Month: December 2014

My undeniable man crush on Rylan Murry

acroth86 College Basketball , , ,

Don’t make it weird…I just hope to not get a restraining order…

Growing up in Omaha, I grew up on Creighton basketball, but the love for Creighton has died…don’t worry I’m going to get to the reasons on this another day.  Let it be known, I still respect the Creighton basketball program itself…

Anyway, Kyle Korver was my favorite.  Something about players from Iowa always got me.  Both of my parents are Iowa born, so maybe it’s just something I’m genetically predisposed to.  Honestly, I hope that’s the only thing I’ve inherited through Iowan genes.  Korver wasn’t just a shooter with great hair, he was a leader, and he was clutch.  He wasn’t someone to just hang out behind the arch and wait for the pass to come to him, he moved (and still moves) so well without the ball.  In 2003, the Bluejays won the Missouri Valley Conference championship game behind Korver who had 12 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists.  So yeah, he wasn’t just a shooter.

Sure there was Terrell Taylor and Rodney Buford as big names for the Bluejays in the late 90s and early 2000s, but no one stuck out like Korver.  He got the ball rolling for the Bluejays to get national attention. His ridiculously good shooting got the Jays on the ESPN highlight reels, posters still hang of him in the CenturyLink Center, an arena he never even played in.  His Creighton team his junior year, literally had no seniors, they won the Missouri Valley, and Korver (and Taylor) led the Bluejays to a double overtime win over freaking Florida.

I met Kyle Korver once.  My wife and I moved to Ogden, Utah and shortly after we heard about a dodgeball tournament put on by former Jazz players Deron Williams, Korver, Wesley Matthews, and someone else I do not recall.  My wife and I showed up just in time for the autograph line.  We got in line, and I was like, we’re actually going to get to meet Kyle Korver?  I thought we were just going to watch them play dodgeball, not actually meet these guys.  So we’re in line for like 20-30 minutes.  I see Korver’s wife, his brother Klayton, who people joke looks like Tom Brady, and also I think I was the only one in the entire place who knew Klayton Korver was a former Drake Bulldog.  Anyway, my wife and I pass Wesley Matthews and Deron Williams, who cares about them?  Korver is last, he sees my Creighton shirt, and I am speechless.  It’s Kyle freaking Korver.  He tries to make small talk, but I’m too weird.  I just stand there like Garth Algar meeting Alice Cooper.  After a minute, Korver is pretty weirded out I think and just pulls out a photograph of himself and autographs it.  My wife asks if we could get a picture, that picture doesn’t happen without my wife there, if she wasn’t there I probably would’ve just walked off in shock.  I have that autographed photo framed, with the dodgeball bracelet to show off that I was there.  I think my wife is worried sometimes about how much I like Kyle Korver.  Like when the Hawks are on, which is basically never, and she tries to talk to me and I can barely hold a conversation.  Kyle Korver is on tv, he’s going to do something, everyone shut up.

Anyway, my wife and I move back from Utah after a while, we moved back in March.  I’m checking up on the Mavericks recruiting, there was very little out there on what they were doing.  Many of the recruiting sites still didn’t recognize them as a division one team yet.  At first, I thought maybe Mitchell Farr might turn out to be a good player, but he leaves after his freshman year.  I don’t remember fully what all the stats were, but I remember looking at his stats and compared what he did against UNO’s D-1 opponents versus non-D-1 opponents.  He shot like 25% from the floor against D-1 opponents and even worse from behind the arch.  CJ Carter had pretty decent stats as a freshman, so I was feeling alright about him, but still overall I wasn’t too sure what the Mavericks were doing for recruiting.  I was worried that they may never get anyone good, and especially no one decent with some height.  I think I was living in fear that in 2015-2016 the Mavs center would be 6’2″.  They’d be one hella good Intramurals team.

There wasn’t much out there on their first full recruiting class as far as highlight reels or news articles.  When one of my friends asked what I thought the Mavericks would do, if they would ever be good, I was like – well hopefully we can pick up some transfers from Missouri Valley schools, bigger conferences, and maybe we’ll start getting all those deadly three point shooters from Iowa that not a lot of people recruit too heavily.  They’ll be okay in a few years I think.

