GMG_Dallas

As I remember it, Grant's teams scored a lot his first several seasons here but the defense wasn't as good. I really don't like comparing their tenures. Grant took over after Benford. Ross took over an NIT championship team that won 31.

Would be a beautiful way for a college career to end. Back where it started where you lost your job. Ousmane hasn't changed in the foul department. In their Big 12 tourney loss, he fouled out in 9 minutes.

My avatar was blank until a mod put a photo several years ago. I don't know how to change it nor do I care to. What are the "football ways"? Glass half empty? No. Just living in reality. We dropped 80+ 4 times this year: against NET #257 Evansville, Wayland Baptist, #364 Mississippi Valley, and #204 Rice. Yes, yes, efficiency is not the same. I get it. Consider the opponents we played and the numbers we put up and it's no surprise we couldn't beat the best teams we played. We may have been efficient on paper, that doesn't make us a great offense. Good? Sure. I think we'd all prefer great. Arkansas State is #71 on that list, just 6 spots better than us. They've scored 100+ against D1 opponents twice this season, including yesterday, and put up 98 against UAB, 85 against Memphis, and in the 90s a few other times. 71 vs 77 in offensive efficiency though. Fair statement. I think we can all agree sometimes things may look good on paper but just don't pass the eye test. I'm a Cowboys fan. Anybody who follows the NFL can tell you the Cowboys may have won 12+ games 3 straight seasons but those who watched all knew the record and statistical numbers were misleading. Same here.

Our strength of schedule is also pretty weak. Our SOS going by opponent NET rankings is 140 total and 119 in OOC games. https://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2025/sos-net Should I really be impressed by a 77th ranked offensive efficiency against the competition we played?

I think Wren could point to Grant at Texas Tech and sell the donors on Hodge following a similar trajectory.

UNC missed it in 2023 when they went 20-13 and 11-9 in conference play but 1-9 in Quad 1 and 6-4 in Quad 2. They declined an NIT bid because they think they're above that. My opinion, they got in this year because they threw a tantrum in 2023. They don't deserve to be in. Texas didn't have a great year but I believe they have 7 Quad 1 wins which is hard to ignore. If anybody should be mad about being snubbed this year, it's Boise State. They went 3-6 in Quad 1 and 5-2 in Quad 2.

Had a 42 point 14 rebound game his rookie year and 27 point 9 rebound 8 assists in a game last year, both for Grizzlies. Doesn't seem to get many opportunities though. My only guess is his size combined with playing style isn't what the NBA wants right now.

NIL isn't everything. Example: "But Calhoun’s loyalty comes with higher expectations. With USU making the move to the Pac-12 in 2026, he wants his salary in the top four of the league. He expects his assistant coaching pool to mirror that. He also wants his NIL budget to be in the top four. Right now, it sits at sixth in the Mountain West. USU has roughly $700,000 to $800,000 a year, he said. But that is significantly behind San Diego State, which can run from $2 to $4 million, he said." Salt Lake Tribune: https://www.sltrib.com/sports/utah-state-sports/2025/03/15/jerrod-calhoun-wants-long-term/

And with a NET of 39. Key is they played a strong OOC with very good wins so the Quad 3 and 4 losses in conference didn't matter.

Teams all over the NET get in every year. Your chances are better in the 40s than 60s where we are now. Had we not dropped those games, we'd likely have finished in the 30s with a better resume than we had at 38 a few years back when we were in CUSA.

Yes they wanted brands, however their website specifically states the Big East, Big 12, and Big 10 each get 2 bids. Then an at-large process fills in the rest but as you can see from the bracket, 11 of 16 are from those 3 conferences. Three are then from the new PAC, making me think there may be a PAC/Fox deal set to be announced. I agree, our leadership should make a push to join that conference out west...

I'd take him. His height might be what deters bigger programs but if he wants to come and be Perry 2.0, I'm here for it. I do like Brumaugh from Tulane but he'll likely be out of price range.

On the broadcast, they panned over to him several times while on the bench. Sock and shoe were off and he was receiving treatment. Temple game was not meaningless. Losing to UAB once is fine. Twice can't happen when you're trying to make the NCAA tournament. Prior to the UTSA loss, our NET was 45. For comparison, Memphis is currently at 49. Only two schools in the 40s who didn't make the tournament are 44 Boise State and 46 SMU. We had a chance and blew it. None of those losses were meaningless.

I also noticed 3 future PAC schools in Boise State, Washington State, and Oregon State. Wonder if the new PAC will have a Fox TV deal. Certainly an opportunity for them to showcase their new conference.

No buy-in that I've seen. The priority is schools from conferences with Fox TV deals as Fox put together the tourney. Basically they want their product on TV as much as possible and will pay for it. Most of the schools who received bid invites are from those P6 conferences with Fox TV deals being the Big 10, Big 12, and Big East.

So is our hope to be where we were 2 years ago or to make progress on a yearly basis? We promoted Hodge to keep the same upward momentum, not to stay stagnant. Had 2023 not happened, my expectations would be different. Were we anytime around the Benford era, my expectations would be different. We've been fairly successful for 8 seasons now. It's time for a breakthrough.

You're right. I really expected to lose to UTSA, Temple without their leading scorer, and UAB with an injured star player coming off 40 minutes the night before. Record is meaningless if it's against a weak schedule.

I may be off a bit but Utah State lost their number 1, 3 and 5 leading scorers and more to the portal and lost their HC to Washington (leading scorer followed him there). They still went 26-7 and made the NCAA tourney with a new head coach.

Why should my expectations be any lower? Every team is dealing with the portal and loses players to graduation. Other than Memphis, our schedule did not have a single team with top to bottom better talent than us. I'm not saying that in hindsight. I looked at what we had coming in and felt very good about the transfers. Lorient was the only surprise and Newell didn't meet my expectations so I guess that's a wash. We had a weak schedule and underachieved. It is what it is.

My expectations were to make the conference championship finals and hopefully make the NCAA tournament. Every single team is dealing with transfers and graduations. If they can make it work, so can we.

I've read multiple fan boards where it says the payout is $500,000 for the winning team. This blog says $500,000 to be split evenly amongst all players on the team so about $40,000 per player? https://voiceofmotown.com/west-virginia-expected-to-play-in-new-tournament-the-crown/

No clue about who sends invites first. All I know is conferences with Fox TV contracts get priority for Crown invites as the games are to be televised on Fox.

As a fan, the home games are cool but I'd rather get a chance to win NIL money to reward the current players. I think future recruits would be intrigued by that as well.

Just made a thread about this before seeing this comment. Mods, feel free to merge the two or delete mine. I also would have preferred the Crown. Bigger names and the winning team will get NIL money to give their players.

Which tournament would you have preferred to be in? The Crown is pushing for exposure and the winning team will get NIL money for their players but no home games. The NIT gets home games but that's about it. Brackets below: