College Basketball

Where I assume the Mavs are getting summer jobs, based on basically nothing

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So the UNO men’s basketball team is taking a summer trip to Italy.  How cool is that?  Foreign trips are typically very beneficial for basketball teams.  I am sure there is a great deal of bonding off the court, but it also means a few more games of playing together and working some things out on the basketball court.  Kentucky coach, John Calipari, has stated that he would like the NCAA to change the rules so teams could take a foreign trip every two years, instead of four years, for the great benefits it can bring to a basketball team.  I was literally not sure that Calipari knows the percentage of his basketball team that stays for two years.

I check the interwebs everyday in fear of finding out that one of the Mavs will be transferring.  I feel like it would have been announced by now, but you never know.  I just hope no one on the team is leaving.  I am not sure how much of a per diem the players get for food, or if any, so I assume some of the players need to take up a summer job to buy some souvenirs and whatever weird funny European stuff college students can find.  So here is where I assume the Mavs players will take some summer jobs for a little extra cash.

Tre’Shawn Thurman

Family Fun Center

I have not been to Family Fun Center in a long time, but I had some hipster friends that worked their during college.  They were not exactly hipsters I guess, but they loved to play Street Fighter, so whenever it was slow, you could find them playing Street Fighter.

One of the first things my wife said when she took notice in Thurman’s game was “number 15 has so much length.”  It is true.  Thurman could use his long arms to grab the really cool stuffed animals that kids have to spend their entire summer allowances on to finally earn.  I mean, he does not even have to officially work there I suppose, he could go over to the basketball machine and just go drop the ball in the hoop about a million times so he could win those giant stuffed animals and sell the stuffed animals to the kids.  This reminds me, how much fun would be if a casino had something that you could shoot a basketball and make money off of it?  I feel like that would be where you would find every college basketball player once they turned 21 to make some money.  Would that be break some NCAA rule?  Kids could also spend all their summer money at Family Fun Center and tell Thurman they want the stuffed animal on the very top row, but he has to do a 360 jump in the air to grab it and pull it down.  Oh, by the way, I am really thinking we can get Thurman in the dunk contest his senior year.  How bitchin’ would that be?

Marcus Tyus

Anywhere that needs a fry cook

Tyus is recovering from a torn ligament in his leg, so he has to get some shots up over the summer anyway that he can.  Some restaurant just needs to let him grab all things that can be deep fat fried, stand about 20 feet from the fryer and let him make it rain.  He could multi-task for sure, standing at the prep table cutting everything that needs to be cut, then toss in some crab rangoon when needed.  It would be constantly be raining fryer grease.  I hear restaurant kitchens love it when fryer grease is flying all over the place.

Kyler Erickson

With a career goal to be a translator for a professional sports team, he could piggyback off of Tyus here.  If you ever work in the restaurant business, you will find out that there is always someone that speaks a total of 25 words of English.  He can get some practice being next to Tyus to interpret everything that is said.  Also to commentate all of Tyus’ shots into the fryer…en fuego! Yes, he will be needed to inform someone that Marcus Tyus is not literally on fire.

Rylan Murry

Whole Foods Cashier/Game Stop/Comic book shop dude

If he had some incredibly lame tattoos and world’s worst beard, he could really make Whole Foods work.  I love going to Whole Foods and the cashier always asking me how my day is going.  It usually goes like this:

Cashier:  How is your day been going?

Me:  Not bad, I got a morning run in, getting some veggies and bison for dinner later.

Cashier:  You check out that new AFI album?

Me:  Who the hell is AFI?  I really like the new Mumford and Sons album though.

Cashier then puts their head down in disgust and tries to bag my groceries as fast as he/she can to get me out of their store.

Seriously though, who the hell is AFI?

About once every three months I will go check out Legends Comic Books on Leavenworth, I will get a Tony Stark White Mocha or whatever it is called and catch up on Batman and Nightwing comics, and sit there and read while I enjoy my coffee.  While sitting their, the comic book shop employees will rush over to the coffee shop part while they have no customers at the counter, to meet their friends and try to trade some Pokemon cards, Magic the Gathering, and other stuff that I assume makes their parents proud.  Then the employee gets some dude that brings his son in to buy an action figure and I just hear the employee whimper out an “ah shit” and run back to the counter.  The dream is for that guy to be Rylan Murry.

I also list Game Stop, where I assume he would get fired from pretty quickly.  For either playing all the games and not helping customers, or for making fun of customers’ video game choices.

Tim Smallwood

Customer Service Agent

This is not the most glamorous thing that one could think of.  People call in, and they whine about stuff that no one should ever give a crap about.  Omaha is filled with customer service jobs, and they are mostly terrible, but I am basing this off of my impression of Tim Smallwood.  Based on his tweets, Smallwood appears like he just always has a positive attitude, or at least he does not post a bunch of negativity online.  Smallwood seems like he could calm down a pissed off Jim Molinari.

 

Devin Patterson

HyVee

How many times have you been at HyVee and an employee asks if you are finding everything alright, you tell them you cannot find something, so they guide you to that item instead of just telling you where it is?  With Patterson’s speed, he could ask you what you are looking for, and then go sprint for it and bring it back to you at a much quicker rate than you having to walk to the item.

The problem is that Patterson could get that really dumb manager that does not use his skills effectively and just uses him to go get all the carts in the parking lot all the time.  An incompetent manager at a grocery store?  That would be the world’s first.  Every time I am in a HyVee they will have 1000 carts ready for use and I will see a manager whine to the one employee that looks competent to go get the 15 carts that are in the parking lot, like it is much more important than getting customers through the checkout lanes as fast as possible.

Actually, can Patterson be the manager?  Hey kid, go get the carts, never mind, you are too slow!  Sprints out and gets the carts, comes back, checks out a few customers in record time.  Hey kids, you are all fired, I got this.

Wait, can Devin Patterson be The Flash?  Never mind, he needs to go work in a science lab of some sorts, preferably with a lot of chemicals and lightning.  Trust me, I have read a comic book before.

So this is what happens when nerds talk sports ball…

Randy Reed

Per his profile on the team’s page, his career goal is to be a personal trainer.  My wife hires personal trainers, and they get recruited to play on our dominant softball team, in which I am seriously the worst player out of both the males and females.  Actually the team is full, one more member would mean that I would not have to play anymore, that would actually be kind of sweet.  Anyway, personal training is a great way to make money.  Even if you are just looking to do it part time, it can be pretty flexible with your full time school or full time work schedule.

Devin Newsome 

There is still not much known about Devin Newsome at this point, so can we get him a job at Voodoo Taco to learn as much as he possibly can about the new Taco Cannon and be the unofficial Taco Cannon Reporter?  Voodoo can come out with a bunch of local commercials with Newsome hanging out with the Taco Cannon, both getting to know each other.  The cannon talks, right?

Daniel Meyer

Also HyVee

There is also very little known about Daniel Meyer.  You would have to think with the graduation of Mike Rostampour that Meyer will see his minutes go up with a need for a man in the middle.  His post player teammates, Jake White, Murry, and Thurman, have all had more on the court time or in practice time getting a timing down with Devin Patterson passing them the rock.  It would be great if he just followed Devin Patterson around all summer to get some of that timing down, or followed Newsome as well.  Essentially, if there is a way to make money as a non-violent stalker, I would love it if that is what Meyer could do.

Jake White 

So with Bo Pelini no longer in the state of Nebraska, I have realized that the state of Nebraska needs a weird cat guy representative.  No idea if Jake White likes cats, or hates them, I do not care.  Jake White needs to get a job at the Nebraska Humane Society or some pet shop and become one with all the white cats.  Try to think of something more awesome than the UNO men’s basketball team having a Christmas card that is just a portrait of Jake White, trying to be emotionless but still trying to look like a hard ass, with 12 white cats all in Christmas sweaters and possible elf hats.  We would win the internet with that.

 

 

Some potential schools to add if the Summit League is looking for a 10th member

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The transition period is coming to an end, I keep talking about it because I am so damn excited.  It is about time, I felt like this would never come.  With this time finally coming, I feel like the question of “should the Summit League add a 10th member” be asked.  Should the Summit League add a 10th member?  10 makes sense, right?  With only 9 teams you assume that one team would be left out of the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.  With 10, you feel like everyone would get included and have the two first round games like the Missouri Valley Conference does.

Summit League Commissioner, Tom Douple, has stated before that he likes to keep these things quiet.  No one was really aware of Denver coming to the Summit League until it was announced, the same goes about Oral Roberts returning to the conference, and the UNO making the reclassification was for the most part under wraps until it was announced.  It is not like the Summit League is one that is going to get a bunch of buzz in the rumor mill on ESPN for the nation to discuss, so we are never going to hear the chatter that conferences like the Big 10, SEC, and Big 12 are going to get with all the schools moving around.  So i am going to throw out a few suggestions for teams that could be added, and most of these are based on geography.  The Summit League is not some prestigious conference like the WAC that can schools be 1500 miles apart from each other.  Not that these should be the only suggestions, but here…

Chicago State:

The Cougars would make sense in terms of geography, but they are kind of bad at…well, everything.  The athletic department is still in the process of developing a soccer team, so this could be attractive to the Summit League.  The Cougars have been attempting to get more recognition for their sports program, but Chicago is a city that cares way more about professional sports than they do college sports.  It is tough for them to schedule non-conference games, the basketball team was only able to schedule two home games against division one opponents in 2014-2015, UNO and Depaul.  Their facilities are not terrible, their basketball arena has a capacity of 7000  Depaul, which you would think draw in a crowd, only had an attendance of 750 fans, so that is the level of support the Cougars have.  The WAC is weird, no teams are within driving distance to Chicago, so I imagine it is pretty difficult for any Chicago natives to really get into an intense Chicago State-New Mexico State match up.  Essentially, Chicago State probably needs the Summit League more than the Summit League needs Chicago State.  I saw on a South Dakota State fan forum, which is super educational, that the University of Denver absolutely hates Chicago State and does not want them in The Summit.  No idea if that is true, or what it could even be over.

Eastern Illinois:

The Panthers are probably more than happy in the Ohio Valley, but maybe there could be a conversation since EIU already plays in the Summit League in soccer.

Evansville:

This would be a long shot, but I seem to hear a rumor every year that the Purple Aces are trying to get out of the Missouri Valley, though much of the rumors are for them to head to the Horizon League, who like the Summit League, also is at 9 members.  From a competitive standpoint, Evansville is routinely in the middle of the pack in the Missouri Valley standings for all of their sports, so it is not like they would come into the Summit and just dominate everything, but they certainly could add some attention and a little intrigue to the Summit.

UMKC:

Still no real idea why the Kangaroos left the Summit.  I still think the WAC is the dumbest conference of all.  It makes no sense to have UMKC do all the traveling that they do.  With Omaha and Oral Roberts in the conference now, UMKC would not have nearly as many travel issues as they do in the WAC.  The ‘Roos certainly bring a tiny more prestige to the Summit than a Chicago State.  Omaha-UMKC could have a little bit of a rivalry.  The ‘Roos are getting a little more community support as Kareem Richardson is strengthening the basketball program.  Who would really be better between UMKC and Chicago State?  I will base this on a very tiny piece of evidence.  The top team in the WAC this last season was New Mexico State.  New Mexico State @ UMKC attendance was 2900.  New Mexico State @ Chicago State attendance was 530.

Northern Colorado:

The Bears would make sense geographically and could create a travel partner with Denver.  Northern Colorado would have to stay in the Big Sky as an affiliate member for football, or get into the Missouri Valley.  They already have wrestling in a separate conference since the Big Sky does not have wrestling.  They also no have men’s soccer.  So I mean, they could drop football and wrestling, and add men’s soccer.  I have heard of schools doing that before and it going over very well with ALL fans…

North Dakota:

Only if North Dakota State were to leave the conference for whatever reason.  I cannot stress this enough.  The Bison have a new statue coming of a giant hand with its middle finger pointing toward the sky, the hand is along I-29 and facing North toward Grand Forks.  In recent news, the North Dakota men’s basketball team added Wheeler Baker, an Albany transfer.  Some of his offers out of high school included North Dakota State, South Dakota State, and Omaha.

SE Missouri State:

I typed their name in because of geography and it just kind of came to mind.  I really knew nothing about SE Missouri State, and then I looked up and researched their athletic department and I immediately regretted suggesting this.

Some possible schools to transition to division one.

Arkansas Tech:

Russellville is about a 3 hour drive to Tulsa, a 8 hour drive to Omaha, and a 8 hour drive to Macomb so it is not like the travel for this school would be impossible to the Summit League.  Arkansas is a very underrated state as far as beautiful geography goes, but teams do not get into conferences just based on how pretty their state is…I mean North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma are just…um, terrible to drive through.  While their sports teams are pretty competitive in division two, they do not have many sports.  The football team could possibly be dropped, and men’s soccer could be added.  Not sure if the state of Arkansas even knows what soccer is though.

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs:

With an undergraduate enrollment of 12k and a graduate enrollment of 11k, a close drive to Denver, and with all the sports that the Summit League has, it makes sense, right?  Their men’s and their women’s basketball teams are both well established in division two, they might both currently be better than a few of the Summit League teams…ouch.

Minnesota State-Mankato:

I have heard rumors before of these Mavericks debating of making the transition to division one.  The geography checks out for them to join the Summit League.  Their men’s basketball team has some division one talent on the roster as well.  Not sure if they would want to bring football with them as well to division one, as part of the rumors that I have heard would be that they would drop football.  The MSU baseball team is 40-5 so far this year.  That sounds decent, I guess.  Could there be two Mavericks in the same league though?  That sounds ridiculous.  The SEC has three freaking Tigers, but the SEC can do whatever they want.

Nebraska-Kearney:

I am seriously kidding.

St Cloud State:

I have not heard many rumors of this school going division one, but it is something that is not incredibly impossible.  St Cloud State has an undergraduate enrollment of 15k, they are in the geography of the Summit League.  Like the MSU Mavericks, they would create a more competitive recruiting market for the Summit League.  With no mid-major in the state of Minnesota, the Bison, Jackrabbits, Coyotes, and Mavericks like to recruit the area, adding St Cloud State or MSU would add another school into the mix for the area, could they all share that area?  Oh, their baseball team this year 47-3.  Why do I keep mentioning baseball?  Because the Summit League needs some more baseball.  The Huskies have 21 varsity sports, I am guessing with a move to division one that they would have to drop a few of those.  I am not sure that they are willing to pull that trigger.  I feel like the Summit League has had at least one conversation with MSU and St Cloud State of “so what if?”

Some teams and trips that could make up for an entertaining basketball schedule in 2015-2016

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The Mavs will finally be fully eligible for the post season next year…duh.  From what I have heard, the 2015-2016 schedule for the UNO Mavericks men’s basketball team includes trips to Minnesota, Missouri, Wyoming, and “a trip to Vegas.”  I am not sure how complete the schedule is at this point, but from what I have heard creating a schedule can be pretty difficult.  It was pretty difficult in EA Sports’ March Madness 2007.  That was the worst video game I have ever played.  Well that is dead anyway, but here are some trips and games that I thought could be potentially good match ups and/or fun trips for the Mavericks and their fans should they choose to go.  A few of these are suggested home-and-home series, and the others are just UNO going there once.

Virginia – 7 (Final RPI Ranking) or Virginia Tech – 221

The first UNO game I could watch on ESPN3 was UNO @ Michigan State.  I remember the commentators saying Derrin Hansen was trying to sell recruits at the time on the opportunity to go play against the bigger teams in their home area.  With Jake White and Marcus Tyus getting a run at Minnesota, Randy Reed getting the chance to go up against Missouri, and Tim Smallwood getting conference foe Oral Roberts, that leaves out Devin Patterson for the senior non-Omaha guys.

I would think you would be more comfortable with the Mavs going up against Virginia Tech just based on the RPI rankings, but if you are one of the people that want them to play the best to become the best, then obviously Virginia would be the more appropriate choice for that route.  Tech had a pretty similar roster this season as far as experience with 2 seniors, 4 juniors, 1 sophomore, and 5 freshman but they were a substantially larger team.  I never watched a Virginia Tech game this season, because I mean, why would I have?  Based on the just really lazy investigating, they appear to be a pretty slow team which could draw to the Mavs’ advantage.

