Start Looks Good but ...

The 3-1 start to the 2025/26 looks good for the UT Arlington men's basketball team. And it is certainly better than 2-2 or, heaven forbid, 1-3. But this part of the season makes judging where the basketball team is or what they can be very difficult. 

The mark was attained by beating two non-NCAA schools, not just non-Division I. They opened the season against North Texas-Dallas, which seems to be a regular occurrence of late. They were on the Mavs schedule last year as well as the prior year. The relatively new National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) school has gone 0-3 in those games. UTA won 91-40. A general rule of thumb for me is UTA needs to win these games by double.

Most recently, they played Arlington Baptist, a National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) school that has an enrollment in the low hundreds. UTA played them for the first time and won 117-61.

But I have a thought after looking at those two games.

Disappointing Conclusion

It was a rough end to the 2025 volleyball season for the UT Arlington Mavericks as the team dropped the last three matches of the schedule, losing on senior day to the Utah Valley Wolverines, 0-3, to the last-place Southern Utah Thunderbirds 1-3 and to the Utah Tech Trailblazers, 0-3.

To briefly recap, the Mavs scored 20 or more in each set loss to UVU. I was really impressed with the way they hung in there to the more imposing front line of UVU. They found ways to make their offense work, but were just overpowered in the end. 

They scored 21 and 20 in the first two sets against SUU, before claiming a 25-18 set three win. In the fourth, they only notched 19. That was the most disappointing loss of the three, and was the first all-time to the Thunderbirds. It almost appeared like they were looking ahead.

Against UT, it looked like the Trailblazers clearly remembered UTA won in Arlington (which cost them an outright conference title), as they allowed the Mavericks only 16, 18 and 19 in the three sets. It was less of what UTA did or didn't do, but more that UT was not going to let senior day slip away.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 11 - Bowl Conception

This is not something I do very often, but in this week's edition of This Day in UTA Football History, I want to highlight a specific opponent. It is a noteworthy one that has left a lasting impact to even this day for one primary reason.

At last check in with the 1975 team in this year's edition, the Mavericks lost their third Southland Conference game in three tries to the Southwestern Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns, 35-32. The following week, the team won their first conference game against Lamar, 37-24. That win snapped a two-game losing streak to the Cardinals and was the first of 11 straight wins in the series. The win also snapped a season-high four-game losing streak for the year, a losing streak that derailed an optimistic 2-2 start.

Sitting at 3-6 overall and 1-3 in the Southland, the Mavericks were an improving bunch, but still a few pieces short. With just one win the prior year, the first of an eventual ten season for head coach Harold "Bud" Elliott, it was clear 1975 was a better year.

The bad news? Longtime conference foe Arkansas State was on the schedule today. After going 3-0-1 to start their series as SLC rivals, the Rebels/Mavs had won once in seven tries versus the then Indians, now Red Wolves, since that start prior to 1975. Starting with the slugfest of 1968, UTA had lost four straight. A one-point win in 1972 temporarily stopped the slide before two more losses were added in the subsequent two seasons. The average score was 24 to 10 in favor of the Indians. And that average includes the one-point win in '72 and the one-point loss in '68. And it still was that lopsided.

It was about to get worse.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 10 - The OG's

It's been two weeks since the 1969 UT Arlington Rebels were featured in This Day in UTA Football History. The team picked up a conference opening road win, 34-7 win over the Trinity Tigers. Oddly enough, Trinity would finish with the same Southland Conference record as UTA, despite the lopsided score. The 1969 Rebels were very good on the road, winning four of five.

The week after, the Rebs hosted a higher division school in West Texas State. The Rebels were a member of the College Division, the equivalent of Division II today while the Buffaloes were in the University Division. The result was something that is considered fairly standard in those kinds of games if it were played today, a 41-7 loss. It dropped UTA to 4-3 on the year, all three losses at home. Starting when the team was Arlington State College, the team had a 15-game home winning streak that was snapped in the last game of 1968. Counting that loss, the home winning streak transitioned into four games entering today.

Rebel fans were hoping today would go in a different direction. UTA could go to 2-0 in the conference with a win and it was homecoming. Spoiler alert, the largest crowd of the year would fill Memorial Stadium today, filling the on-campus venue past capacity.

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for today opponent, known then as the Abilene Christian College Wildcats. I grew up in West Texas, a couple of hours west of Abilene and knew of Abilene Christian University as it is known now. I have played a high school football game in their former home stadium, Shotwell Stadium, owned by the Abilene Independent School District. Unknown to me at the time, my future Alma Mater, sans football when I enrolled, had also played there.

Gut Punch

It was another rough week this week for the UT Arlington volleyball squad, made even worse against in-state conference foes that once again resulted in a two-game losing week. The losses pretty much seal UTA's fate in the fifth position based on who is left on the schedule.

UTA hosted Tarleton State on Thursday and lost in five sets. Looking over the rosters, it made sense why Tarleton has had measurable success compared to last year, and their Division I stint as a whole. First-year head coach Jazmyne Johnson revamped the roster, though I was severely disappointed in her and the whole Texan team post-match, more on that in a moment.

The Texans have three returning players who have never enrolled anywhere else, one junior and two seniors. They have two freshmen on the roster. There are two transfers from the Junior College ranks who enrolled at TSU last year. There are ten, yes ten, players who were on a different campus last year within the NCAA, nine Division I players and one Division II. Even in the portal era, that is a high turnover for a volleyball roster.

2025/26 Starts

I was walking into work today and I realized I didn't do a preseason post to the upcoming men's and women's basketball teams. Truth is, no one has any clue how the season will shake up. I have seen pundits, insiders and other experts have wildly different polls. So I'll give the Western Athletic Conference's opinion only and basically leave it at that.

I have seen these knowledgeable people have UT Arlington as high as number one on the men's side and as low as number six out of seven possible teams. With such a high turnover in roster, it is essentially a rebuild every year for most teams. I don't know the impact that has on support. On the one hand, UTA fans knew the Mavericks were going to be really good in the mid teens. Fans showed up. On the other, if you don't know and the team is rough, do you still go to games early? I don't know. It's just an academic argument.

But as it is, for the men, the WAC coaches poll is as follows:

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 9 - Close but Still Optimistic

I rail on the 1970's a lot here on the Maverick Rambler. And it certainly is earned. So many avoidable errors led to the demise of the football program. But 1975 has a soft spot in my heart. It was the second time since 1972 that the fans felt like the team could compete at the highest level. 

The points scored differential was within 70, with only the 1972 season able to say that halfway through the decade. Two of the seven losses were within a touchdown. Another two were within two touchdowns. Every win but one was by ten or more points. There was only one blowout, a 54-7 loss to undefeated Arkansas State. There was a borderline blowout in a 37-8 loss to Louisiana Tech that was on the edge, but the combined score of 121-29 in the previous three games against the Bulldogs showed the gap was narrowing to one of the Southland Conference's best programs.

Halfway through the decade and it was only the second time in the frame that UT Arlington fans felt maybe next year actually meant something.

When this year's edition of This Day in UTA Football History last peaked in on the '75 Mavericks, the Mavs had just got a .500 record for the second time in the decade, but turnovers, penalties erasing touchdowns, special teams' miscues, etc. were costly in a 28-24 loss.