UNO Mavericks

Toughness: From Rostampour to Thurman

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So I started this over two weeks ago, but I got sidetracked with a few things.  I work two jobs, my wife had a family reunion, and also I pumped the brakes on this because I have been listening to a bunch of motivational speech compilations on YouTube because I was motivating myself to be a bad ass for a promotion at my place of business…so I did not want this too come off too preachy…or douchey.  I tried to edit this a bit to make it not too douchey, but I don’t know, screw you, I’m dumb.

Have you read Mike Rostampour’s blog?  It’s actually really something special.  Maybe it is the timing that I have found an interest in it.  Due to some just personal situations, I have been listening to a bunch of motivational speeches on YouTube the last couple of weeks, just trying to figure this whole life thing out and whatnot.  I think Rostampour’s blog and story provides some teaching lessons for athletes, but it is quite possible that the most important stories are the ones that were never told.

Side note:  in the middle of writing this, by complete coincidence, I saw Tre’Shawn Thurman tweet about Mike Rostampour’s blog.

As someone who is not even 5’10”, I typically find myself pondering, what if I would have made it to 6 foot, would I of had a chance at playing basketball longer in the life?  The answer is simple…the answer is fucking no.  When I ask myself that question, the question is based on the assumption that you need to be tall to play basketball.

I worked pretty hard at basketball, before I understood what hard work really was too.  My friends and I played basketball every day in the summer, no matter how hot it got, we played ball; if it rained, we played too.  The only thing that ever stopped us was a blizzard.  The unfortunate thing was that my parents did not know how to get me involved into basketball leagues.  They thought me playing in the driveway was enough to prepare me.  It was not until I was 14 and I participated in my high school’s basketball camp that I actually figured things out.  When I first started out in the camp, I could not catch the ball from certain passes.  There were just so many things that I had never seen that I could have learned when I was younger if I would have gotten involved earlier.  Despite not seeing all of these situations on the court that I was seeing and learning for the first time, my strengths in basketball was my court vision, ball handling, and passing.  My shooting was not too bad either back at that time, but it was not great.  My weaknesses were things you would expect in a guy that had not played any real competitive games or actually been coached:  poor footwork, poor defense, lack of confidence, lack of toughness.

Toward the end of camp, we were playing in a pick up game, and this kid and I were getting into it, and he started talking smack and telling me that I sucked and that I would never be on the team.  Despite what the freshman team coaches told me, that I would make the team, I believed this kid’s negative talk.  I walked away from competitive basketball, I quit before I even had a real chance.  Essentially, like most people in this world, I was afraid of failure.  I told myself a little bullshit story in my head that I would work out by myself on drills and come out my sophomore year as a new man, but I didn’t do that…I didn’t grow from failure.  I still played pick up games in the gym.  My sophomore year I was in a game with a kid that was First Team All State, and he dismantled me.  For every 10 great plays he had, I had one great play.  I let it get to me.  I should have looked at it as a learning lesson to work harder, but at the time I did not see the point.

Everyone wants to be successful, but not many want to put in that work.  Many college students want to be successful, but not as much as they want to party; and I admit that I was in that camp for a while.  Many young people think that they can be professional partiers because of shows like Jersey Shore and Real World.  Unsuccessful people try to pick apart the people that are actually working toward success, and make fun of them for working and try to expose their potential failure.  I saw some people make fun of Rostampour for thinking he could be in the NBA someday.  I also know about 100 dudes that said Anthony Tolliver would never make the NBA.  Tolliver realized what skills he needed to make the NBA, I remember him saying he needed to add a consistent three point shot to his game to set himself apart from 6’8″ and 240lbs guys like him.  He went to Europe to play, made the NBA, got cut, played in the NBDL, made the NBA, got cut, went back to Europe, went back to the NBDL again, and finally found a niche with the Golden State Warriors.  How many people were making fun of him along the way and thought he should have just quit and be a really bad ass real estate agent?  Too many.

So, why bring this up?  Now, I know that I am not the only kid on the planet to go through this.  Why the answer to, would I have made it at 6 foot is no, is because toughness is what I lacked.  It does not matter if you are 5’3″ or 6’7″, if you do not try, if you quit, when you fail, then you are not going to get anywhere.  If you read the Rostampour blog, you see the struggle that it is to become a division one athlete.  Growing up, I thought most division one athletes were there because they were naturally gifted and everything worked out perfectly for them.  Nope.

It is not until I met my wife that I understood how much work went into being a division one athlete.  I learned of how many sacrifices she had to make to achieve her goals.  She never went to a party in high school, because she was too busy putting up threes in the gym, or getting in as many swings as she could get in the batting cages.  Her family did not go on many vacations because they put money into her softball equipment and travel expenses for her travel ball team.  She did not get to spend much time with her then boyfriend (which I secretly applaud) because of all the hard work she had to put into softball, basketball, and academics.  Every time I watch some movie that came out from 1998-2005 with my wife, it is basically the first time she has ever seen that movie.  She did not even have the time to watch movies at that stage in her life.  My wife is incredibly tough and competitive as well.  We both have Fitbits and we do challenges, if I ever have more steps than her she will go crazy and walk around our apartment until she is 500 steps ahead of me and then gives me a talk on how she has to get ahead of me because she did not become the athlete she became by underestimating her opponents.

How many high school athletes have you heard of that quit on their sport because their girlfriend, that eventually broke up with them anyway, did not want to go to college where they were getting D-1 offers to?  Would you rather tell people that you failed or that you quit?  Not many people want to put that much work into anything anymore.  It is too easy to give up.  It is much easier to pay someone to fix your car (and screw you over) than it is to learn to do it for yourself.  In the fitness field my wife tells many people the same thing that applies to this…that if it was easy, then everyone would be thin.

Recently, I tweeted to Rostampour saying that I thought he was EXACTLY what UNO needed when he showed up.  I wrote about that, I meant it, and I still mean it.  There was not much fight in a transitioning team in just their second year when he joined the team as a walk on.  When I first read the Omaha World Herald article about a post player transferring from St. Cloud State, I admit it, I had negative thoughts.  My first thought was: this guy just came to UNO just to say he was a D-1 guy.  I under estimated everything about Rostampour, and I know I am not the only one.  He became the tough guy of the boy band, added some spice, and built himself up to be the emotional leader.

When I first saw him live and up in person the year he redshirted, I saw him standing there and I just did not think much of it.  Then at every timeout, when his teammates would come to the bench, Rostampour was always the first to greet his team to the bench.  It was what he could contribute in games, he could have just sat there with an Ah Shucks look on his face the whole time, but he did not waste a second of that time he had to sit out.  Every time his teammates would get outworked for a rebound, you could see him look up to God and ask if he could transfer his toughness to that player somehow, or if the NCAA would just randomly change a rule and he could just go into the game at that moment.

Reading about how hard he worked in that redshirt year is inspiring.  There was no guarantee that he would eventually get a scholarship.  It had to be earned.  That is a problem with us as people.  We say that a player has received a scholarship offer.  We say that we have received our degree or our diploma.  No.  Players earn scholarship offers, and even walk on offers.  We earn college degrees.

Rostampour said (paraphrasing) he hoped he left some toughness for the team to learn from it and grow.  At this point, let me just say that I do think that guys like John Karhoff, Matt Hagerbaumer, Justin Simmons, CJ Carter, Alex Phillips, Jake White, Devin Patterson, Marcus Tyus, and other Mavericks have had toughness.  But Rostampour toughness?  This is probably where you think I will complain that the team will never have that level of toughness and intensity ever again, but no…actually I think Rostampour said after the Mavs opening game against Central Arkansas that Jake White went into that game with an incredible amount of intensity and toughness…but here I am talking about that sophomore forward Tre’Shawn Thurman could be taking over that toughness role, if not his sophomore season, then definitely in his junior season.  I am not just talking about the physical toughness, I am mostly talking about mental toughness, probably one of the most important things you can have in life.

As an Omaha guy, I can tell you this about Thurman.  There were mixed emotions from people that pay attention to Omaha/Nebraska high school basketball.  This guy I met, who appeared to be a walking Nebraska High School Basketball Encyclopedia had nothing but great things to say about Thurman.  He literally did not say one negative thing about Thurman, and there were some current and former Nebraska high school athletes that he had some negative things to say about their games and mindsets.  He told me that Thurman as a freshman, is better than a bulk of what was on Creighton’s roster in 2014-2015.  That he could have gone to play just about anywhere, maybe not be in every team’s rotation right away, but could play on most teams.  Then there were others around here who said negative things.  Some said he was too inconsistent, that he was lazy and that is why he did not end up at a bigger college, that in some games in high school it just appeared that there were nights that he did not seem to care, and other things.  Go ahead and check out Husker Hoops Central on what they (mostly bitter Nebrasketball fans) said about Thurman and Benson’s Khyri Thomas (now at Creighton) when they were both in high school and locals talked about them as potential future Huskers (I think you may have to be a member to read about the recruiting, and I am not sure how long they keep it up).  It was not all entirely pleasant stuff.