Drake – 259

I thought I heard that Drake had a return game to Omaha from the Mavs playing them in Des Moines in 2013, but I have yet to see it or hear anyone mention it ever since.  I may have made it up in my own mind now that I think about it.  If the Mavs had to go to Drake again, the Bulldogs are a little over two hours away, so obviously not a bad trip for Mav fans.  Des Moines also has a lot of fun stuff to do like…turn around and drive back to Omaha.

As a former conference foe to the Creighton Bluejays, the JaySkers may draw some interest in this game and show up for a game in Omaha.  The Bulldogs have been going after some of the same recruits as UNO, so that could add some animosity and create a new I-80 rivalry with the Bulldogs.  Both programs could live off of the “screw Creighton” policy.

Apparently Des Moines recreated Rainbow Road from Super Mario Kart
Apparently Des Moines recreated Rainbow Road from Super Mario Kart

Drake did not have the greatest season in 2014-2015, but it is not like they had the greatest of expectations.  The Bullsdogs did have a bright spot with freshman Reed Timmer leading the team in scoring at 11.5 ppg, so the future does not look awful.  In addition to Timmer, Drake will have two Big 10 players that will be eligible for the 2015-2016 season, Kale Abrahamson from Northwestern and Graham Woodward from Penn State.

Nashville trip

So most of this trip is based on wife’s alumni status to Belmont, and it is not like anyone would ever actually attempt to schedule all 6 of these schools, but my wife has stated that if someone needed 2 or 3 quick road games that they should check out the Nashville area.  I have never been to Nashville, but as she described it, Vanderbilt, Belmont, and Lipscomb are all right on the same block.

Nashville is an 11 hour drive through Kansas City and St. Louis, so it is not like it would be the most boring drive in the world for the Mavs and/or their fans.  Mav fans that like country music would have the time of lives in Nashville as it is the center of country music with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.  My wife says to not go out and do karaoke unless you are a serious singer.  The karaoke scene is much different there as it is composed of people trying to make it in the industry and get noticed for a record deal, not people getting really drunk and singing songs in an Eric Cartman voice.  I would not know, I think karaoke is dumb either way.

  1. Vanderbilt – 88
    • The only SEC school that appears to actually care about academics of the student athletes finished the season making it to the 3rd round of the NIT.  Vanderbilt was made up of mostly underclassmen, so you have to think they have a bright future as they are not really a program that is built around one and done stars.  They would be kind of the centerpiece of the Nashville trip, but with a SEC team already on the schedule, this could be a tough sell to the UNO program.  As a fan if you went to the game or watched it on television, you could just find yourself upset that the team benches are located on the baseline.  It is one of those things that bugs me and I cannot figure out what it is about it that is so upsetting.  It is like not liking someone, but you cannot exactly put your finger on it as to what makes you want to punch them in the face every time you see them.
  2. Belmont – 100
    • Rick Byrd has been with Belmont since they were in the NAIA so he knows what is like to take a program into division one and how long it can take to become a successful program at the D1 level.  Hopefully because of this, he can have some sympathy for Derrin Hansen and the UNO Mavericks.

      Byrd has become one of the most respected coaches in all of college basketball.
      Byrd has become one of the most respected coaches in all of college basketball.  Byrd is on the right if you want to be a smart ass about it.
    • The two schools have played a home-and-home series in men’s soccer, so the two athletic programs have had some sort of communication.  Playing Belmont would be no easy task, their size and athleticism is pretty similar to UNO, but they rarely make mistakes and are one of the best at hitting the three.  Last year the Bruins ranked 4th in the nation with 10 threes made per game, and as you probably know, the Mavericks were not the best at perimeter defense.  Belmont has a winning record of 101-36 since UNO made the transition in 2011-2012.  The team should be returning their top three scorers as well.  Hey, did you also know that, per Rivals, South Dakota State’s Reed Tellinghuisen’s final three choices were SDSU, UNO and Belmont?
    • Belmont also hosts the Country Music Awards, so there is that.  My wife also claims you can just randomly see celebrities just about anywhere.  She once saw Tim McGraw in Walmart and Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban at a tiny little diner.  The university was also the shooting location for a number of Hannah Montana episodes, might I suggest a Socker Boppers tournament at random places around campus to get your rage issues out of the way when you think of Miley Cyrus?
  3. Lipscomb – 275
    • I do not know much about Lipscomb other than that they are one of Belmont’s biggest rivals and that they are on the same block as Belmont, and hey they are pretty close to UNO in RPI.  I bet a good ole Summit League versus Atlantic Sun battle really gives you that special feeling that makes you feel like your heart is going to explode out of excitement.
  4. Tennessee Tech – 288
    • An hour and a half from Nashville, but per Verbal Commits, their basketball program has been going at the same level of recruits as UNO.  They made offers to Zach Pirog and Ben Kozitske.  Also pretty close to UNO in RPI.
  5. Austin Peay – 316
    • A hour drive from Nashville, and hey what the hell, while we are there I guess.  Austin Peay is one of those programs that you have seen the name on the ESPN bottom line score center and it always sticks out, but you literally do not know anything about them.  The basketball program also has Lincoln’s Parkview Christian School’s Domas Budrys (by way of Lithuania) on the roster and they also gave former UNO player Jalen Bradley an offer this year, so where do they get off?
  6. Middle Tennessee State -152
    • I am not going to pretend that I know anything about Middle Tennessee State, I seriously had no idea that they were in Conference USA until right now.  Mufreesboro is also a hour drive from Nashville.

Weber State – 260

Okay, I know I am biased since I worked at Weber State for a year, but the schools actually have some pretty decent similarities that could make for a fun match up.  Both schools are at that “lower major” status and battling for name recognition with the bigger names in their own state with UNO dealing with Nebraska and Creighton and Weber State dealing with Utah and BYU.  Like UNO, Weber State is also a commuter campus and they have had difficulties trying to find that community support that UNO was struggling with for quite some time.  Weber State men’s basketball though is pretty similar to Creighton in the Dana Altman era in regards to that it is difficult for them to get teams to come to them.  They are a decent basketball program, and they really want to do the home-and-home series with the bigger programs, but the bigger programs end up laughing at them.  They really do not want to do the Go Play a Big 10 Team and Get Crushed games.  Weber State did play Oral Roberts in Ogden this year and won by one point, so it is possible that they will have a game in Tulsa in 2015-2016, not sure how many Summit League teams the Wildcats want to play.

Weber State was picked to win the Big Sky conference, based on basically nothing, but they ended up tying for 7th (out of 12) in the conference with Idaho and a 13-17 overall record and finished with an RPI of 260.  The Wildcats are coached by Iowa native Randy Rahe who has tried to get into the Nebraska area of recruiting in the recent years.  Last year he had former Omaha Skutt center James Hajek as a senior, and he has also had some players from Nebraska junior colleges join his program in the past.  Rahe was also rumored for the Drake job when it was last available.  He has taken the Wildcats to two NCAA tournaments.

Even though the Wildcats did under perform this last season, they have some great pieces returning that could help prepare the Mavericks for the Summit League.  They will be returning 2nd Team All Big Sky forward Joel Bolomboy, who will be a senior,  that averaged a double double with 13 ppg and 10 rpg as well as 6’2″ guard Jeremy Senglin, who will be a junior, that averaged  16 ppg, 3 rpg, and 3+ apg.  Aside from that, the only player that they are graduating is Hajek.

If Mav fans were willing to make the trip, Ogden and northern Utah have a lot to offer.  Anywhere you are in northern Utah, you are a guaranteed 15-20 minute drive away from a beautiful hike.  Get some beautiful pictures at Antelope Island 20 minutes away from Ogden, see the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, and you can also go take a look at all the sights and gorgeous landscape that hosted the 2002 Olympics.  Oh, there is also an In N Out Burger in between the Salt Lake City airport and Ogden… The trip is about a 13 1/2 hour drive from Omaha, but can be risky with the state of Wyoming basically giving up when it comes to taking care of I-80 during the winter.  The flights are usually not too bad though, you will typically have to connect through Denver and end up on two separate 90 minute flights.  There is a large Salt Lake City group that loves the Huskers that hosts watch parties for Husker games, but if you were to go you would actually find a decent number of UNO alumni in the group

You can snap pictures like this all around Northern Utah.
You can snap pictures like this all around Northern Utah.

If you are a beer drinker though and want to make the trip to Utah, you will more than likely not have a great time, especially if you are not into outdoors stuff.  The Salt Lake City Husker bar is really fun though, they have a party room dedicated to the Huskers (and the Utes).  I also have some Weber State friends that I have been talking a little smack to telling them that UNO is superior in basketball (and another number of sports), so there may be a few Ogdenians that will get a little too into the game and causing a ruckass.  Weber State did have a decent club hockey team while I was there, and Ogden has the Mustangs, a Junior A team in the WSHL, so there is always the potential to catch some hockey while there.

Omaha and Weber State have already played in softball (UNO won) and women’s soccer (WSU won) so again, there has been some form of communication between the two athletic departments.  Also, while I was working at Weber State the volleyball team played at a tournament in Lincoln against Nebraska and Creighton and I offered to give their (now former) head coach information on restaurants and things to go do and see…he was actually surprisingly a really big jerk about the entire thing.

Creighton

Just kidding…

Oregon trip

  • Oregon -27

Okay, so the schedule is already pretty tough as it is with two power 5 schools on the schedule already, and there may not be room for one more, but you have to admit you have some interest with the Mavs going up against former UNO coach Kevin McKenna.  Derrin Hansen could definitely soften up Dana Altman and McKenna by bringing them some Runzas and Dinker’s.  That may be the only way to sell it to Altman and McKenna.  When Altman played against Creighton in the CBI Championship, it was definitely awkward already with how recent it was since Altman had just left Creighton, but also Altman claimed that he did not like playing against his friends.  I am not sure if him and Hansen have a relationship, but I am sure they have ran into each other, and it could be difficult for Altman having to face a jersey with the word Omaha on it.

  • Portland State -166
  • Portland – 221

Okay there is not much that I actually know about Portland and Portland State, but to get to Eugene, Oregon to play the Ducks, it would probably be best to fly through Portland.  I know that Portland State is a commuter campus just like UNO, they are in the Big Sky, which the Mavericks and other Summit League teams like to go up against, and I know that the city of Portland is awesome.

You can't show the O there either, it's been done.
Showing the O has already been done in Portland.

The city has literally everything you could ever ask for.  Great scenic views, awesome hikes within driving distance, the Columbia Gorge is just about one of the most beautiful things that you will ever see, tons of breweries and unique restaurants, mountains to look at and drive to, the ocean is about an hour and a half away, and the state also has no sales tax.  There is also Voodoo Doughnut, their line gets really long, I was there on a Sunday night at 10 pm and the line was longer than a Christopher Nolan film.  Portland is also a huge hipster community, possibly the biggest I have ever seen, so it may be difficult for Rylan Murry to ever come back to Omaha after a trip out there.  You can also walk around and mock everything that you have seen in “Portlandia”.  Who else wants to have an adult hide and go seek league?  Per the UNO Alumni Association, there are 400+ living in the state of Oregon that are UNO alumni, but Portland is right on the border of Washington state which has 700+ UNO alumni so there is a chance of getting a decent turnout to see the Mavs in the area.

For reals, Portland has everything.
For reals, Portland has everything.

Portland State has been trying to recruit a little from the Nebraska area, but I really do not know why, none of their coaches have any ties to the Midwest, and their basketball program has yet to land anyone from  the area.  The Vikings will lose seven seniors from their 2014-2015 roster that opened up the season by winning at USC, which really is not all that big of a deal.  They also will not have much height on the roster with only only player 6’7″ or taller, as of right now anyway.  The Vikings do have a Arizona State guard sitting out in the 2014-2015 season, Calaen Robinson, who the team is expecting to play a huge role in the 2015-2016 season.

The Portland Pilots beat Drake and Murray State this season, two teams that the Mavs lost to in 2013-2014.  They also lost a narrow game at UNLV by two points.  Okay, this seems a little more interesting now.  The Pilots, like the city of Portland, is a really diverse team.  Their roster this season consisted of guys from Canada, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and obviously the Pacific Northwest.  If sitting around in a giant hipster city, drinking craft beer, eating delicious sushi, and making fun of tall people’s funny last names is fun to you, then maybe you are wishing this trip would have happened this season.  The Pilots also has a will be sophomore named Jason Todd, so if you are a comic book nerd and understand what that means, you are pretty much looking for airplane tickets to Portland right now.

I mean, look at how entertaining sports can be in Portland.
I mean, look at how entertaining sports can be in Portland.

Montana State -323

Speaking of Dana Altman, Montana State is coached by his former assistant Brian Fish who is trying to grow some respect for his program.  Fish was rumored for the Western Illinois job a while back, and he has been recruiting in Omaha’s backyard.  Again, Montana State is a Big Sky team.  I have never been to the state of Montana, so…that is all I have to say about that.  The average high temperature of Bozeman in November is 42 degrees and in December it is 33 degrees, so it is not like it is completely awful.

In 2014-2015, the Bobcats had…ahh hell I am not even going to try.

Bran Fish went 7-23 in his first season at Montana State.
Bran Fish went 7-23 in his first season at Montana State.

Southern Miss – 283

Hey Doc Sadler, remember when you said there was no way you would schedule UNO?  Southern Miss was one of the worst scoring and worst rebounding teams in division one this past season, that actually sounds really familiar to Nebraska fans.  I am still pretty baffled that they beat North Dakota State, who they did schedule a home-and-home series with.  Doc’s team had no player taller than 6’7″ and only graduated one player from this season, oh and their non conference schedule only had two power five schools on it, so yes that sounds exactly like a Doc Sadler team.

I am just saying, based on everything that I can perceive about Sadler, if the Mavs called him and pretended to be the University of New Orleans I am sure they could convince Doc to schedule “the Privateers” and Doc’s staff would just sign the contract without looking at it actually saying University of Nebraska at Omaha instead of University of New Orleans.  Then Doc would actually look at his schedule at some point and drop his signature phrase of “I am not a smart man.”

I think UNO fans and people in Nebraska would like the match up.  Doc was never really an enemy to anyone around here.  He was never Santa Claus but he was never Martin Short as Jack Frost.  People around here genuinely liked Doc as a person and would welcome back to Omaha for a night or two.

You know you want everything that comes with this.
You know you want everything that comes with this.

The transitioning schools

As a school that is just finishing up the transitioning period, we know how painful of a four year process it can be, so maybe we can help out the following programs.  Also as a Mav fan, I am keen to go play and beat these teams as four of the five had better RPI rankings than the Mavs last season.

  • Abilene Christian – 326
    • 10-21 record in 2014-2015, 3 wins were against non-D1 opponents
    • scored 27 points in their final game of the season, ouch
  • Grand Canyon – 279
    • They have Thunder Dan as their head coach, that is enough for me
  • Incarnate Word – 173
    • They beat Nebraska last year, which may have led to the destruction of the Huskers’ confidence all season
  • Massachusetts Lowell – 262
    • Finished 12-17 overall including 1 win over a non-D1 opponent
    • As of right now, their 2015-2016 roster will be composed of one senior and the rest of the team will be freshmen and sophomores
    • Ranked 346th out of 351 in the nation in rebounding as a team
  • Northern Kentucky -263
    • Will be coached by John Brannen, former Alabama assistant
    • They got to play in their conference tournament.  Why?  What the shit?

Southern Illinois – 274

Another team coming to terms with the “screw Creighton” policy.  I am not sure if Creighton and Southern Illinois ever actually had a bitter rivalry program to program or if it was really just Creighton not liking SIU taking their attention away for a few years.  I remember Southern Illinois fans being incredibly furious whenever Creighton played in Carbondale.  I searched and searched online to find the “I h8 Cr8n” shirts that their fans made but had no luck.

Southern Illinois has also had and won some recruiting battles with the Mavs, so this just irritates me more than it should.  With the transition over, this should be less and less of a problem so that is refreshing.  Also I feel like Creighton fans would come out to the game in disguise just to yell at Barry Hinson.  Seriously, Hinson seems like he was molded out of puddy by Rita Repulsa to create the ultimate douche to destroy the Power Rangers, but probably more likely to destroy Southern Illinois.  Granted, it is not like he took over the best program there in Carbondale.

