Do We Play With A Target On Our Back?

Green Otaku · January 28, 2011

Seems like we are losing to lots of teams with poor records.What is more important is, are these teams gunning for us? I believe motivation and momentum play a key part of the any sport. So do these teams see our record and come out extra motivated to play us?

I know for sure SHSU did. Raised their championship banners and made this their marquee OOC game.

Or do we just struggle on the road?

MDH · January 28, 2011

I think we're just an awful road team.

CMJ · January 28, 2011

We are the champs...definitely a target on our back.

Hilltopper2k · January 28, 2011

Absolutely. UNT has won two out of the last four Sunbelt championships. UNT is the defending champ.

Playing on the road is tough. That is a given. But you guys are seeing what WKU has seen for years. Crappy Sunbelt teams looking like all world to take the champs down a notch.

Here's the upside:

in Hot Springs everybody gets everybody's best shot. But UNT got everybody's best shot all season long. It prepares you for the tournament. Don't knock it.

TheTastyGreek · January 28, 2011

Absolutely. UNT has won two out of the last four Sunbelt championships. UNT is the defending champ.

Playing on the road is tough. That is a given. But you guys are seeing what WKU has seen for years. Crappy Sunbelt teams looking like all world to take the champs down a notch.

Here's the upside:

in Hot Springs everybody gets everybody's best shot. But UNT got everybody's best shot all season long. It prepares you for the tournament. Don't knock it.

Thank you. You're awesome.

Still frustrating as hell.

All About UNT · January 28, 2011

Absolutely. UNT has won two out of the last four Sunbelt championships. UNT is the defending champ.

Playing on the road is tough. That is a given. But you guys are seeing what WKU has seen for years. Crappy Sunbelt teams looking like all world to take the champs down a notch.

Here's the upside:

in Hot Springs everybody gets everybody's best shot. But UNT got everybody's best shot all season long. It prepares you for the tournament. Don't knock it.

You eased my pain. +1

dahbeed · January 28, 2011

we have a poster on hilltoppah haven named 'zeke.

he's a prof at wku and has as level a head as i've ever seen on a fan. he's what i want to be when i grow up.

and he's preached for years how tough the road is.......especially in conference play.

here's one thing i've always biotched about in re the sun belt schools.

in the past we've (sbc) had teams that cobbled together a patchwork quilt of jucos and txfers. pretty good ballas too. but since hoops is an afterthought several of these schools would play bodybag games to raise money for their equally sh!tty foolsball teams.

they'd come into conference with horrible records. but when you have 17 games under your belt unless you're in total upheaval then you start to gel. especially a guy like maestri at troy.

the ulala team you faced tonight is not the same one losing early season games. they have new coach and system so it is even more work for them to gel but their coach won where he was before there. and ulala usually has a benchful of athletes.

you can't convince the havenites on this theory of mine.

add in the target on your chest and you do have one...just like murray and austin peay do in the ovc and you get folks' best shot.

i don't look forward to odufawa raping us in diddle this year. and it is no sanctuary at all with losses to denver and fau already.

TheTastyGreek · January 28, 2011

we have a poster on hilltoppah haven named 'zeke.

he's a prof at wku and has as level a head as i've ever seen on a fan. he's what i want to be when i grow up.

and he's preached for years how tough the road is.......especially in conference play.

here's one thing i've always biotched about in re the sun belt schools.

in the past we've (sbc) had teams that cobbled together a patchwork quilt of jucos and txfers. pretty good ballas too. but since hoops is an afterthought several of these schools would play bodybag games to raise money for their equally sh!tty foolsball teams.

they'd come into conference with horrible records. but when you have 17 games under your belt unless you're in total upheaval then you start to gel. especially a guy like maestri at troy.

the ulala team you faced tonight is not the same one losing early season games. they have new coach and system so it is even more work for them to gel but their coach won where he was before there. and ulala usually has a benchful of athletes.

you can't convince the havenites on this theory of mine.

add in the target on your chest and you do have one...just like murray and austin peay do in the ovc and you get folks' best shot.

i don't look forward to odufawa raping us in diddle this year. and it is no sanctuary at all with losses to denver and fau already.

Wait, did WKU just knock us out of the Sun Belt tournament? Because it seems like I get a pep talk from you every time they have in the recent past. Please tell me our season didn't end without me realizing it.

Seriously... Thanks to both of you guys for trying to give us some perspective and encouragement.