I am not saying that on the 2015-2016 roster that Thurman is the only player that is capable of being Rostampour tough.  Devin Patterson certainly added toughness when he was brought onto the team, and he probably has his own brand of scary toughness.  Jake White brought it when he came to the program.  The general perception though is that Thurman was taken under Rostampour’s wing and referred to as a sponge, and wanted to learn absolutely everything that he possibly could.  As a Mav fan, I so hope that Thurman learned that toughness and hard work from Rostampour (and it certainly seems that he has).  When Thurman throws out tweets like “I don’t plan to be off anymore spring breaks if you get my drift,” I think he gets it.  It is refreshing to see a young guy that wants to learn and can learn from the older tough minded guys like Rostampour.  Per the Book of Basketball, the greatest book of all time, many younger players could not handle someone like Michael Jordan’s frame of mind and it just ruined a lot of guys.  Many of them had to go, but the ones that stayed with the Bulls were the ones who realized they needed to work their freaking asses off to play with Jordan.

My favorite Thurman memory in his young career is his game against Nevada.  There was a pretty big crowd given that it was Nevada, who has some prestige, and Omaha Benson’s Tyron Criswell played for the team, and it was Thurman’s first start at home and first home game since beating Marquette and giving Nebraska a show.  Jake White was still out with an injury, and no one knew what was going to happen to Thurman’s playing time once White got back, so I feel it was the perfect situation for Thurman to go off.  He played with a special bounce in his legs, he made shots that had fans see some things that they were not expecting to see, he basically owned that game.  I was thinking to myself…so we are going to have this kid for give or take 120ish more games?  Even as great as he was that day, he went 4 of 8 from the line, and that seemed to be more of what he focused on.  He tweeted after the game that he needed to work on his free throws.  He did not come out and say “I had 18 in a win, screw all y’all…I’m awesome.”

I think that toughness in general, for the most part, is a personality trait from people telling you that cannot do it for a number of years.  Look at Alex Gordon, in the environment of Lincoln his entire life, he was told how amazing he was as a Lincoln Southeast athlete and Husker baseball player.  Even as a player in the Royals farm system, George Brett and fans talked about how Gordon could turn out to be one of the greatest third basemen of all time.  When he got to the MLB, it was not working out, it took a few years for him to learn that he was not God’s Gift.  This is what I’ve heard from people in the know, but he didn’t want to take in hitting advice from older players and that his way of doing things always worked, so why add in anything else?  After a while of being a below average hitter, and all the fans finally turning on him telling him that he sucked constantly, he finally said he was tired of getting out all the time.  He was sent to Omaha to learn to be an outfielder, which at first seemed like his soul was taken from Shang Tsung at the end of Mortal Kombat.  Many players in Gordon’s situation would have just asked to have been traded, they would have gone to a team that was worse than the Royals, which would have been incredibly shitty at the time, and they would have lasted a few more years before becoming a permanent triple A third basemen.  Instead, he realized what he had to do to kick some ass, worked on everything that he could to be an outstanding outfielder and is regarded as one of the best outfielders in the big league today.  It was not until Gordon had a few years of failure that he had to learn to be a winner.

The same in a way goes for someone like LeBron James.  You may not think it, but it’s pretty true.  His whole life he was told how amazing he was, no one was going up to LeBron in high school and telling he sucked at basketball and winning that debate.  When he got to the NBA he lost and lost and lost at first and was told by many that Carmelo was actually a better team player and winner.  If you can find his first NBA game against the Sacramento Kings that the Cavs lost, they tried to interview him after the game…which might be the only time in the history of sports that an 18 year old was interviewed after his team lost…and you can tell that LeBron was not completely mentally tough yet.  You can tell he was completely nervous that the Cavs might have gone 0-82 that year and everyone would blame him.  Now LeBron loses a game and says “F it, we have to go work harder now.”  He had to listen to the LeBron versus Kobe debates and the LeBron versus Jordan debates forever, and still does.  Averaged 7 assists a game and was told that the Cavs were not winning because he was too selfish because he scored 31 a night.  LeBron thought he had it all finally figured out for a championship until the Boston Celtics pulled off a few trades to get Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to have three superstars that did not care about stats or what people had to say about them at that point in their careers.

Steph Curry was told his entire life that he was one of the best shooters that the world had seen, but when it came to being drafted many said he was too small and shooting was all he had.  Hell he averaged 6 assists and 2 steals a game as a rookie in the NBA and people still said he couldn’t pass or defend.  Brian Scalabrine told a story recently that as a new assistant he was telling the Warriors players that when he played with Kyle Korver that Korver would stay after practice and shoot 100 threes from everywhere behind the arch and would routinely hit 94 threes; and the Warriors players thought Scal was a loon, but then a week later after a practice he found Curry now doing the exact same thing as Korver.  Curry had the perfect shot, but now was being told that someone out there might be outworking him, so why not build on perfect?  Not having toughness would have been calling Scal an idiot and going home and watching Iron Man 2, Curry did the what I think is the exact opposite of that.

The greats, Jordan, Magic, and Bird all talk about people telling them they could not do it.  They attribute their failures as to the reasons they succeeded so well.  I think the only one that told Magic that he could not do it was Bird though.  Jordan apparently needed Pippen to slap him around a little bit and humble him, and Bird was just crazy.  Bird was the ultimate, he got off on people telling he could not do it and loved working at proving them wrong.  Read Larry Bird’s “Drive”, seriously, the man is crazy.

So you take Thurman’s love of basketball and athletic ability, throw in a spice of “this guy is lazy” and a mix of “he wouldn’t get these numbers at Creighton or Nebraska”, but you add in a few cups of Rostampour’s Screw Them Let’s Go Show Them Wrong attitude and you have yourself a recipe for something incredibly special.  Am I saying that you should scream at Thurman and tell him that he sucks in the middle of games?  I’m not sure, but probably not, I like craft beer too much to make great decisions…But maybe you should appreciate his hard work other than just his dunking ability.

 

 

 

The more I look up about the Jaguars, the more afraid of them I become

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With no hopes of making the Summit League conference tournament, there were never really any great expectations of the Mavs over the last 4 seasons, other than just hoping for improvement.  As fans of a transitioning team, I felt most of us would look at it as Okay, We Are Not Great, But We Are Not IUPUI.  I have to say, the more and more I research about the Jaguars, the more and more I am growing fearful of their potential.

You have to consider why we have fans have been going with a little bit of this IUPUI Sucks logic…

They only had 6 wins in each of the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 seasons.  They have not had a winning season since 2010-2011.  What Ron Hunter had built up from a NAIA to Division 1 program had been lost by Todd Howard. Basically to be summed up, ever since the Dakota schools gained some recognition, the Jaguars dropped off the map, so how could adding another school just south of the Dakotas help with that?  IUPUI dumped Howard and got an attractive hire in Jason Gardner, former 2nd Team All American guard at Arizona.

As fans we like to jump on the Oh, He Played Point Guard in College, So He Will Be A Great Coach theory pretty easily.  Maybe we are jumping the gun here on Gardner in thinking he will be a great coach at IUPUI and turn the program around.  When I say “we”, I mean the people that tune into IUPUI games on ESPN3, it is all the commentators talk about.  Before Gardner took over the job at IUPUI, he was an assistant with Josh Pastor at Memphis for a season, and an assistant at Loyola Chicago for two seasons.  By the way, am I the only one that feels Pastor is incredibly overrated?

Anyway, in Gardner’s first year at IUPUI he is able almost double the team’s win totals and get them up to 10 wins…yay!  Which is actually a supreme feat considering there were some people that did not think the Jaguars would win one game all year.  With no real big time scorer, (Marcellus Barksdale led the team this season with 9.5 points per game) the team had an odd style of play, did not shoot particularly that well (42.6 FG% – 7th in Summit, 29.6 3pt% – 9th in Summit), hell they were even last in the Summit League in turnovers with 15.5 per game.  Yes, someone averaged more turnovers than the Mavs!  The Jaguars were able to pick up some wins over IPFW, who was the preseason favorite in the Summit, Denver (twice) who was also a favorite in the Summit before the season started, and also picked up wins against South Dakota, Western Illinois, and Omaha when CJ Carter had a career high 45 points.  Their non conference schedule had some games you expected them to lose; Xavier, Evansville, Purdue, Drake, and Indiana State, but they were able to pick up some close wins against Milwaukee, Ball State, and South Alabama.  Also you know what they did not do during the non-conference?  They did not play any division 2 or NAIA teams for some easy slap stick comedy wins.

The men’s basketball program is growing as the university is growing as well.  Like UNO, as a commuter campus, the university did not have much for on campus living for students.  A few years ago, the university acquired the University Palace Hotel, a one time 4 diamond hotel, whatever the hell that means, and they renovated it into a dorms for students in 2013.  The men’s basketball team has also moved into a renovated Fairgrounds arena, which can seat up to 8,200.  So with a new coach, new facilities, IUPUI is starting to gain some attention, and they are clearly trying to make an effort to get their program to where it once was under Ron Hunter.