I actually don’t pay that much attention to recruiting sites, I think they’re pretty dumb.  Seems most of it is based on athleticism and, per Tom Osborne, who these players’ parents can get to write articles about them.  Five stars, 3 stars, who gives a crap?  Was Doug McDermott really a 3 star athlete?  How about Damien Lillard, was he only worth 2 stars?  Blake Griffin was the 6th rated power forward coming out of high school.  I think the top 10 players are pretty accurate, but then after that it becomes a bit of a guessing game.  I was watching an old Big East game a few years ago between Syracuse and Georgetown, everyone on the court was a 4 or 5 star athlete and the game was nothing but banked threes, missed dunks, and turnovers.  Great game.

So in August of 2012, I’m checking the Omaha World Herald and there is an article on UNO’s newest basketball recruit named Rylan Murry.  The article lists him as a 6’8″ stretch four from some place called West Branch, Iowa…which I assume is a made up place.  He is compared to Alex Welhouse, who at the time was believed to be UNO’s best returning player.  I watch his highlight reels, yeah he can totally hit the 3.  I think to myself is he UNO’s version of Korver, is this the stretch 4 from small town Iowa I was thinking UNO could finally get some day, someone to bring attention to UNO?  I’ve learned not to compare players like that.  Everyone in Omaha wanted to compare Kaleb Korver to his older brother, they weren’t the same player, not even the same position, but everyone hoped for Kyle 2.0.  I went to the UNO-UMKC game in Kansas City in 2013 when the youngest Korver, Kirk, played for UMKC.  Kirk made a free throw and an Omaha fan shouts out “you’re still not as good as your brother.”  Kirk Korver’s facial expression changed instantly, you could tell he was negatively affected by it, he wanted to jack up threes after that to show that fan wrong, but he couldn’t do it.

I don’t want to claim that Rylan Murry will be the UNO Korver, but I admit I was hopeful for it at first.  Let me just throw this out there:

Kyle Korver’s first 9 games played at Creighton-

52 points (5.8 ppg), 21 rebounds, 9 assists, 4 steals, 38% from the field, 11 threes, 31% on threes

Rylan Murry’s first 9 games played at UNO-

65 points (7.2 ppg), 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 2 blocks, 54% from the field, 11 threes, 46% on threes

So let’s just say there is a chance to build on the resume….Also in a stats class at UNO I learned how to compare athletes at different levels and see what their comparable worth was.  I thought to myself, I’d never need that to work in Marketing, no sense in keeping this skill in my head.

Anyway, I started looking at Murry’s highlight reels, and I’m thinking this guy can play, this could be UNO’s first legitimate D-1 recruit, but what does that mean?  Keep in mind, at this time, I didn’t know if we should classify CJ Carter as a D-1 recruit because he didn’t have any other D-1 offers (though I’ve heard many rumors that he had an offer to Wichita State), Marcus Tyus had yet to play a game and didn’t have any other D-1 offers reported on the interwebs, Justin Simmons and Alex Phillips had also yet to play a game, but they were only going to be at UNO for 2 seasons.  Murry picked UNO over Central Michigan and South Dakota, so it was like, someone actually picked UNO over someone else.  It was a new feeling for sure.

Then it turns out he is selected All-State in Iowa.  I think there is more merit being all-state in Iowa in basketball as compared to Nebraska.  It’s a bigger talent pool in Iowa for basketball.  Not saying that guys like Josh Dotzler, Antoine Young, Akoy Agau, Tre’Shawn Thurman, or Khyri Thomas would never be able to be All State in Iowa, they certainly would be.  Historically Iowa’s high school talent pool is filled with:  Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison, Doug McDermott, Harrison Barnes, Kyle Korver, Ricky Davis, Fred Hoiberg, and Raef LaFrentz.  Nebraska’s is basically just Erick Strickl and Bob Boozer.  Boozer, Omaha named a street after Bob Boozer, the most worthless street in the entire city.  My wife was a D-1 softball player at Belmont, she is from the Pacific Northwest, basically a mecca for softball recruiting.  Some of the girls on Belmont’s roster were All State in softball in Tennessee and she claimed that those girls wouldn’t have been on the JV team at her high school.  I don’t really know where I was going with this, I think I just wanted to brag about my wife.  Something about states having bigger talent pools…

