UC Riverside (01/04/14)

risinggreen · January 4, 2014

I can see we've come back down to Earth. Oh well, we won. Not pretty or encouraging though.

BillySee58 · January 4, 2014

Time for conference play. We'll see if the concern over the constant close wins against lesser opponents and blowout losses to the actually decent teams we played is warranted or if 9-5 including a 20 point win in College Station is a sign of good things to come.

Green P1 · January 4, 2014

Yay.

KRAM1 · January 4, 2014

Yay.

You go? :-)

oldguystudent · January 4, 2014

Thank you for not calling then Cal State Riverside or Cal Riverside. Much appreciated.

Andrew · January 4, 2014

9-5 is a lot better then people though we would be. If we were 10-4 folks would be ecstatic. It was not a great win, but a win none the less. Let's go beat southern miss!

UNTLifer · January 4, 2014

Yahoo

Green P1 · January 4, 2014

You go? :-)

Didn't even know about it until a couple minutes ago. Still basking in HOD glory.

Harry · January 4, 2014

Benford sounded like Darrell Dickey after the game. Said on the postgame show that UNT "would have to play extremely well just to have a chance to compete against Southern Miss..." or something along those lines...

Didn't sound too promising...

THOR · January 4, 2014

Benford sucks

techdawg88 · January 4, 2014

congrats on the win UNT

Andrew · January 4, 2014

Never complain about a win....

andrewrozell · January 4, 2014

not pretty, but i will take a W.

real deal starts Thursday. I am hoping to have a decent crowd, but with students not back i am not sure its that realistic.

techdawg88 · January 4, 2014

I'm glad OOC portion of the schedule is over so the "real" part of the season can begin.

Andrew · January 5, 2014

La tech, souther miss, and UAB are the favorites by far.

THOR · January 5, 2014

Never complain about a win....

Bullshiat...yes we can when it is damn subpar...

emmitt01 · January 5, 2014

Benford sounded like Darrell Dickey after the game. Said on the postgame show that UNT "would have to coach over his head just to have a chance to compete against Southern Miss..." or something along those lines...
Didn't sound too promising...

KRAM1 · January 5, 2014

Bullshiat...yes we can when it is damn subpar...

Could be right, but just when is a win "subpar"? A loss, now that's subpar. In past years the posters would be saying stuff like "well, the team just couldn't get excited to play these guys, but did what they needed to do to win". Now it's a subpar win. Interesting.

Nine wins. Real party starts next week. We'll see then if wins are subpar or if there are anymore wins. I am looking forward to seeing some of our new conference mates come to the Super Pit. To me, so much more interesting match-ups than we had in the a Sunbelt. This CUSA thing is, to me, a really good thing.

Edited January 5, 2014 by KRAM1

UNT90 · January 5, 2014

People need to understand that we scored 61 points against Texas A&M. If A&M could have thrown the ball in the Ocean, they would have beat us by double digits. They couldn't, thank god.

More like A&M playing down to our level than us playing up to theirs.

Looks like Kram should win the bet, but conference is still going to be a HUGE challenge for this team.

Andrew · January 5, 2014

People need to understand that we scored 61 points against Texas A&M. If A&M could have thrown the ball in the Ocean, they would have beat us by double digits. They couldn't, thank god.
More like A&M playing down to our level than us playing up to theirs.
Looks like Kram should win the bet, but conference is still going to be a HUGE challenge for this team.[/quot
We can win at least half of them and get close to twenty wins. This season should be a step in the right direction. If it does I give Benford another year with a ton of seniors.

calvin · January 5, 2014

I was very excited and happy about our win against A&M the other day but realistically if you look at our schedule and quality of teams we should be at worst 9 wins and probably should have 11 wins. Still losing the way we have lost and winning by how we have been winning besides A&M game is concerning. Still have yet to see progress in year 2 as conference approaches.

GrandGreen · January 5, 2014

People need to understand that we scored 61 points against Texas A&M. If A&M could have thrown the ball in the Ocean, they would have beat us by double digits. They couldn't, thank god.
More like A&M playing down to our level than us playing up to theirs.
Looks like Kram should win the bet, but conference is still going to be a HUGE challenge for this team.

Don't think you watched the same game I did. I saw a team that play disciplined ball and very good defense. I don't how your crystal ball came up with your poor shooting versus good defense analysis, but if you assume that A&M shoot about average for a college team. Like 75% free throw percentage, 33% from the 3, and 45% 2 pointers that would have scored 18 more points not enough to win much less by double digits.

Anybody that watched the game could conclude the Aggies had a bad game, but to assume that NT had no part in their play is foolish.

NT may not play close to the way they played the Aggies again, they certainly didn't today, but lets at least give them credit for a big victory over a team that was a heavy favorite.

GrandGreen · January 5, 2014

Back to today's games. Not a good performance at all by the men but they did barely pull out a win. The good was that Walton finally had a good shooting game. The worst was that NT's three biggest players played for a total of about 16 minutes, accounted for only about 6 rebounds, 6 points and a lot of fouls. Voss had a good game with 8 points and 10 boards, but I am afraid NT is going to get crushed by teams with good front-count play.

Not mentioned here, but the girls won 69-41 over division 2 Cameron. They played without McCoy, Tac and Hyder; so some bench players got some extended time. Evans had double double with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Jeter had her best game with 10 points and 6 rebonds. Davis played in her first game at NT, and went 2 for 2 shooting threes.

Both teams could be facing CUSA best in their next game, with the women going to play MTSU and the men hosting USM.

Ben Gooding · January 5, 2014

Losing to SFA by 30+ at home should be grounds for firing. Not to mention I went to the game and was discombobulated as to what UNT was doing or why Benford substitutes players like a hockey team. Doesn't matter who has the hot hand, 5 out and 5 others in. It's crazy. If we win 2 of the next 3 then it will be time to start taking UNT hoops serious.

Cooley · January 5, 2014

This patience offense is killng me! If Benford is going to sub 3-4 guys every 2 minute he needs to employ a more up tempo style to take advantage of this depth. Chris Jones is totally lost and ineffective, as well as the other guys, in this offense. Regardless of how inferior the opponent, they will always stay in the game with this pace. If he desires to play this style, he certainly needs to shorten his bench and allow the guys to get comfortable playing together.

Voss is ok but he is not a center. Our big men were on the bench and not able to get stops nor 2nd chance opportunities for rebounds (offensive) Unfortunately, we are absent of a speedy true point guard that looks to penetrate and kick the ball out to the shooters. To be that guard, he must be able to hit the outside shot more consistently than Chris or Alzee and break down his defender.

There doesn't seem to be a purpose on each possession. Guys pass the ball around until the shot clock runs down prior to taking a shot. Coach Benford, please keep TJ Taylor and Maurice Anfiak (sp) on the floor until they pass out! Keep Flash off the floor. Keep a big man in the game at all times (Gaines or Coleman) Push the ball up the court on each possession. Damn!