UMKC – 293

Is anyone else incredibly bored with this match up?  I do love a trip to Kansas City, but the Kangaroos have more players than they do fans, so it feels like you are going back and watching an old Division 2 game.  The game I attended in Kansas City in 2013 there were more Mavs fan than Kangaroo fans.  Most of the UMKC fans there were parents of the youth cheerleaders that put on a routine at halftime and then they all left at halftime.

The loss to UMKC this last season should have left an disgusting taste in your mouth.  It was the first loss of the season that the whole team was available for, and a team that most thought the Mavs should not have lost to.  The Mavs had 26 turnovers in this game.  26!  So yes, I would love to see the Mavs get the chance again to not have 26 turnovers.  Every time the Mavs play UMKC in anything I get more wrapped up in “why the hell are they in the WAC” instead of the actual game itself.  They have to fly to every single one of their conference games, so you know they are looking to make up for it in the non conference schedule.  Oh we can drive there?  Just send them a contract and hope they sign it.

They will be returning Martez Harrison who was an All American Honorable Mention player.  He averaged 17.5 ppg and 4 apg, and he had 25 points and 6 assists against the Mavs in the one game they played this season.  A guard like Harrison could prepare the Mav back court for what they are going to have to go up against in the Summit League next season.  The Summit League is going to be filled with a lot of great guards this upcoming season.

I am not expecting Mav fans to make the trips for the in season games, but how refreshing was it as a Mav fan to see how many students and fans made it out to the Frozen Four?  With things beginning to “matter” more, fans are going to be willing to make the fun trips.

 

 

Meet future Mav Zach Pirog

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , , , , , , ,

With the addition of a 6’10” center from Colorado, the first year of being fully eligible for the post season, the UNO Mavericks men’s basketball team will be one of the biggest teams in the Summit League.

Okay, so height is not everything, but it does not hurt most of the time.  South Dakota State and North Dakota State have been able to be dominant the last couple of years with their balanced attack of controlling the paint with their front court while being able to shoot the ball and play strong perimeter defense with their back courts.  The Mavs are starting to get more and more of that balance as they are still growing.  We are also still in transfer and late commitments period, so anything could happen to the Mavs roster, or to any Summit League team still.  You still have to be excited about the signing of a guy like Zach Pirog.  ESPN’s recruiting database, which could basically be summed up in three words “It really sucks,” has only taken the time to rate a few of the recruits that UNO has had over the last couple of years, Nick Billingsley in 2013 and Jalen Jones in 2014, neither of them ended up at UNO.  I am not saying that to anger you or scare the crap out of you, just saying that anything can happen.  Either way, I hope that Pirog is completely committed to the Mavs.

It is still unclear if Pirog will redshirt or not, Derrin Hansen has a history of redshirting bigger guys, but you know, we are kind of in a new era here, so we will have to wait an see.  It is going to be interesting to see what unfolds with the Mavs front court with the loss of Mike Rostampour.  Jake White can hopefully be more healthy in his senior year, Tre’Shawn Thurman is already a star, and Rylan Murry and Daniel Meyer showed moments of potential during their freshmen year.  Now you are going to add Pirog (and walk on 6’8″ Ben Kositzke from Millard West) to that group, Thurman and Murry also both have the potential to play the 3, so at times the Mavs could have a very big lineup on the court like when North Dakota State did when they won the 2014 Summit League tournament.

So what do you think when you watch this video?  With it starting with a minute and a half of his shot blocking ability, I immediately get excited of the potential.  He is not just blocking his defender, he is blocking anything that comes at him.  Take notice of how well he moves and shifts on defense.  Pirog next to Thurman on the court at the same time has to get you a little excited.  That combo on defense will provide so much rim protection.  They will basically form a gate around the paint and make it extremely difficult for teams to get easy baskets.  When we get a chance to get Pirog and Thurman on the court at the same time, I am going to coin it as “The Devil’s Gate.”  It is a cattle term.  We are the Mavericks.  It sounds scary.  Deal with it.

Another thing to take notice is how well he moves without the ball, his footwork is great.  Yes I know it is a highlight reel, and I have no idea who the opposing players are, but he still gets to the ball with ease and spins around his defender extremely well.  There are also a few highlights of him making some 15-18 foot jump shots, which can be extremely beneficial to a offense.  I have always thought it was a great addition to a team’s offense, honestly it helps when anyone on the team can make mid range shots, but extremely helpful when a big man can do it.  It keeps the opposing team’s defense honest and it can mess up their plans if they love to play a zone and hate to draw their post player out of the lane.  John Karhoff had that mid range weapon and it was a big help for the Mavs in his senior season.  Mike Rostampour and Jake White both had a decent mid range game, but it did not really seem like it was something the Mavs were really counting on this past season, those two spent more time in the post than Karhoff did.  It was a different team though (obviously), Karhoff had Rostampour and Matt Hagerbaumer to bang down low and grab his potential misses so it seemed like there was more confidence in giving Karhoff the green light for that.

I was in Denver this last weekend and staying near the Pepsi Center and by coincidence the Colorado high school all star game was going on.  I only had a little time to go, so I could not stay for the entire time, but Pirog was quick for a post player and ran the floor very well.  Seemed like a healthy guy, but thought maybe he needed to put on some muscle for the next level, and really what high school athlete does not need to put on some more muscle for college?  In a game that featured 3 other players that would be in division one next season, and maybe a few more, Pirog was able to put up 8 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 blocks.

Per Verbal Commits, Pirog had other offers from:  Air Force, Yale, Columbia, Albany, Lafayette, Holy Cross, Tennessee Tech, Northern Colorado, and Liberty.  Along with JT Gibson also getting a good amount of offers, UNO is finally getting to the point where they are winning recruiting battles, probably directly related to the reclassifying period coming to an end and a brand new arena, but dang it feels good to finally see.  Early in the transition phase, I would see UNO going up against other schools for kids and I would just instantly write them off and I was right for writing them off 100% of the time.  I was still in that mode before the start of this season.  I saw Pirog had some other offers and took some other visits, had some great length, and I instantly went to the old, Oh He’s Not Coming Here mentality.  When I saw Pirog committed to UNO, that was the moment it finally hit me that this transition phrase was coming to an end.

Per MaxPreps, Pirog averaged 14.6 ppg, 10.5 rpg, and 3.4 blocks per game his senior year and led his team to the the state championship game, where he had 4 points and 9 rebounds against a team that featured a Wyoming commit and a junior center who holds offers from Pac 12, Big 12, and SEC schools.  With Pirog, Gibson, Tra-Deon Hollins, Zach Jackson, and walk on Ben Kositzke, you have to find yourself wondering if UNO picked up their best recruiting class yet.

Welcome to the Mav family…I just hope he and Rylan Murry can get along…

Here is some reading material

Growth of Zach Pirog’s game with Grizzlies is matching his frame

Zach Pirog “the difference” in ThunderRidge’s win over Rock Canyon

ThunderRidge basketball star Zach Pirog commits to University of Nebraska-Omaha

 

Meet future Mav Tra-Deon Hollins

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So March Madness has officially began, the Mavs still cannot attend the dance, so it is not too early to look at what the Mavs will have for next season.  I am already convinced that my bracket is ruined.

You should have finally accepted the fact that the NCAA will not just let CJ Carter and Mike Rostampour get another year of eligibility for the chance to play in the Summit League and NCAA Tournaments, but hey wouldn’t be cool if Jason Mims just kind of let Carter play on the soccer team for the opportunity for post season?  Or if Bob Herold let Carter play as a pinch runner for the baseball team for his 5th year of eligibility?  I have no idea if Carter is even capable of doing those things, but you would be interested to see what it would be like.

So Tra-Deon Hollins, a 6’2″ guard coming to UNO from the Junior College ranks, played high school basketball at Omaha Central, where he was a part of four state titles, with the likes of Tre’Shawn Thurman and Georgetown/Louisville forward Akoy Agau.  Is it Tra-Deon, or is it TraDeon?  I have seen both.  I am going to need help from Dale Doback on this whole Pan/Pam situation.  That is a Step Brothers reference.  Anyway, Hollins has the chance to be an immediate impact on this basketball team, as most junior college transfers do coming into mid-major teams.

Whenever I present my wife with a good news/bad news situation she always wants the bad news first, so I will throw the bad at you before the good.  It is not really all that bad, but as a sports fan you have the have a small amount of worry.  Hollins only played 9 games at Chipola College this past season before he was dismissed from the team for disciplinary reasons.

That raises your eyebrow with a small amount of concern as a sports fan.  You see it a lot in college sports, or even in professional sports, of someone getting in a small amount of trouble, but it keeps escalating into more and more until that player never plays.  You obviously hope it is nothing, and it is something that the player can learn from and become a stronger person and player.  Sports give that opportunity for some people to find redemption a little faster.

Here is a quote from the Omaha World Herald from Hollins:  It just made me a better man today.  It opened my eyes and made me more wise, and it taught me a lot about decisions and how much that can take a toll on you.

I do not know what happened with Hollins, nor do I really care as it is not really any of my business, but I think that is a great quote from him.  Someone gets in a little trouble and you ask for them to own up to it.  I hate when I hear someone get in trouble and their immediate go to comment it “yeah, but it was all some bullshit.”  Sports (and life) is all about decision making, you know aside from athleticism and whatnot, so to have that character on the team that knows how important decision making is, that is a great addition to the team.  If you had a “yeah, but it was all some bullshit” guy on the team, you would need to worry a little more.  He could become a distraction by doing stupid crap, like accidentally stealing seafood from a supermarket.  I know a guy was a “yeah, but was all some bullshit” guy.  He got in trouble, went on to play junior college basketball, quit basketball after getting in trouble a few more times, and the last I heard he is a drug dealer.  So yeah, do not be that guy, learn, move on, and grow.

Okay, so now onto the good.  13.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg (that is not role playing games), 6.6 apg, 61.5 FG%, 42.9 3pt%, 75 FT%, and 4.6 steals per game in those 9 games.  The season before at Central Community College:  17.1 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 5.3 apg, 47.8 FG%, 37.2 3pt%, 69.9 FT%, and 4.1 steals per game.  Certainly sounds like a guy that can do a little bit of everything.

What is more shocking is that in the Omaha World Herald, he said that he was a defensive player.  Okay, yeah, now I do not know what to do with myself.  UNO’s defense was not very good last year, last in the league in points allowed, and near the bottom in defensive shooting percentage.  The offense was like Oregon football, but the defense was like Omaha Northwest football.  Are they still bad?  There were not very good when I was in high school.  So when you have a guy that sounds like a great scorer on paper, but out loud is completely committed to defense, you are completely freaking excited.  I am just imagining a team coming down the court and trying to get the ball past Hollins and Devin Patterson.  Then when they do, they have to deal with Thurman’s length and shot blocking ability, and then if they can get a shot up they have to deal with Jake White’s rebounding ability.  You just got like super pumped about that, right?

One thing that worries me though is the dying of the hair to blonde?  I remember seeing a bunch of pictures in the Omaha World Herald in 2013 of the Omaha Central basketball team and it seemed like a bulk of the team dyed their hair blonde.  It is cool to have a little unity like that.  Like when a football team all shaves their heads, or when the Boston Celtics starters in 2007-2008 all shaved their heads at the beginning of the season.  But I hope this blonde head thing does not catch on for the UNO Mavericks basketball team.  I do not know if I could concentrate on a game if Jake White, Rylan Murry, and Kyler Erickson went all Slim Shady.

So we are going to add Hollins to a back court of Patterson, Marcus Tyus, Tim Smallwood, Kyler Erickson, Devin Newsome, and incoming freshman JT Gibson.  Sounds like a good back court committee.  The back court is going to need to come up huge with South Dakota State returning Deondre Parks, Jake Bittle, and George Marshall.  That is a back court that is going to be dangerous.

I remember watching the 2013 Nebraska high school state championship game on television.  I was watching to see what Nick Billingsley was like, who was at the time committed to UNO.  I remember thinking that Hollins was incredibly fast and a big piece of energy for the Eagles.  Was he the best player?  I do not know, that team was freaking stacked.  I said a few times throughout the 2014-2015 season that the Mavericks lacked a high energy guard off the bench.  Tyus was that high energy guy off the bench in 2013-2014, and Alex Phillips and Caleb Steffensmeier both had their moments in that role, but no one was really doing that for the Mavs this past season.  Not saying that Tim Smallwood, Devin Newsome, or Kyler Erickson were bad, but not of them were that unstoppable piece of energy off the bench.  Erickson became that toward the end of the season, but none of them were that Nate Robinson or Jamal Crawford type of energy.  Hollins seems to have what it takes to be that much needed chess piece.

Hollins is (clearly) an Omaha guy, and he seems to have a sense of pride to represent the city.  You want those guys mixed in on your team.  Even Kansas finds a few dudes from Lawrence for that representation.  I was reading something yesterday, I already forgot the subject of the article, but it was basically stating that teams cannot get by with the one trick ponies anymore.  The guys who just stand in the corner and take threes are not very important.  Teams need the guys that can do a little bit of everything, and we totally got that in Hollins.

Welcome to MavNation.

How to schedule the Mavericks and the Bluejays: PART II

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to schedule the Mavericks and the Bluejays: PART I

Okay, so you may be asking yourself, what does profiling all of the Creighton fans have to do with scheduling the Mavericks and the Bluejays?  That is a totally fair question, so let’s move on here.

You have to understand your enemy before going after them…

Richard Creighton Fan watches the second half of the game

So Dick goes on ignoring me while his version of the Justice League is trying to save the planet from a Big East team taking over.  This is all after he established that Creighton and UNO have no room to be on the same basketball court playing against each other.  A Creighton guard misses a wide open shot.  I tell him that CJ Carter would have made that shot, Dick becomes agitated, not saying anything, he is just upset at the game and more and more at me.

An opposing player knocks down an uncontested shot in the lane, with the Creighton post player up near the free throw line for some reason, and not anywhere near the basket to protect it.  I tell Dick that Mike Rostampour would have contested that shot, he would have either fouled him to make it difficult and force him to the line, or forced that player to pass out of the lane.  Dick is now disgusted and takes a drink of his Bud Light to ease the pain.

An opposing player puts some pressure on a Creighton guard and strips the ball from the Creighton guard, so of course Dick calls the opposing player a homophobic slur.  The opposing player takes the ball that is now in his possession and sprints down the court for an uncontested layup, with none of the dejected Creighton player in sight.  I tell Dick that Devin Patterson would not have allowed himself to get in that position to give up the ball to the opposing player, and even if he did, he would sprinted down the court with the opposing player to contest the shot.  Patterson would not have just laid down showing no competitive edge.

A Creighton post player attempts and rushes a real lazy hook shot which clanks off the front of the rim.  I tell Dick that Tre’Shawn Thurman would not have done that, in fact no UNO player would have just gone for the lazy hook there.  Since they had an opposing player with their hand up they would have tried a post move or passed out of it.  Thurman has this vintage Kobe Bryant/Vince Carter post move, where he jukes to the left and then goes right for a turn around fade away, and it is a much higher percentage shot then whatever the hell we just watched that Creighton player try.

Creighton is now down by 20 at this point with not much time left, the players are somehow playing with less energy than they already have this entire soulless game of theirs.  I tell Dick that UNO has not given up in a game like that all year, even when down by 15 or so with a few minutes to go, they still tried to make a game out of it.  At this point, Dick wants to punch someone and I am in the front of the line.  He slams down his drink and throws out some notes as to why the UNO-Creighton game will never happen, but now he hopes that it will happen just to shut people like me up.