At this point, I started following all of UNO’s potential recruits on twitter to see if they would say anything about where they would go to college.  I quickly learned to not do that.  Aside from it being slightly creepy, do you you know what high school dudes talk about?  They talk about stuff that a guy in his mid-20s doesn’t care about.  Math is stupid, girls don’t get you, we get that you go to the gym, and yes Kevin Durant is freaking sweet but thanks for filling us in.  Rylan Murry is tweeting sarcastic insults at people he knows, how good at golf he is, pokemon is cool (haha), constant video gaming, and claiming he is a hipster.  A hipster basketball player?  Is this the world’s first?  I don’t know how true of a hipster you can be AND be a division one athlete, but it kind of makes sense for Murry I suppose.  When he’s on the court the other Mavs are playing to the rhythm of Eminem’s “The Way I am,” and Murry is asking if they can turn it to “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver, or any one of the 25 different artists that have done that song.  Is The Way I am still cool?  I’m not into rap.  

Part of me is surprised that Murry didn’t try and stay in Seattle when the Mavs played there.  The Pacific Northwest is a hipster’s paradise.  My work has an office in downtown Portland, and I was walking to work while I was there and I walked by a camp gear shop in which ALL the camp gear was designed in plaid.  If that’s not hipster, I’m not sure if I have the correct definition of hipster.  I have hipster friends, so I wouldn’t be too surprised to run into Murry at Legend’s comic book/coffee shop near UNO’s campus trading pokemon cards and trying to get in on the next Dungeons and Dragons contest.  This may sound like I’m making fun of Rylan Murry, but I’m not, I think it’s bad ass.

When the 2013-2014 season started, I see that Murry wasn’t going to be playing.  Okay, makes sense, lets have him for three years of eligibility instead of just two years, I was thinking.  We’ve got Karhoff, Hagerbaumer, Rostampour, and Krych to weather this storm of ineligibility.  I’d watch his shots in warm ups and could see he could clearly shoot, handle the ball a little even.  We’ll have that 6’7″ kid from Iowa next year who can shoot the three, that should help.

At the start of the 2014-2015 season, I see Rylan Murry sitting toward the end of the bench.  I felt like I was shot down, like, oh maybe he is a bust.  I’m wrong, what the hell do I know about anything in this crazy world…I went all hipster.  I’ve realized it too, I’ve paid so much attention to Rylan Murry that I’ve become the world’s worst uncle.  Murry finally gets on the court and my friend instantly says, “who is this kid, he looks goofy.”  Yeah, he kind of sticks out, like maybe he’s the team’s accountant, cashier, or they picked him up from the mail room.  I become defensive, like I am actually this kid’s relative, just watch man, he’ll do something cool, like that little Asian guy sitting in the corner of the mafia brawl.  That’s a Simpsons reference.  When Tre’Shawn Thurman committed to UNO, I instantly wondered if he and Rylan Murry would get along, that’s how odd I’ve become.

By the way, have you ever seen that old SNL sketch with Martin Lawrence as the 12th man for the New Jersey Nets?  I think I’m one of six people that have seen it and remember it.  He’s at the end of the bench and he’s talking about how he never gets in, he has a portable television that he watches other games on, eats a bucket of fried chicken, and tries to talk to the new 11th man on how to deal with the end of the bench.  I was hoping that’s not what Murry would become, like we’d look and see him in his Rivers Cuomo glasses trying to trade pokemon cards, bragging about how he just won some new pogs with his freaking sweet slammer, playing a game on his Nintendo DS, and eating a burrito.  Actually when I think about it, being the 12th man doesn’t sound all that bad.

Murry picks up a few fouls, hey man, you’re making me look like a fool.  A few plays later, he gets the ball and just drains a three.   My friend begins to pay attention.  Time goes buy, and we’re also sitting with this guy who is huge into Nebraska high school basketball and he’s talking about how there are some kids from Nebraska that should be on UNO instead of “number eleven.”  About ten seconds later, Murry knocks down another three.  Was he listening?  Let’s just keep talking crap about Rylan Murry, he’ll hit like five threes a game.

