Why Not?

[NMBNTC]

Why didn't we kill Rice tonight??? I'm no basketball expected but I was expecting a 20 point win.

[TheTastyGreek]

Why didn't we kill Rice tonight??? I'm no basketball expected but I was expecting a 20 point win.

Right now, we have 6 guys who are really worthy of being in our playing rotation. And not all of them played like it last night. Two posts, one of whom isn't a scorer and the other who nearly had his brains get Humpty Dumpty'd all over the Super Pit floor. Four guards, one that looked like he had the flu and the other three who couldn't buy a 3 point basket all game (or the last game). Down the bench, one reserve post is doing his best on a bum leg. One is struggling to establish himself and STILL hasn't come to terms with the fact that he isn't an outside shooter. Throw in Ben Knox, and that's your roster of 9 currently available scholarship players.

We played a motivated team with a fantastic coach who made sure they fought like hell for this game. Rice is a very athletic team, they're an in-state school that belongs to a better basketball conference. They aren't a powerhouse, but there's at least one guy on that roster that I know we were after once upon a time. Their coach has led two different schools to the Sweet 16. He's got over 570 career wins. Ben Braun is almost as many games over .500 as JJ has won in his entire North Texas career. Braun had Rice playing a pretty stout zone defense that we couldn't force them to abandon because we couldn't hit outside shots consistently.

We pressed them well, but we can't do that extensively because we only have four available guards for a three guard offense, and fatigue is a bigger deal for us right now than most of our opponents. But we pushed our limits with that press and managed to destroy their offense for the last 6-8 minutes of the game.

Our team played very inconsistently, couldn't shoot from the outside. But we won anyway. Good teams manage to win when they aren't playing like a good team. We won't have a great year if we play like this every game... But in the end, this was a win and that's all that matters about it now that it's in the past.

Also, anyone who expects 20+ point wins from Johnny Jones hasn't been paying attention. He's not a run-up-the-score type of coach. Unless we're playing lower division teams in tune up games, or a lesser squad that just can't keep up with us like Houston Baptist or last year's depleted UNO teams... JJ doesn't beat up on opponents once we have a game in hand.