Is Ice Cold too Warm?

Four games into the 2025 Western Athletic Conference schedule and there's no more worst-case scenario as far as result go than this for the UT Arlington men's basketball team. The Mavericks sit at the bottom of the standings at 0-4, tied with Abilene Christian one-quarter through the WAC slate.

The small bright side is that three of the losses were on the road and the fourth was to the conference leader at home. In that game, and two others, UTA had a lead late and could not hold it. The WAC has a good track record of home team wins, so the possibility of a rebound similar to last year is there, but the Mavs have to figure something out.

I heard Josh Sours mention before the Utah Valley broadcast that UTA was kind of in a must win situation when he interviewed head coach KT Turner in the pre-game. With every team making the conference tournament, I don't agree with that sentiment. A regular season championship is ceremonious in meaning and only the tournament winner has weight. 

But, as far as confidence and fan support, I think he's right.

Mixed Results with an Upward Trend

It's been roughly a month since the Maverick Rambler checked in on the UT Arlington women's basketball team, much too long by any metric. They last appeared here with a 3-5 record in non-conference, closing in on the start of the regular season.

After getting a quality 61-57 win at home against the Houston Cougars, the Mavs sat 2-5 against Division I competition and the Florida International Panthers sitting on the horizon to complete the WAC/CUSA scheduling agreement.

UTA would close the remaining three conference games with a couple of wins and a loss to UT San Antonio on the road. On of the wins was to the NAIA's Wiley College. UTA closed out the non-conference schedule with a 5-6 record, 3-6 against DI.

This will likely get repetitive, but graduate transfer forward Koi Love and fellow graduate student forward Avery Brittingham led the charge, got a combined 84 points and 50 rebounds in the three games.

Conference Eve

The non-conference portion of the schedule has concluded for both UT Arlington basketball teams, as well as all of the Western Athletic Conference teams, and for both genders the results are mixed. The good news, except for a couple of outliers either way, UTA's fortunes were the same as their conference brethren. I'll get a separate post about the women soon.

On the men's side, they last appeared in The Maverick Rambler right before their Thanksgiving event in Florida. In what I thought would be a good measuring stick on where the Mavs stood, Murray State defeated UTA in a neutral game, 79-66. The Mavericks trailed 14 at the half and won the second by a point. In what will be a trend in losses, they shot poorly behind the arc, four of 17. Transfer Graduate Student forward Lance Ware kept them in it as best he could with 26 points and nine rebounds. 

UTA rebounded in the next game, 68-58 against the Atlantic Sun Conference's Austin Peay. The Mavs made five more three's with the same number of attempts. Junior transfer guard Brody Robinson led the way with 16, of which only six points came from three-point land. UTA trailed by as much as five in the second half, got a brief lead after five minutes gone then traded leads for about five minutes. The final portion of the second half was all UTA.