So what do we have here?  A 6’7″ guy that shoot threes, not every team has that, but they exist.  We’ll just stuff him in the corner, and a driving Carter or Patterson will kick it out to him for an open three.  That’s worth six points a game.  I was kind of thinking that’s what Murry was going to be as a freshman, just someone who was going to take 95% of his shots as threes, kind of a bigger version of Kaleb Korver.  Then I’m watching Omaha play Nebraska, and Murry is about 15 feet away from the basket and recognizes he has space to the lane, and puts the ball to the court and gets a running floater over Shavon Shields (if memory serves me correctly).  Wait, what did he just do?  Then against Nevada, he puts the ball to the floor a few times and goes to the basket, makes some unexpected passes.  Can this guy do a little bit of everything offensively?  Do we really have two 6’7″ freshmen that can shoot the three and drive to the basket?  More offensive moves will come (for him, Thurman, Meyer, and Newsome), more rebounding will come, and the threes will continue.  He has claimed to be “cash” from three.  Is that new lingo?  Is “The Cashier” an appropriate nick name?

Hoping that Rylan Murry is going to be the UNO Korver, the Iowan shooter that will take us to the next level may be much, and I certainly don’t want to put that pressure on a person.  I do hope he continues to work, make big time threes, and has a successful career as a UNO Maverick.  Along with the Thurman, Meyer, and Newsome, he’s a smart player.  None of them are the guys you see on television missing dunks, dribbling the ball out of bounds off their knee, they’ll all be playing within themselves and not trying to do too freaking much to look cool.

A few notes about UNC…no, no, not that UNC

acroth86 College Basketball

Northern Colorado RPI – 259, UNO – 303

  • So it’s finals week at UNO…
  • Still not entirely sure what’s going on with this bench.  Although, I’m sure it has been difficult to figure out a rotation with and without Jake White available.
  • Jake White is back, he shot 2-8 against Kansas City and that’s less than ideal, but what coach doesn’t want 11 boards a game from a guy?
  • UNO is 3-0 at home.  UNC is 0-4 on the road (one of those losses is to undefeated Colorado State…CSU is really 10-0).
  • There is not much of a post game for UNC, they only have two guys that are 6’8″ or bigger that get any playing time.  That’s what is most important in basketball, right?  Being taller, so you can be closer to the basket?
  • UNC is not really that great of a rebounding team.  They average 31 boards a game, only one player grabs more than 4 rebounds a game.  UNO has 4 guys that average 4 or more (White – 11, Rostampour – 7.6, Thurman – 5.1, Patterson – 4)
  • UNC turns the ball over only 9 times a game, compared to UNO’s 15 turnovers a game…ehhhh
  • UNC is also a better all around shooting team, percentage wise.  So what are you trying to say, you think you’re better than me?
  • This is a homecoming for UNC’s Dwight Smith.  Smith graduated from Ralston, probably the first and last Ralston guy to play a collegiate game at the Ralston Arena.  Not even going to look that up, just going to roll with it.  Smith started his career at Colorado State before transferring over the summer, UNO was one of his possible destinations to travel to.
  • Omaha Benson grad Riak Bol also committed to UNC, but apparently isn’t on the roster.
  • UNC is pretty big at the wing position, big wings have hurt UNO in the past.  Maybe this means more playing time for Randy Reed at the wing position to guard against that.
  • UNC doesn’t really seem to have a set rotation, players have been in and out of the starting line up.
  • If the Mavs run into foul trouble (again), it will create a challenge, but Meyer, Murry, Newsome,  Reed, and Smallwood all capable against UNC.
  • The only team UNO has played in the Big Sky since transition is North Dakota, who they’ve gone 2-0 against.  Didn’t North Dakota make it to the Big Sky championship game last year?  I don’t have much respect for the Big Sky.  I used to work at Weber State (probably the Sky’s best basketball program).  Some of their players would sneek their way onto Intramural teams, and the players never really stood out in the rough and tough Intramural leagues of Ogden, Utah…by the way, Weber State has a senior, James Hajek, who played at Omaha Skutt, and their head coach, Randy Rahe, is from Iowa…why couldn’t we get Weber State to come to Omaha?  I know like 3 people that would travel for that game.  And if the Mavs have to go to Ogden the following year, there is a place near campus with the best nachos I’ve ever had.

Some milestone notes

  • CJ Carter is 12 points away from passing John Karhoff for most points by any player since transition.  Carter is/was the first (and only so far) 4 year starter since the transition, so it’s not a surprise for him to be number one.
  • Tre’Shawn Thurman’s 4 steals vs. UMKC was the most by any freshman since the transition (not trying to downplay it, but the only freshmen UNO has had before this year have been: Carter, Farr, Tyus, Krych, and Bradley).

