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North Texas Mean Green
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UABFRENCHY Offline
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Post: #81
RE: North Texas Mean Green
RIGHT NOW ,we are playing for the AAC tournament
1) get a bye by finishing in the top 4
2 )better to finish 2 or 3 to avoid memphis until the final round and
3 ) win the damm thing
it was a good practice ,,,,
01-01-2025 01:59 PM
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jaymay2525 Offline
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Post: #82
RE: North Texas Mean Green
(01-01-2025 01:59 PM)UABFRENCHY Wrote:  RIGHT NOW ,we are playing for the AAC tournament
1) get a bye by finishing in the top 4
2 )better to finish 2 or 3 to avoid memphis until the final round and
3 ) win the damm thing
it was a good practice ,,,,

Yep
01-01-2025 02:03 PM
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hooper Offline
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Post: #83
RE: North Texas Mean Green
.I don't see any problem with our recruiting.
He did what he has done since he got here and got the best guys he could.
Mostly portal guys who could make an immediate impact.

UNT did the same damn thing. This years FAU, Memphis too.

You guys act like he walked away from a half dozen pure point guards who averaged 20 a game and 6 assists, 3 steals and shot 40% from 3 at a power 5 team that all wanted to play for peanuts at UAB instead of 6 figures elsewhere.

Our top 8-9 are all good enough to play for UAB and most of the better AAC teams not named Memphis. It's laughable to think that D2 teams would not take our guys.

For some reason we have some kind of negative synergy that hopefully can be corrected.

Some of the posters here act like they are 10 x better than AK despite never coached or recruited a single d1 player.

Nobody is happy with where we are but there is no magic bullet that anyone can see from a mile away except the guy we are paying a million a year.
(This post was last modified: 01-01-2025 02:57 PM by hooper.)
01-01-2025 02:32 PM
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hooper Offline
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Post: #84
RE: North Texas Mean Green
(01-01-2025 01:59 PM)UABFRENCHY Wrote:  RIGHT NOW ,we are playing for the AAC tournament
1) get a bye by finishing in the top 4
2 )better to finish 2 or 3 to avoid memphis until the final round and
3 ) win the damm thing
it was a good practice ,,,,

That was it from the time the schedule was announced. We could be sitting here 11-2 and not have a reasonable chance at an at large bid.

Yesterday's game proved we can play with the 2nd best team on their home court.

A 2 seed is probably not realistic. Hopefully a 3 is.
01-01-2025 02:36 PM
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UABFAN23 Offline
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Post: #85
RE: North Texas Mean Green
I don’t need a 20 and 6 point guard.

We want the most basic guy thatll make the right decisions. Set up his teammates. Those aren’t hard to find. They’re getting recruited out of the portal from low majors and D2 every year now. Find me the least athletic guy, that has great dribble skills and lateral quickness on defense. A guy that looks like he took the layup line seriously and rarely misses those. An 80% FT shooter. He doesn’t have to be The Guy, just a floor general.

We had ball movement when we peaked yesterday. Shouldn’t a coach notice when it’s no longer there and insist on getting back to it?
(This post was last modified: 01-01-2025 02:45 PM by UABFAN23.)
01-01-2025 02:43 PM
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jaymay2525 Offline
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Post: #86
RE: North Texas Mean Green
we need a squeaky, aaron johnson...eric gaines...passer and massive D
01-01-2025 03:02 PM
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blazers9911 Offline
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Post: #87
RE: North Texas Mean Green
Squeaky and AJ weren’t scorers when they came to UAB. Both became pretty decent at it, but they both ran the offense at a well above average level. Norton is probably the closest thing we’ve had since then, and he wasn’t on their level in my mind. You need your pg to set guys up. If he can score as well, that’s great, but it should be the secondary option.

This season will never be a success in my mind. We can get hot and win the conference tournament and a game or two in the big dance, and this is still a failed year. Our initial net ranking was well above 200 with a schedule that would embarrass ECU. I hope for the best going forward, but this season cannot be salvaged.
01-01-2025 03:06 PM
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hooper Offline
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Post: #88
RE: North Texas Mean Green
We passed the ball well yesterday. 13 assists to 7 for UNT.

4 guys with 3 or more assists. Too many turnovers but guys are trying to make things happen. 7 of our main 9 guys have positive assist to turnover ratios.

I still think we have the talent to win games despite not having one of our better past point guards.

But it took a few years for AJ to dominate. And Anderson somehow got Squeaky to walk on for a year in order to be eligible & play for 3 more.

Nowadays a lot of these guys will be picked up by bigger programs because for a lot of them the paycheck will be hard to resist even if they don't play as much or make as big an impact.
I expect bigger things from McGhee next year even if he is not squeaky or aj.
He is a combo guard. Nothing wrong with that.
Hopefully he stays for his final year. Or more if that juco thing is permanent.
01-01-2025 04:53 PM
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KevMo4UAB Offline
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Post: #89
RE: North Texas Mean Green
I was surprised how well UAB played in the first half, on the road. North Texas just doesn’t typically give up 48 points in a half. Four times this season they have given up 48 points or less in a whole game!

