BigWillie

NIL would beg to differ. Not sure what sport you played has anything to do with Stone's play, but I am sure you will tell me.

Hahahaha, this is awesome.

It's kinda like when your Dad expects more out of you because he sees the potential. Does that sound familiar?

Umm the stats would argue otherwise. PPG against a better conference dropped a little but still top 10 nationally. Where is Tech? I think we will be very close to 20 wins, so sounds like to your standards this is close to meeting expectations. I will agree that Hodge is not as animated as Grant. And I think he toned that down some because I remember last season he was in kids' faces as much as Grant. Your last point is what I have been saying for a few weeks now. Grant was 20-18 and CBI champ in his first year. We definitely have the opportunity to be pretty close to that.

This is it right here. I think others have already pointed out the drop off TP has had against higher level competition this season. Don't get me wrong. He is still a baller, and has hit some clutch shots in some games, but IMO he isn't as dominant as he was against the CUSA.

Ding ding ding.

I look at it differently. Grant inherited a pretty bad program and I will say, yes, that effected recruiting, but in defense of Hodge, he lost most of the offense from last year and was able to replace a good part of that with a couple of players. I think JE replaces TP and CJ replaces Kai. Both to a certain extent. I also see that Grant went 20-18 in his first season. We are on track to be similar. Against mostly better competition. I think that counts for something. Lastly, there have been numerous opportunities in the last minutes of close games where the plays are there, but the players just don't execute. I won't belabor the point of losing the clutch of TP, but it can't be understated here. Most of the items you are saying are head coach related, other than maybe set plays sound to me like lack of execution. Not lack of plan. In fact, I would say with the talent we have, the game plan has kept us toe to toe with some good teams.

Not at all, we have been in pretty much every game we lost. It has been said on here mutiple times, we are missing a closer. It does really come down to execution for these close games. The coach has put the players in the position to win games IMO. And really, when you are that close, in your first year as head coach, I feel pretty good about that situation. We have just gotten used to winning and that is a good thing, but if we look back at Grant's first year he was almost .500 at 20-18. We won the CBI, and look how that turned out. See above.

Are you saying it is harder to get into the NIT than the NCAA tournament?

Weren't you ranked last season in the top 3? How'd that work out?

Hey, a championship is a championship. Banners fly for making the tournament, so I mean, if that's what you are after, there's a lot of teams that do it. You can say what you want, but I would take a trophy over a banner right now. Keep chasing the dream though....

Doesn't bode well for us, and after tonight, I would agree. We need to stop thinking about the NCAA tournament and focus on trying to be B2B Champs for NIT. This team is just not good enough to make it to the NCAA, much less get passed the first round.

This is my thing too. When we lost other games, it made sense. Injuries, etc. Today, as stated already, 0 excuses to lose to a team AT HOME who has a NET in the 260s. Really lost on this team now. Not sure what's going to happen. I felt good about making a run in the NIT, but today even changed that....

I wish I could upvote this 100000%

I have to agree with this. As a green glasses guy, I would make excuses that Rubin and CJ were rusty, but it's BS. At this point, there is 0.... ZERO excuse we lose to UTSA on our home court when we are fully healthy.

Just par for the course on the football side. Come on over to basketball! Much more exciting team and play. Team and coaches that just get it done. Right now a little injured, but just about to get exciting with injuries clearing up.

As much as I loved TP, Edwards is a better pure scorer. Probably not as good at clutch or assists yet, but he is also a sophomore.... In other words, I think Edwards could be better.

Sorry, I see how that read, I meant to say our remaining schedule.

Outside of maybe a pissed off ECU and FAU, our schedule is easy. If we could pull off the win against FAU at home, we could go into the tournament on a 5 game winning streak.

Wow dude, I haven't checked, but I trust this is accurate. If so, it's kinda crazy to think what this team really can do at full strength when they have played enough together.

Yeah, I can't hold someone's voice against them when it comes to broadcasting. Obviously they can't help that. I can't say DJ is my favorite, he is OK, but with Youmans, he does offer some knowledge to the broadcast and the enthusiasm is part of many broadcasters for basketball. As stated before, Mark Followill is one of those enthusiastic broadcasters for the Mavs and I love it. It's like watching it with another fan. I guess it's preference, much like golf, no matter if the content is A+, if you are speaking monotone, it puts me to sleep. Maybe that is conversational, I don't know.

Sure. Let's go with that.

At this point I don't think we even bring them back until maybe FAU at the earliest. What do we realistically have to play for until the tournament?

See my question above.