I never saw so many big, fast, good shooting athletes. We have to play a perfect game to beat a team like this, and we came up a little short tonight, but I was proud of our kids. They never quit. Now we have to put that behind us and concentrate on ASU.

I was going to post that the teams had about equal talent and we just got beat. Nt just looked like they had a little more gas in the tank at the end of the game.

Typical UALR/NT game, I think every time we play it goes down about like this. Glad to get the win, and hope to see yall in Hot Springs.

(02-23-2012 11:07 PM)CMJ Wrote:  Typical UALR/NT game, I think every time we play it goes down about like this. Glad to get the win, and hope to see yall in Hot Springs.

North Texas has a ton of talented athletes with size and strength. Kind of players we never get. How we beat teams like UNT and ULL, I still haven't figured out. What's amazing is UNT lost their 2 leading scorers to grades after the first semester. How good would they be now that Mitchell is fully integrated into their team?

(02-23-2012 11:14 PM)mjs Wrote:  North Texas has a ton of talented athletes with size and strength. Kind of players we never get. How we beat teams like UNT and ULL, I still haven't figured out. What's amazing is UNT lost their 2 leading scorers to grades after the first semester. How good would they be now that Mitchell is fully integrated into their team?

I try not to think about it because it's kinda painful to dwell on. We are what we are now.

I guess the difference in the game was, nt jumped on us at the start of each session. Just like in boxing, you want to be 1st to the punch.

We had our chances. Just couldn't take advantage. Courtney did a great job on Mitchell, but the guy doesn't have to score 20 points to beat you. He made several great passes to others who made shots. And he had, what, sixteen rebounds. Very good player. Makes those around him better. He reminds me a little of Joe Johnson when Joe was in high school. He wasn't that impressive in some games because he was helping others to get the shots, but when the game was on the line, he could take it over. Mitchell was also a very unselfish player, for which I give him great credit.

(02-24-2012 09:39 AM)outsideualr Wrote:  We had our chances. Just couldn't take advantage. Courtney did a great job on Mitchell, but the guy doesn't have to score 20 points to beat you. He made several great passes to others who made shots. And he had, what, sixteen rebounds. Very good player. Makes those around him better. He reminds me a little of Joe Johnson when Joe was in high school. He wasn't that impressive in some games because he was helping others to get the shots, but when the game was on the line, he could take it over. Mitchell was also a very unselfish player, for which I give him great credit.

Good point. With him being rated the #2 power forward (behind Harrison Barnes of UNC) coming out of high school, I wondered if he might try to do too much believing he was simply way better than his Sun Belt competition. But he did a great job finding the open man when he was double teamed and didn't force anything.

(02-23-2012 11:14 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(02-23-2012 11:07 PM)CMJ Wrote:  Typical UALR/NT game, I think every time we play it goes down about like this. Glad to get the win, and hope to see yall in Hot Springs.

North Texas has a ton of talented athletes with size and strength. Kind of players we never get. How we beat teams like UNT and ULL, I still haven't figured out. What's amazing is UNT lost their 2 leading scorers to grades after the first semester. How good would they be now that Mitchell is fully integrated into their team?

Their HC told ours that they are a better team without those 2 guys. Addition by subtraction ? It does have to hurt them, depth-wise, however.

(02-24-2012 03:29 PM)KAjunRaider Wrote:  

(02-23-2012 11:14 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(02-23-2012 11:07 PM)CMJ Wrote:  Typical UALR/NT game, I think every time we play it goes down about like this. Glad to get the win, and hope to see yall in Hot Springs.

North Texas has a ton of talented athletes with size and strength. Kind of players we never get. How we beat teams like UNT and ULL, I still haven't figured out. What's amazing is UNT lost their 2 leading scorers to grades after the first semester. How good would they be now that Mitchell is fully integrated into their team?

Their HC told ours that they are a better team without those 2 guys. Addition by subtraction ? It does have to hurt them, depth-wise, however.

Robert Lee, who scouted them for us, said the same thing. I wasn't sure if I believed him or if it was just "coach speak". Regardless they looked pretty darn good last night, and appeared to have a bunch of nice players coming off the bench. Hope they end up in your bracket, not ours.

I don't for a minute believe we are better without Jones and Williams.

(02-24-2012 06:21 PM)CMJ Wrote:  I don't for a minute believe we are better without Jones and Williams.

I find it hard to believe as well. I heard it was grade problems. I have not heard they were head cases. They would have to be pretty bad head cases to make losing 27 points "addition by substraction". And as freshman, I assume they would only have gotten better.

It was grade problems.

Alzee isn't as smooth at running the point as Chris was. He might be better at looking for Mitchell in the post, but Chris really didn't have that many games to get used to playing with Tony. Jordon could be explosive or disappear, but he was still so capable of scoring in bunches, that it's hard to believe we're better without him.

I do like the way that some of our other guys have stepped up. Especially Alzee Williams, who I would argue is as much the MVP of our team as Tony is right now.

He killed us.

I'm not even talking about his scoring (which has picked up as of late). More all of the rest he brings to our team - like defense, smarts, playing the most minutes on our squad, and a good assist to TO ratio. He's turned into a real floor general, which is all you can ask a guy who isn't even SUPPOSED to be your starting PG.