By the way, a side note:  The Creighton fan I have based Dick Creighton Fan off of looks exactly like Jake White.  If Jake White got done with college and stopped working out and let himself go a bit, and was 7 inches shorter, but still looks exactly like Jake White in the face.  He cannot stand Jake White because of his Wichita State past.  Every time Jake White does something cool I will text Dick with “hey, your cousin had 10 and 8 tonight, good for the fam!”  Then he will text mean things back about Jake White, would you expect anything less from a Dick Creighton Fan?  Dick also has season tickets for Creighton basketball, the people in his section are the people that usually bring a book to read, so you know, the real supporters and the people that make you wonder why they even came.  Dick also plays basketball like you would expect a Creighton fan would…selfishly.  Takes 15 threes during a 40 minute game and only makes about 4 of them at best.  Also does not recognize you sprinting down the court and hustling to get open, so just jacks up threes.

Why it may not be happening.

I have no absolutely positive reason as to why UNO-Creighton may not be happening as of right now.  Maybe it is money, maybe McDermott and Hansen, or the two athletic administrations cannot agree on stuff, I am not sure why.  Maybe McDermott is just a really really really nice guy and does not want to beat the Mavs and cause an inner city riot.  I do not think McDermott has a mean bone in his entire body.

I find myself wondering this though, could the reason be because of the JaySkers?  The JaySkers that just root for anyone local, they like the Mavericks enough to take notice, but maybe not enough to go to their games yet.  If UNO-Creighton happens, the JaySkers will take a little more notice and be more aware of what the Mavericks have, and that they are at least entertaining.

If the Mavericks and Creighton play, and UNO comes close or even beats the Bluejays, what would the JaySkers do with their money?  They will buy a UNO shirt or two, maybe some tickets to a few games, and maybe even classify themselves as JayMavSkers, or maybe they even sift through Bull Shit Mountain enough and just become MavSkers.  If they spent 50 bucks from their annual Going Out Budget on UNO stuff, that is 50 bucks less that they will spend on beer and food at the CenturyLink Center.

If a JaySker were more aware of the Mavericks and entertained by them, would they be more inclined to go to a UNO event over a Creighton event?  If they could go to Aksarben, which is more centrally located than the CenturyLink Center (and Ralston Arena), pay less for parking, and walk just a little bit closer to DJs Dugout and other restaurants, do you think they would go for it?  Would they rather see UNO have a shot against Oral Roberts over seeing Creighton getting dominated by a overrated Georgetown team?  Seriously, Georgetown has been overrated for the past 10 years.

When the JaySker goes to a UNO hockey game, they see the Creighton University advertisement on the scoreboard, they still get that Bluejay taste in their mouth.  Typically the JaySkers will make it out to UNO-North Dakota hockey, or UNO-Ohio State in the old days, the JaySkers just like the events they can brag about seeing really.  There is no University of Nebraska at Omaha advertisement when the JaySker goes to a Creighton Basketball game, not even sure if it is allowed.  So if UNO men’s basketball was put right in front of their faces, could the JaySker sway a little bit?

UNO and Creighton have played in a few sports, and when you go the atmosphere is a little weird.  Creighton fans always have this feeling of We Will Beat the Crap Out of Our Opponent, but they have been a little more quiet when Creighton plays the inner city rival.  Their attitude changes to Oh Crap We Better Not Lose to This Team.  When I moved back to Omaha from Utah, one of the first things I did was get tickets UNO vs. Creighton baseball, I was pretty damn pumped for the game.  I think I was scared that game was going to be a sell out, being away from Omaha for about a year I just kind of imagined that everyone in Omaha would be jacked for that match up.  What a perfect gift for my return to Omaha though.  The game was a little slow, Creighton players seemed to lack a little energy and it was almost as if the Bluejay fans did not want to do smack talk, especially since the people in red and black out numbered the people in blue and white.  It is also hard to smack talk when your baseball team in the last few years has just become a team of Hey Let’s Just Hit the Ball to the Outfield and Hope for the Best.  UNO won the game 3-2, the Creighton players looked like they were on suicide watch after the game, they did not appear to want to come out and shake the UNO players hands, and they probably knew that Ed Servais was going to have them run a marathon after losing to that reclassifying team.  The Creighton fans walked out of there confused and as quiet as you exit a funeral.

How would you rank Creighton sports teams in terms of how prideful their fans are toward the team.  1. Men’s Basketball, 2. Men’s Soccer, 3. Baseball?  That is their fans’ third favorite sport, and UNO showed that they can hang with them.  Men’s Soccer showed that they can hang in exhibition play as well.  Women’s soccer needed two overtimes to beat UNO this last season.  Oh this reminds me, UNO-Creighton softball happening any time soon is probably less likely than men’s basketball happening anytime soon, but hey, that is another conversation.

When UNO can make the big dance and possibly pull of an upset, the JaySkers will come crawling.  The 14 seed beating the 3 seed prestige is far more powerful then the BIG EAST team beating a SWAC team in the first/second round or whatever the hell it is anymore.  That is when the prestige factor will come into play for Creighton to play UNO, the game will need to be played after that.  That will make UNO men’s basketball the even that they will want to go see and Creighton will have the need to play at beat the Mavericks to show everyone who is still the boss of this town.  And it is not like UNO is wanting Creighton every single season, although that would be swell, it is not necessary, UNO fans just want the acknowledgement from the Creighton fans, so once in a few years is fine.  City rivalries do not necessarily happen every season, especially when the schools are not at the same level.  UNO fans understand that The BIG EAST is on a different level than the Summit League, they are not psychotic.

Creighton fans also do not like to share attention.  For 12 years they got to share a market with Barry Collier and Doc Sadler coached Nebraska teams that would bore and frustrate the hell out of Husker basketball fans in Omaha, so many of those fans would go watch Creighton.  Even the end of the Danny Nee era at Nebraska was painful to watch.  Now, the kid up the street thinks they can join the party.  They are building a new arena, new dorms, new buildings on campus, but they still have shitty parking.  None of this can make the Creighton fan happy.  Greg McDermott is not an attention grabbing coach, his press conferences will put you right to sleep**.  If you throw him Dana Altman, Tim Miles, Derrin Hansen, and Doc Sadler into a charity poker event, you are going to forget he is there.  Miles would be the guy that never shuts up and annoys all the other players, but the crowd wants to keep watching.  Hansen will do the same, but not as many jokes, he will feed off of the Miles jokes a little bit.  Sadler would be the one accusing Miles and Hansen of having too much fun, probably folding his cards every single time.  Altman would be the guy who never says anything, still betting on what he thought was a good bet, everything would be a calculated decision.  You root for those guys in poker tournaments, mainly because you are dying to see what their hand is as 99% of the time they are in a hand, it is because they have a good hand.  McDermott would just there, drinking his water, you would forget McDermott was even in the poker tournament, he would never grab your attention to make you wonder what he is scheming.  You would just expect him to be out at some point, but not as quickly as Sadler who you assume would just get frustrated and make a bad bet so he could go home.

**That is not to say that McDermott is a bad coach.  Attention Grabbing ability does not make one a good or bad coach.  Nor does poker playing ability.  I am now curious though if anyone has done a qualitative study of this.

Why do we want it to happen?

So the hardcore UNO fans do not really like Creighton fans, they want the opportunity to beat Creighton.  They do not necessarily expect a win, but they want the chance to go to the game and maybe talk a little trash, poke fun at Creighton, and hopefully be on the winning side.  UNO fans have to live in the shadow of Creighton, which is fair since Creighton has been fully division one much longer.  In a way, UNO fans feel disrespected by Creighton fans.  Bluejay nation still does not see UNO as division one, this is partially because a majority of Creighton fans do not know what is happening outside of Creighton basketball.  A while back when Creighton was in the NIT, I had a few friends that wanted to go their game against Bowling Green, so I went down to the Qwest Center to buy the tickets, and the guy in front of me who was decked out in all Creighton gear like he was a life long fan asked as many questions as he could possible ask:

  • So this is the NIT?
  • What is the NIT?
  • What would have Creighton had to do to make the NCAA tournament?
  • Who are they playing?
  • Bowling Green is in what conference?
  • What was Bowling Green’s record this year?
  • What was Creighton’s record this year?
  • Is it a white out?
  • Is it a blue out?
  • How many fans do you expect to come?
  • Will Lawlor’s be selling any gear centered around the NIT?
  • Who does Creighton play after they win this game?
  • When is the next game?
  • Who leads the team in scoring?
  • They sell beer for the NIT, right?

I am pretty sure the ticket person wanted to just scream out “IT’S ON THE FREAKING INTERNET” the whole time.  But that is Creighton fan hood, they want to support Creighton, and they want the event.  For some reason they do not think Creighton-UNO is an event.  So we need to make it an event for them.

Would inviting Tim Miles make it an event?  Like, he could do the starting lineups.  He could come out in a tuxedo and grab the microphone and read off the starting lineups like he is doing the intros for a famous boxing match, he could read off each player’s name with some Will Ferrell like jokes, and then he could ring the starting bell.  Since there is apparently some rule that college coaches cannot attend games of their opponents, he will have to leave, and all the Creighton fans can boo him out of the building.  It might be better than Christmas for Tim Miles, and Creighton fans.

How about we shoot a few things down

Dick brought up the points that any Creighton fan that thinks they pay attention will bring up, so let’s take a look at these things.

  • It is tough enough to schedule in college basketball as is…

Yeah, okay, I can agree with that.  With the non-conference schedule taken up by early season tournaments, a rivalry game (Nebraska in this case), return games, and maybe a conference versus conference challenge, it can be a little difficult to fit a few more games in there for some teams.

It also has to be super stressful and challenging to set something up when your coaches and athletic admin attend the same charity events, local organization’s outings, AAU tournaments, and high school games.  That could require talking to each other in person.  Much more simple to get back and forth emails and phone calls with Tulsa and North Texas.  Creighton and UNO baseball, women’s basketball, women’s soccer, men’s soccer (in exhibitions), and other sports meeting up was defying all the odds in the last few years.

  • Playing UNO would not do much for Creighton

North Carolina A & T, Chicago State (3 times), Campbell, Houston Baptist, Presbyterian, Longwood, Alcorn State, UMKC, Long Beach State, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Central Arkansas, North Carolina Central, Eastern Illinois, South Dakota, and Texas Pan-American have all played Creigthon since UNO’s transition.

Screw you.

You ever watch a city rivalry game?  You can not give two craps about either team and still enjoy the hell out of it.  A few years ago I watched Cincinnatti-Xavier on television, and this was post Sean Miller.  I do not care for either team and I do not even know any player on either team.  The rivalry was so intense, you could just feel the energy in the crowd and in the players in how important that game was to everyone there.

The UNO-Creighton men’s soccer exhibition last year was incredibly intense.  I thought someone was going to get killed.  It was an exhibition game…exhibition…  I said exhibition, right?

  • Creighton would have beaten UNO by 50 (last year)

Prove it…

I think what Creighton (and Iowa) fans hate more than anything are the personality-less Nebraska football fans who think at the beginning of the every year that the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team will win the national championship solely based on the fact that the 94 and 95 ‘skers were the greatest college football teams ever.  Those teams were then, and they were great, but this now.  So just because Creighton had Doug McDermott a couple years ago, it does not mean that the Bluejays are still at that level of greatness.  The Bluejays also do not have the same perimeter defense without Grant Gibbs.  Their team has changed greatly.  Yes there are a few years that Creighton would have beaten UNO by 30+, but that is not an every year thing, there are a few years that UNO could upset Creighton, and this year could have been one of them…maybe depending on when the game was played, Creighton was doing pretty well until they played North Texas.  Hell I am pretty sure there were years in the D2 era that UNO could have upset the Huskers in basketball.

We are now at a point where UNO beat a team that beat Creighton (Marquette) and Creighton beat a team that beat UNO (Chicago State), so we can have these arguments, which if the two teams do not meet, it is going to add to some frustration for the few that want the game to happen.  Creighton’s skill level is not as high as it was a few years ago.

I have a friend, he is a JaySker, the good kind of JaySker though, he wants them to both win, and he even roots for UNO a little bit (though he has yet to attend a basketball game).  He is really just one of those guys who roots for anything local, but he owns more Creighton stuff then he does Husker and UNO stuff.  He admits one thing, even though in the past they were exhibition games, UNO always played Creighton (and Nebraska) tough and close.  It was the Mavericks’ one chance for a showcase back then.  They watch more Creighton and Nebraska games on local television all year then they do any of their opponents, so the Mavericks have a constant recruiting tape loop on watch.  They get to sit in their dorms and watch Creighton play and think to themselves, if I had to stop that guy, this is what I would do.

So this whole Creighton would beat UNO by 50 BS can stop.  I am not saying it is an automatic close game, or even a win by UNO, I am just saying that it would at least be entertaining.  Was Nebraska-UNO early in the season not entertaining?  When it is a local rivalry, the game is more about the intangibles, not about who looks better on paper, and honestly Creighton did not look all that great on paper this season.

Tim Miles: The Inspiration

Whether it was on accident or not, Tim Miles proved something.  He was interviewed on the sideline at what I think was his first Husker football game, and he answered questions with a few jokes as his charismatic self, and he finished with an infamous line, only show in the state.

Miles claims he meant that there is no Nebraska State, as he was involved in the Colorado State to Colorado relationship.  He claimed to not be thinking of Creighton at this juncture, and we will never know if it was intentional not, but this caused so many Creighton fans to just lose their freaking minds.  Tim Miles had not even been involved with a Nebraska-Creighton game yet and the Creighton fan base wanted his head.  Creighton fans get pumped up for that Nebraska-Creighton game each and every year.  In the Missouri Valley days, it was their chance to show they were better than “the big boys.”  Now, beating that Tim Miles jerk is the motivation.

Now Tim Miles just loves poking fun at Creighton.  He does it every chance he gets.  He scheduled UNO and he took some jabs at Creighton for not doing the same thing.  Creighton fans want that win over Nebraska more and more now.  With Doc Sadler, Creighton lived in local basketball bliss.  Sadler did not really care too much for the local thing, he held not merit to winning or losing to Creighton.  He did not even really go after too many local recruits, I know someone related to Iowa’s Mike Gesell, and they told me that Sadler and Nebraska never once contacted him.  Sadler did not bring much media hype to Nebraska basketball, and they were as boring to watch as it was to listen to him talk.  Miles, with the help of a new arena, practice facilities, and commitment from the university has turned all of that around.  Neighboring Creighton is cranky that Tim Miles is now the main character in all of this and Creighton needs a bottle of juice.

I wish there was a way to hit Creighton where it really hurts and convince Tim Miles to stop the annual Nebraska-Creighton game and start a Nebraska-UNO annual game, but I highly doubt that is an option.  Creighton fans would riot in the streets of downtown Omaha.  To hurt them even more, the game could be played at the CenturyLink Center, both teams could wear one of those In Memory patches during the games, and no blue would be allowed in the arena.  Nebraska could even bring their floor, like they did when they played Oregon in Omaha.  After the games, Tim Miles and Derrin Hansen could go out downtown to all the Creighton hang outs, put as much money as they can into the juke boxes and play the worst music possible, and just be laughing the whole time.  They can even go to The Blue Jay Bar & Grill (is that place still open), and call out the bar for letting in a bunch of 19 year olds and letting them drink.  Again though, highly unlikely, but I feel like Tim Miles could still jokingly bring it up as an idle threat once in a while.

So anyway, Tim Miles and his Only Show in the State comment, it charged things up for Creighton against Nebraska.  With Sadler, Creighton was getting into this Oh La La attitude toward Nebraska basketball.  They wanted the victory over Nebraska for sure, but they were not getting pumped for it like they used to.  After Miles said that, all hell broke out, Creighton fans were pumped, they circled the game on their calendar, the ticket prices on Ticketmaster jumped up to almost $300.  Creighton fans needed new shirts from Lawlor’s to show their dominance and commitment.  So Tim Miles showed us one thing, to build up demand for Creighton fans, you just piss them right off.

Yes, let’s just piss off Creighton fans

It sounds so simple, and so fun.  At this point you have to assume that Greg McDermott (and probably Derrin Hansen) has some objections about this game happening, and McDermott is definitely not going to do it without demand from the fans.  So let’s just piss off the Creighton fans and force them to demand the game to happen.  Let’s make the Creighton fans the one calling the athletic admin to ask why it is not happening.

