FAU (1/28/24)

Matt from A700 · January 29

1 hour ago, GMG_Dallas said:

I agree with you on taking some football funding and using it for basketball. At some point, we'll need to pay our basketball coaches what they're worth, or as best as we can. McCasland was a home run. Hodge is looking like a home run as well. If/when he gets hired away, what are the odds of finding another cheap home run hire? Yes there's plenty of smaller D1 schools we could probably look at taking their coach but I'd like to maintain continuity with a guy like Hodge.

Not trying to be negative and already talk about losing a guy midway through his first year. I just want him and his staff to be compensated appropriately based on their performance.

I may be a young and dumb optimist, but if or when Hodge does move on several years (at least, hopefully) in the future, but I think we will be in a better position than many times in the past to continue our upwards trajectory. There has never been a stretch of North Texas basketball with consecutive head coaches that had winning records at UNT. That ugly streak appears to be coming to an end with Hodge. The more seasons we continue to win, more pressure is put on the AD to keep that momentum going.

Edited January 29 by Matt from A700

NorthTexasWeLove · January 29

23 minutes ago, Matt from A700 said:

I may be a young and dumb optimist, but if or when Hodge does move on several years (at least, hopefully) in the future, but I think we will be in a better position than many times in the past to continue our upwards trajectory. There has never been a stretch of North Texas basketball with consecutive head coaches that had winning records at UNT. That ugly streak appears to be coming to an end with Hodge. The more seasons we continue to win, more pressure is put on the AD to keep that momentum going.

You are close. With today's rules, that pressure is still on the AD to continue onward, but due to these rules more pressure sit on the shoulders of alum.

I'm sitting here watching this UNM vs Nevada game on right now. What has UNM done to garner the recruits, fan interest, and success? We can be them, and very easily. They pack their pit, they are consistently highly competitive... but if you ask me DFW/Texas > ABQ/NM. What's the disconnect? Get the type of guys they can get + our normal haul and we're seriously in business.

NT80 · January 29

9 hours ago, 3_n_out said:

If we just had another viable big other run Allen.

Allen should be starting.

ADLER · January 29

11 hours ago, Matt from A700 said:

Green unis today in Boca. @ADLER can sleep comfortably tonight. 😇

Yes, we wore our Green uniforms on the road against a team that made the NCAA Final Four and had their whole roster return.

We lost by ONE shot, and were in good position to even win the game.

It's further proof to absolutely NEVER WEAR BLACK UNIFORMS UNLESS WE ARE PLAYING AN AWFUL TEAM THAT WE CAN EASILY DESTROY. And even then it's still still stupid.

If we had worn black we would have lost by 15 or more points. Yes, it is that big of a difference.

CMJ · January 29

1 hour ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

You are close. With today's rules, that pressure is still on the AD to continue onward, but due to these rules more pressure sit on the shoulders of alum.

I'm sitting here watching this UNM vs Nevada game on right now. What has UNM done to garner the recruits, fan interest, and success? We can be them, and very easily. They pack their pit, they are consistently highly competitive... but if you ask me DFW/Texas > ABQ/NM. What's the disconnect? Get the type of guys they can get + our normal haul and we're seriously in business.

New Mexico has had good teams off and on for decades - that's why they get fans and recruits.

BigWillie · January 29

7 hours ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

Yeah, not much substance to this.

Mac is winning. As he does. He's never lost. Ever.

Ross is doing what he does. He needs his arsenal back and if he has to personally, himself, to light a fire in Sissoko then that's what needs to be done. We are Rubin being healthy + Sissoko playing NIT form to be really, really good.

I was curious so I went back and looked. It is crazy how true this is. He has never had a losing season in his whole coaching career.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_McCasland

To me, if he doesn't want to stay in Lubbock, I bet he could easily get to the NBA one day.

3_n_out · January 29

12 hours ago, Matt from A700 said:

Can't comment since I couldn't watch the second half, but it seems like we have played a lot of games where refs will let a lot of things play on the first half, then completely switch gears in the second and call every little or phantom thing.

The game wasn’t called poorly…just the latter part when the game was on the line

3_n_out · January 29

9 hours ago, NT80 said:

Allen should be starting.

What I meant was BESIDES Allen. Apologies there. Allen has been great for us. Can’t say the same for his tag team partner.

golfingomez · January 29

It hurt to watch this one yesterday, but we just got 'out-dude'd. Remember all those times that North Texas played tight games with opponents only to have Hamlet or Perry rip the opponents heart out at the last second? That's what FAU just did to us.

Don't exactly know how if happened, but FAU got real effin good, real effin fast. Props to them and hopefully we can come out on top next time

Big Z · January 29

9:30 mark makes me sick

NorthTexasWeLove · January 29

2 minutes ago, Big Z said:

9:30 mark makes me sick

That was complete BS and gave them 5 points. That and the terrible out of bounds call that gave them the ball and an inbound play 3. Two terrible calls (among 2 or 3 others, but these jump out) = why FAU won.

CMJ · January 29

We've had plenty of opponents the last few years say we won because of help from the refs too. I've read it on their boards. It's typically a weak excuse, even if true.

NorthTexasWeLove · January 29

2 minutes ago, CMJ said:

We've had plenty of opponents the last few years say we won because of help from the refs too. I've read it on their boards. It's typically a weak excuse, even if true.

