 minutes ago, UNT Texas Hooligan said:

That was just the 13th Mens D1 basketball game with 78 or fewer points since 2010, so tonight, was by definition, a historically bad offensive performance

Vegas had the over/under at 122. I told my brother, “Yeah, take the under.” 😂

tmjerm · March 11, 2022

Here's another complaint...the auto-bid goes to a team who wins a weekend tournament and completely invalidates the regular season (in the case of a so called "one bid conference"). Had we not lost to UTEP I think we're still in as an at-large, but still - winning a regular season conference championship is so much harder than getting hot one weekend. It's a stupid rule. Again, this is life in C-USA and I'm glad we're leaving. But damn, so dumb.

CMJ · March 11, 2022

4 minutes ago, tmjerm said:

Here's another complaint...the auto-bid goes to a team who wins a weekend tournament and completely invalidates the regular season (in the case of a so called "one bid conference"). Had we not lost to UTEP I think we're still in as an at-large, but still - winning a regular season conference championship is so much harder than getting hot one weekend. It's a stupid rule. Again, this is life in C-USA and I'm glad we're leaving. But damn, so dumb.

By the same token, we wouldn't have made the NCAA tournament in other years (like last season), and I loved the other trips.

To a certain extent you reward a team that can win when they have to win by giving the tourney champ the auto bid.

keith · March 11, 2022

On the bright side, it wasn’t free throws that did us in. 🤪

UNT Texas Hooligan · March 11, 2022

1 minute ago, keith said:

On the bright side, it wasn’t free throws that did us in. 🤪

On the bright side, Mac is staying for another season

greenminer · March 11, 2022

21 minutes ago, tmjerm said:

Here's another complaint...the auto-bid goes to a team who wins a weekend tournament and completely invalidates the regular season (in the case of a so called "one bid conference"). Had we not lost to UTEP I think we're still in as an at-large, but still - winning a regular season conference championship is so much harder than getting hot one weekend. It's a stupid rule. Again, this is life in C-USA and I'm glad we're leaving. But damn, so dumb.

The beauty and curse of the CBB game!

UNTcrazy727 · March 11, 2022

13 minutes ago, CMJ said:

By the same token, we wouldn't have made the NCAA tournament in other years (like last season), and I loved the other trips.

To a certain extent you reward a team that can win when they have to win by giving the tourney champ the auto bid.

In a perfect world the autobid would go to the regular season champ. One bid conferences having their best teams upset in the conference tourney only hurts the conference. Since mid major conferences will never give up their tournaments I don’t know why they don’t adopt the WCC and WAC tournament format where the top 2 seeds get byes until the semifinals.

UNT Texas Hooligan · March 11, 2022

47 minutes ago, CMJ said:

By both teams.

Yup, but they won so they won’t dwell on it

GMG_Dallas · March 11, 2022

12 minutes ago, UNTcrazy727 said:

In a perfect world the autobid would go to the regular season champ. One bid conferences having their best teams upset in the conference tourney only hurts the conference. Since mid major conferences will never give up their tournaments I don’t know why they don’t adopt the WCC and WAC tournament format where the top 2 seeds get byes until the semifinals.

In a perfect world, you would auto bid the regular season champ and conference champ. A team might lose an important player for a few weeks during the season causing them to drop some games they normally wouldn't. Not much separates the champ and the others.

With 68 bids and 32 conferences, there's plenty of room to give two auto-bids to each conference.... the power conferences would just have to give up being 5+ bid conferences and that ain't happening.

At least we get a seat at the table unlike in football.

CMJ · March 11, 2022

2 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

In a perfect world, you would auto bid the regular season champ and conference champ. A team might lose an important player for a few weeks during the season causing them to drop some games they normally wouldn't. Not much separates the champ and the others.

With 68 bids and 32 conferences, there's plenty of room to give two auto-bids to each conference.... the power conferences would just have to give up being 5+ bid conferences and that ain't happening.

At least we get a seat at the table unlike in football.

I mean I don't think you can really give two bids to every league unless you increase the size of the tournament. I'm a fan of the little guy and giving us more at-large bids would be great, but if you're in a league that has five teams in the Top 25, you deserve to get five bids. Now the teams that get in with 8-10 league records or whatever shouldn't get in, but that's only the last handful of bubble team/at-large spots. Most schools down to the 8-9 line are very deserving.

GMG_Dallas · March 11, 2022

1 minute ago, CMJ said:

I mean I don't think you can really give two bids to every league unless you increase the size of the tournament. I'm a fan of the little guy and giving us more at-large bids would be great, but if you're in a league that has five teams in the Top 25, you deserve to get five bids. Now the teams that get in with 8-10 league records or whatever shouldn't get in, but that's only the last handful of bubble team/at-large spots. Most schools down to the 8-9 line are very deserving.

Yes they would probably have to expand the field a bit. Maybe some play-in spots going to the season champs would be a solution. Just seems foolish to send a regular season champion home just because they didn't win their tournament and play in a smaller conference. At the same-time, there's some small conferences where even the winner went 2-8 in OOC and produce poor quality basketball.

To your point about 8-10 conference records getting in, Indiana will likely get in despite finishing 9-11 in conference because they've made it to the semis in their tourney. Deserving? Maybe. Maybe not. I'd just like to limit opinion deciding who gets in.

CMJ · March 11, 2022

2 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Yes they would probably have to expand the field a bit. Maybe some play-in spots going to the season champs would be a solution. Just seems foolish to send a regular season champion home just because they didn't win their tournament and play in a smaller conference. At the same-time, there's some small conferences where even the winner went 2-8 in OOC and produce poor quality basketball.

To your point about 8-10 conference records getting in, Indiana will likely get in despite finishing 9-11 in conference because they've made it to the semis in their tourney. Deserving? Maybe. Maybe not. I'd just like to limit opinion deciding who gets in.

Yeah, I wouldn't let Indiana in unless they won the tournament. Same with TCU for that matter. A school should have to be at least .500 to get an at-large, no matter how tough the conference is.

GrandGreen · March 11, 2022

Bad time to have a bad game.

La Tech mirrored NT usual game plan and beat NT doing it.

Slow it down, leave a bad shooter (Murray) relatively open and let him shoot. Consecrate on stopping the best scoring threat (Perry).

Don't allow close to the goal baskets.

Choke job, no it was not, unless you call any favorite getting beat a choke job.

NT won two prior very close games over La Tech and La Tech was actually favored by more than a few.

If anything, I thank McCasland's only playing 7 caught up with him. There is the fatigue thing, but it also severely limited the odds of someone coming off the bench and making a positive difference.

Murray is a good defensive player but a liability on the offense, likewise

Several NT players were just having bad games, and only having one experienced guard and one forward is a loser when multiple starters are having off games.

Marty · March 11, 2022

Sucks we lost, got beat at our own game by LT. They got hot & couldn't miss while we couldn't buy a bucket.

Come on NIT, let's win this thing!

Green Otaku · March 11, 2022

You know I was thinking, in what game did Tylor Perry get injured and had to sit out the road game? Was it after ODU? Has it been since that game that he hasn't looked like his usual self?