The Senseless, The Attitude, The Coast, and the Entitled all have one thing in common.  Their presentation of self suggests that they are incredibly confident and have high self esteems.  In reality, their confident persona and self esteem is the front stage, in the back stage, they realize they have not proven anything and need validation, they are actually quite insecure and defensive.  After all, the typical Omaha born Creighton student is the kid that you went to high school with a $30,000 car, no job, and presented it as if he bought the car on his own from all the hard work he has done.  If you ever called that kid out though, he would so make sure that dumb high school girls did not think you were hot.  Creighton men’s basketball somehow validates that they made the right choice in life.  The basketball team is really good, so I must have picked the right school!  With these people we need to attack and break down that confidence, until they want to see Creighton-UNO happen to in some way prove their oddly placed dominance.

Here are a few buttons to push:

  • Your school lacks innovation and looks like a sick Mongolian Hun coughed it up

When I went to school and worked at UNO they were constructing the new HPER building.  I was also on student government and sat through a bunch of presentations on ways to grow the University of Nebraska of Omaha.  Most of these presentations centered around facilities.  The same thing happened while I was working at Weber State, consultants would come in and discuss how prospective students care most about facilities and work out facilities were always the most important.  Where else are the homeboys supposed to pick up chicks other than the gym?

Anyway, UNO reconstructs HPER, and HPER is freaking awesome.  It has everything a student could ask for.  The student population grows from it, and continues to grow.  HPER has been rated one of the top gyms in the country, the Outdoor Venture Center is also nationally ranked, and believe me, considering its location, that is a huge accomplishment.  A few months after the student numbers get a jump, Nebraska-Lincoln gets a new Outdoor Venture Center, so who tilts their head like a confused puppy?  Creighton opens up the Rasmussen Fitness and Sports Center a few years later, which is similar to UNO’s HPER, but considering Creighton’s student population versus UNOs, it is completely ridiculous.  Creighton did not want to believe the facilities argument at first, I mean it was probably based on studies from MSNBC or something anyway.  The younger cousin got a new shiny toy and they had to have one.  They do not even have their own logo, they had to steal it from the Toronto Bluejays.  The first thing you see in the About Us section of their website is the phrase There’s No Place Like Creighton.  I feel like I have heard There Is No Place Like…but I cannot remember how the rest of it goes.

You drive by campus on Cuming Street and you look at it.  While you look at it, do you see the resemblance to the exterior to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, or is that just me?  Can you guys not hire a cleaning lady for that thing?

  • You do not actually care about the education

Nebraska basketball gets a brand new practice facility, so the Creighton moneybaggers and Monopoly players get all whiny and throw down some money for the Creighton Championship Center.  That is the thing, Nebraska gets an advantage and that is all those people want to fix.  This whole foundation of We Support the Jesuit Education from the boosters with more money than God is BS.  If the education is what they really valued, then their students would not be sitting in the UNO library studying because it is  a superior library.  I am sure that The Entitled and The Attitude could not even tell you where the Creighton library is located, or what the purpose of it is.  The Creighton senior days, when the players make speeches, how many of those players have you questioned if they could read or not?  Have the boosters sat through those?

  • Your student section sucks

Oh they will show up big for Nebraska, Georgetown, or Villanova, they will come get in the front rows for the games on national television, but other than that they suck.  It is after all pretty difficult to pretend that you go to Duke when your team is in 2nd to last place in something.  You go to the games and you see that a majority of the student section is disinterested, they might as well be at a Rob Schneider film.  Yes your team sucks at times, but that is still your team, and it is free for you, so why not go?

The UNO student section is far superior, yes I am a homer here, but it is true.  The main figure for Creighton sports is men’s basketball, the main character for UNO sports is hockey, and if you go to both of these events then you already know.  Even when UNO hockey is not as strong of a team as the students want to be, they still show up, because it is their team and they support it.  The Creighton students do not go if the Bluejays suck in their minds.

When I was on Student Government at UNO, this was in the Division 2 days, Trev Alberts came and talked to us and asked how to engage the students into athletics.  Alberts said one of the challenges was to get people to support UNO with one of the biggest athletic programs in the country just 45 minutes down the road, and while UNO was getting support for hockey there were not a lot of people there to support the Mavericks, there were more people who were just there for their love of hockey.  Alberts wanted to figure out how to get people behind UNO, not just the sport of hockey.  He also had the general feel that for other sports, students did not want to come to division 2 events because of the “high school” feel that it gave.  I think the high school feel is gone, students are there to support UNO now, the momentum is building, and the support is growing.  When the Mavs can play for post season, the crowd will become more supportive too, and the support was pretty high this last season of transition.

The Nebraska basketball student section did not want to go for a number of years, there was not much excitement in that program.  Tim Miles and a new arena rejuvenated them, now they are loud and crazy, no matter the opponent.  They are there to support the team now, good record or bad record, Big Ten opponent or Sun Belt opponent, they are there now.  They do not even need beer.

  • Tre’Shawn knows Omaha

It is not just Tre’Shawn Thurman, but any current and future Maverick that in an Omaha guy.  A marketing campaign we really need to start to take over JaySkers market.  You can assume most JaySkers are from Omaha and support the city of Omaha in one way or another.  With none of the Big East opponents really that close, and no Nebraska born scholarship players for Creighton (next year they will have Omaha North’s Justin Patton and Benson’s Khyri Thomas), it will be more difficult for these people to really connect with the Creighton program.  They wont have that Omaha supportive feel as they did with 8 years of Josh Dotzler-Antoine Young-Josh Jones Local From the Area back courts leading as the faces of the program and as that connection to the Omaha fans.

UNO has that connection now with Tre’Shawn Thurman, the player that the JaySkers will recognize.  We can get in Creighton’s front yard and throw a University of Nebraska at Omaha advertisement in a media timeout of a Creighton basketball game, and the video can end with the best Thurman dunk we can find.  It will get the Jayskers to think, We Need to Go See That Kid.  The guy they will want to see and sit around talking about his play at UNO and debating what he could have been at Creighton or Nebraska.  Can we post a bunch of Tre’Shawn Knows Omaha posters all around town, even on Creighton’s campus?  Is that against some rule?  Can we post a picture of him standing over an aerial portrait of Omaha, with his foot over the Creighton campus?  A subliminal message of, Everyone Will Get Behind This Guy and Not See You Anymore!

I am not even sure if this is totally legit.  I do see a bunch of women’s athletics programs just using girls that they see as the most attractive girl on the roster for their advertisements, even if they are not that much of an athlete in comparison to their teammates, so why not this?  It will not do much to anger The Attitude or The Coast, they barely care about Omaha as is.  The Entitled and The Senseless though, this will screw them up a bit.  The Entitled has a weird love of Omaha, mainly because they know they cannot leave it without Daddy’s permission, but they love it as if they are Batman loving Gotham City.  You know if Bruce Wayne’s parents did not die, and they just spoiled the crap out of him to the point of making him a waste of talent.

  • We beat Marquette…

Okay, so this can get to Creighton fans just a little bit, and they will typically come back with the You Lost to Chicago State argument, and that is fair.  But this still gets in their head enough to get them thinking.  If you keep poking at The Attitude, they are going to get pissy, they will absolutely need Creighton-UNO basketball to happen just to shut you up.  Remember, the idea is to get the fans to demand the game to happen, you want to get their reasons as to why the game is not happening out of their heads.

  • You are afraid to schedule us

I do not think this will work, but if you want to try it, what the the hell.  The fans are not afraid to schedule UNO, they just fall into the game of We Would Beat You by 50 and Playing UNO Would Do Nothing For Creighton.  The coaches and admin might be afraid, not in terms of picking up a loss on the  schedule, but more so for losing the fair weathered fans that they know “support” their program.

A mass of their fans care more about the beer at the arena, and the last time I checked the new UNO arena will sell beer.  My brother got me tickets to a Creighton game this year.  I went to the game, sat in literally the very back row, and I sat behind these three dudes who may have been the dumbest dudes I have ever found.  They hardly paid attention to the game, drank more beer than I have drank in the last 6 months, and talked about going to the casino the whole time, but this is after they discussed how dedicated they were as Creighton fans when they first sat down.  If UNO had a casino near campus, those fans would come and “support” UNO too, but I do not think these were people Trev Alberts was trying to recruit to be the supporters of UNO.

Creighton though, they love these people, and they cannot possibly take the risk of scheduling UNO for these idiots.  If Creighton-UNO plays, they may actually do a little more than pretend to care about the game.  They may stay seated, watch, be into it, and they may spend a few less dollars on beer.  OH NO!  Admit it though, you love going to their games or watching them on television and seeing 1/5 of the arena not into it, just in the hallways or at the concessions not actually rooting on the team.  Creighton might actually be afraid of scheduling UNO for the sake of these people.  So much integrity and excellence.

Have you ever heard a Creighton fan talk about Kansas basketball?  That is the team they want to play more than any but it wont get scheduled.  They want Kansas to come to Omaha and slap some dumb boring tag line of Come See the Bird Fight!  They want to show they belong with Kansas for some reason.  Kansas is on their own scale of good.  Creighton fans love to sit around and say “Kansas is afraid to schedule us”.  No, Kansas is not afraid to schedule you.  From what I could gather over years of listening to Creighton assistant coaches on the radio, it was Dana Altman who was afraid to schedule Kansas, for whatever reason.

  • Aksarben > Old Market

Creighton fans love their shiny things, and they love the downtown bars.  Apparently the Jesuit foundation means sneak into every bar in the Old Market and drink so much until you pass out in the back of a 5 minute cab ride.  Aksarben is now growing and it growing because of UNO, downtown does not NEED Creighton.  Aksarben also does not have that 42 year old dudes hitting on 22 year old chicks feel to it, bragging up his 36k a year lifestyle to some girl in college who has never worked more than 15 hours a week.  The restaurants in Aksarben are newer, the buildings are newer, and it has Amato’s.  Aksarben is not even close to being done either, not that downtown ever will be, but this has to enrage the from Omaha Creightoners.  I have not been to Aksarben much, just to DJs Dugout to catch a UNO hockey game or two, and a few other places, but I did notice that there are also not any douche bags that want to start a fight just for the sake of feeling tough like the Old Market.  Insecure people needing validation, that is the Creighton way.

  • I cannot stop laughing when you tell me that Creighton is as athletic as Georgetown or Villanova

Just stop saying it!  You are killing me!  I cannot even feel my side anymore!  Oh my God, you really think that?!  You really are that delusional!  How many beers did you have before half time?!?!  Is there a country for people like you to get deported to?!?!?!  Is it called the Republic of Dumb Shits?!?!

I had Archer on in the back ground during that…

So pissing off Creighton will be fun, and most of UNO fans probably already try it anyway, but at least now they should know that it can be productive too.  It is important to know that UNO fans need the Creighton fans to want this as much as the UNO fans.  As the JaySkers catch on, the UNO fans need to be welcoming of them, welcome them into a few watch parties for games at DJs Dugout maybe, let them see that Mavnation is not filled up with a bunch of arrogance like its neighbor.  Go to the Creighton-UNO and Nebraska-UNO events that are happening, which I am sure you already do, and find the good kind of JaySkers, friend them up and work on getting them to be MavSkers.

How to schedule the Mavericks and the Bluejays: Part I

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , ,

Richard Creighton Fan walks into a bar

Okay, his name is actually Dick Creighton Fan*, but he walks into a bar about a half hour before the tip off of a men’s Creighton basketball game.  The first thing you need to know is that the bar belongs to him.  He will spend about 40 dollars on beer and food throughout the duration of this basketball game, and that is the most important 40 dollars that this bar will ever receive.  Dick grabs his seat at the end of the bar, right next to the tv, and so when you walk in you will have to walk by him and acknowledge his fan hood to the Creighton Bluejays.  For crying out loud, he has the new Bluejays logo on his shirt and the old logo on his hat, so you know he is freaking serious, super serious, he is Batman Taking Down the Joker serious.  It is a Saturday, so there are other basketball games on, and other sports on television, but none of those matter while Dick is ready to spend 40 bucks.  Dick is incapable of watching the game at home, no one is entirely sure of the reason, but does it really count as watching a sports match if you do not spend at least 20 bucks on beer?  If you went to a Creighton game with Dick, you would see how many trips he makes to the concession stand for a 8 dollar beer, it is a minimum of 3 times.

*Dick Creighton Fan is a pseudonym for a combination of every fair weathered Creighton fan you have ever met.  We all know a Dick Creighton Fan, they are all over Omaha, you have had several interactions with many of them, and you are even close friends with a few of them.  Most of this is based on an actual Dick Creighton Fan that I am good friends with.  Please do not take me poking fun at Creighton basketball as me not respecting the program, I have a good deal of respect for the actual program itself.

Fans of other teams begin to pile into the bar, none of them have a Creighton shirt on, but that does not matter to Dick, because you are the one who is a douche, and you need to respect what he brings to the world of sports, you came to his bar, he did not come to your bar.  A fan with a Nebraska Cornhuskers shirt walks in to watch a game, Dick tells him he is an idiot, Nebraska is stupid.  Dick loves the Huskers from late August to the beginning of January, but damn it, this is the winter, and Dick is 99% positive that the other sports at the University of Nebraska folded about 15 years ago.  A UNO hockey fan walks into the bar in hopes of catching the team’s away game, Dick does not care for UNO, you see in Dick’s mind, Creighton is in the Big East and has never been in a mid major.  Creighton has been a part of the big boys since the beginning of sports, so liking UNO is for the poor.  It is amazing how Creighton fans have already forgotten that they were actually in the Missouri Valley, and it can also be amazing that the ones who do remember that they played in the Valley forget that Wichita State and Northern Iowa were not always powerhouses.  An Iowa fan walks into the bar, what a loser, get creative, Creighton is all about innovation, Dick wants to ask the Iowa fan what it is like living in a trailer park.  A Kansas basketball fan walks into the bar, and this just enrages Dick.  Dick cannot handle it, this will cause Dick’s budget of 40 dollars at the bar go up to 50 dollars.  Who the hell does this Kansas fan think he is?  He is a punk, Kansas will not schedule Creighton, and the only logical reason is because Kansas is just afraid of Creighton, too scared to schedule them.

I walk into the bar right before tip off to watch the Creighton game with Dick.  Dick chastises me for showing up late, five minutes before the tip for a Creighton game is late to Dick.  The tip comes, Dick is so into it that he can only talk to me during commercials, and even then it is mostly about how the fifteen steps he has to take to the bathroom are completely stupid.  The referees make a legit call against the Bluejays and Dick calls the referees a bunch of (homophobic slurs), because Dick is super classy if you cannot tell.  An opposing player hits a wide open shot because the Bluejays are pretty terrible at defense, and that opposing player according to Dick is the biggest thug that ever existed in Dick’s mind.  That player belongs behind bars for hitting that shot.  A Creighton post player misses an uncontested layup and the opposing team grabs the rebound and runs down the court to score a transition basket.  “He was fouled!  These are the worst refs I have ever seen,” Dick screams out.  That player comes out of the game because he just a layup missed with no one or a ghost in the arena hit him on the arm, and another post player comes into the game.  The new post player gets the ball deep in the post, and with his awful footwork travels and turns over the ball.  “What kind of call is that?!  These refs are out to get us,” Dick objectively examines.  He claps hard for everything the Creighton starters do, as if they are the 5 greatest human beings on the face of the planet.  Essentially, Dick thinks of the Creighton starting 5 as the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers.

So half time comes and Dick can finally talk to me, and thank God!  Dick graduated from Creighton, but is now working toward his Master’s degree at UNO, as that is becoming the typical route for Creighton grads that stay in Omaha.  So the UNO fan in me is curious, I ask Dick if and when the Bluejays and the Mavericks ever play, who will he root for since he is now a part of the UNO family (though I already know the answer).  Dick sets down his Bud Light (Dick ALWAYS has Bud Light, it is the classy man beer after all), he then looks at me in disapproval as if I had just admitted to him that I slept with his mother, AND ON MOTHER’S DAY!

“I will never root for that dog shit program,” he says in my direction with a soul less Terminator-like expression on his face.  Dick then goes on to tell me the history of the Creighton basketball program, which I am already familiar with, and points out reasons how the two will never ever be on the same playing field.  To bring them into the same arena is a disgrace to the fine culture and the existence of a basketball program with such excellence.

What is that you say?