As far as what is coming for IUPUI basketball, Gardner has been working toward recruiting some decent talent for the men’s team…although it is not like he has much to improve from.  The Jaguars had 5 players that transferred out from from the 2014-2015 season, but it is not like they are losing 5 guys that anyone is screaming “oh no, we might not get to 10 wins again!”  When Gardner was hired at IUPUI, 3 players from Loyola decided to transfer to the Jaguars program who will be available for 2015-2016.

  • Nick Osborne is 6’8″ and 220, he played in 28 games and made 17 starts in his sophomore year at Loyola while averaging 5.4 points per game and 4 rebounds per game, and he shot 50% from the field.  He is also a post player that can hit 80% of his free throws, that is never a terrible thing.  Maybe he is not a guy that is going to come in and save the program by any means, but taking a year off to practice, he can definitely come into the Jaguars program and be an instant help to the team.  Most likely a starter for the team, especially considering that the Jaguars do not have much of a front court.
  • Matt O’Leary is 6’8″ and 225, he played in 31 games his sophomore season at Loyola and made 5 starts himself.  I do not care what anyone says, O’Leary is always a bad ass last name.  O’Leary averaged 4.2 points per game and 3 rebounds per game his sophomore year at Loyola.  He is also not a terrible passer for a big man, averaging 2 assists per game his sophomore and had a career high of 6 assists at Tennessee Tech.  Osborne and O’Leary can each step out and hit a three, but it is not like it is a big part of their game, does it seriously sound like IUPUI has two John Karhoffs coming into the program?
  • Jordan Pickett is a 6’0″ sophomore guard who also sat out after transferring from Loyola, he only played in 5 games at Loyola before a season ending injury.  Seriously a wild card.

Darrell Combs is a another player who sat out the 2014-2015 season after transferring from Eastern Michigan.  Combs is a 6’2″ guard who can score the ball.  He played in 36 games, and started 7 his sophomore season for an Eastern Michigan team that went 22-15 and made it to the second round of the CIT.  He averaged 7.5 points per game his sophomore year, but he only shot 32% from the field, so hopefully for the Jaguars he has been working on that in the year that he redshirted.  But hopefully for the Mavs, he has not… He did also score in double figures 12 times his sophomore season.  Osborne, O’Leary, and Pickett are all candidates that could jump into the starting lineup at IUPUI with Barksdale for the 2015-2016 and completely change the look of their team.

Incoming as freshman, the Jaguars have T.J. Henderson, a 5’11” guard from Indianapolis.  Henderson averaged nearly 30 points per game, 5 assists, and 5 steals per game as a junior in high school.  He also held offers from IPFW, Kennesaw State, and Buffalo.  I cannot find out how his senior season went, he transferred high schools, but 30 points per game, 5 assists, 5 steals…ehhhhhhhhh.  We will (obviously) have to wait and see what that will translate into as a college player.  Five steals a game just sounds like Devin Patterson to me, that is a good thing.  I saw a blip in an article mentioning Henderson returning from an injury and scoring 20 points in a game in “limited minutes.”  The team will also be adding Henderson’s teammate, forward Gary Bonds, at 6’8″ he was in and out with injuries over his senior season.  So, another wild card, he did also receive scholarship offers from Wright state and New Orleans.  IUPUI will also be gaining a 6’9″ forward from Indianapolis, who played with Henderson and Bonds in AAU, and averaged 14 points and 13 rebounds as a senior.  He is described as being a guy who does the dirty work of setting screens, diving after the ball, posting for rebounds, which is never a terrible thing to have on your roster.

The Jaguars also have Evan Hall, a 6’7″ forward from Hindman, Kentucky who picked IUPUI over Eastern Kentucky, Morehead State, and Northern Kentucky, some recruiting sites listed him as a 3 star player as well.  Hall averaged 15 points and 8 rebounds as a senior and shot 65% as a senior, he also had 14 points and 8 rebounds as a junior while shooting 72% from the field.  Sounds like is pretty solid, or like he played against a bunch of 5’10” post players in a small Kentucky region.  I have never been to Kentucky, no one has ever invited me, and I doubt anyone ever will.  He was on the AAU National Championship team though.

The team will be adding Grant Sinn, who is a transfer from North Park University in Chicago, which is a real thing, but I am unclear if he ever actually played before transferring to IUPUI in the Spring semester.  He shot 45% from three point range in high school.  If you ever talk to a non-hipster from Chicago, they do not know what or where North Park is.  Sinn gained interest from some D-1 programs before settling on North Park, Gardner has said that Sinn will be an immediate asset to their basketball program.

As for more for the future, Gardner and IUPUI picked up a transfer from Syracuse, 6’3″ guard Ron Patterson.  Patterson was never the ultimate player at Syracuse, so he does not sound like a big time factor for the success of IUPUI, or like he is going to be an All First Team player for the Summit League.  His best game at Syracuse was a 13 point and 4 assist performance in a blowout win over Colgate.  He averaged 2.6 points per game and 1.7 assists while shooting 31 percent from the floor in his sophomore year at Syracuse.

None of these incoming players, or new facilities are guarantees for success for the Jaguars, but they certainly are some positive momentum that the Jaguars have not had in a few years.  They ended their season on a 2 point loss to Oral Roberts in the Summit League tournament, ending the season on a 2 point loss in a tournament makes players think Crap, If Only We Would Have Hit One More Three Earlier In The Game!  That sticks in their mind and makes them work harder in the off season, well hopefully.  The Jaguars are not a joke anymore, they are not what they were from 2012-2014.  Gardner is pulling them into the right direction, they might not get to the North Dakota State and South Dakota State level this upcoming season, but they have the tools to get their eventually.

 

 

 

What a Summit League-Missouri Valley Conference challenge could look like

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My friend and I were talking and making fun of the Big 10 in how it has all these challenges, really I do not know if two challenges classifies as “all of these” but still, one sounds like enough.  Anyway, we were talking, and we got on the subject that the Summit League should get a challenge going.  It might not make a bunch of a sense really.  Challenges are meant for the bigger conferences, I guess, but really they are meant for some nice television ratings and to ensure all of the bigger conference teams do not just schedule all the SWAC and American East teams of the world…or the Summit League teams.

Maybe for a conference like the Summit League it would not mean a world of exposure, but it could at least ensure a game on television, or atleast ESPN3, for each of the schools involved in a challenge.  It seams most Summit League teams automatically throw in some WAC and/or Big Sky teams on the schedule, so really if you put together a challenge with the Summit League and the WAC or Big Sky, you really would not create much of a buzz.  So my friend and I (lazily) threw out the Missouri Valley Conference as a potential challenger to the Summit League.

It does not have that high amount of prestige that the Big 10/ACC Challenge has, but what does, really?  A bulk of the teams are already all in the same region, some even go after the same recruits, so maybe there would not be much national exposure to this, but regionally it could pick up a decent amount of attention.  Fox Sports could get in on this, they seem to like the Missouri Valley, mainly because there is not a whole bunch else they can pick up, so they could get behind this.

So here, I put together what it could look like if these two teams were to meet up in a challenge.  I based it off of the 2014-2015 standings, and took Wichita State out, just because, you know…  After you see this, you will clearly see that I am in no way qualified to coordinate a conference versus conference challenge.  But it actually creates for some pretty fun and interesting match ups if you get these conferences got together.

Final 2014-2015 RPI Rankings in parenthesis.

North Dakota State (94) @ Northern Iowa (11)

Admit it, you just got a little excited and you may have to go to the bathroom.  Both schools have gone up against each in recruiting, in just about every single sport that both have available.  If you have ever been to the Northern Iowa or the Fargo areas you will know that both like to pretend that they are in the state of Minnesota.

This could really serve as the marquee match up of this hypothetical challenge.  Obviously, Northern Iowa finished with a much higher RPI ranking, and South Dakota State even finished higher than North Dakota State, so really you could flip-flop the two.  North Dakota State has earned some national recognition for themselves, probably a little more than Northern Iowa sadly.  Northern Iowa really seemed to sneak up on people in the middle of the 2014-2015 season, but really they are almost always a really solid team that can go right up against anyone.  This game could really be the, Can North Dakota State Prove Themselves game, or the Is Northern Iowa Really That Good game, depending on which way you want to look at it.  I want to put a disclaimer here, that I believe both schools are the real deal, but most people unfamiliar with both schools pretty much never give either of them any credit and attribute their winning to playing a weak schedule.

Knowing what I know about Fargonians, if you take the pride that they have in North Dakota State, which is a ton of pride, and you remind them that Northern Iowa snapped the football team’s winning streak, they might declare war on the state of Iowa until this game were to actually happen in basketball.  Honestly, if this game were to happen in 2015, I am not sure North Dakota State has anyone that can handle Seth Tuttle.  AJ Jacobson and Chris Kading are pretty good, but Tuttle is incredibly consistent and he is 6’8″ and 240 and can do literally everything.

Fargo fans heading to Cedar Rapids, and thinkind Cedar Rapids is the Miami of the Midwest.
Fargo fans heading to Cedar Rapids, and thinking Cedar Rapids is the Miami of the Midwest.

Illinois State (53) @ South Dakota State (84)

It just so happens that these two teams will see each other in the Cancun Challenge in November.  It is no guarantee that they will play each other, but they could at least see each at the hotel or something.

