Sunbelt 2/21/09

[CMJ]

WKU 79

FIU 66

[Censored by Laurie]

Denver up 18 AT Arkansas State...knocking on the door of their first regular season road win since, by my count, Feb. 11th 2006 at Middle Tennessee...they also beat MTSU on March 5th at MTSU in the first round of the SBC tourney.

[CMJ]

MTSU 74

Florida Atlantic 68

Edited February 22, 2009 by CMJ

[CMJ]

Denver 73

Arkansas St. 53

[CMJ]

South Alabama 67

ULM 60

[CMJ]

Current Standings:

EAST

WKU 13-3 19-8

Troy 12-4 17-11

USA 10-7 17-11

MTSU 9-7 16-12

FIU 6-10 11-18

Florida Atlantic 2-14 6-23

WEST

UALR 13-3 20-7

North Texas 9-7 16-11

Denver 8-8 13-14

ULL 6-9 9-17

New Orleans 6-10 11-16

Arkansas State 5-11 13-14

ULM 5-11 9-18

[CMJ]

My Best Guess on the current seedings:

1. WKU

2. UALR

3. Troy

4. USA

5. MTSU

6. NT

7. Denver

8. ULL

9. FIU

10. UNO

11. ULM

12. ASU

13. FAU

[UNTflyer]

It was the worst case scenario tonight. We lost and everyone else who can catch us won.

[CMJ]

ULL and UNO play tomorrow. Thankfully UNO can't catch us and we have the 2-0 lead on ULL, so even if we lose out we're golden there.

[atx2010]

Wouldn't you think the 6th seed is the best place to be? Playing ULM (or anyone really) in the play-in game. Then playing Troy. (They play our style of ball. Fast paced offensive attack). And hope that WKU or UALR gets knocked out in the 2nd round.

[CMJ]

Wouldn't you think the 6th seed is the best place to be? Playing ULM (or anyone really) in the play-in game. Then playing Troy. (They play our style of ball. Fast paced offensive attack). And hope that WKU or UALR gets knocked out in the 2nd round.

Fourth or 5th avoids the top 3 seeds till the semifinals though.

[calvin]

This year in the Sun Belt does it really matter if we are the 4th seed or the 6th seed. Our formula is simple, we shoot well we can beat everybody in the league, we dont shoot well we have games like last night and all our other losses in conference. This year the belt is way more even than I can remember. Last year I remember thinking we would have to play our very best game to beat WKU or USA and that is not the case this year. I just hope the team that played the previous 4 games shows up in the tournament and not the team we saw last night.

Edited February 22, 2009 by calvin

[CMJ]

I think 2 years ago the Belt was even more balanced than this year. But yeah, last year - WKU and USA pretty much dominated the league(tho we did defeat USA).

[untgeorge]

This year in the Sun Belt does it really matter if we are the 4th seed or the 6th seed. Our formula is simple, we shoot well we can beat everybody in the league, we dont shoot well we have games like last night and all our other losses in conference. This year the belt is way more even than I can remember. Last year I remember thinking we would have to play our very best game to beat WKU or USA and that is not the case this year. I just hope the team that played the previous 4 games shows up in the tournament and not the team we saw last night.

I wish it were that simple. Sat we played with as much intensity and determination as we have the past two weeks, we shot poorly because UALR did not give us good looks with their tough aggressive perimeter defense and at the same time denied the ball to our inside people. Their taller perimeter people had their hands in the faces of our smaller guards all night, and their help defense denied us good shots when we penetrated. This should not have been a surprise, since Shields has been at UALR he is 10-2 vs UNT. As the saying goes, defense travels well, and Shields teams play tough aggressive defense.

To win we have to learn to overcome defenses which play us aggressively on the perimeter, with people who are taller than our people but almost as quick.

[CMJ]

I wonder if there's some sort of symmetry with our luck vs UALR and ASU back in 2007. ASU beat us 2 times that year, in games we thought we coulda/shoulda won(they won the 2nd time in our house on Senior Night if I recall). When it came to the conference tournament we exacted our revenge.

I don't know, just thinking.

[greenminer]

I don't know, just hoping.

*cough*