So the transition for UNO athletics is over for all but the Spring sports at this point, and while many UNO fans are looking forward to the added respect of the glory that comes with being fully division one, they want to know if the UNO Mavericks will ever play the Creighton Bluejays in men’s basketball.

As an Omaha kid, I grew up really liking Creighton basketball.  A majority of the games were on KMTV and I watched every single one that I could, I had to mute the games due to the anger that would be inflicted on myself at the sound of Travis Justice’s voice, but I did watch most of the games.  Kyle Korver, Larry House, Nate Funk, Anthony Tolliver, those are names you can throw at any Omahan and they will have some sort of respect for them as athletes.  I grew up liking Nebraska as well, but it was a little more difficult to find their games on television.  They were so awful, they would never get picked up anywhere, but once in a while you might get lucky with one of the Big 12 games on KXVO.  I rooted for Nebraska, and I still do, but Creighton, I do not root for anymore really.

You know what achieved status I did not have as a child?  I was not a college student or graduate yet, and I had never been to a college party that involved Creighton students.  UNO and UNL students can get along on the basis of At Least You Do Not Go To Creighton bond, and I am pretty sure that a bulk of UNO students wanted to go to UNL at some point in their life, but for whatever reason they ended up at UNO.  I had friends in high school that ended up at Creighton (and UNL), and their parties always involved a bunch of dill holes.  Every UNO student has had this happen to them, they get to a party and mingle around a little bit, they start a conversation with a Creighton student and the CU student brings something up about campus, and you inform them that you do not go to Creighton.  They find out that you go to UNO and all of a sudden, the conversation is basically over.  How the hell did this peasant get into this royal gathering?  The royal court cannot be seen with the UNO jesters, so this person who seemed decent enough suddenly vanishes and relocates to a new group that is worthy of their commentary on life.

So after a number of run ins with Creighton students like this, the love of their athletics program died.  I cheered for them for a while, I watched their games on television, but I do not care the same way I did as a child.  Even with Doug McDermott, I never really cared if they won or lost, the Creighton students ruined it for me, and I am sure they have ruined it for many non-Creighton students all around the eastern part of the state of Nebraska.  If Creighton athletics wins at this point, good for them, if they lose, oh well, it does not affect my life in any way.

Not all Creighton students are bad though.  There are a few different types of Creighton students and fans that you should be made aware of.

The Entitled:

This is quite possibly the worst kind of Creighton student.  The Entitled Creighton Fan did not have a job in high school, their daddy has a good job, a great job that most of us are jealous of.  Daddy does not make The Entitled work too hard for anything.  Those “Why go to Creighton ads” should be followed with “because Daddy did not make you get a job in high school and you have no useful skills” if they need to get The Entitled to pick them over…okay The Entitled are going to go there no matter what if they are from Omaha.

The Entitled worked hard enough to be okay in high school, they got decent grades, stayed out of trouble, and did okay on the ACT.  Daddy makes enough money for The Entitled to get into Creighton with no serious issues.  Daddy pays the way for The Entitled to go to Creighton, so they will not have $100,000+ dollars of student loan debt by the end of college.  Daddy just wants to be sure that The Entitled can get into a fraternity so he has some students to study with (or cheat off of).  I know Creighton is supposed to be really hard to get into, but as Omahans we have all heard the stories of some entitled asshole getting through high school with a 2.2 GPA and a “26” on their ACT, but somehow they got into Creighton.  Daddy figured out a way.

Daddy will get The Entitled a job right away out of college no matter what, they just need a degree, and they need the Creighton name on the degree, not because it will help in the job market really, but for the glory of it.  The Entitled goes to every home game, because it is not like they need to work anyway, the Entitled goes to each and every game and pretends he goes to Duke, oh and if the Entitled does not get a free t-shirt at the game, it was a shitty game.  The Entitled will also be a total dick about a Creighton win over Nebraska, UNO, or any opponent.  The Entitled has not had a bunch of personal success as far as awards and accomplishments or what have you, so they have to ride the shit out of the athletics team that they started following when they were 18 years old.

The Entitled does not get disciplined by Daddy, just supported.  It is surprisingly easy to skate through life with your parents having the resources.  I know a Creighton grad, we went to high school together, let’s just say that Daddy and Mommy both have a ton of money.  The Entitled got some bad grades in their first semester at Creighton, and they printed off a bogus report card to give to their parents.  Somehow Mommy and Daddy found out, they got mad for five entire minutes, and The Entitled cried.  Mommy and Daddy felt bad for the tears, and for their actions of being the shittiest of parents in the world so Mommy and Daddy bought The Entitled a brand new $25,000 car.  Tough life, right?  The Entitled could have gone to college just about anywhere, they could have just gotten an online degree really, because if Mommy and Daddy can get them a $25,000 car for existing, they can get them a full time job just about anywhere in Omaha.  Creighton on the degree was just for Mommy and Daddy to have something to brag about.

Trust me when I say the words Creighton University do not really matter once you actually hit the job market.  The words may help them get a job straight out of college a few months faster, but after time the degree does not really matter to the employer.  What matters is what you did in your last job and how you did it.  The Entitled can use Creighton to get them into the door, but advancement is an entirely different story.

The West/East Coasting Douche:

So did you know that Creighton has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Hawaiian student populations in the US, on the mainland?  I found this out a few years ago, and it $urprised me.  There are a decent number of people that come from one of the coasts, it is usually the third school on their list, but they came to Omaha to visit the campus and “fell in love” with the campus.  They did not actually fall in love with the campus though, they fell in love with the Midwest feel of it being five years behind in terms of culture for where they are from.  They feel a little more cultured by coming here.  Downtown Omaha provides a bigger city feel, but with a small town splash mixed in for a little flavor, but not too much flavor.

The West/East Coasting Douche comes to Omaha, they like it, but they never really leave downtown for a few years.  Do not go to Dundee, that is where crime happens.  They come with the intention of coming to Omaha and getting the hell out after 4 years, which most of them are successful with.  This type of fan can be a bit of a prick.  To them, all of the locals are fools, you can never be as cool as someone from some a small town in California wine country after all.  They go to the sporting events and raise hell, because with a plan of getting out after 4 years, who cares what people around here think of them?

The West/East Coasting Douche more than likely comes from a similar economic class as The Entitled, but they have a different attitude and usually are not much of a factor after they graduate because they skip town immediately after graduation.  They go back home after Creighton life and just pay attention to the pro sports in the end.  They typically do not educate themselves on Creighton’s opponents, because it is just about a Creighton win, which is respectable in a way, but they do not care if it is Georgetown that Creighton beats of it is Arkansas State.  All Creighton wins are cool to these people, which is also respectable in a way, but when they talk up beating Arkansas State like it was the game of the century, you kind of want to smack them around a little bit.

So I grew up liking Creighton, right?  I have a Creighton Bluejays rain jacket, if I could find a Huskers rain jacket or a Mavericks rain jacket that fit as comfortably in the rain when it is warmer out, I would replace it.  Anyway, my wife and I went to Portland for her 10 year high school reunion.  Have you ever been to the Pacific Northwest?  It rains a lot, so I brought the rain jacket.  I worked out of my company’s Portland office for a few days, and my wife met me in downtown Portland after work for her to go shopping for a dress for the reunion, and to torture me with boredom.  Anyway, while sitting there in pain for an hour or two waiting for her to try on dresses, a guy comes up to me and asks me about my Creighton jacket.  He is clearly pumped to find a fellow Creighton buddy so far away from Creighton, he treats me like we are about to be best friends, but then he asks me what year I graduated from Creighton.  I disappoint him with telling him that I went to UNO, then his head drops and the conversation just turns into one word exchanges.

I did not live up to par with him, I was a local Nebraskan, not a fellow West/East Coasting Douche.  The West/East Coasting Douche is never overly mean or anything (other than at sporting events), they just simply do not care about the locals.  They are in college to get their education, which is important and honorable, the sports thing is cool to them, but not typically hugely important.  These are usually the students that you will look down into the student section and see them sitting down, drinking a beer, and playing games on their phones.  So the people that want to make you shout WHY DID YOU EVEN COME TO THIS GAME!?  They usually leave with about 10 minutes to go in the game though, no matter the score, because who really cares?  You cannot buy a beer at that point in the game, so that is when it stops being fun to the coaster.

The Attitude:

With similar backgrounds to The Entitled and The West/East Coasting Douche, The Attitude is just a prick for the sake of being a prick.  The Attitude cares about Creighton athletics winning, because they need to be better than you, and apparently their sports team beating your sports team is what confirms that.  Maybe the fundamental difference between The Attitude and The Entitled is that Daddy made The Attitude get a job in high school, maybe even one in college, just to teach The Attitude to please for the love of God just do not have an attitude.  The Attitude gets to Creighton though, and they have to deal with the Entitled and the West/East Coast Doucher, they need to compete for spoiled bitch hood.

Usually The Attitude is nothing physically great.  Their life has been spent with Daddy trying to give them life lessons by making them work and try to be a little hard on them to get them to grow up, but damn it, they went to a high school where all the kids got BMWs and The Attitude was stuck with a newer, but still slightly used, Honda Accord.  Why is life so freaking unfair?!?!  So The Attitude has let themselves go just a little bit to test Daddy’s love.

This same trip I spoke of for going to Portland for my wife’s 10 year reunion, before leaving Omaha we were sitting in the airport, and of freaking course I accidentally put my headphones in my checked baggage.  We were sitting next to The Attitude and a future Creighton student who could possibly turn into the West/East Coast Douche, but she seemed like a decent person really.  The Attitude knew everything there was to know about life, she had all of the right answers to everything.  She tried to teach the future Creighton student what real student life was going to be like.  The Attitude made fun of the locals and taught real import stuff like what professors you should take based on how hot they were or how easy they were as a teacher.  Do not even try to challenge The Attitude into adulthood, you will get nowhere.  The Attitude then talked about which fraternity had the hotter boys and where they hung out, who had the better parties, and which one you would definitely get lucky at…The Attitude was about 30 pounds over weight and wore glasses that made it look like she was trying to crack a safe, there was nothing really attractive about her on the outside or the inside, and you could tell that she never really had anyone in her life tell her “you know, you are not really God’s gift to man, you should try to nicen up just a little bit.”

The entire time she talked, my wife and I just had our heads down wishing it would just stop.  We both wanted to tell her off, but we both knew and probably just hoped that five years down the road she would grow up and look back at everything and realize her stupidity.

The Attitude is usually the one at Creighton games who do not know what a foul or a travel is.  How could Creighton make infractions in the game, they are too smart to not know the rules?   The Attitude is typically in college for the ride and to say that they went to college, not to actually get anything out of it.

The Senseless:

No one knows how The Senseless got into college, and in fairness they are at every college.  I am pretty sure they are just created like cartoon characters and never truly age.  They live the Van Wilder experience and have been a Senior a semester away from graduating for the last couple of years.

The Senseless loves Nebraska football probably more than anything, but hates Nebraska in everything else, especially basketball.  I believe the term for that is JaySker.  My friends and I think there are couple different types of JaySkers.  The acceptable ones who love the Bluejays, but also love the Huskers as well.  They support both programs equally as they the two biggest and local products, and they probably have ties to both of them.  These JaySkers can also love the Mavericks, even the Lopers, and whatever the hell else is out there in Nebraska.  Then there is the other type of JaySker, the ones who love Nebraska football as if it is their first born child, but hate Nebraska in everything else and just support the hell out of Creighton.  These people make up The Senseless.

The PA in the CenturyLink Center may announce the Nebraska basketball score from time to time, and The Senseless will boo the crap out of that.  They hate Tim Miles so damn much, probably because he is a coach with a personality, and he could threaten the ideal that Creighton has a dominating advantage over a Big 10 school on the court and in recruiting.  Tim Miles and Nebraska will beat Creighton someday, and it will be the worst day in the life of The Senseless.

The Senseless supports Creighton athletics no matter what, which is good for them, but to them the athletes walk on water.  The stories of students getting into Creighton with bad grades is impossible for them to understand.  To The Senseless ALL Creighton students got a 4.0 or better in high school and a perfect score on the ACT or SAT.

The Good Ole Folks:

The Good Ole Folks are good people.  They go to Creighton, because they want the quality education, and they want the challenge that is supposed to come along with Creighton.  They do not get to every Creighton event, just the ones they have time for.  These folks cheer on the Bluejays because it is their school, you can respect these people, you want to hang out with these people.

The Folks usually have taken out a decent number of student loans to take on the Creighton challenge.  They hear The Attitude talk about taking classes with the easy professors and they thank them for letting them know what classes to not take.  The Folks may have a father that works three jobs just to help their child go to school, and I really do not think there is anything more respectable than that.  You may meet the Folks at a party and they can carry a conversation with you most of the time, unless some peer pressures come from their Creighton associates, but later in life they will hold a small amount of regret for that.

The Folks can typically get along with anyone who is a good decent person, as they are a good decent person themselves.  They realize that sports are just an escape vehicle for most people.  Something to get away from the normal pressures and stresses of life.  The Folks do not need to wish the deaths of college kids of opposing schools, in order to take some form of comfort in a Creighton loss.  The Folks are at every school, and they are needed in to keep the rest of fans fair and balanced.

 

Where are you going with this?

So that is the main core of Creighton fans/students, when you get to know them, you hate them.  They have taken something that you could once enjoy and they make you borderline hate the athletic program.   Dick Creighton Fan, he takes on the characteristics of all the main core except for The Folks. but Dick is going to be essential for the success of the UNO men’s basketball team.

What does profiling Creighton athletics fans into something as if they are marketing profiles have to do with scheduling Creighton and UNO men’s basketball?  Just wait, I will explain that…

To be continued…

A little recap of the bumps and bruises along the way in the last year of transition

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , , , , , ,

So the season is over for the UNO men’s basketball team, as well as this long transition period, so how would you rate the transition and the 2014-2015 season?

As for the entire transition, it was obviously a learning process.  Not just for the players, but for the coaching staff as well.  In the first year of transition, yes they won 11 games, but only one game against a division one opponent (Northern Illinois).  In the second season, the team still won 11 games, but even after a few players transferred out, and the team graduated their stop scorer, Mitch Albers, they were able to win 9 games against division one opponents.  In year 3, the Mavs were able to win 15 games against division one opponents.  That team had a solid core of talent, and everyone knew each other.  Karhoff, Hagerbaumer, Simmons, Carter, Steffensmeier, and Phillips had established what they could do, then you got to add incredibly tough and competitive Rostampour and Patterson to that team.  You have to figure 15 wins over division one teams and a post season win in the CIT was a tremendous success, considering the transition and that most of the roster was not recruited for the division one level.

From a wins perspective and conference standings point of view, you would probably want to give this season a D-, but was it really that bad?  Okay, I will admit that I am a homer, but consider a few things.  The Mavericks lost 5 conference games by one possession.  The Mavericks were able to beat Marquette in Milwaukee without Jake White (who before the start of the season was thought to be the best player on the team).  The Mavericks were affected by significant injuries to key players Devin Patterson, Marcus Tyus, and Jake White (who I already mentioned), not only to mention that a few other players got sidelined by a sickness or two throughout the season.  I am still a firm believer that if the Mavs had White and Patterson against Chicago State that they would have won that game.  The Mavericks were also playing with 8 guys that had never played a game as a Maverick.  So with these factors thrown at you, do you upgrade that D- to a C maybe?

We knew that Jake White suffered an injury last season while he was sitting out due to transfer rules, so you had to wonder about how much he got to actually practice and get ready for his first season as a Mav.  It seemed like he was a little out of funk for much of the season, partially because of injuries to his foot, and I assume just about every body part you can name in 30 seconds.  Can that be a game at the new arena next year?  Name more muscles than Jake White in 30 seconds, and go… We were a little teased with White at first.  Not including Koang Dulouny, who only played 7 games at UNO, he was the first transfer that the Mavericks were able to pick up that came from a bigger program.  So there was some excitement to see how much he could help.  His first game he nearly had a double-double until he had to leave the game with a foot injury.  The newspaper said it should not affect him for too long, but he missed the first road game at Seattle, then at Marquette, then at Nebraska, and so on.  We were teased with this Well He Is Pretty Likely Next Game thing for a string of games.  The Mavericks even had him suiting up, like the Boston Celtics did in 2008-2009 in the playoffs with Kevin Garnett who was suffering an abdomen injury, which just had you wondering as a fan WHY ARE YOU NOT PUTTING HIM IN THE DAMN GAME, DO YOU NOT RESPECT THE OTHER TEAM?!?!?!?!?!?!