It's a very weak excuse. You are right. But I feel like outside of the ECU game no call, we're getting the brunt of the bad calls when the opponent has the ball and no calls when we have the ball. Back to back games refs try to will our opponent to victory. Is what it is. Gotta take care of UAB. Could be, and we need to be 15-7 heading into Moody if we play decently well.

outoftown · January 29

After losing to FAU yesterday UNT moved up in the NET ranking from 71st to 69th.

Edited January 29 by outoftown

NT80 · January 29

2 hours ago, 3_n_out said:

What I meant was BESIDES Allen. Apologies there. Allen has been great for us. Can’t say the same for his tag team partner.

Allen played 30 minutes off the bench and scored 15 points.

Sissoko started and played 10 minutes and scored 0 points.

Sissoko got some good defensive rebounds early, but I don't understand the role play of more effective players coming off the bench? Grant did that too with Perry. Don't you want your best players on the floor together for the most minutes?

Green Otaku · January 29

16 hours ago, BigWillie said:

Yeah, I think it was a little frustration point that Mac leaves and does even better, but I agree, I think we win today with Rubin. But I think that's part of my point, Mac was able to recruit scorers and depth. They had a starter go down for the season (Cambridge) and still able to beat really good teams. We lose a piece, albeit a crucial piece and we have problems winning.

It's like the guy is a really good coach or something. 😉

He now just has a plethora of resources and can build a top level team.

Big Z · January 29

And also our guy gets elbowed in the face with a bloody lip = no call

keith · January 29

Kinda weird stat line that we only shot 4 free throws...make that Robert Allen only shot the 4 free throws for the entire team. On the bright side, as a "team," we were 75% from the charity stripe.

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Censored by Laurie · January 29

4 hours ago, NT80 said:

Allen played 30 minutes off the bench and scored 15 points.

Sissoko started and played 10 minutes and scored 0 points.

Sissoko got some good defensive rebounds early, but I don't understand the role play of more effective players coming off the bench? Grant did that too with Perry. Don't you want your best players on the floor together for the most minutes?

to the bolded part...yes. and we're doing that. as you mentioned, Allen played 3/4ths the available minutes at the 5.

that doesn't necessarily mean that those top 5 players start. ideally it's way more important that they finish a game together. that said...I don't get the value right now in not starting Allen, if for no other reason than maybe a change in roles could benefit Sissoko.

the year TP was a 6th man, he started behind JJ Murray. Murray would help set a defensive tone, pick up the opponent's top scorer on one end...and usually then the early offense would flow through Abou and Bell to try to get them both squarely in the game before TP game in guns-blazing. more often than not the closing 5 was TP-Bell-Abou-Rubin-Drez.

I think clearly the same thought process went into how Edwards role was being thought of before the injuries forced him into the starting 5.

everyone being healthy and eligible all season, I think the ideal starting 5 would've been Rubin-Noland-Walker-Scott-Allen...enough scoring for 3-4 minutes early...tons of length and athleticism on defense...then Edwards and Buggs rotating in with that backcourt 3.

my hope for next season is that we do sign a Javion/Woolridge-ish true PG and Edwards is a dangerous catalyst off the bench

GrandGreen · January 30

Lot of bitching for a team that has performed way above expected.

Tom McKrackin · January 30

Why can’t the young man Dixon be given a shot? Guy looks the part.

Matt from A700 · January 30

3 hours ago, Censored by Laurie said:

my hope for next season is that we do sign a Javion/Woolridge-ish true PG and Edwards is a dangerous catalyst off the bench

With us losing at least Allen, I want to see us bring in a big man (6'10" or taller) that can efficiently score in the paint. Someone that can force other teams to double him in the paint and get more open shots for our good 3-point shooters. Though admittedly I don't know how many guys like that we're available in the portal this year, and how many we could realistically land.

NT93 · January 30

10 hours ago, golfingomez said:

It hurt to watch this one yesterday, but we just got 'out-dude'd. Remember all those times that North Texas played tight games with opponents only to have Hamlet or Perry rip the opponents heart out at the last second? That's what FAU just did to us.

Don't exactly know how if happened, but FAU got real effin good, real effin fast. Props to them and hopefully we can come out on top next time

I don’t know how many times Davis had an answer after we hit a big bucket. Several times in the 2nd half I was thinking, “I don’t care if they hit a 3, just don’t let it be Davis that hits it.”

And the game winner!?!? He’s off-balance, it’s well defended to avoid fouling him…and still…swish.

That guy would be so fun to watch if you were an FAU fan, but it was maddening to watch him yesterday.

That being said, I thought we outplayed them and definitely proved that we belong.

Edited January 30 by NT93

GrandGreen · January 30

20 minutes ago, NT93 said:

I don’t know how many times Davis had an answer after we hid a big bucket. Several times in the 2nd half I was thinking, “I don’t care if they hit a 3, just don’t let it be Davis that hits it.”

And the game winner!?!? He’s off-balance, it’s well defended to avoid fouling him…and still…swish.

That guy would be so fun to watch if you were an FAU fan, but it was maddening to watch him yesterday.

That being said, I thought we outplayed them and definitely proved that we belong.

Based on limited viewing, I agree with the announcers that Davis is the best player in the conference.

NT80 · January 30

1 hour ago, GrandGreen said:

Lot of bitching for a team that has performed way above expected.

I expected Ross to continue to be the master of defense. The question was always where would our offense come from since we only returned like 20% of our scoring from last year. It was also going to be interesting melding all the new players with the existing ones to mesh a capable squad. Injuries are never calculated into rotations, thus the reason backups should be developed early on in a season. I'd say we have some winnable losses with some tough, close wins too this year. If we get everyone healthy we could have a really good finish to the season!