Temple (3/9/25)

[GMG_Dallas]

13 minutes ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Taking a foot off the gas for an inconsequential road game at this point is not the worst thing. UAB did the same. If it helps to win some conference tournament games, great.

Then why not play bench guys?

Truth is, our team goes cold almost every game. I don't care what excuses people make, we get into stretches where we just can't score. It takes a near perfect game for us to win and most of those wins end up being close. The margin for error is very slim with this style of play. I know people will point out we're 24-7 but we could just as easily be hovering around .500. Just a result of how we play until we can get some offensive minded people on staff to make this team more complete.

[UNTLifer]

I’d take Cotton and Mason over Newell. Softest 6’9” player we’ve ever had. Was supposed to shoot the three well…supposed to. 

[BigWillie]

14 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Then why not play bench guys?

Truth is, our team goes cold almost every game. I don't care what excuses people make, we get into stretches where we just can't score. It takes a near perfect game for us to win and most of those wins end up being close. The margin for error is very slim with this style of play. I know people will point out we're 24-7 but we could just as easily be hovering around .500. Just a result of how we play until we can get some offensive minded people on staff to make this team more complete.

Tell me you don't watch a lot of basketball, without telling me you don't watch a lot of basketball.

Every team "goes cold" in every game. It happens in college and it happens in the NBA. It's basketball. That's why there are runs. Unless you are an offensive juggernaut, it happens.  What you do in the body of work, i.e. the whole game is what really matters. 

32 minutes ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

Best investment Ross will ever make is to get an offensive mind on his coaching staff. Give him some of his own salary if the money isn't right for X hire. It would pay him.huge dividends in the future. 

Bad loss. 

 

#BasketballSchool 

Funny you mention this. I agree with you, and Grant does too.

Https://12ft.io/https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6172277/2025/03/05/texas-tech-grant-mccasland-jeff-linder/

[GMG_Dallas]

2 minutes ago, BigWillie said:

Tell me you don't watch a lot of basketball, without telling me you don't watch a lot of basketball.

Every team "goes cold" in every game. It happens in college and it happens in the NBA. It's basketball. That's why there are runs. Unless you are an offensive juggernaut, it happens.  What you do in the body of work, i.e. the whole game is what really matters. 

Funny you mention this. I agree with you, and Grant does too.

Https://12ft.io/https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6172277/2025/03/05/texas-tech-grant-mccasland-jeff-linder/

I watch basketball pretty much all day, every day. Whether it's the MEAC, the America East, Patriot league, SoCon, doesn't matter. I watch it all. At work, I usually have a game on if I'm not on a call or having to drive somewhere. I know exactly what I'm talking about. Every team has cold streaks and runs. Problem is, ours regularly last for 5+ minutes minutes. It took us 5 minutes to score 4 points to start the game. At about the 8:30 mark of the first half, we had 10 points. It took us over 4 minutes of the second half to score a point and 30 minutes into this game, we had 38 points. That's unacceptable. Yes, I'm describing runs. Our droughts are too long and too frequent.

[untjim1995]

Never easy going to play someone on Senior Day. We are finding that out today.

[NT80]

1 hour ago, UNTLifer said:

I’d take Cotton and Mason over Newell. Softest 6’9” player we’ve ever had. Was supposed to shoot the three well…supposed to. 

Yes to this. 

[BigWillie]

43 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

I watch basketball pretty much all day, every day. Whether it's the MEAC, the America East, Patriot league, SoCon, doesn't matter. I watch it all. At work, I usually have a game on if I'm not on a call or having to drive somewhere. I know exactly what I'm talking about. Every team has cold streaks and runs. Problem is, ours regularly last for 5+ minutes minutes. It took us 5 minutes to score 4 points to start the game. At about the 8:30 mark of the first half, we had 10 points. It took us over 4 minutes of the second half to score a point and 30 minutes into this game, we had 38 points. That's unacceptable. Yes, I'm describing runs. Our droughts are too long and too frequent.

Once again. Goes back to the full body of work. It is very hard to have 2 way play in college. If you do, you have a team like Houston and look at what they are doing. It's usually one way or the other. North Texas has more defense than offense. I would say we enough defense to keep us in games and that's why we have the record we do. But to the run thing, as others have pointed out here before. Due to our style of play, it is exaggerated.

[GMG_Dallas]

35 minutes ago, BigWillie said:

Once again. Goes back to the full body of work. It is very hard to have 2 way play in college. If you do, you have a team like Houston and look at what they are doing. It's usually one way or the other. North Texas has more defense than offense. I would say we enough defense to keep us in games and that's why we have the record we do. But to the run thing, as others have pointed out here before. Due to our style of play, it is exaggerated.

The offense struggles. Work. On. It. That's all I've been saying. Is that really so hard to understand? The offense needs work and Hodge needs to figure it out. Work on it. You and everybody else are literally proving my point. We are a defensive team and the offense struggles. Work on the offense. Try to get better. Bring in another assistant coach this offseason. 

Edited 4 hours ago by GMG_Dallas

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, BigWillie said:

Once again. Goes back to the full body of work. It is very hard to have 2 way play in college. If you do, you have a team like Houston and look at what they are doing. It's usually one way or the other. North Texas has more defense than offense. I would say we enough defense to keep us in games and that's why we have the record we do. But to the run thing, as others have pointed out here before. Due to our style of play, it is exaggerated.

 

35 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

The offense struggles. Work. On. It. That's all I've been saying. Is that really so hard to understand? The offense needs work and Hodge needs to figure it out. Work on it. You and everybody else are literally proving my point. We are a defensive team and the offense struggles. Work on the offense. Try to get better. Bring in another assistant coach this offseason. 

There's got to be a data-driven way to break this down.  It's 2025.  It blows my mind, but that's 20 years removed from 2005, when back then I felt like technology was already amazing.

The info has to be out there.  Wish I had access to some of those premium/subscription-based data resources.

Data for offensive droughts across all D1 (or league-specific, whatever you need).
Look at average, then factor in pace of play.
Then compare our droughts to that average.

Without it, I'm just going to guess that our droughts are way above average, in a bad way, regardless of our pace of play.

Edited 3 hours ago by greenminer

[Green Lantern]

When a game is officiated the way it was today - everything called super tight - it unfortunately negates our team’s greatest strengths. Having Lorient out of the game early really sucked, especially on the shit, ticky tack foul that put him on the bench. Shooting 16% from 3 while your opponent goes for 50% behind the arc isn’t a winning recipe. We bricked some wide open stuff, right after we’d forced stops - again and again. Frustrating. Lastly, we’ve got to get back to rebounding. These last two games we’ve gotten out physical’d and just destroyed on the glass.

All that said, we still had a chance to steal this on the road. We have the ability to win the AAC Tourney.