 

The effect of a guy named Nitro Rostampour

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Before the 2012-2013 season the UNO Mavericks men’s basketball team picked up a walk on transfer from St. Cloud State named Mike Rostampour, and no one really thought anything of it.

Nitro Rostampour is working out in the Sapp Fieldhouse when John Karhoff walks in.

John Karhoff:  The name’s Karhoff.

Nitro Rostampour: Uh…Nitro, hi.

John Karhoff:  Interesting nickname, what’s your real name?

Nitro Rostampour:  Nitro…I’m working on a nickname, though.

John Karhoff:  Oh yeah?

Nitro Rostampour:  Yeah.  Listen to this……Mike.

That’s probably not exactly how it happened, but I’m sure it’s pretty darn close.  By the way, if you haven’t seen Down Periscope, we’ll probably never get along.  Also, I don’t care what you say, “Nitro Rostampour” flows pretty well.

I didn’t get to go to any basketball game during UNO’s first transition year because I was living in Ogden, Utah for a big chunk of that year.  My wife and I moved back to Omaha in March after the season.  I got to stream a few of the games and my thoughts were never really negative but kind of bummed that it was going to take so much time to get through this transition process.  Waiting for 2015-2016 was going to be rough, I thought.

By the way, Tre’Shawn Thurman, per the recruiting websites I saw you had an offer to Utah State.  I don’t know how serious they got with you, or if you ever visited, but trust me, Utah is not the place to be.  Before my cable got set up, my wife and I asked someone where a good sports bar was so we could go watch the Nebraska and Oregon football games and they told us Applebee’s.  Freaking Applebee’s!  

Anyway, I began focusing my attention to the recruiting and any player that would be on the roster when the program finally became eligible for the NCAA tournament.  The 2012 recruiting class was kind of cool I guess.  This was sort of UNO’s first actual division one recruiting class.  Justin Simmons, Alex Phillips, Marcus Tyus, Jalen Bradley, Indiana State transfer Koang Dulouny (who would leave the team after 7 games), and Mike Rostampour as a walk on.

I read everything I could about that first recruiting class, tried to find the videos on each of them (that sounds creepy out of context), but there wasn’t much on any of them really.  Marcus Tyus had a few videos, everyone else just had some articles about them.  You really had to dig deep on the internet to find anything on any of them, and the internet isn’t small.  I still thought and hoped that these guys could all help, they could all contribute and help the program improve, and get it to where it needs to be by 2015-2016.  Before the 2012 season started, UNO picked up a commitment from Rylan Murry (and one too from Nick Billingsley), and I was thinking – oh this Murry guy has offers from Central Michigan and South Dakota!  The only guy in the 2012 class I could find with a scholarship offer from anywhere else was Alex Phillips with an offer from Eastern Illinois.  Not that none of the others didn’t have any, they just at least weren’t that widely reported at least.

So I see we have this 6’8″ walk on named Mike Rostampour, and I don’t think much of him.  The thoughts running through my mind were: He averaged 8ppg and 5rpg at St. Cloud State as a sophomore, I’m sure Simon Krych could do that (he’s currently averaging 1.8ppg and 2.2rpg as a junior at St. Cloud State)…Rostampour just came to UNO to say he’s a D-1 player, but he’s not actually a D-1 player…Wait, he can shoot 3s?…Well at least we can have some height on the bench…Look at those tattoos, what a jerk store.  Could he really be better than Rylan Murry, Simon Krych, or Matt Hagerbaumer?…

I don’t remember what I was busy with, but it was difficult for me to get to games in the 2012-2013 season at first.  I finally got to go when they played Western Illinois in January.  I watched everyone in warm ups, I see Rostampour, I think to myself – I’m not excited about that guy, hopefully Jalen Bradley is getting ready for next year… UNO lost that game by 15, they only got out rebounded by 6 rebounds but it seemed like so much more.  Rostampour caught my attention that game.  How did a walk on guy who is red shirting grab my attention?  Every time John Karhoff, Alex Welhouse, or Matt Hagerbaumer got outworked for a rebound, Rostampour had a look on his face as if he was being tortured.  Every time there was a time out, Rostampour was the first to run out and greet his teammates to the bench.  Even as a red shirt, he was doing as much as he possibly could to help everything in the program improve.  The Mavs couldn’t rebound that year and you could tell it was killing Rostampour.

