It all begins today.
The men and women get started — with Jalie Mitchell’s team to begin against Southern Miss this morning at 11am. Last season, the women made a little run only to be snuffed out by the eventual tournament champs WKU. This season the roster looks a bit different, but the team is still the hard-fighting squad we saw last year.
The men, of course, are the most well-known and begin this run with a huge challenge: beat FIU, the team that won twice in Florida and just a few days ago by a huge margin. Zach Simmons was quoted saying “they won’t beat us three times” but that comes off as self-hyping bluster.
The kind of quote to help a person believe what they are saying.
It is helpful and necessary and the fans hope he backs it up. This season started out with prowess and acclaim and is now in head-scratching mode. The period from the tough loss vs Tech in the first round of last year’s tournament (in front of a big crowd) to just after the loss at home vs WKU this season was a period of sustained success.
It was inevitable that NT sort of played something like the sum of its parts or succumbed to injury, but the bad luck and poor shooting are like a curse hanging over this team. For the good of everyone with something of an interest in the program — from Grant all the way down to the concessionaires — here is hoping the program can find one game where they do not have offensive woes.
FIU is tough and probably does not need much introducing. The problems for North Texas lie with themselves and their ability to shoot. The talented scorers on the Mean Green team have not been able to put the ball in the basket. This has been said on many a podcast and many a blog post and now, even by Grant himself.
That we all recognize the truth and the facts does not necessarily help anyone change those facts. NT will have 40 minutes to change the story.