Both teams won 20+ games last season, and both made it to the 2nd round of the NIT in the 2014-2015 season.  The teams though are returning the opposite type of players though.  Illinois State is returning more post players, while South Dakota State is returning an incredibly solid core of guards.  Both teams played 35 games in 2014-2015, the Jackrabbits attempted 116 more threes on the season than Illinois State did, so that might be an indicator of the different styles of play that the two teams go with…or it might be some dumb weird coincidence that stats are lying about, I honestly did not watch any Illinois State games last year.

IPFW (215) @ Indiana State (177)

Hey, hey, hey, Indiana!  Indiana is a basketball state, but these two schools have not really profited off of that notion for quite some time.  These schools appear to be moving in opposite directions with Indiana State on the rise and IPFW on the fall.  Okay, has IPFW ever really been on the top of the world?  Probably not, but they continue to underachieve.  Maybe a little match up with the Sycamores could get them to care.  It is not like the Sycamores are above exceptional, but they do have more glamour than the Mastodons do.  Wait for it, wait for it…IPFW graduated a good deal of their core, while the Sycamores only graduated two players that were the 4th and 6th best scorers on the team.

(I think) The last time these two teams met was in 2006 in Fort Wayne.  The Sycamores won the game 67-61 in front of about 2400 people.  Indiana State finished that season 13-18 and IPFW finished 12-17.  It is totally cool to not fully understand why people think Indiana is a basketball state.

Evansville (82) @ Oral Roberts (156)

Okay, we are getting lucky here.  An Indiana-Indiana match up and now a Private School-Private School match up.  Evansville always seems to be a bit of a wild card, and Oral Roberts is showing every sign of being a wild card in 2015-2016.  This game could seriously be directed by Wes Anderson.  You would be entertained, but you really would not know why.  It would be incredibly slow at moments, and then just oddly paced for brief stints to confuse the crap out of you.  You would constantly be thinking that you know what will happen next, but you will pretend to be surprised that it actually happened the way you thought it would exactly happen.  You would also pretend that you were entertained the whole time afterwards, and somehow forget that you were just survived 2 of the most boring hours of your life, but hey that one guy was really good in it.

South Dakota (212) @ Loyola (87)

Nothing gets you going like an old Coyotes and Ramblers match, or a good old Vermillion against Chicago atmosphere. Does it shock anyone else to hear that Loyola had an RPI of 87?  With the exception of a loss to Southern Illinois, the Ramblers really had a season in which they lost to the teams you would have expected them to lose and they won the game they should have won.  This was the same team that most of us made fun of as the replacement to Creighton in the Valley.  South Dakota exceeded expectations in 2014-2015, much like the Ramblers, but the expectations were so incredibly low for the Coyotes that no one outside of the Summit league seemed to notice.  There was some inconsistency, like just about every team in the Summit League…they picked up a win against North Dakota State, but also lost to IUPUI.

Drake (259)@ Denver (234)

We are back on a little private school on private school action.  Both teams will return very little in 2015-2016, so this would turn out to be a Who the Hell is That Guy With the Ball? game.  Drake had transfers from Northwestern and Penn State sitting out, so they will have some instant help coming in, note that I did not say instant stars, I said instant help.

Also, take note that this is the state of Colorado against the state of Iowa.  Those two states have a hate for each other that I will never understand.  Maybe it is the fact that they are complete opposites.  One has mountains, one has trailer parks, sorry for the slams Iowa, but seriously.  I like to think it is because of the episode of South Park when they find the guy frozen from the early 90s, and to help the guy adjust to modern times they send him to Des Moines because it is constantly 3 years behind in everything.  South Park is completely factual.

Wait, back to this…Denver is known for not scoring a bunch of points, not because of the inability to do so, but more so for the ability to be patient and wait for shots.  With that in mind, Denver scored more points per game than Drake.  That is how fun Drake is at the moment.  I watched a few of their game this last season, they were incredibly slow, and not because they ran an offense like Denver’s, but because their players were physically all incredibly slow.  Drake did shoot 41% on threes in 2014-2015, so there is that.

Missouri State (237) @ IUPUI (257)

These two teams between them only had one guy that averaged more than 10 points per game.  that one player, Marcus Marshall, averaged 19.5 before leaving the team in January.  I am really not building up a great case of this challenge to be an entertaining series.  But IUPUI already gets every game of theirs on ESPN 3 somehow…

Omaha (299) @ Southern Illinois (274)

I love how outside of a basketball game, Derrin Hansen seems like the most fun loving guy you will ever encounter, like he would just go get a beer and watch the NBA playoffs and crack a bunch of jokes with you…but on the sideline he never smiles and is completely ready for business.  There is no limit on the price that I would pay to see Derrin Hansen mean mug Barry Hinson all night.

Southern Illinois fans are some of the most sport educated people you will ever encounter.  In case you cannot tell, I am being sarcastic.  They are probably unaware that UNO is division one, but that is cool, it is not their job to know.  But when their fans are looking up information on Omaha on their Motorala Razrs they will realize that their former big time rival is from Omaha.  Ohhhhhhhhh, this will boil their blood like no other.

Western Illinois (328) @ Bradley (280)

This would definitely be the Aquaman versus Namor the Sub-Mariner of the crossover.  That is a DC vs. Marvel reference, and a damn good one if you ask me.  Western Illinois has Garrett Covington and JC Fuller to help them appear entertaining, note that I said entertaining. and not championship contending.  Bradley has, well I am sure they have something entertaining about them.  I know, I know, I have been completely ignorant for a guy that is in love with a basketball team that finished 299 in RPI.

Someone published this.
Someone published this.

A look back at the players The Summit League has lost from 2014-2015

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

Every year we as sports fans analyze teams in college sports in consideration to what players teams lost versus what they have coming back, and what they have potentially coming in.  It is the easiest and the laziest way to determine who we think will be the best and worst teams.  So before all of that starts, lets take a look at the players the Summit League has lost so far from the 2014-2015 season.

North Dakota State – The Bison won the Summit League championship for the second straight year, and they are only losing one player to graduation.  So the lazy man will tell you that with only losing one player, they will probably go on for a three peat.  No, no, no, we are talking about a potential eight peat here.  That is a Bill Swerski’s Superfans reference.  The problem with the They Won the Championship and Are Only Losing One Player argument is that the only player that they are losing was the best player in the entire league.

Graduated:

Lawrence Alexander – there is no doubt that it will be difficult for the Bison to make up for the loss of Alexander, the 2014-2015 Conference Player of the Year.  Losing 19 points per game is no easy thing to lose, but we know players cannot stick around forever  Senior to be, Kory Brown showed some moments of that he could be the guy to make up that loss, but the Bison won the Summit League the last two years behind a complete team effort, so they will have to band together again to continue their dominant run in the Summit League.  They did pick up a commitment from Malik Clements, a 6’3″ junior college guard that will be a sophomore, who did at one time have an offer from the Mavericks.  They also have still no player on their roster that is smaller than 6’3″.

Transferred:

Jake Showalter – After only playing 13 games and averaging 1.4 points per game, it is no surprise to see the guard from Wisconsin transfer out after his freshman year.  With the addition of above mentioned Clements, Showalter was still probably going to be at the bottom of the rotation for the guards of the Bison.

South Dakota State – A team that only loses 2 players to graduation, but one player was an All Conference player and arguably the best post player in the league.

Graduated:

Zach Horstman – the senior was getting a lot of playing time before getting sidelined with an injury and being forced to miss two games against Omaha and IUPUI, this opened up more room for some of the younger guys to show off what they could do.  Before missing those two games, Horstman had 5 (out of 17) games of scoring in double figures and did not have any afterwards.  With lack of depth in the front court, the Jackrabbits had Horstman playing most of his time at the 4, but at 6’6″ and 205 pounds he was probably more in line to be playing the 3.  The Jackrabbits will have Reed Tellinghuisen and Skyler Flatten to still pick up most of the time for Horstman, and both are very capable players.  Not only that, but the Jackrabbits will have Nebraska native, Michael Daum to make up for the lost time at the 4 position, who redshirted in the 2014-2015 season.

Cody Larson – the perennial Lord of Jerkfaces and former First Team All Summit League player will definitely be tough for the Jackrabbits to make up.  Sophomore to be Ian Theisen showed some strong moments of what could come in the future for the post game of the Jackrabbits, and the Jackrabbits have some pretty big expectations from Daum, but are they 9 double-doubles good?  Are they 14 and 7 good?  Yes, I just puked a little.  I will be the first to admit it, and I have already mentioned variations of this before though, the Summit League was not stacked with really good post players this season.  There was Larson, Steve Forbes, and Mike Rostampour as the top 3, and then a big drop off after that.  Where was I going with this?  Not entirely sure, I just started saying that and was hoping it would go somewhere.  Maybe, just that the loss of Larson is not as big as it seems if no one else in the Summit League has a great post game.