Before the start of the 2013-2014 season, Mike Rostampour is awarded a scholarship and gets the nod to be in the starting line up.  Okay, what?  The walk on?  The Junior College to Division 2 to Division 1 walk on is going to start?  Really, why I am surprised?  A bulk of the roster is former Division 2 players.  Rostampour is in foul trouble in just about every single game at first, but in the time he was out on the court, the team is clearly a better rebounding team.  Matt Hagerbaumer also looks to be a better rebounder, maybe it was self improvement or maybe Rostampour helped him get better, I don’t know.  But rebounding is no longer the team biggest weakness.  Well, it is, but it has clearly improved now, and it’s not going to get them blown out by 30 or 40 anymore.  Once Rostampour adjusted to the speed of the game, and the officials being more touchy with their foul calls, he was able be an impact on the floor.  The Mavs got better and better once he figured that out.

 

The added toughness in general was also needed to add to that roster.  Before Rostampour, the body language on the players was basically screaming – why the hell are we out here, what are we even playing for?  Rostampour changed that when he was on the court, there was more fight in everyone’s eyes.  You also have to credit Justin Simmons and Devin Patterson to adding some fight in the team, but a lot of it did come from Rostampour.  The boy band needed a tough guy.  Without Rostampour, the 30-40 point beat downs from Big 12 and Big 10 teams would’ve continued.  Rostampour gave them a fighting chance.  Rostampour came to UNO at exactly the right time.  When UNO goes up against South Dakota State’s Cody Larson or IPFW’s Steve Forbes we’re not sitting there saying, “oh well that guy will murder us down low,” instead we’re saying, “that’s okay, we have Rostampour.”

During the Marquette game, I showed someone the score on my phone that UNO won the game and they instantly said “have you seen UNO’s center?  He’s a freak.”  After a home loss to Denver last season, I was hanging out in the bar in the Ralston Arena after the game a little while with a friend.  We were walking out and we walked by Rostampour, we couldn’t help but stare, partially out of fear that he may want to fight us.  He noticed us and thanked us for coming out to the game, even though he had a look on his face as if the Pioneers just stole his puppy.  I don’t think anyone should ever be afraid of saying anything bad about Rostampour, in a way, I think it feeds him to get better.  Like, someone said something bad about me?  I’m going to go kill a basketball by squeezing it to death.

Yeah, Rostampour brings attention to UNO,  people want to see him.  He’s UNO’s first legitimate rebounder since transition.  Barring some injuries, he should end up with most career rebounds since transition.  He’ll have more than Matt Hagerbaumer and John Karhoff, and they had 3 years to his 2 years in that time frame.  His 21 rebounds against North Dakota in the CIT was the most any Maverick had in a division one game, his 239 rebounds his junior year is the most rebounds any Mav has had in D-1.  His 7 double-doubles are the most for any D-1 Mav (yeah okay the D-1 history is young, but still).  But my perception is that Rostampour never thinks he’s better than anyone else, I believe he thinks he constantly has to prove himself and proving himself is showing everyone how hard he works.  His driving force is the need to get better and improve in anyway he can.  You ever look at his twitter?  At first it was all about him taking pride in him and the Mavs working to improve.  His description is:  C Team-Juco-D2-Walk on = Current OMAHA POWER Forward.  You ever have a truly awful job and when you first start out they tell you a success story about how the CEO started exactly where you are, as just a regular part-time employee and worked their way up.  That’s Rostampour, he’s the CEO that remembers when he had to clean the bathrooms. I’m probably way off, but that’s just what I see.  By the way, I really hope no one makes the walk ons and red shirt players clean the bathrooms.

 

I think the first thing I ever saw him do was air ball a 3.  I thought, along with everyone around me, oh well this is a transitional team, we can’t get the good guys yet.  Each and every game Rostampour improves.  He hears a few people comment on his air balls, or his fouls, or all the tattoos, and he works to improve it.  He’s Mike Rostampour, he’s always ready to go.

