Heckuva Turnaround

The UT Arlington women's basketball team was an enigma coming into the season. In addition to the numerous seniors and graduate students, the mysterious departure of Staar Jacobs to Arkansas Pine-Bluff was a plot twist that came out of left field. It was made all the more shocking that it was a Southwestern Athletic Conference school, usually one of the lowest-rated NCAA Division I conferences. They've done decent this year, but that is a historical anomaly. As an aside, unlike other multiple-time transfers, she hasn't logged a minute for the new team after the rule was lifted about sitting out a year.

I heard on the most recent broadcast that the team lost 94 percent of its scoring from last year. Sure enough, when I looked at the stat sheet, only sophomore Nya Threatt scored a point for the Mavericks last year. That's incredible. I knew there was turnover, but not as bad as it was in actuality. In all my years of following college sports, I've never heard that save for a scandal involving a coach. Alas, such seems to be the new reality in a post-transfer-portal and NIL era.

That begged the question, how would this year's version fair? I'm not a big fan of intra-conference transfers, but there were a few of them in the WAC this year. UTA had two in Avery Brittingham and Taliyah Clark from Stephen F. Austin and Seattle U respectively. I heard rumors UTA as a team was looking strong from those in the know prior to the start of the season. 

CPC better than Moody Center?

 I'm about to wade into a topic I don't normally get into, as at the base of it I think it is understood. Any UT Arlington fan will quickly say what a jewel College Park Center is. I know that I do get traffic outside of UTA circles who may not know, but this blog is not intended for them. When someone like WACHoopsNation visits UTA's home, they quickly see CPC for what it is, one of the best NCAA arenas.

While I don't see away games as often as I'd like, I go to a few here and there. I've seen several places when I was a student broadcaster traveling with the various teams. I seen more as an adult traveling to places as well. I rarely find the desire to write a post about opponent's venues, like Tarleton's Wisdom Gym is so far below CPC. I've made lists ranking arenas, like this one for current WAC venues, but that's the extent of it. 

The last time I made a post like this was early in CPC's infancy when I visited Rupp Arena in Kentucky. While CPC's capacity would likely mean it wouldn't be a good fit for the Wildcats, I was thinking the whole time about how CPC was cleaner, had better amenities or how cavernous it was. It was a pride point for me as a Maverick fan that our arena competed with the bluebloods.