Transferred:

Anders Broman – I remember coming out of high school, the Jackrabbits were incredibly excited about Broman.  Every school sounds excited about every player coming out of high school though.  It is not like Scott Nagy comes out to announce the players he signed and talks about his expectations of a few of them never developing and transferring out.  Either way, Broman is on his way to Winthorp.  Not sure his playing time was going to really increase his junior year playing behind Wisconsin transfer George Marshall, Jake Bittle, and Deondre Parks.  Seriously, does that guard trio not scare you, especially with Tellinghuisen and Flatten also capable of playing the guard position?

Oral Roberts – The 2015-2016 does not look like anything the Golden Eagles are looking forward to on paper, but Scott Sutton has seen this and done this before.

Graduated:

Denell Henderson – the loss of Henderson will mean Oral Roberts will again not have much of a post game, but they have never been extremely reliable in their post game.  Henderson averaged 3.5 points per game his junior year, before moving up to 8.8 points per game his senior year.  Albert Owens averaged 3.8 points per game this last season as a freshman, so is it pretty safe to say Owens will just kind of take over that role.  Yes, I based that off of very little.  No offense to Henderson, but it is not a bunch to make up.  Oral Roberts also has two freshman coming in that are taller than 6’7″, so there is really not a ton of fallout here.

Adrion Webber – I think Oral Roberts made the most appearances on ESPN3 out of all the Summit League teams last season.  I watched most of their games, and I cannot remember Webber’s name ever being mentioned.  He did score 9 on the Mavericks in their game in Tulsa, so it is possible I was too engulfed in anger to take in anyone’s name from the Golden Eagles during that game.  Former Creighton guy, Darian Harris did see an increase in minutes toward the end of the year, I assume Harris is a guy that is capable of making up for the loss of Webber.

Transferred:  

Korey Billbury – probably the biggest loss in the Summit League in terms of a guy transferring out.  It sounded as if Billbury had issues off the court that forced him to leave, which is why it is not really a huge shocker that he transferred out.  With Obi Emegano, I really thought these two had the chance to be the greatest guard combination in the Summit League for 2015-2016, but that will never be played out.  He shot 13-19 against the Mavericks in Tulsa, that is why I cannot remember Webber’s name.  On the court, he also averaged 14.4 points per game and led the Golden Eagles in rebounds with 7.4 per game.  Billbury’s game will be a lot for the Golden Eagles to make up, but they did beat North Dakota State, Denver, IUPUI, and a CBI tournament game without him last season.

Dederick Lee – not a shocking loss for the Golden Eagles here.  Former Maverick, Jalen Bradley will more than make up the loss for Lee.

Jabarr Singleton – another guy Bradley can make up for.  Singleton did score 10 points in the Golden Eagles win over the Mavericks in Tulsa.  Seriously, what the hell was going on in that game?

Bobby Word – an incredibly significant loss for the Golden Eagles.  Known mostly for being a shooter, Word averaged 8.4 points per game as a sophomore.  He also averaged 13.5 points per game after Billbury stopped playing, I cannot see Golden Eagle fans being super excited about losing both of those guys on the court.  The Oral Roberts, are going to be a pretty young team this upcoming season.

IPFW – The Mastadons had high expectations at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season, and it was partially because of their senior trio of Joe Edwards, Steve Forbes, and Isaiah McCray, but with first year head coach Jon Coffman never really materializing the roster, and ultimately just seeming somewhat bored on the bench, the Dons fell below expectations.  If their expectations were so high because of the players they lost, what are they going to be like next season without those guys?  The Dons did sign three junior college players in an attempt to land some guys to be immediate impacts, so they could be the Magic 8 ball of the league in 2015-2016.

Graduated:

Joe Edwards – losing 12 points per game can be made up.  The Dons picked up a 6’5″ junior college player, who at one time played at Alabama State, DeAngelo Stewart who averaged nearly 17 points per game and shot 47% from the field his sophomore year.  He averaged 2 points per game as a true freshman at Alabama State, yes Alabama State is a real college.

Steve Forbes – some could argue that Forbes was the best post player in the Summit League, and really it was just because of his roundness and overall size.  There was not much seen out of him from a leadership standpoint, just a Hey Lets Get Out There and Try Maybe and We Can Still Get Some Nuggets Afterwards Anyway mentality.  I would have much rather had Mike Rostampour or Cody Larson as my team’s main post player last year, each guy had that leadership quality you are looking for.  The Dons may have fell off the map because of how little Forbes seemed to give a shit.  I watched their loss at South Dakota in March, and kept thinking that Forbes should have been dominating the Coyotes post.  South Dakota’s James Hunter, who averaged 6 points a game, had 16 points in the game off of 8 of 12 shooting, because he actually cared about the game.

Kevin Harden – Kevin Harden was never the same after missing 21 games in 2012-2013 with an injury.  His minutes kept dropping, his scoring kept dropping, he just fell out at IPFW.  It is something that you hate watching happen, but it does happen.

Isaiah McCray – McCray was always capable of doing a lot of things at IPFW, he just never did a lot of things at IPFW.  As one of the more inconsistent players in the Summit League, McCray may not be dearly missed by the Dons.  They still have junior to be, Mo Evans (10.2 ppg), and senior to be Max Landis, who was on the Summit League All Newcomer team, to make McCray a forgettable player.  The more I type, the more easy it is to understand why IPFW did not do as well as expected in 2014-2015.

Transferred:

Gage Davis – He did not play in 2014-2015.

Herbert Graham – everyone likes a guy named Herb, well except for the IPFW coaching staff apparently.  In 3 years, he only played a total of 195 minutes at IPFW.

Jure Gunjina – he played in 243 minutes in his one year at IPFW before transferring to Division 2 Georgia Southwestern.  Seriously, what has IPFW been doing the last couple of years.

South Dakota – I still feel like head coach Craig Smith did the most with the least in the Summit League in 2014-2015.  The losses of Brandon Bos and Tyler Larson will be tough tough on the Coyotes, but Smith continues to bring guys in.  He will have Iowa transfer Trey Dickerson and Air Force transfer Matt Mooney sitting out in 2015-2016, unless they get some form of waiver, but Smith is quickly turning South Dakota into the Transfer Here school in the Summit League, which instate foe South Dakota State cannot be too excited about.

Graduated:

Brandon Bos – It can be difficult to make up for someone who was a great shooter, but great shooters are all around the Midwest.  And again, Craig Smith, he is no idiot.  If you watched the game mentioned earlier with Steve Forbes full out not caring against South Dakota, you would have noticed Brandon Bos playing the game of his life scoring 29 points on 7 of 12 shooting, he also had 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

James Hunter – Hunter came into Vermillion from Washington State and did just enough to give South Dakota some form of a post game.  He may have only averaged 6 points per game and 3.5 rebounds, but it is not like he was worthless.  Without him, the Coyotes could of had Tyler Larson playing center.  Smith will have Nebraska native Tyler Hagedorn and Minnesota guy Dan Jech to come in to fill in the post in 2015-2016, along with a core of upperclassmen guards, the Coyotes may actually have some expectations coming their way at the beginning of the year.  Thanks a lot, Craig Smith.

Tyler Larson – at 6’3″ Larson averaged nearly 8 rebounds a game, and averaged 14.4 points per game.  He could do a little bit of everything, which is what helped him land on First Team All Summit League team.  Not to brag, but I think I called that one.

Transferred

Adam Thoseby – The Coyotes lost one of the greatest beards that the Summit League has ever seen.  Thoseby’s minutes were dropped significantly from his sophomore to his junior year, so it was no surprise to see him go.

Denver – Only graduating two players can be a good thing, but only graduating arguably your two best players can prove to be a headache.  Losing your two best players and not doing nearly as well as anyone would have thought you would have done, that can lead to a mystery team next season.  They will essentially be playing Clue on the court in 2015-2016.  Now who scored the shot from the corner last game that started with a pump fake, and can they do it again?

Graduated:

Cam Griffin – Griffin had some off the court issues, which caused his playing time to fluctuate throughout the season.  Fans do not miss these guys.

Brett Olson –  averaging 14 points per game at a school like Denver, who runs the Princeton offense, is like losing a guy that averages 20 points per game at a different school.  One of the best shooters and most disciplined players in the entire league will not be an easy thing to make up.  Denver has never been a team for the stars though, they have been successful off of team efforts.  Head Coach, Joe Scott, may actually prefer not to have a main scorer on his team.  Either way, losing a 2nd team All Summit League player is not anything that anyone should ever be in love with.

Transferred:

Dorian Butler – the 6’6″ California native never played for the Pioneers.

Cameron Delaney – Delaney started to pick up some minutes toward the end of the 2014-2015 season, but it was not enough to convince the Texas native to stay.  Delaney and Love could have really been a decent combo for the Pioneers in 2015-2016, but we will never know.  Delaney is off to Sam Houston State, which is where all great players go.

Jalen Love – surprised to see him go, I really thought he would have been a guy that would have been used to make up for the loss of Griffin and Olson.  But he is off to (Hello,) Newman.

IUPUI – There have been a ton of transfers in and transferred out with the Jaguars since Jason Gardner has taken over at IUPUI, which is not entirely abnormal.  I am not really sure they will miss anyone that left, mainly because I doubt the staff has had enough time to learn everyone’s names.  They have lost a lot of players, but they have been one of the worst teams in the Summit League, so it is not like the guys they bring in can be any worse.  With 5 guys transferring out, you may want to assume that they were leaving because they see the incoming players as guys that are going to be better than them.  6 wins though in 2014-2015 is probably 6 more wins than most people assumed the Jaguars were going to get.

