Comparing this year to last year

[Harry]

We were 15-15 heading into the SB tourney last year with a much easier schedule. We had an outside shooter in Walton that teams had to respect; now we have none. Heck even Tyler could hit a shot. Hogans wasn't a great player but he would go in and get boards and be physical. Teams beg us to shoot now. Jacob Holman played out of his mind in the tourney or we would have been beaten in the tourney sooner.

[CMJ]

We were 15-15 heading into the SB tourney last year with a much easier schedule. We had an outside shooter in Walton that teams had to respect; now we have none. Heck even Tyler could hit a shot. Hogans wasn't a great player but he would go in and get boards and be physical. Teams beg us to shoot now. Jacob Holman played out of his mind in the tourney or we would have been beaten in the tourney sooner.

No - we were 16-13 headed to Hot Springs. Jacob only played AWESOME versus ASU (he did have a very good game against WKU....I honestly don't remember his performance against ULL).

Holmen can hit outside shots, but we don't really want him to go to the perimeter.

[utamav91]

UTA's season is circling the drain. After beating New Mexico State at home by 21 last weekend, we scored a whopping 35 points against Denver the other day, then scored 46 against Boise State last night. Two 15 (or more) point losses at home. We have forgotten how to score. It's obvious we can't shoot the 3, now we can't score from 3 feet away. Looking very much like the bad 80s-90s Mavs teams UNT used to beat by 15 twice a year in the Southland.

[Andrew]

Why does everyone assume that I am be fords biggest fan....? I am just saying stop all of this fire him talk that no one in their right mind should be talking about at this point. If we lose these next two games at home I will reconsider where I stand but if CJ can get his head straight and his foot better by tourney time we should still go dancing. 15 or 16 seed, but it is still dancing.

[emmitt01]

Why does everyone assume that I am be fords biggest fan....? I am just saying stop all of this fire him talk that no one in their right mind should be talking about at this point. If we lose these next two games at home I will reconsider where I stand but if CJ can get his head straight and his foot better by tourney time we should still go dancing. 15 or 16 seed, but it is still dancing.

Z-E-R-O chance of going to the NCAA tournament. None. Archive this post, take a picture of it, whatever...just remember it.

And, yes, JJ had some bad losses. But his teams never lost embarrassingly. You can lose by 40 and look like you know what uou're doing...and you can lose by 15 and look clueless. We just look clueless. And we look clueless AGAINST SUN BELT TEAMS. That's the biggest indictment. If we lost to Creighton, St Louis, Virginia and K-state and then looked like we had a plan, any plan, against Sun Belt teams I know I wouldn't be so frustrated and angry. But we look lost agajnst everyone, be they D2, a WKU team with MULTIPLE injuries to key players or Creighton.

Tonight we play Troy and they will beat us by 10. I'll be there to see it and I guarantee when they go in a run (and they will) we will have no answer for it.

I'll say it again. This EXACT same roster was within a game of being conference champs...now they magically can't even compete in this conference? And spare me the Walton excuse, we looked horrible before he got hurt. Are we to believe Tyler Hall was the eart and soul of this team?

Edited January 3, 2013 by emmitt01

[CMJ]

And spare me the Walton excuse, we looked horrible before he got hurt.

Wait, didn't he get hurt in our first game? I don't think he has suited up since the opener (and even then just a couple of minutes). I'm on your side, but the sample size for Walton being in the lineup is literally minutes.

[TIgreen01]

We are the worst shooting team that I've ever had the displeasure of watching at the college level. I shudder to think of what those other 20-30 teams that rank beneath us in field goal percentage must look like. Sheesh.

Why, then, did Benford not bring in a single shooter in the offseason?! Obviously we can't shoot the ball. THIS IS NOT A SURPRISE. We knew this last year. Now outside of Overlander, we don't have anyone who even has a decent stroke that'd make you THINK that they could hit a shot. We all witnessed Walton last year. There's too much game film and stats available from last season to prove that he's not the answer as an outside shooter to NOT bring in at least another.

We brought in Coleman, Hardwick, TJ Taylor. Coleman looks like a bust so far, but I'll give you that we needed depth at F/C. I have no idea what to make of Hardwick at this point. He looks like he could be a good ball distributor but he rarely plays and certainly doesn't take many outside shots. TJ Taylor cost us Norris....who I can't honestly say would have been the answer to our shooting woes, either. TJ Taylor may turn out to be the second coming of Calvin Watson....or he may never step foot on the floor for us.