Then White came back, then sat down for a few more games, and we found ourselves wondering if this was a bust.  A bust in the terms of, did not live up to the hype because of injuries, not because of lack of talent.  It turns out, it was NOT a bust!  Admit it, a healthy Jake White versus Mike Rostampour, you have a hard time figuring out which one is the better rebounder.  There was not a ton of consistency to Jake White this season, but how could anyone be with that many injuries?  There were many missed “bunnies” by White, but with a constant string of injuries are you going to get mad at him for that?  Did you see how extremely pissed off he was after each of those misses?  He knows that is not a normal thing and that those easy shots will drop next season after he has had more time to work on things with the Mavs.  There were a few plays throughout the year, where he would get bumped the wrong way, and he could not get down the court and back on defense, which was unfortunate, but that is not something that will last.  Not the guy we saw grab 10 rebounds in a half, nope, that healthy guy, will be up and down the court.  The (barely) less than 40% shooting for a post player, that will not be forever.  If White can stay healthy, bring that shooting percentage up to the high 40s/lower 50s, and run the floor better next season, the Mavs will win more games with that.

Then the injuries to Devin Patterson and Marcus Tyus.  The team runs on Patterson, he is the floor general, he gets shit done.  Without him, the team’s flow is completely off.  You could tell that there were a few games that he was affected by his feet and ankles, he just did not run the same.  This is no diss to Kyler Erickson or Devin Newsome, but the team is just entirely different with either of them playing the point, the team does not get out and run as much, the team do noes not do all of the things that the Mavs like to do.  The team does need those stretches though where they are not running nearly as much, this is not Oregon football, where the offense can score in a minute and then go sit down for 10-15 minutes of actual time, nope, this is constant back and forth stuff here.  The team needs Erickson or Newsome to come in and slow it down for a stretch of time, the players do not play like a video game where it has a mathematical formula to determine how tired they are, although that would be pretty awesome.  Patterson is right up there to be the best point guard in the Summit League, the best point guard is too big of a piece to have go down in order for your team to keep their rhythm and success.  But this is athletics, players have to play through injuries, and teams have to figure out how to play around those injuries.  I think Chip Kelly said that.  Two Oregon football mentions in one paragraph?  Oh man, I really have married into Oregon fanhood.  I really need to check myself in somewhere, like a bar.

Then a loss of Marcus Tyus, so you end the season without your best shooter for 6 games.  An awful person may say that the Mavericks were a better team without Tyus since they went 4-2 without him, but screw that person.  You are never a better team when you take away your most consistent player and best three point shooter.  The team’s three point shooting fell without Tyus at first.  5-18 versus South Dakota (loss), 4-19 versus Western Illinois (win), 4-19 versus Oral Roberts (loss), 3-14 versus IPFW (win), then they needed Tim Smallwood to basically do a Marcus Tyus impersonation and hit a season high 5 threes against IUPUI.  If Smallwood did not have that type of game, the Mavericks more than likely do not win that game.  I sometimes think that when a key scorer gets injured mid or late season, it can turn out better for a team’s win percentage.

Why?  When a key scorer on the team have to think about things more and process out game as a team, and be more creative to find baskets, not just throw the ball to one player for a certain percentage of the time.  Not that I think Tyus was a ball hog, not at all, not saying that.  The Mavs were just forced to figure it out, after already once trying to figure it out without Jake White and/or Devin Patterson.  When the Mavs lost White, the entire team was pretty new as it was, so they had to figure out playing together already, when they lost Patterson, they lost their flow.  Tyus going out created a different situation, but this time it was after the mix of returners and newer players got a chance to ball and gel together already for most of the season.  As a point guard, Patterson only really plays one position, so his injury basically only created more minutes for Kyler Erickson and Devin Newsome.  As a post player, Jake White’s injury basically created more minutes and opportunities for Tre’Shawn Thurman and Rylan Murry.  By the way, I am still going with Thurman and Murry sounds like the worst cop buddy show on USA or TNT.  Tyus’ injury creates a little more opportunity, playing two positions, it created more minutes for Randy Reed, Tim Smallwood, and Kyler Erickson, as well as creating more situations for Derrin Hansen to try a bunch of different lineups.  The Reed, Smallwood, Erickson combo also knew they had to bring some more energy with Tyus out, they hopefully knew and understood this was a big chance for them.  With Tyus out, they all played key moments and came up huge to help the success of the Mavericks.  It created a learning situation late in the year, and the players had to develop and work it out.  PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ANY OF THIS AS ME BEING HAPPY AS MARCUS TYUS BEING INJURED, INJURIES ARE NEVER GOOD, ESPECIALLY FOR ANYTHING IN THE KNEES.

Playing with 8 new faces is kind of fun, but also pretty frustrating.  The first job I ever had was in a restaurant.  There was this kid that worked with me, and we were both new at about the same time, the restaurant closed at 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and the two of us pretty much closed every single Friday.  At first, it would take us 45 minutes to get all of the closing duties done, but after a while we both figured out what the other was better at, we both knew what the other was going to do before even doing it.  After a while, we could get out of that shit hole in about 15 minutes after closing.  The same thing kind of works in sports.  Yes, by this time Patterson, Carter, Tyus, and Rostampour should of had that same functioning relationship on the court, but it is not like they all play every single minute of every single game.  White, Reed, Smallwood, Murry, Meyer, Erickson, Newsome, and Thurman do not all have that same relationship with each other or the returning 4, and hopefully they can all return for next season to develop those on the court relationships.  They will know what everyone else is doing before they even start doing it.  Once the Mavs get on this trip to Europe and play together more, have a summer of working out together, all get together and practice, they are going to get better at that closing shift. So you have to be feeling good about the start of full fledged D-1 life, right?  You also have to think, there is not (as of right now at least) no division one team in Nebraska with a winning record.  Tim Miles has stated that his team has not improved as the season as gone on, it does not look like Creighton has improved toward the end of the year, but the Mavs did get better toward the end of rht year.

So is this similar to when the Mavs had the returning core from 2012-2013 and got to add Rostampour and Patterson to the mix?   Several Summit League teams have a good deal of players returning players, as there are not many graduating seniors in men’s basketball, so we will have to wait and see if the growing chemistry is a factor for the team’s success.  That is kind of obvious, right?  That we would have to wait…I mean the schedule has not even come out yet.  How dumb was it of me to say that?

Aside from the record that did not live up to expectations, we did see some great things this year.  Okay, we won a game yesterday.  If we win today it’s called “two in a row”.  And if we win again tomorrow that’s called “a winning streak.”  It has happened before.  That is a Major League reference.  If you have not seen Major League, you probably need to reevaluate your entire life.  The Mavs were able to finish on a 3 game winning streak on the road.  You have to be optimistic with that if the Mavs were able to make the Summit League tournament this year, that they would at least be hot going into the tournament, even as an 8 seed.  A team on a 3 game road winning streak, and 4 of their last 6 overall. with the 2 losses by a total of 4 points in the final possessions, is not your typical 8 seed.  But an 8 seed still has to play the 1 seed, and the Mavs did not have a good time this season against South Dakota State.  Okay, I went back and looked, that is actually a Major League 2 reference.  It is okay if you have not seen Major League 2, that is cool.

We also saw the ending of two fine careers, and the beginning of a few more.  CJ Carter finished his career with just a couple more than 1500 points, the 5th most in school history, Mike Rostampour finished his two year career teaching the Mavericks about rebounding and toughness.  The Mavs got to show off the beginning of freshman Tre’Shawn Thurman who showed a tremendous freaking upside, and Murry, Meyer, and Newsome showed glimpses of what they will be capable of.  Murry a three point specialist and good ball handler for his size, Meyer a good rebounder and defender, even showed some post moves when given the chance, and Newsome showed his ability to be a floor general.

Mav fans who paid attention this year, they know that this season was more than just the season that the Mavs beat a Big East team.  The Creighton Bluejays had a similar season a little while back, yes I know they were not in transition, but the last few years of Dana Altman the Jays would get ahead and build decent leads.  They would lose those leads on getting tired, missing shots, and not playing quality defensive possessions down the stretch.  Those teams (with Kenny Lawson, P’Allen Stinnett, Kaleb Korver, Booker Woodfox, Cavel Witter, and others) were supposed to be “the most athletic teams Creighton had in a while and supposed to run and shoot teams out of the gym, even with a bunch of new faces on the roster.  Sound a little familiar?  Creighton moved on from that, got better, made the NIT (almost beat Kentucky), eventually climbed the conference standings, found a stroke of accidental luck with Doug McDermott, had famous battles with Wichita State and Northern Iowa.  UNO will continue to grow just like Creighton did.

Another great success was how supportive the student section became this season.  This is partly because of the Pike fraternity growing a collective man crush on Derrin Hansen, and trust me, I get it.  The first three years of transition, you wondered where the students were and you really just hoped that they were not at a Nebraska or Creighton game.  Now they are taking notice, they knew how important it was to show guys like Carter and Rostampour their support.  The energy of the crowd in college basketball is an extremely valued variable.  Think of those moments the players are just exhausted and they need that reminder of who they are playing for (other than themselves, their teammates, coaches, and families).  They get that extra needed jolt and ride it.  The crowds at UNO hockey are extremely important, and not it is time that the other sports are getting the support.  I know during division 2, UNO would invite potential new hires to UNO athletics and the candidates would ask Where are the Students?  You have no idea how much of a ripple effect the student can create.  It is also extremely satisfying to go to a UNO game and see that the students are into the game the entire time, it is not like when they go to that other Omaha school and the students are sitting down, drinking a beer, checking their phones constantly, and not caring about their team.  They are just there for the hopes of a free t-shirt.

This reminds me.  Next post on how we schedule those Creighton guys?

 

 

A hopefully decent attempt talking about Lady Mavs basketball

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Before moving forward, I would like to point out to you that I worked 40 hours over the course of 3 days and got very little sleep while trying to write this in the little free time I had, so I was probably a little delirious, and noticed several errors and typos while skimming over this and I fixed as much as I could, so if there is a problem, see my assistant.  I do not have an assistant, so good luck with that.  There were many stretches where I just sat at my computer, wondering where the heck I was.

So I now have been to a few UNO women’s basketball games.  It is not my lack of interest or lack of support as to why I have only been to a few games.  During my time as a student at UNO, I would have night classes or work during most of the home games.  After the transition, I lived in Utah which was close to no fun, and after moving back it has seemed like I would always have a scheduling conflict with the women’s teams home games.  I listen to most of the games on the radio while I am working out, or doing other stuff.  But I was able to make it Thursday night, and I got to tell you I feel pretty good about this team moving forward.

Let’s think about the lady Mavs’ division one life.  First thing, they lose their coach.  They find a new coach in Chance Lindley, who was an assistant at Arizona.  Lindley would guide the Mavs to wins over three division one opponents in their first year:  Western Illinois, Texas-Arlington, and UNO (holy crap they beat themselves! – no, no, that is New Orleans).  In his second season, Lindley and his staff were able to pick up Carolyn Blair-Mobley, a graduate transfer from Oklahoma State, who made an immediate impact to help seniors Paige Frauendorfer and Jamie Nash create a big time Big 3.  The lady Mavs were able to go 17-11 overall in their second year of transition.

Then, in a way, the whole thing comes crumbling down.  The seniors graduate, which is kind of a given, and on top of that 4 other players leave the team, Cathleen Cox is injured, players decommit, and Lindley unexpectedly leaves the school.  Brittany Lange is given the opportunity to fix the situation, which it appears she is becoming more and more comfortable dealing with day by day.  To top things off, Cox is injured again, Brianna Bogard injures herself as well early in the season, who seemed to be expected to be a big piece of the offense, which the injuries and transfers leaves the team with one senior, 3 juniors, and 5 freshmen to be the players night in and night out.  If you do not know anything about basketball rosters, that is not a lot, and why are you here?  This year, Lange was given the chance to have a little more depth on the team, really just one more player added to last year’s roster would have seemed like a ton more depth, but it is a full roster now for sure.

 

It is incredibly difficult to rebuild a women’s basketball team.  First of all there is very little parody in women’s basketball.  My wife and I have discussed this on a number of occasions.  On the men’s side, there are a million six foot tall shooting guards to knock down threes, and their dream is to play college basketball.  There just are not as many girls that have that same love of basketball that can play at a highly competitive level.  You also have to consider how many girls in high school basketball are playing it as their second sport, many go on to play volleyball, or soccer, or softball at the collegiate level.  Combine that with a bunch of high school coaches that do not know what they are doing and go with a Hey This Volleyball Girl is Tall so Let’s Just Keep Feeding Her the Ball Even Though She Has no Hands approach. Basketball is just kind of the side job for many of them.  I mean no disrespect to women in college basketball, I hope this should show as a sign of respect really to the ones who do play and have quality careers who put their love of the game and carry out for success.  My wife mentioned at her high school, the basketball team had 7 players (throughout 3 different classes) go play division one, but none of them went on to play basketball.  It was a second thing for all of them.  My wife averaged 5 steals a game as a freshmen on varsity, and ended up playing college softball over basketball (although Belmont tried to get her to play her 5th year of eligibility for the basketball team, she beat the team in a scrimmage three point competition, Remy Davenport also has the same form on her shot as my wife as a FYI)  With no parody in the sport, it creates situations in which the # 5 team in the country cruises past the # 15 team in the country by 30 points.  So yes, rebuilding, especially in transition, is no easy situation in women’s basketball.  It takes a committed coaching staff and patient athletic administration to get through the tough times, two things that UNO seems to have.

By the way, my wife is in her high school’s athletic all of fame for softball and basketball.  The high school athletics program has apparently gone down hill in the last couple of years with some new high schools opening up and taking away some of the high level athletes.  We went to her award ceremony which was at half time of the boy’s basketball game.  We sat through girl’s game which was before the boy’s game.  One of the teams scored a total of one point in the third quarter.  It was the 6th layer of hell for me.  If any coach is ever reading this, I urge you to not go recruit for girl’s basketball in the Vancouver, Washington area (Vancouver is the Council Bluffs of Portland, Oregon).

It did seem to take a little while to find a consistent lineup this season, but after finally settling in with a lineup, the Mavs seemed to pick things up, along with improving some fundamentals and especially their free throw shooting.  Before the month of February the Mavs went 6-15, but were able to get to double degit wins by going 4-3 in the month of February.  The Mavs were able to pick up wins against Western Illinois (finished 3rd in Summit League), North Dakota State (6th), Fort Wayne (9th), and Denver (T-7th with UNO) in the month of February, they also play competitively against the two top teams in the conference South Dakota and South Dakota State.  So yes, the lady Mavs were able to end transition on a positive note.

With a more consistent lineup, the Mavs were able to get going, but the Mavs were able to move through the month by huge performances from sophomore Mikaela Shaw.  How big?  23.1 points per game and 8.7 rebounds throughout the month of February big.  Those are superstar numbers, like Other Teams Are Going to Stick Their Hands in Their Armpits and Then Smell Their Hands When Shaw Comes to Town, Because They Are Going to Be So Nervous type of superstar.

Looking ahead to the future, it may be comforting knowing that Mikaela Shaw (as of before the start of post season) led all sophomores in the Summit League in scoring, as well as rebounding.  The only player that averaged more points than her that will be returning for next season will be Western Illinois’ Ashley Luke (assuming neither of these players leave for some reason).  I would also like to extend this and point out that Madi Robson led all sophomores in assists.  And yes, teams can pick up some stellar junior college players, and transfers from Florida that can just dominate the conference.

So the Mavs had their best season during transition with Frauendorfer and Nash leading the show.  Having your power forward and point guard as your main characters is never a bad thing.  Yes, I know Shaw is listed as a guard, but seriously, come on, she plays the 4.  When your 4 and your guard are your main characters, you can utilize the pick and roll game a ton, look at any team that had Jerry Sloan as their coach.