GrayEagle · January 28, 2011

If we're anywhere near as good as we think we are/should be then it shouldn't matter whether we're targeted or not. We're not that good and we play poor defense. We also have no depth. We have six good to decent contributors and the others are scary.

As an aside, when is the last time that you've seen anyone foul out who only played four minutes?

foutsrouts · January 28, 2011

If we're anywhere near as good as we think we are/should be then it shouldn't matter whether we're targeted or not. We're not that good and we play poor defense. We also have no depth. We have six good to decent contributors and the others are scary.

As an aside, when is the last time that you've seen anyone foul out who only played four minutes?

I think Holmen now qualifies as a decent contributor so I would say we have 7. After that we are in trouble since Edwards has done nothing. Knox is capable of some decent defensive contributions, but he is still clearly a project.

GrandGreen · January 28, 2011

Good teams all have targets on their backs. A lot of wisdom in the comments above, road wins are hard to come by. However, many of us Belt fans complain about how weak the conference is and then follow that up with how hard it is win a league games on the road. Maybe it's me but those statements seem somewhat contradictory. The typical theory is if you win most at home and break even on the road that the team will finish high in the conference. The problem for NT is that they are going to have to substantially improve to even get a split in the rest of their away games and winning all their home games becomes almost a must if they have any chance at a tournament bye. Failure to get a bye with NT's depth would make NT a real long shot.

UNTcrazy727 · January 28, 2011

These kind of loses assure you'll never get above a 15 seed come tournament time. That's what pisses me off

KoldBeer · January 28, 2011

My goal this year was to win the Sun Belt. We've only won the Sun Belt once (tie last year with Troy). If you want a true test of which is the better team, winning the regular season is much harder to do. Winning conference tournament is as much about luck as being the best team (any of four or so teams can win it every year). The conference season has been a complete disappointment. Hell we won't even win our division. I guess we can stop paying attention to the regular season and just hope we get hot a Hot Springs. I know it is tough to win on the road but it'd be nice to do at least a couple times. Winning on the road comes down to toughness. We don't play defense so it'll be hard to get wins on the road even against crappy Belt teams.

Army of Dad · January 28, 2011

Seems like we are losing to lots of teams with poor records.What is more important is, are these teams gunning for us? I believe motivation and momentum play a key part of the any sport. So do these teams see our record and come out extra motivated to play us?

I know for sure SHSU did. Raised their championship banners and made this their marquee OOC game.

Or do we just struggle on the road?

Yes.

ntsumck · January 28, 2011

Target or not, this team is just good not great. This loss assures us that we will have to win the tournament championship to get in the dance. This pisses me off. ULL sucks and they beat us. Good teams will win on the road in the Sun Belt. I really thought this team could run the belt?

CMJ · January 28, 2011

I guess it comes down to expectations. No matter how "bad" the Belt is, I knew we weren't gonna roll thru it. Feel free to look up season predictions, but I figured a 12-4 record in SBC play would be about the best we could reasonably expect to get, with 13-3 our ceiling. Now, 11-5 looks to be around the best we can realistically hope for - which would be the same as last season sans UNO games.

untgeorge · January 28, 2011

Seems like we are losing to lots of teams with poor records.What is more important is, are these teams gunning for us? I believe motivation and momentum play a key part of the any sport. So do these teams see our record and come out extra motivated to play us?

I know for sure SHSU did. Raised their championship banners and made this their marquee OOC game.

Or do we just struggle on the road?

Of course teams are pointing toward us. Just like every year in every sport, the reigning champ is a target.

What is most important is that we don't play defense. To borrow a phrase, shooting comes and goes, defense is a constant. If we play defense, we handle these teams with lesser talent.

Green P1 · January 28, 2011

we have a poster on hilltoppah haven named 'zeke.

he's a prof at wku and has as level a head as i've ever seen on a fan. he's what i want to be when i grow up.

and he's preached for years how tough the road is.......especially in conference play.

here's one thing i've always biotched about in re the sun belt schools.

in the past we've (sbc) had teams that cobbled together a patchwork quilt of jucos and txfers. pretty good ballas too. but since hoops is an afterthought several of these schools would play bodybag games to raise money for their equally sh!tty foolsball teams.

they'd come into conference with horrible records. but when you have 17 games under your belt unless you're in total upheaval then you start to gel. especially a guy like maestri at troy.

the ulala team you faced tonight is not the same one losing early season games. they have new coach and system so it is even more work for them to gel but their coach won where he was before there. and ulala usually has a benchful of athletes.

you can't convince the havenites on this theory of mine.

add in the target on your chest and you do have one...just like murray and austin peay do in the ovc and you get folks' best shot.

i don't look forward to odufawa raping us in diddle this year. and it is no sanctuary at all with losses to denver and fau already.