I’m not sure I saw both of Yaxel’s three-point attempts, but at least one was a brick.
(This post was last modified: 01-01-2025 06:00 PM by KevMo4UAB.)
01-01-2025 05:05 PM
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ATTALLABLAZE Offline
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Post: #90
RE: North Texas Mean Green
With a true pg even with our defensive liabilities, we are probably sitting here with only two losses at most imho. I agree with the sentiment of missing a true pg.

I am not down on AK. Just frustrated they didn’t get a true pg. as mentioned above we have one coming next year.
01-01-2025 08:54 PM
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UABFRENCHY Offline
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Post: #91
RE: North Texas Mean Green
(01-01-2025 08:54 PM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  With a true pg even with our defensive liabilities, we are probably sitting here with only two losses at most imho. I agree with the sentiment of missing a true pg.

I am not down on AK. Just frustrated they didn’t get a true pg. as mentioned above we have one coming next year.

I hope that he is coming to UAB
When he play in middle school , he never lost a game and in HS he won the State championship every year and this year they are undefeated
Also the big center who is going to TN is the son of an ex UAB basketball player
01-02-2025 12:49 PM
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UABrandon Offline
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Post: #92
RE: North Texas Mean Green
Salim is a combo guard and also let's hope Dewayne doesn't play much at Tenn so we can get him in the portal
01-02-2025 04:44 PM
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The Answer UAB Offline
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Post: #93
RE: North Texas Mean Green
McGhee is good. AAC level player. He isn't a true point guard to me. Still more of a combo guard.

Butta is good. AAC level player. He is definitely, without a doubt, not a point guard.

AJ is good. AAC level player. He is definitely, without a doubt, not a point guard.

Tyren Moore is pretty good, *I think*. His shooting has improved a lot lately. He still sucks on defense, though, so it may be a wash. But anyways, He is not a point guard. He's a Temu Jelly Walker.

EG started out as the sloppiest, lowest Basketball IQ player I'd ever seen at any level, but he miraculously turned into a heady, floor general type PG by the end of his second year. Until he did that, we did not have a PG on that team either. He started as what - a waifish combo guard who didn't fit the mold of a PG or a SG? Anyways, not a point guard - to start.

Jelly was not a PG, Ertel was not a PG, Quan was not a PG. Jamal was not a PG, Justin Brown was not a point guard. Was Locure a point guard?? He played about 2-3 months for that team, and was still more of a score-first, shoot-first guard.

AK HAS to stop trying the committee approach with guards and just hoping we can get 2-3 guys who can run an offense decently enough. That obviously hasn't worked. Our half court offense is disjointed, sloppy, and way too reliant on one-on-one drives to the basket when things break down. What is our "go to" play? What can we go to when we HAVE to get a bucket? Is it a Yax post up? Is it a Butta 3 off a curl screen? Is it a one on one dribble drive from AJ from the 3 point line? Is it a jumper or a drive to the basket from CC from no man's land outside the paint? When does our offense actually look functional? It's rare. A true point guard would help immensely in that respect.

And you guys quoting the shooting %'s for Butta, AJ, and Moore - my retort to that would be: they still aren't consistent, knock down, RELIABLE shooters. They have decent %s on the season now, but all started abysmally bad. How much of their production from the 3-point line has come recently, against some of the worst teams in d1? Said another way, what is their "schedule adjusted" three point percentage? I don't disagree they are all pretty good shooters, but they aren't reliable, consistent, knock down shooters to me. I THOUGHT Butta fit that mold, but he's been in a season long slump, which is extending to almost a full 3rd of his college career at this point.

PGs and knock down shooters are two places that AK has failed mightily in recruiting. He's brought in raw talent and athleticism, but low IQ, soft, sloppy players that don't fit specific positions. Soft, sloppy, low basketball IQ Especially fits this group.

===============================================================================================================

We aren't a team. We are a disparate, disjointed, hodgepodge of good parts. AK has done a terrible job and fitting those parts together this year. I *think* AK is better than Davis, and Haase. He would have to really tank to be worse than Ehsan. But what has really thrown me off about this year is that AK has shown a floor that I did not think existed with a coach of his level. I never in a million years thought we would be THIS bad with a group this good, outside of multiple catastrophic injuries. That worries me for the future.

And I don't think he's done enough to be infallible at this point, as a lot of ya'll do. This team and both of Jelly's teams had the rosters to be top 25, at large bid, regular season championship winning teams. None of those teams have sniffed any of those things. We also haven't won any tournament games in 4 years. It is not trending to look like we will this year either. We have only won conference tournaments bc we've gotten insanely easy draws.