Graduated:

Player name, 2014-2015 stats

Khufu Najee – 6’4″, 190lbs…7.4 ppg, 3,1 rpg, 1.2 apg, 44% FG, 28-35 FTs, 6-22 3pters

DavRon Williams – 6’7″, 225lbs…8.0 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 0.7 apg, 0.7 spg, 0.7 blg, 57% FG, 58% FT

Transferred:

PJ Boute – 5’9″ , 160lbs, Junior…5.7 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.9 apg, 1.0 spg, 30% FG, 32% 3ptFG, 78% FT

Josh James – 6’9″, 225 lbs, Sophomore…3.2 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 0.4 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.5 bpg, 48% FG, 69% FT

Jalen McCallum – 5’9″, 160lbs, Sophomore…2.3 ppg, 0.1 rpg, 0.7 apg, 0.6 spg, 56% FG, 2-3 FT

Elijah Ray – 6’6″, 232lbs, Sophomore…4.6 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 0.2 apg, 0.3 spg, 47% FG, 70% FT

Justus Stanback – 6’8″ 220lbs, Sophomore…2.4 ppg, 1.2 rpg, 0.2 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.2 bpg, 52% FG

Omaha – Another a team only graduating two players, but also losing their two best players.  On top of losing their two best players, the Mavs top returning players; Devin Patterson, Marcus Tyus, and Jake White each had a significant number of injuries during the 2014-2015 season.  If Jake White can get healthy, he and Tre’Shawn Thurman can hopefully make up for what the Mavs are losing in Rostampour on the court.  Neither of them really seem to have the motor and intangibles that Rostampour brought to the Mavs however, not sure anyone does really.  It is still possible that the Mavs could lose some players to transfer as they have yet to announce any players leaving.  The Mavs will also have to learn to deal with more buzz in 2015-2016 as it is their first year being fully eligible for division one, and they will have a brand new arena.  Oh, and we cannot forget the Taco Cannon prestige.

Graduated:  – I am not going to talk a lot about them at this point, because I kind of already have…

CJ Carter – 2nd Team All Summit

Mike Rostampour – Honorable Mention All Summit

Western Illinois – Although the Leathernecks only went 3-13 against the Summit League in 2014-2015, they have to be pretty optimistic about 2015-2016, when they return their two top scorers, and one of those players was a 2nd Team All Conference player.  Really Western Illinois does not lose much of anything, and a number of players on the team showed some flashes of being quality players.  Really, I feel like the Leathernecks spent the entire 2014-2015 campaign as a way of waiting for the summer of 2015.

Graduated:

Mohammed Conde – led the Leathernecks in rebounding at 6 per game.  The Leathernecks are bringing in two 6’10 freshman, so it is possible that they will not even notice the loss, or at least will fill in the loss pretty quickly.  The Leathernecks really played from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out this season, so the post game was never really anything they relied on.

Remy Roberts-Burnett – I am not sure if he had some injuries or off the court issues, but his time decreased significantly this season and he missed 9 games this last season.  I also do not want to be mean, but Western Illinois went 5-4 without him.  They ended the season 8-20.  Math.

Transferred:

Tyson Reynold – The 6’9″ junior from New York played a total of 14 minutes and scored 2 points for Western Illinois.  Remember the fallen.

Kendall Rollins- Never played.

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

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

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

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

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?”

I do not get why you still got beef on Trev

acroth86 College Sports , , , , , ,

The UNO Mavericks hockey team made their first Frozen Four appearance.  UNO Men’s soccer tied for a regular season Summit League championship.  UNO baseball won a pair of regular season Summit League championships.  UNO volleyball has improved their record each season in the transition period.  UNO softball can compete with just about any team in the NCAA.  UNO men’s and women’s basketball are both still growing and gearing up to be at the top of the Summit League.  A brand new arena in Aksarben is being built to be the centerpiece of a strong foundation of the UNO athletics program.  Also, a few of the UNO teams are competing nationally with ranking their teams with some of the highest team GPAs in the NCAA.  With all of this, there are still people who claim they will never support UNO athletics as long as Trev Alberts is involved.

The transition to a higher status in athletics came with a great price, the price of UNO’s football and wrestling programs, and this did not sit well with many Omahans and it still does not sit well with many.  Much of the controversy surrounds around the fact that he cut the wrestling program after three straight national championships, and I totally agree that one is a hard one to still process.  Still, the overall decision to make the transition to division one came with several mixed emotions.

The feelings of the Omaha community thinking that the Mavericks should go division one started long ago.  When I was in high school we would always talk about it.  Imagine if they did it, what would it be like?  The basketball team could play in the Civic (we were so young and naive).  The baseball team could definitely take recruits away from Nebraska and Creighton, those guys that want to play right away would come to UNO.  How fun would it be to add a third team to the instate rivalry?  Oh, and what if Kear…never mind.  We were high school kids, we just thought of the positives if it were to happen, we never thought of the negative consequences.

The same thing happened while I was in college.  My friends and I would ask ourselves, will they ever become division one?  The Mavericks certainly have the resources to do it.  Obviously though we were not looking at any of the financial aspects of it, we were mainly looking at it in terms of a fine sports culture in the Omaha metro.  If the North Dakota and South Dakota schools could make the transition, then why could the Mavericks not do it?  Those were the questions we really sat around and debated as young college studs.  I mean young college students…students.  My sophomore year I was in an English course, and one of the assignments was an argumentative paper that you would eventually have to present to the class.  There were two softball players that wrote about the possibility of UNO becoming division one and what impacts that would have on the university.  Those girls knew that it would mean UNO would have to sacrifice post season play, and they were completely for it.  It was a five page paper, so it is not like those girls put together a bunch of financial charts and did as much investigation as a professional staff would have put together, so they did not really think that cutting a program or two would have been a part of the conversation.

After the university lost an Athletic Director, who you could sum up his tenure at UNO as “did not give a shit” after trying to get the program back in the green after a scandal that embarrassed the athletics department, the search for a new person in charge started.  There were some names thrown around, nothing really all that exciting, but how exciting could a Division 2 Athletic Director search get?  When Husker legend Trev Alberts’ name came up as a possibility, interest grew around that.

Alberts is a bit of a household name in the state of Nebraska, he is kind of a big deal.  When he took interest in being the Athletic Director at UNO, the people around here listened, and they thought he was trying to gear up to be the next Athletic Director at Nebraska.  From what I heard from other employees at UNO, Alberts was the only one who actually got an official interview for the job, it was just his if he wanted it from the second he took interest.  When he officially took the job at UNO, there was buzz around the athletics department for the first time in a long time.

When Alberts made the announcement that the Mavericks were headed to division one, some were in shock and others thought it was about freaking time.  When those people heard that the football program and the back to back to back championship wrestling program would be cut though, more came to be in shock than anything.  Many of positive feelings for Alberts turned negative.  How dare he?  Where does he get off?  Who does he think he is?  Not only were people critical of the decision to cut wrestling and football, when people heard the programs were being cut they automatically tried to turn him into the emperor and claim he must have forced Mike Kemp out.  Basically, Trev could do no right in the eyes of some.  If you think Trev was a just a prick 24/7, he is not.  He engages with students when he has the time, he engages with fans and boosters, which is something you will see from any Athletic Director.  He has a little fun with all the negative things people say about him too.  When there was a career fair for student employees in the newly renovated HPER building, he jokingly came in and asked for an application because he may be out of a job soon.

There were some people that wanted Trev’s head.  They claimed he always had it out for wrestling, that he had an agenda from the second he walked on campus, and he does not actually care about the UNO Mavericks, he just cares about his giant ego.  That concept of being upset with someone for that should irritate you.  Of course Trev had an agenda, but just because he cut two programs does not mean that was his intention from day one.  His agenda was to be a successful Athletic Director and to have an athletic department that the university could be proud of for their on the field achievements as well as their off the field achievements.  If you ever take a business class at UNO, one of the first things a professor will ask is “what is the number one goal of a business?”  Many students throw out an easy answer of “to make money.”  But the answer is to survive.

Trev took over an Athletic Department that was in trouble thanks to the past.  Other than hockey, there was little support from the community.  People just genuinely did not care a great deal about the UNO Mavericks.  In his first year, when the Mavericks were still in division two, I was on Student Government, Trev came and asked us all for our opinions on a few matters.  He never once asked how to get the Omaha community behind the Mavericks, he wanted to know how to get the student population to come out to UNO games.  He spoke of how when the university would try to recruit a professional to be a member of the administration, they would take the recruit to a sporting event, and the professionals would ask where the students were.  He talked about in his first meeting with the UNO athletics department staff that he asked the staff how many Division 2 national championships the program had, and no one knew the answer.  Even people in the athletic department were not completely engaged.  Now from what I have heard, everyone is engaged, and they appear to be proud members of the Maverick family (from the sound of it at least).

