A Win Is A Win: USA vs UNT

Full disclosure: I left at halftime. Not because I was anti-basketball nor because it wasn’t entertaining. No, I had my own sporting adventure to partake in.

So, I missed the mini-comeback that was the win vs USA. After typing that abbreviation I finally understand the Team USA inspired threads they were rocking out there.

We played defense finally. Which is nice. It continues a trend of late-game defensive heroics when we win. Seriously. That win last night was not groundbreaking. It fit the template for non-blowout wins at home this year. We start out kind of sluggish, clamp down to erase a small lead and win it late. That is/was awesome when they did it to TTech and Rice, but when they couldn’t get those clutch stops against ULL, Troy, and even FAU. The FAU game floodgates broke a little early just like against WKU.

We are pretty average. We have a good transition game but a poor set-offense. The mean is an average offense. On the other end we just have an average defense. There are no stoppers and we rely on George Odufuwa to play the Ben Wallace role. All that is cool and all. It has gotten us thus far. When it is clicking we play to our strengths. That turnover or rebound ignites the break and gets Josh in transition.

All this is evident in Josh’s scoring output the last few games: 13, 6, 1, 15. Six of those thirteen were free-throws, seven of the fifteen were also. That isn’t really a knock on the dude. His career average is around 13-14 points anyway. He is a streaky shooter from the three and he doesn’t launch deep ones so he has the same problem getting his shot off as on his regular shots. This isn’t revolutionary. If he had Tristan’s height he would score much much more. We were facing set defenses far too often.

That is not to say that he cannot score. Nah. It is a herculean task to do that for 40 minutes a game. So watch for that mess. If we still have designs on the tourney, and by all quotes from the squad we do, we need more defense and transition points.

Enough from the No Shit category. Here is the schedule coming up.

Given our home record (13-1) we can put those two home games in the Probably Gonna Win category. Given our road record (4-7) we can put those two away games in the Probably Gonna Lose category.

I’m not so concerned about wins and losses. Well, as unconcerned as I can be considering our position mid-standings. I’m more concerned about our level of play. This is the perfect time to go on a nice little run of play. We can chalk it up to Turning It On For the Tournament or whatever. I really don’t care. It’ll make for some nice little columns for EspnDallas guys. Vito can have something to talk about. Fans can say they believed in them the whole time. It is good stuff all around.

We’ll not talk about records because they don’t really matter. None of these teams are better or worse than their record. Methinks that the SunBelt is similarly talented. Let’s do this. We’ve got four games to get right for this Conference Tournament. That is all that matters.

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