2022 - we avoided UNT, a team that beat us twice and was clearly better. Did our best to lose to an MTSU game we had beaten by 30 points a few weeks prior, which would have made the matchup with La Tech (who we had already beaten twice) null and void.
2024 - we avoided FAU and Memphis, and also avoided Charlotte, SMU, and UNT. Yes we beat USF - but if you are being honest with yourself - who would you have rather played? USF the regular season champ, or FAU the 2023 Final Four participant or Memphis - the team with top 10 talent who had recently outscored us by 40+ in about 20 minutes of basketball?

Long winded way of saying I'm not completely out on AK, but this year has taken a TON of the shine off of him. He's shown a floor that I didn't think was possible, outside of injury. He's shown that he can fail with good talent, good experience, and a good roster.
(This post was last modified: 01-02-2025 05:15 PM by The Answer UAB.)
01-02-2025 05:02 PM
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blazers9911 Offline
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Post: #94
RE: North Texas Mean Green
I wish we would stop downplaying the conference tournament wins. We played the games in front of us. It’s not our fault the teams that you think were better were eliminated first. We also beat both Memphis and FAU last season, it wasn’t like we stood no chance against those teams.

I can live with the hate on the main board, because whatever, but why are we crapping on our own achievements?
01-02-2025 06:12 PM
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UABFAN23 Offline
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Post: #95
RE: North Texas Mean Green
Because winning the tournament is a last resort, salvage the season opportunity. It doesn’t have the “we belong” feel like earning an at-large bid and winning the regular season title

HOWEVER, I don’t care how you make the NCAA tournament as long as you get there. That’s the goal. Can’t win a natty if you aren’t in that tournament to begin with.
(This post was last modified: 01-02-2025 06:27 PM by UABFAN23.)
01-02-2025 06:23 PM
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The Answer UAB Offline
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Post: #96
RE: North Texas Mean Green
(01-02-2025 06:12 PM)blazers9911 Wrote:  I wish we would stop downplaying the conference tournament wins. We played the games in front of us. It’s not our fault the teams that you think were better were eliminated first. We also beat both Memphis and FAU last season, it wasn’t like we stood no chance against those teams.

I can live with the hate on the main board, because whatever, but why are we crapping on our own achievements?

I only say that bc people act like everything is OK bc AK has won some games in march. If you take away those wins late in the season, he’s pretty much underperformed in every other aspect. I’m just providing context that some of those wins aren’t as impressive as some would like to think, and they certainly don’t absolve him from his other short comings.
01-02-2025 06:25 PM
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The Answer UAB Offline
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Post: #97
RE: North Texas Mean Green
(01-02-2025 06:23 PM)UABFAN23 Wrote:  Because winning the tournament is a last resort, salvage the season opportunity. It doesn’t have the “we belong” feel like earning an at-large bid and winning the regular season title

This.
01-02-2025 06:26 PM
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The Answer UAB Offline
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Post: #98
RE: North Texas Mean Green
Winning 2-3 games in march and having miraculous late season turnarounds doesn’t absolve the team of all of its previous shortcomings. And late season Miracles wouldn’t be necessary if he had the team ready to play in November, rather than February.
01-02-2025 06:28 PM
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ATTALLABLAZE Offline
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Post: #99
RE: North Texas Mean Green
I don't think anyone is happy with our performances thus far. I don't think anyone disagrees we could have done better prior to post season in previous seasons. I think the rub is the extreme negativity and "some" people being so negative they act like they wish AK wasn't our coach anymore. (Some may secretly wish that, IDK) Not saying that is the case but that is the perception. We can all see the shortcomings and I'll even gripe from time to time but some of it constantly is over the top. It's a prime reason I rarely look at game threads because it is so over the top, it's damn near nauseating but that is a good place to release frustration I guess. What do some of you wish we would do? What is the end came to the constant bitching? Will it make us play batter? Will it make the folks that read this board make a coaching change? What is the end game?

I just hope we figure out how to close out games and make a late run. I wish we were slitting here with one loss, but if I complain about the same things over and over on damn near every basketball thread, it makes no difference and would make me miserable to be around. In stead, I'll go to the games and cheer our guys on and hope we get better and hope we make improvements in the off season to better our personnel where we are deficient. I'll enjoy the wins, and be upset over the losses but I'll move on to the next game.

Maybe Yax & Coleman will want another year and AK can get a Power conference job by bringing those two and Mark can make a home run hire like he did for football to replace him. I'm sure there is a former NBA player out there somewhere that would like to try his hand in coaching.
(This post was last modified: 01-02-2025 09:15 PM by ATTALLABLAZE.)
01-02-2025 09:12 PM
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The Answer UAB Offline
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Post: #100
RE: North Texas Mean Green
Good points.

Serious question - what power conference team would want AK after the abject failure this season has been? What would be the appeal of AK? Maybe he could get more talented players to continue to underperform at a bigger school?
01-02-2025 09:33 PM
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