I remember walking to class before a football game, and Trev hosted a mini pep rally outside the student center and trying to promote a football game for the upcoming week.  Students walked by him like he was one of the crazy people on campus telling you…well crazy things.  That is just a couple of examples, about a total of 30 minutes that I viewed in my last year at UNO.  Do you really think he did not care about the UNO Mavericks and it was just all about him?  Or do you think he was doing what many adult professionals fail to do, he was actually trying to do his job.

It was difficult to lose the football and the wrestling programs, I agree.  I knew a few guys from each of the teams.  Some of them were genuinely nice guys, and some others were absolute dicks, but that is probably something that you could say about any social group of dudes.  I always felt awkward about the football program.  Pat Berhens was kind of a weird guy to begin with, but aside from that, the scheduling was always weird in my opinion.  A decent number of their games always seemed to mix right in with a Husker game, so you know those games would have a low turnout.  I remember one year they tried to have their spring game the exact same day as the Huskers’ spring game.  I was there for the start of it for an event that took place before the game, and I can tell you that literally no one showed up.  The wrestling program was a big shock, and pretty much why there was and still is so much animosity toward Trev.  Mike Denney was and is a great solid guy, he brought some impressive guys to UNO, and his accomplishments were obviously extraordinary.

Even with the great accomplishments of the wrestling program, the program was not greatly contributing to the longevity of the athletic department’s survival.  Even growing up for several years around rumors that UNO would make the jump to division one, there were, at some points, also many rumors that UNO would just cut a few athletic programs or even the entire thing.  If you get into a conversation with anyone who claims to have loved the UNO wrestling program, you will learn that they did not actually have a dying love for the UNO wrestling program.  They liked wrestling, and successful wrestling, but they did not actually like UNO so much to where they supported it by going to matches or keeping up with it unless they heard the UNO name in the national championship.  They regularly cannot name one wrestler, or clearly identify what years the program won a championship.  Yet, these are the same people who say they will never support UNO athletics as long as Trev Alberts is involved.

How freaking dumb is that?  So if he stepped down today, you will all of a sudden support the program again?  You are going to take your hate of Trev Alberts out on student athletes involved in the UNO athletics program?  It is not like the current athletes at UNO banned together as underclassmen in high school and held a gun against Trev’s head until he made them go division one.

Consider this you rummy…  Downtown Omaha became a vibrant atmosphere after the city of Omaha was able to build the CenturyLink Center from the popularity of the Creighton men’s basketball program.  That little area where TD Ameritrade Park is was once a step above a ghetto.  I do not know the appropriate unit of measure to use for the number of restaurants and bars that have moved in near the CenturyLink and TD Ameritrade Park since the two have been introduced to Omaha.  I will just say a crap ton.  Real estate in downtown has become more valuable, the recreation in downtown has become more attractive.  The rest of the state benefits off of purchases from the two arenas to build more arenas and recreation where it is suitable.  Much of downtown’s success could be contributed to Creighton basketball, as much as some people would hate to admit that, it is true.

Now look at the Aksarben area.  In 2010, the area was basically empty, it was an area that had UNO faithful asking what the hell was ever going to happen with the area.  A few things were being put up, but nothing anyone was bragging about.  Now look at it, the area is becoming a hot commodity.  You could probably contribute about 90% of that off of what UNO as a whole and what UNO athletics has brought to the area, and Aksarben is just getting started (again).  So in turn, because much of that area has been reborn thanks to the future of UNO athletics, are you going to not support Aksarben?  Or are you too proud to say you do not like Trev just because of his unsuccessful NFL career and it embarrasses you somehow as a Husker fan?  By the way, I never hear anyone whine about UNO cutting football.  Everyone seems okay with it.  They want to cry about how it was such a travesty to take away the opportunities for the wrestlers to wrestle and get an education, but then they easily forget that UNO had a football program.

The athletics program may have cut football and wrestling, but it is not like Trev got up on a microphone on a stage and pulled a Half Baked moment and pointed at Wrestling and said “F you” then pointed at football and said “F you” and then pointed at basketball and said “you’re cool.”  The athletics program and the university helped the student athletes move on, find new colleges, or finish their education at UNO.  By the way, I am pretty sure Northwest Missouri State and UNK bitch the least about UNO cutting the programs.

Look around as we are finally nearing the end of this transition.  Look at how many students and Mav fans made it to Boston for the Frozen Four. Look at how the attendances are gradually rising each year for all sports.  Do you see how many UNO students actually care about athletics right now, and we are not even at a status of being fully division one yet?  Look at the facilities that have been renovated and the ones that are about to come, and the ones that are still being imagined.  You may dislike Trev for whatever reason, but are you going to sit there and say he does a poor job?

 

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

 

With Allie Mathewson and a solid foundation, the UNO softball team continues its success in D-1

acroth86 College Softball , , , , , , , , ,

I do not know my capability of talking about college softball, but I will take a shot at it here.

I have learned a bit about college softball over the last few years, I did after all marry into it.  The sport though has grown in popularity over the last decade, partially because of more exposure from ESPN, who tends to go on lazy mode from the NFL Draft to the NFL training camp.  When the NBA dwindles down in games from the playoffs, and MLB is not in crunch time, college softball (and baseball) gets its shot on national television stage.  More respect has been given to the softball athletes  with segments being posted about how it is actually more difficult to hit an incoming softball pitch versus a baseball pitch, and other stuff.  It has become more than just a Hey, That School Needs That For Title 9 thing, so for UNO going division one, and having softball as probably their most successful female sport, it is a great thing for the athletic program.

Anyway, here is a little background on my wife:  She grew up in Washington state, played on travel softball teams with girls that went on to play at Arizona, Alabama, UCLA, Washington, Oregon State, Louisiana Tech, and others, some even went on to team USA.  She played middle infield for much of her softball career, except for one travel team where she was moved to the outfield, but there was a future Olympian at shortstop, so she was cool with it. She valued her education more than sports, so she picked Belmont, a private university, over the likes of Kentucky, Columbia, and other various schools, oh and my wife also picked Belmont over Creighton.  She often claims that her first coach in college at Belmont was “a dumb ass.”  My wife has A LOT of speed, and her college coach tried to make her a slapper, but my wife claimed she did not see the ball as well as a slapper.  She wanted to hit away, but was not given too many opportunities to do so under that coach.

Finally that coach was let go, and Amy Tudor became her head coach.  You may know Tudor as the former coach of IPFW, who had the program in really good shape but had difficulty getting over North Dakota State, and she is now the head coach of Western Kentucky who has picked up wins over Nebraska and Tennessee so far this season.  She took five players from IPFW with her and now the Mastadons are 0-23 so far this season.  Anyway, at first, Tudor wanted to keep my wife as a slapper, but halfway through my wife’s junior season, she started to let her hit away and still tried to utilize her as a slapper a bit, but my wife started to take off and raised her hitting average by 30 percentage points.

Tudor brought new life to my wife’s college career, she won conference player of the week awards, became an All Academic player, and was chosen as the team captain.  My wife needed the new spark, you see picking the education over a big name program came at a small price.  The players on her team were not strongly committed to softball, and Nashville (and the south in general) is filled with a different type of casual female that is only going to college so they can meet their future husband and become a stay at home wife.  The older players would discourage my wife for “caring too much” or being “too competitive,” and make other degrading remarks, trying to get her to not try as hard, and fit in with them and not be as good.  They were like The Joker trying to bring Harvey Dent down to his and Batman’s level.  Something my wife was not used to with growing up with highly competitive softball players, she did not understand how someone could call themselves a division one athlete and not be competitive.  Even though my wife had a softball team around her, she felt completely isolated and alone while she was at Belmont.  It is not like my wife hated or was hated by every single one of her teammates, there were some girls that tried and were competitive and some that she became great friends with and still maintains close friendships with.  My wife at one point was in talks to transfer to some better programs,  but Tudor came in and convinced her to stay, and at the end of the day Belmont was providing a fantastic education, and my wife wanted to think big picture.  My wife’s senior year was the best year that Belmont ever had in softball, from a wins standpoint.  Tudor would later have my wife as a volunteer assistant for one season at Belmont, and later highly recommended that she apply to be her assistant coach at IPFW, which was incredibly difficult for my wife to pass up.  Do not worry, I would have never loved IPFW as if it were my own.  Tudor provided some support for my wife’s college experience, something she did not necessarily have a lot of in her first two years.  My wife also now coaches high school, just as a FYI.  My wife watches every single Women’s College World Series game every single year, no matter how late the games go and no matter how early she has stuff to do in the morning.  She watches every moment.

How does any of this relate to Allie Mathewson and UNO softball?  Okay, part of that is to provide a frame of reference that it is not like I just thought, hey what the hell I will try to take up talking about softball for shits, but that I have grown to love the sport through the passion that my wife has for softball.