When the Mavs are on the road, he’s the one the home team’s fans hate the most…  How can that guy be good?  He wouldn’t even start if he played for us… When Rostampour first started at UNO he said he wanted to be the Mavs’ Chris Andersen – The Birdman.  Probably my least favorite player in the NBA, but if you want to be Chris Andersen, you’re going to be the player the opposing team hates each and every single time.  Yeah, okay, if he played for a Nebraska, Creighton, or a Minnesota he wouldn’t be getting the minutes that he gets at UNO, not too many people are going to argue that, but you can’t tell me those teams wouldn’t be better with Rostampour coming off the bench and giving you everything he possibly could in his time on the court.  The Birdman – or Nitro – doesn’t care about the amount of minutes, he cares about making the most of those minutes.  He’s not worried about the skills he doesn’t have, he’s concentrated on how to make the most of the skills he does have and making damn sure the team benefits from those skills.

“A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop those skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals”  — Larry Bird

The match up we’ve all been waiting for: Iowa Wesleyan

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Okay, so that Air Force loss is depressing.  If the Mavs drop 3 in a row with the 3rd being to Iowa Wesleyan, I may just punch a hole in a wall like Andy Bernard when Jim Halpert hides his ringing phone.

Per Gary Sharp’s radio call on Monday, Jake White could be back tonight for Iowa Wesleyan and if he won’t be back, then he’ll for sure be back for when the Mavs play UMKC.  By the way, if you haven’t heard Gary Sharp say the word “Kangaroos”, then you will need to listen to the game.  It’s entertaining enough just hearing him say it.

If not Jake White is not back, I’m sure Iowa Wesleyan won’t be much an issue.  I mean, I’m sure they’re a great team in the…they’re in college, right?  Last year the Mavs beat Iowa Wesleyan by 50.  The Mavs with the most minutes against Iowa Wesleyan last year: Jalen Bradley and Simon Krych.  I’m not sure if you’re aware, but they’re no longer with us.  No starter played more than 14 minutes in that game.

So yeah, this is kind of like an exhibition, so it’s going to be a chance for opportunities to see what some of the younger guys can do.  I just hope some guys that don’t regularly get playing time realize if they go to some school like Iowa Wesleyan that there would be statues built of them, to honor them as the greatest players in the history of the school.  So this would be a good opportunity for Jake White to come back and get his feet wet.  Is that a pun?

So yeah, freshmen Devin Newsome and Daniel Meyer should get those Simon Krych and Jalen Bradley minutes tonight.  Randy Reed and Tim Smallwood should be able to get more shot attempts.  Rylan Murry should have the green light to shoot from wherever he wants.  It’s like you’re living in a fairy tale.  I’m not saying that to try and put these dudes down, I’m saying that because I think we need to see what they can do.  Derrin Hansen said before the season that they could have some issues in the beginning trying to figure out the bench minutes, so here is the chance for these guys to show off.

A random thought:  It took Creighton two overtimes to beat South Dakota.  I’m not sure how to feel about that.  Is South Dakota that improved under Craig Smith?  Or is scheduling UNO still “not the right time?”

Just a few pre-game notes for this game against Iowa Wesleyan

  • Wesleyan’s biggest starter is 6’6″ and he averages 1.5ppg
  • They do have a 6’2″ freshman guard who averages 11ppg
  • Chris Martin, who starts for Wesleyan went to high school in Bellevue
  • UNO’s returners last year vs. Iowa Wesleyan
    • CJ Carter:  5 pts, 3 rebs, 5 asts, 2-2 fg
    • Devin Patterson:  7 pts, 3 rebs, 2 asts, 3-6 fg
    • Mike Rostampour:  13 pts, 8 rebs, 2 asts, 1 stl, 2 blks, 5-5 fg
    • Marcus Tyus:  5 pts, 2 blks, 2-3 fg
  • UNO’s bench last year outscored the starters 45-41

Some notes about D-1 Stats charts (I think I’m the only one that keeps track)

  • Mike Rostampour needs 9 points to pass Caleb Steffensmeier for 9th most career points since transition
  • Tre’Shawn Thurman needs 9 points to pass John Ring for 17th most career points since transition
  • Mike Rostampour needs to out rebound CJ Carter by 2 rebounds to pass him for 4th most career rebounds since transition
  • Tre’Shawn Thurman already has the most blocks by a freshman in a game or a season since transition (there were really only 3 freshman before this year to get significant playing time: CJ Carter, Marcus Tyus, Mitchell Farr)