Either way, our entire fanbase knew we had a team that had few pure shooters. Any professionally paid coach knew that as well. I think, as a fanbase, we assumed that we'd see Benford implement a seriously furious pace on the defensive end of the floor and a jazzed up transition game to offset our shooting troubles. Instead we play poor on-ball defense, are too slow in transition, and play a slowed down motion based half court offense against teams that are largely playing zone. It's all a WTF moment every time I watch this team. If we're going to have trouble shooting the ball, we need to crash the boards and block out like our lives depend on it.

But to blame a lack of shooters when we clearly knew this was going to be a problem is giving Benford a pass, impo.

[emmitt01]

Wait, didn't he get hurt in our first game? I don't think he has suited up since the opener (and even then just a couple of minutes). I'm on your side, but the sample size for Walton being in the lineup is literally minutes.

He played against Creighton and East Central in the exhibition. We weren't impressive looking in either game. Nope, not even against East Central.

[golfingomez]

Either way, our entire fanbase knew we had a team that had few pure shooters. Any professionally paid coach knew that as well. I think, as a fanbase, we assumed that we'd see Benford implement a seriously furious pace on the defensive end of the floor and a jazzed up transition game to offset our shooting troubles. Instead we play poor on-ball defense, are too slow in transition, and play a slowed down motion based half court offense against teams that are largely playing zone. It's all a WTF moment every time I watch this team. If we're going to have trouble shooting the ball, we need to crash the boards and block out like our lives depend on it.

it's like you're reading my mind...

[GrandGreen]

JJ played a three guard offense with emphasis on outside shooting. Benford was supposed to change all that, and yet he is losing because we have no outside shooters. Any one who really thinks this team is under performing because of the lost of players like Walton and Hall are either delusional or didn't think this team was capable of much anyway.

Just about every team that I have seen NT play, has good outside shooting. Is this because they are just more gifted shooters than NT or because they get open shoots against a poor perimeter defense? Shooting is confidence and getting into position; NT is having problems with both.

NT should beat Troy without ever taking a three point shot which actually is not a bad plan for a team that can't hit them.

[cl_1_2008]

He played against Creighton and East Central in the exhibition. We weren't impressive looking in either game. Nope, not even against East Central.

Umm, Walton played ONE minute against Creighton. One minute. Sixty seconds. And we beat East Central 90-49. Granted it is East Central, but we absolutely looked impressive against them.

[GreenBat]

Umm, Walton played ONE minute against Creighton. One minute. Sixty seconds. And we beat East Central 90-49. Granted it is East Central, but we absolutely looked impressive against them.

Come on. Impressive? Hardly. The team shot 53 percent and was out rebounded 43-36. They had only 8 assist, compared to 6 assist for EC. Impressive. I don't think so. Many knew that NT was in trouble after that game.

http://www.meangreensports.com/ViewContent.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1800&CONTENT_ID=248850

[NT03]

Ah yes. The ever so impressive win over the 4 win DII school , who could forget that !! A team who recently got beat by 30 vs Ouachita Baptist

Edited January 4, 2013 by NT03

[cl_1_2008]

Come on. Impressive? Hardly. The team shot 53 percent and was out rebounded 43-36. They had only 8 assist, compared to 6 assist for EC. Impressive. I don't think so. Many knew that NT was in trouble after that game.

http://www.meangreensports.com/ViewContent.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1800&CONTENT_ID=248850

You say 53 percent like it's a bad thing. There's a grand total of one team in the country that's shooting better than that for the season. Yeah, I understand they're awful. I'm not denying that. But I am refuting what Emmitt said, which was that "we looked awful before Walton got hurt." That statement is simply false. I'm not going around pimping a victory over a D2 school, but to say that we looked "AWFUL" is ridiculous. We held them to 30% shooting. We held them to 49 points. We forced 23 turnovers. The rebounds is the only troubling thing. And you're complaining that we only had 8 assists when we scored 90 points? Look, there are plenty of things to complain about, enough that I'd think you wouldn't need to manufacture problems that aren't there. I'm not even saying things would be any different than they are right now if Walton was healthy. But to simply make things up is absurd.