I know I don’t post much anymore. This blog, for a long time, was a venue for me to communicate with all my DFW friends. That isn’t really necessary anymore since I see them regularly…
All that is going on right now is work, keys, and [about to start] March Madness.
Work is same old. Still under Marc. I got a great review and am getting a nice bonus later (which will go straight to debt :/), but I also f up a lot. At least I feel comfortable with my job security.
I started taking jazz lessons. We’ll see how that goes.
Coach Jones has UNT Men’s basketball rolling. With no dominating presence inside, or a true pass-oriented point guard, JJ has found a chemistry that takes advantage of our better-than-the-Belt depth, and amazing free throw shooting (we lead the country in percentage, and were something like 32-37 from the line today?)
Anyways, we are the 4 seed in the Belt tourney, and have taken care of our first two opponents already. Tomorrow is our biggest test with #1 seed Western Kentucky. They will be a tall order, but we are playing well enough to do it. The HillToppers (don’t laugh, they are a storied program) are very leery of us: we led them for 38 minutes in their house earlier this year before blowing it and giving them the win. A lot of professional opinion out there has UNT as the sleeper to win this thing and go back to the NCAA Tourney. Here’s my take on tomorrow’s matchup. The game is on ESPN+, and I might be going to the Fox and Hound in Lewisville which has a room reserved for us. Tip-off is 6:30. The official Sun Belt site has the entire event (except the final on ESPN2) streaming live via their site. I warn you: the stream is provided by JumpTV and is, well, jumpy. Freezes about every 30 - 45 seconds.
If I’m playing UNT, I’m going to game plan very similar to what MTSU did: aggressive when they attack the lanes, hope for fouls, and put our depth to the test with foul trouble. Interestingly enough, I don’t know if there is a team left in the tourney that could do it as well as MTSU. What WKU brings to the table, off my vague memory, is a different set of skills (great guard play, good ball motion, but not as big?)
We were great today because of several things, but what stood out to me was that MUTS shots were not falling and our backups really stepped up big time when Odufuwa and Trameil had to sit. We will definitely need the latter as this tourney plays out. I just can’t overstate how fortunate we are to have the depth that we possess and the free throw shooting our guards and big men BOTH have.
I don’t really know much about WKU, except to see solid play from them. I don’t know if they’ve ever “folded” in a game? Well coached.
We have to hope their shots don’t fall and one guy does not heat up.
Our guards did really well today getting into the lanes but I wish they can draw more fouls. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the refs were calling the game in the MUTS favor early on, which put George and Eric in the positions they were in: on the bench.
I’m also ready for Adam to get back into the groove that we saw the last 3 - 4 games of the regular season. He just disappeared again! Does anybody else revel in the though of having this kind of production: Odu/Tram combine for appx 15 points and 20 boards, Josh hits his usual 20, TT gets 12 - 15, and McCoy gets 15 - 18? I imagine that kind of performance would free up DJ and Dennis to roam the floor at will, and we would kill anyone in the league.
man I am just full of shit incredible coach speak today!