So one day I am looking in the Omaha World Herald, and I read an article to my wife about how a Creighton player is transferring to UNO.  Oh neat!  At the time I did not know a bunch about softball, just that my wife is far superior than me at it, but I was recognizing that Creighton was a better softball program at the time as far as division one history goes, I mean, it was after just one division one season from UNO.  So for UNO to get a transfer from a slightly better program, was probably a big deal given their status at the time.  My wife told me that Jeanne Scarpello is a quality coach, she has the tools and knowledge to build a successful program at the division one level.  Before Tudor left IPFW, my wife was certain that North Dakota State, IPFW, and UNO were going to make for a very competitive threesome in the Summit League tournament in the future.

My wife is eventually asked to teach Softball Coaching Theories at UNO, and guess who is in one of her first classes… My wife comes to respect Mathewson as a student, learns more and more about her as a player too, my wife recognizes her as a leader as well.  The World Herald comes out with a few more Mathewson articles over time, but there was one that caught our eyes, why she left Creighton, mostly on how the girls at Creighton were not committed to softball, did not take it seriously, basically took all the fun out of it for her, and how she felt isolated and alone.  It is possible I have that wrong, I could not find the particular article again as a reference for the specifics.  I think this literally brought my wife to pain, it sounded incredibly similar to her experience at Belmont, and from the sounds of it, Mathewson got out of the situation for a much better experience at UNO, my wife could feel Mathewson’s pain, and it was difficult for my wife to get through the article as it brought back her memories, and she felt completely happy for Mathewson and believed Mathewson made the right decision.  After getting to know Mathewson better from a teacher-student standpoint, my wife was happy that Mathewson could find that support from the UNO program.

 

My wife and I went to  attend Nebraska at UNO softball in the 2014 season.  It was cold and super windy, but there was over 400 people in attendance.  Sure most of them are there to see Nebraska softball, but people wanted to see what Mathewson, Campbell Ditto, and Amber Lutmer and the rest of the Mavs could do against the Husker ace Tatum Edwards, but none of them had great luck against Edwards that day, I remember a lot of first pitch swings from the Mavs.  The Mavs only had one hit, and the Huskers figured out Dana Elsasser as the game went on.

When watching softball with my wife, the coach in her has a lot of “what were you thinking there”, “why swing at the pitch”, “the infielder did not go after that ball correctly,” she also recognizes the great plays and says things like “way to go getting that ball”, “that is a tough pitch to lay off of, get after it next time.”  When watching UNO events that have her students playing my wife turns into a defensive soccer mom, “how dare the opposing player do something bad toward (student’s name)”, and her student can usually do no wrong in her eyes.  Granted, this has mostly been in Hockey where she knows less about the sport, so when she sees someone try to fight her student, she pretty much stands up and gets in a defensive stance, like if the refs do not stop the fight, she will.  So with Mathewson, I was curious if my wife the coach or if my wife the teacher/soccer mom would come out.

Mathewson steps up the box, and this is instantly where things got interesting.  The crowd would shout to Husker players that batted in the top of the inning against Elsasser, positive and negative things, but no one talked for Mathewson’s first at bat, it was like everyone was giving respect to a golfer trying to focus in.  They all read the World Herald stories, they all have an idea what Mathewson has gone through, and they all know of her .365 batting average.  My wife even quietly says “oh, she has the same batting stance as me.”  Her teammates go after her and the volume starts back up, people carrying on their casual conversation and cheers, but still paying attention to the game, young softball girls there to cheer on both the Mavericks and Huskers.  Mathewson’s second at bat, the young softball girls that had seemed to lose a little interest in the game because of the weather tell each other to “shut up, Allie is up to bat!”  Through the transition, has there been a player in any sport where the young kids would tell each other to shut up and watch?

I am still not sure if the coach or the teacher came out in my wife when Mathewson was up to bat.  When Mathewson came up to bat or would track down a ball in the outfield for an out, my wife just said nothing.  I think it was just respect, the coach in her had no critique.  The teacher in her had the trust and confidence that she could handle herself.

Is Mathewson the best college softball player in the state of Nebraska?  Maybe, maybe not, Liz Dike of Creighton is hitting .484 over 20 games so far…holy crap.  And Kiki Stokes, Alicia Armstrong, and a few more Huskers are having solid years so far.  With no Tatum Edwards, and basically Creighton fans not caring about sports after basketball season (they care when the CWS starts, because you know, their season tickets they never use become useful for once), Mathewson is definitely the most talked about college softball player in the state this season.  For a transitioning program to have a player like that, is kind of a big deal.  Her story is unique and she is a player people that know about softball want to see.  The discussion that will come up with any star Mav athlete of Would She be that Good at Creighton is off the table because we have seen what she can do as a Bluejay, and that was apparently when she was not the same player off the field.

It appears that the Creighton softball program has picked up a little this season, after losing their momentum for a few years.  But something I found interesting is the RPI of Creighton and UNO since the transition.  2012:  CU-135, UNO-234, then Mathewson transfers and UNO gets a good recruiting class…2013: CU-87, UNO-71, 2014: CU- 117, UNO-69.  That right there should start some conversation with local softball fans.  Should I have opened with that?  I think the Mathewson transfer hurt Creighton in a way, it shows that Creighton is not the bigger dog of the two programs to the local girls that are looking to stay local, that the two programs are an equal playing field.  Did I just make Mathewson the Mockingjay?  Or the Mockingmav? Or the…okay I will shut up.

I do not want this to be a Creighton against UNO thing, yeah they will both go after some of the same recruits, but they still have to turn those recruits into great players and great women for the future.  Creighton (and Nebraska, North Dakota State, and others) can be a measuring stick for the growth of the Mavericks softball program.  With a great coach in Jeanne Scarpello (I have seen her refer to herself as an average coach), who has a Division 2 National Title under her belt, and players like Mathewson, the program definitely has a solid foundation to build off going into a fully fledged D-1 member.

With just 2 2/3 years so far at UNO, Mathewson has impressed us all, and already ranks in the top 25 in a number of statistical categories for the history of the Mavericks, but just because Mathewson is the most talked about player in the state of Nebraska, it does not mean the Mavericks live and die off of her.  Softball is a true team sport, it takes commitment and team work from all the players on the field.  The fellow members of her senior class Kat Borrow and Tonya Peterson have been great for the Mavericks throughout their careers.  It seems like Campbell Ditto is one of the best clutch hitters in the Summit League.  Lia Mancuso has been great, she leads the team with a .329 batting average this season.  Freshmen Kelly Pattison seems to be knocking down some clutch hits, and Jaylee Hinrichs already has a couple pitcher of the week awards in her young career.

From the sounds of it as well, UNO has a great 2015 recruiting class.  I know that much of the talent in softball comes from the west coast and that is where many of the bigger programs go to recruit players.  Look at any SEC roster, it is generally made up of west coast girls.  The top team in the Summit, North Dakota State, 11 of the 17 girls on their softball roster are from the west coast.  None of that means that there is not talent in the Midwest though, the best players in the area are certainly going to hear from Nebraska, Creighton, and UNO for sure among others, but rarely do you see a Pac 12 school come to Nebraska to recruit some softball talent.  It does happen though, Oregon has Karissa Hovinga who played at Papillion.  So UNO definitely has a chance at the top players in the area, every single year.  In a different sport like basketball or volleyball, I think it would be difficult for UNO at this point to go up against Nebraska and Creighton for a top level athlete from the area.  Softball though, with the rich Division 2 History UNO had, Jeanne Scarpello, and players like Mathewson, Elsasser, Lutmer, Mancuso, Carly Nielsen who transferred from Michigan State and others, if there is a top level athlete from the area, UNO has just as much of a chance to get that player as the two bigger names.  In some cases, the Mavs have a much better chance, they already have gotten some of those players.

When UNO first made the transition, I needed a minute, or a week, to process it.  A friend of mine asked me, is UNO going to be any good and which of their programs will be the quickest to a conference championship/NCAA tournament bid.  I immediately and uncontrollably came out with baseball for the men and softball for the women…Men’s soccer and Golf were kind of wild cards though being that they were not even implemented yet though.  The softball team was the first UNO team to pick up a win over Nebraska, they have had more opportunities, and that is not exactly how a program should measure success, but still…  In the fall, my wife and I were playing co-rec slow pitch and I checked Twitter before the game and informed her that Mav softball beat the Huskers twice in fall ball.  My wife’s response, which I am sure is shared by many Mav fans, “it is a damn shame that team is not eligible for post season yet.”

I bring up my wife’s reactions to the stories we read in the Omaha World Herald on Mathewson’s transfer because they are somewhat similar stories, but also because I think it is easy for sports fans to immediately get ignorant when a player transfers and automatically go to “oh they could not cut it at the bigger school.”  Some fans think that sports should be everything to these kids.  There are several different reasons why student athletes transfer, and some players never transfer and never get out of their bad situation.  Mathewson could play at the level of Creighton, which at the time, was bigger than UNO’s level.  I may sound like a broken record here with things I have mentioned about the basketball team, but can you think of a better player, and even combined with her teammates, to help build the foundation for a transitioning program moving forward?  I find it unfortunate that things could not work out for her at Creighton, but as a UNO alumni and sports fan I am proud that UNO could take in such a quality athlete, and who sounds to be a great quality person and athlete, and provide a good quality softball home for her.

 

 

Meet future Mav Tra-Deon Hollins

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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.

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