Anyone ever see that episode of South Park where the Japanese are trying to take over the city by lulling the town's people into a false sense of confidence? I don't trust these Hilltopper boys one bit.

FloMoGrad · January 28, 2011

4 home games and 4 road games left this yr. 3-1 at home and 2-2 on the road still leaves us at 21-8, with a conference record of 10-6, which is absolutely still in the hunt for a first round bye, even with a poor finish to the season. UALR is 4-4 in conf play so 2 more losses and we dismiss them from the bye talk, and we face them one more time after winning our earlier meeting.

This is a stumble, not a fall on our face. We come out and spit the bit against Denver, there's reason to worry. But I don't see that happening. We haven't lost 2 straight all yr, even in back to back road games situations.

Yes, there's a huge target on our back, and as the hilltopper's pointed out, there is nothing wrong with that, we're getting everyone's best shot and like mentioned, this should galvanize us for Tourney time.

Honestly, I'd like to see the target on our backs in every sport every year, just means your at the top, it's much easier to climb to the top than it is to stay there.

dahbeed · January 28, 2011

Anyone ever see that episode of South Park where the Japanese are trying to take over the city by lulling the town's people into a false sense of confidence? I don't trust these Hilltopper boys one bit.

that could be true if i had been saying we suck after we started losing....check that....getting bent over and violated.

i've been saying it since early summer. ask your amigos that visit the sun belt board. they even tried to talk sense into me saying we had kerusch and pettigrew.

i countered with we have no point god and that has been born out all season long.

i guess my theory might be me trying to 'rationalize' when we lost to what i perceived as suck teams in conference play. i still think it holds some water.

dahbeed · January 28, 2011

Wait, did WKU just knock us out of the Sun Belt tournament? Because it seems like I get a pep talk from you every time they have in the recent past. Please tell me our season didn't end without me realizing it.

Seriously... Thanks to both of you guys for trying to give us some perspective and encouragement.

you made me lol with that one amigo.

no....we surely did not just win the belt.

i wuz just splainin' my take on how we lose to teams that we perceive to 'suck' in conference play.

FloMoGrad · January 28, 2011

Anyone ever see that episode of South Park where the Japanese are trying to take over the city by lulling the town's people into a false sense of confidence? I don't trust these Hilltopper boys one bit.

"You Mean Green, with your Sr laden team and big American PF. How could we compete against you and your big American Power Forward. "

I quote that episode to my wife once a week. Keeps her expectations in check.

untjim1995 · January 28, 2011

Target or not, this team is just good not great. This loss assures us that we will have to win the tournament championship to get in the dance. This pisses me off.

Man, I hate to break it to you, but we were gonna have to win the conference tournament anyway to get to the NCAA Tournament. But, if by dance, you meant to include the NIT, which automatically includes regular season conference champions, then you are dead-on.

Mean Green Matt · January 28, 2011

Man, I hate to break it to you, but we were gonna have to win the conference tournament anyway to get to the NCAA Tournament. But, if by dance, you meant to include the NIT, which automatically includes regular season conference champions, then you are dead-on.

That's not entirely true...yet. We need to end the year on an 8 game winning streak again, and FAU needs to lose 3 of their last 8: maybe WKU, @UNT, @ Denver, and probably one of their two meetings with FIU. I thought we were done as well, but after looking at the schedules, if we can just take care of business on our end, the NIT bid is not out of the question.

EDIT: I did drink a little green kool-aid, but this team is talented enough to do it.

Edited January 28, 2011 by Mean Green Matt

foutsrouts · January 28, 2011

Target or not, this team is just good not great. This loss assures us that we will have to win the tournament championship to get in the dance. This pisses me off. ULL sucks and they beat us. Good teams will win on the road in the Sun Belt. I really thought this team could run the belt?

I suspect that any dreams of an automatic bid went out the window with our loss to 4-16 Troy. That would be 3-16 if you take out their big victory over Huntingdon College, and 2-16 if you take out their thrashing of North Texas.