Mikaela Shaw’s Twitter handle is shawesome_43, and I do not think I have ever seen a more appropriate twitter handle for a young college person, she is freaking awesome.  She can score in a variety of ways, she can drive left, drive right, score on the baseline, knock down a 15 footer, knock down a three, I would not be shocked if she could dunk.

Shaw has easily become a star over the last two years.  Let me just throw a few numbers out at you.

  • I mentioned that she led all sophomores in points and rebounds this season, right?
  • Her 38 points is the most by any lady Mav since transition, it was also the most by any woman in the Summit League this season
  • Her 721 is the most career points in the transition period, Frauendorfer had 755 and Ericka House had 732, Shaw did that in her freshman and sophomore seasons, Frauendorfer and House scored their points as juniors and seniors
  • After her sophomore year she already ranks 38th on the career overall scoring chart
  • After her sophomore year she ranks 27th on the career rebounding chart

And that is just the scoring, she can rebound, pass the ball, block shots, defend the post, defend the perimeter, and her three point shooting has gotten better and better.  I watched a play where she was on defense and went up to contest a shot, and she did not even block the shot, she literally just grabbed the shot out of the air and started a break down the floor.  Is Grab Shot Out of Freaking Air a statistic?  If it is, she at least averaged 0.1 this last season.

Like I said, rebuilding anywhere is difficult, especially for a women’s team in transition, by the way, have we praised Brittany Lange for taking this job over?  Rebuilding a team in the middle of transition, that has to be a coach’s worst nightmare, especially taking the risk of starting your career with that.  With basically an entirely new roster in her first season, Lange essentially got a job at one of those start up companies.  Anyway, it is difficult to rebuild a team, and someone like Mikaela Shaw is a great marketing tool…no, no, no I am not saying we use her, it will just come naturally.

The smaller schools have to rely on that one above the rest of the conference player to market their program.  The outsiders who essentially know nothing about the the smaller teams, they need to hear something is interesting is happen to pay attention.  At this level, people want to hear about someone like Mikaela Shaw doing great things and they want to go see it for themselves.  They want to sit around and talk shop afterwards and feel better about themselves and ponder real philosophical stuff like “yeah, she can score at UNO, but could score at a bigger school?”  The high school kids want to learn from that player.  If you went to high school in Omaha from 2001-2003, you would have seen every high school kid wearing their socks real high, growing their hair out (high school kids tend to grow their hair out anyway), trying to become a knock down three point shooter trying to be Creighton’s Kyle Korver.  Go to a UNO softball game.  If you went and saw UNO take on the Huskers last year, the middle school girls were there to watch Nebraska’s Tatum Edwards pitch, and they were there to learn from UNO’s Allie Mathewson.  Every time Mathewson stepped up to the plate, the younger kids were up at the fence, studying her batting stance, wanting to be the next Allie Mathewson.  The younger kids see the Mathewsons and the Shaws as the heros.  The Nebraska girls that go in and dominate.  The Nebraska Cornhuskers did not exist to those girls in those games between the Mavericks and Huskers.

Should it be amazing that she even came to UNO?  I do not know.  Per press releases from athletics and the Omaha World Herald, I have not seen any other offers she picked up other than a walk on role at Nebraska, but I have to tell you, a walk on offer to a small town Nebraska kid might be a better thing than a full ride some place else from a sports stand point.  I do not know for sure if Deweese, Nebraska is a small town, but I am just just going to go with my Omaha instincts on this one and say yes it is a small town.

Let’s not look at this like it is the Omaha Shaws, it is still the Omaha Mavericks.  If you would have gone to a women’s game, you could have seen the other pieces of the future.

I am going to take a side step before moving on.  The players who never got to play after transition, should not be forgotten.  Taijhe Kelly’s blocks, Nash’s ridiculous amount of steals and assists, House’s threes, Bough’s ability to do a little bit of everything, Frauendorfer’s…just Frauendorferness, and everyone else.  They all helped the UNO program move on, I am simply just looking at what we have moving forward.  If anything the players moving forward have a little bit of the past in them.  Barajas has signs of playing like Kelly, Shaw has similarities to Frauendorfer, Robson to Nash, and so on.

So it is not just Mikaela Shaw that we have to look forward to.  Madi Robson, if you are a point guard, you will have nothing but respect for her.  If you love a score first point guard, then I always think there is something wrong with you, and her career average of 5 points per game will not impress you.  If you watch her though, you will take notice of what she does for the Mavericks.  She keeps the team moving, keeps communication up, finds players in their spots, sets screens on bigger players to get her teammates in a better position to make a play.

I have not seen if UNO has a +/- stat for games, I know North Dakota State does (just sayin’), but the second to last home game of the year against IPFW, I cannot stress to you how important she was in that game.  If there was a +/- stat, I am pretty sure the Mavs would have been up 15 points whenever she was on the court.  There was a stretch in the second half when she was on the bench where IPFW had dwindled down UNO’s lead to one possession, and I was thinking to myself – Where the Heck is Robson?  Then what do you know, Robson comes into the game, and controls everything to a point to where the Mavs get back up by a few possessions.

She scored 15 points that game, and most of it were free throws as IPFW was fouling to try and get back into the game, but I swear she was capable of scoring much more.  No matter what guard got on Robson, she would break that player down, IPFW could not stay in front of her.  I was sitting next to some older gentlemen, who I assume were former UNO players, and every time Robson would break down their defender they would just laugh and cry out, “they have no chance at guarding her.”  She would get by, and find the open player, or bring it back up to the top of the key so the Mavs could set something else up.  You could tell that she had that game completely under control.  While on the bench, the team was talking less, the defense was breaking down.  It is not like they just muted themselves, I am just saying that while Robson was on the court, you could clearly hear the players better and more frequently.  Taijhe Kelly was probably the second most talkative on defense, calling out whatever she saw.  Not saying no one else was talking, those were just the two players that were clearly keeping up the talk.  When Robson was on the bench, she was like a undergraduate coach, yelling whatever she could out to players, scolding them for mistakes.  Scolding may be the wrong word, from everything I have seen, Robson does not have a mean bone in her body.  I have not seen a college player (in person) take over an entire game without the need of scoring since Tyler McKinney at Creighton.  Also, just a little bit ago when I shot out some numbers about Shaw, after Robson’s sophomore year, she is 16th in program history in assists.

So you take Robson and Shaw, you have Davenport coming off screens as the three point specialist, Vanessa Barajas as the rim protector, add transfer Marissa Preston to the crew, as well as incoming freshman Caroline Hogue, who is apparently a block specialist herself, and you have the recipe for a quality basketball team.  So there is some hope for this improving basketball team that showed promise down the stretch of transition, and we know anything could happen, like (this is where some hypothetical situation is mentioned, something so horrifying, you vomit and crap yourself and cry out “no player deserves that”).  Add that in with a committed coaching staff, and athletic administration that wants to put in their support, and you have a girls team that can climb the standings in the conference. and who knows what the limits are.

 

 

 

While a great game, senior night did not end the way we wanted, and Devin Patterson is the boss

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It seems that the Mavericks have had the same story to each loss so far this season.  Mavs get off to a great start, Mavs turn the ball over a bit and let the other team into the game, game gets close, CJ Carter and/or Marcus Tyus do what they can to keep the game close, Mavs miss some key free throws while the other team becomes incapable of missing free throws, and then I leave home sad.  Even though last night’s game ended with a loss, it was refreshing to see a little bit of a different story.

The Mavs did not get off to the greatest start in this one.  There were some poor decisions in the beginning, bad turnovers, bad luck, bad shots, and a lot of fouls.  Then they fought to get back into the game a bit, kept it at a close game, got down by a few possessions, then cut it back down to a position, and even take a lead.  It became a back and forth game, rather than watching than a runaway bride game.  Jake White, Randy Reed, and Kyler Erickson all came off the bench to give the team a much needed jump start.  Each played with great energy that has been needed of the Mavs bench all season, we saw a few lineups that we had not seen all year due to Tyus being out, Mike Rostampour in foul trouble, and CJ getting stitched up.

I brought my wife to the game, my wife does not get to many games due to a busy work and school schedule, but it is like having the world’s most critical commentator next to you.  I have gone to sporting events with women in the past and they point out the things that you do not typically see as a dude, like, hey that player has stupid hair, he should cut his hair.  My wife on the other hand played basketball for several years and is also coaches high school, so yes it can be emasculating at times.

Anyway, at her first game my wife sits down and asks “who is their best player”?  I tell her that each of the key players brings something different that puts them in as the best at something on the team.  Mike Rostampour is the best post defender and rebounder, Marcus Tyus is the best shooter, CJ Carter is the best slasher at getting to the basket, and Devin Patterson is probably just the most important player.  If he has a 2-7 shooting performance, the Mavs are not going to have a good time.  If he gets into foul trouble or rolls his ankle, the Mavs are not going to have a good time.  26 points, 6 rebounds, and 8 assists at Marquette, the Mavs had a good time.  2 of 8 with 7 points and 7 turnover against Kansas State, the Mavs did not have a good time.  MmmmK.  Things got bad for the Mavs this season when Patterson basically had to sit for 2 and a half games due to injuries, and you could tell he was still at least a little bit slowed down after that for a number of games.

My wife was a point guard, and her number in high school and in college was 3, so she has an instant respect for the junior point guard.  The coach in my wife points out every miscue by the Mavericks:  they are not moving, that was not the best shot available on that play, that player needs to figure out how to box out, that asshole does not want to play defense, I hate players who cannot catch the ball, but not as much as I hate players who pass an uncatchable pass, that idiot keeps dribbling the ball into traffic and he has three turnovers because of it.

So a lot of that was from the South Dakota loss, my wife did not have all of those complaints on Thursday against Oral Roberts.  Mike Rostampour picked up three quick fouls and you can tell some energy is taken out of the crowd.  Rostampour is the energy provider, best post defender, and it is also his senior day and he has to go sit down for 16+ minutes, so yeah there was some energy taken out of the crowd.  Jake White comes in and provides some energy, but Randy Reed really brought it last night.  My wife asks, we did not see him against South Dakota, why does this guy not play more?  I have no answer, I do not know why really, I have felt he has needed more minutes all year.

With Rostampour limited with foul trouble, and already with no Marcus Tyus, and with CJ Carter only having 4 points at half time, many of the fans around me felt like the game was over.  If you have watched the Mavs all season and seen that the story is much of the same game after game, I could see people feeling that, but this was not the typical game.  The game never got so out of hand that you could see the players giving up, they fought through everything, even though the game did not end the way the Mavs wanted to, you have to proud of the effort and the fight.

I think the most frustrating thing as a player in a close loss like that is after the game you will find yourself sitting there thinking, if I would have just not turned it over on that one play, or missed that one shot, or driven right instead of left on that play with a few minutes to go in first half, we could have won that game.  I can think of one play that me thinking, had that gone down differently, maybe they could have won that game.  With much of the team returning for next season, the team can learn from these moments and fix a lot of the mistakes.

I never like to the blame the officials for a loss, and I still do not blame them for last night’s loss, but they were confusing and knit picky at times last night.  Mid-major officials being inconsistent?  Get out of here, that never happens… The Summit League officials seem to always want to keep Mike Rostampour in check, which they should do with any player, but at times it seems like they are singling him out.  A double technical foul in the game AND a double foul of a block on the defender and charge on the offensive player tells you that the refs are afraid to look like bad guys.  I officiated basketball for a few years, you can tell the refs that do not want to be the bad guy and the guys who do not care what you think about them.  The refs that don’t want to be the bad guy call make up calls, and it makes people want to punch them in the face.

Refs are people too, they typically do not like being yelled at, and it is not like they get to explain themselves like an annoying Customer Service agent with some BS lingo.   You want the refs who forget about what a player did five games ago, the Summit League has officials who want to make sure the players know they have things in check.  Take Garth Algar’s advice on wanting expensive guitars, LIVE IN THE NOW!  They do not look at it play by play, they look at is as Well This Guy Was a Jerk Last Month, I Will Give Him a Foul For Rolling His Eyes at Another Player.  Don’t get me wrong, if some player caused a huge fight a month ago, yeah you want to make sure that guy does not do that again.  Rostampour has not been out there punching dudes, there is no reason to “keep him in check” just because he plays like he cares.  You want the refs that take thirty seconds of their life to proactively tell a player that they will call a foul if do that one bad thing again,  there is a reason why Karl Hess is now only officiating basketball games at Nazi Summer Camp.  Watch an Atlantic 10 game some time, ALL of their refs are Look at Me and I’ll Cut You refs, their players are basically not allowed to play with emotion, a guy like Mike Rostampour would only play 5 minutes a game and average 5 fouls a game in the Atlantic 10.

Mickey Gordon wanted to be the first to say farewell.
Mickey Gordon wanted to be the first to say farewell.

My wife and I were in Kansas City for a UNO at UMKC game in 2012-2013 and we sat directly behind the UMKC bench…we were even seen in the picture that UMKC used as the photo for the presser of the firing of Matt Brown.  Anyway, there was one ref, and Matt Brown would have a complaint and try and talk to the guy, and the guy would come over and make some stupid joke and have a stupid shit eating grin on his face every time and laugh like it was the appropriate time for his failure of a comedy routine.  I wanted to yell at this ref for Matt Brown.  How much would that mess up that ref?  He’s incompetent and trying to be a comedian for a pissed off coach, and the guy sitting behind the bench with the opposing team’s shirt gets up and calls him out as an idiot?  I have not seen that ref work a Summit League game since that year, and I watch a lot of them thanks to ESPN3 replay options.  If he got promoted I will be really upset.  Mild mannered Derrin Hansen was even out at center court yelling at the refs that game because they were unorganized and messing things up.  Comedy Ref stood there with incompetence the entire time, he just wanted to be everyone’s buddy.  The Mavs won that game, I think it was their first Summit League road win, but they won that game partly with learning to deal with incompetent refs.  This reminds me, why the hell is UMKC in the WAC?

A three paragraph tangent about refs might be a new record for myself.  Where was I?  Last night, yeah that’s right.  It was a frustrating loss, but what loss is not frustrating?  The most frustrating are the ones where you realize you deserved that loss due to not working hard.  The ones like last night, you can actually learn something and move one, so we will do that, we will move on.  We will lose two great seniors that helped set the ground work for division one, and who will not be forgotten.  Last night when both were sidelined, we were shown that we will be in great hands in the future.  The seniors to be, and sophomore Tre’Shawn Thurman, showed great energy and that they are ready for next year.  We are in great shape because of what the two of them provided.

I say that Devin Patterson is the most important piece of the team, and that is because he keeps things moving (among other factors).   Not only on offense, but on defense he can great so many bad situations for the other team.  My wife averaged 4+ steals a game as a freshman in high school, and her favorite thing about basketball was being “the little girl” but also being able to install so much fear into her opponents that they would shit their pants.  I have not verified if she made anyone literally shit their pants, but those were her words.  Devin Patterson does that for the Mavericks, he creates fear for the opposing team and they try to keep the ball away from him, but they cannot do it.  We can see that Mike Rostampour brings energy and gave the Mavs heart when they desperately needed it, and Devin Patterson brought that too when he came to Omaha.

At one point the Mavs were literally not moving, just four dudes standing around (while one picked up his dribble) like they were in a Jurassic Park film trying to not be seen by the T-Rex.  You could see Patterson yell at them after that.  I am not sure if he was scolding them for not moving, but they started moving around more and more after that.  I have seen him yell at players before for making poor choices, and they typically listen and respond, or end up on the bench for not listening to what he had to say.  He had this just ridiculous array of moves for the Mavs first basket last night, most NBA players would not have been able to defend it.  My wife who was frustrated by the first few minutes of the game, instantly put down her drink and clapped for him with respect.  Post game, she said “I can completely see what you mean by saying he is the most important player on the team.”  When things got bad, he made things happen for the team last night.

So after last night’s performance, even though it did not end up as a win, I hope that Carter and Rostampour can feel confident about Patterson, White, Tyus, and the rest of the crew to carry on what they worked hard to help build as a positive future for the Mavericks basketball team.

Don’t forget though, they still have three games left.  One game is even on ESPN3