2026 Schedule Detective

For those new to the blog or who need a reminder, in the summer, I try to piece together the upcoming basketball schedules from various sources. It usually is a combination of Rocco Miller on X, looking at certain team's releases and conference release of UT Arlington's current home. 

This year has been really quiet in that regard. I have yet to see UTA on anyone else's schedule. No guarantee games at a larger school, no certified home and home releases. I can speculate on who is a second game from a previous home-and-home, but like Oral Roberts showed, there was a year between the two games contract so nothing is set in stone.

With that said, the only official release I have is from the United Athletic Conference. This week, they released the conference slate and the former Western Athletic Conference turned UAC is doing away with what they have done the last few years. 

And I'm on board with it.

Basketball Year End Buzzer

As a fan blog, with no ties to any monetary incentive or fear of displeasing any one group, I can run this blog as I want. As a fan, I can succumb to stupid fan superstitions too. I've done a conference tournament post quite a bit in the past. Since I've started this blog, the UT Arlington men's team has not won the conference tournament. So it has to be me right?

Spoiler, it was not. I will not go into details of the games, but both teams won at least one game in Las Vegas. Depending on your viewpoint, it was a success or shoulder shrug. Depending on the team, the outcome could be a success or a shoulder shrug.

Starting with the men's performance, there was no shocker either way. The seeds held for both games. As the fourth seed, UTA beat the fifth seeded Southern Utah Thunderbirds 69-63 before losing to the top seeded Utah Valley Wolverines, 67-65, ending their season at 18-14. Ironically, the end results were roughly what I expected, but the up and down nature of this year's Mavericks squad meant I wasn't comfortable against SUU. 

It was generally a consistent game as the teams battled in the first half. UTA used a late spurt for a five-point lead. In the second half, they built a short-lived, double-digit lead twice before the Thunderbirds reduced the deficit. However, UTA never coughed up the lead before time expired for the win. Had this performance been more common, the Mavs would have won more than 20 games.

As it is, it was a winning season. K.T. Turner has now done that two times in three years. He is 3-3 in the conference tournament. A title game trip occurred in his first year. A one-and-done marred last year. A .500 trip for a team that went .500 in Western Athletic Conference play looks par for the course.

The last game played for this academic season was both a reassuring sign that Coach Turner punches up in March, but a disappointment as well. 

UTA lost to UVU three times in the regular season. And none were close. In two, UTA had a late run that made a laugher look not as laughable, but UVU was comfortably ahead. Scores in Orem include 86-74 and 81-60. The lone game in Arlington was about the same, 66-54. 

To lose by only two to the regular season champs was a marked improvement. UTA made a furious rally to erase a 16-point UVU lead with nine minutes remaining. Senior forward Raysean Seamster just missed on a desperation three that would have won the game as time expired. The shot was on line, but just a bit short.

And that shot really hits at the disappointment portion. I said on X that the shot represents UTA's basketball history. Just missed. And it applies to many different aspects. 

The Scott Cross firing. He is a coach who won on Texas Hall and still holds so many records and milestones. And he was fired after three twenty-win seasons. 

Or the fact that UTA has played in a conference tournament 39 times since the first SLC postseason event in 1981. They have missed the field six times. They have won it once in 44 eligible seasons. That's a percentage of 2.3 percent. They have won it once in 39 participations, a percentage of 2.6 percent. 19 different teams have won a conference tournament UTA participated, 20 if you count the Mavs lone win in 2008. Their all-time conference tourney record is 24-38.

By round, they are 13-17 in the quarterfinals, a decent 8-8 in the semis and a paltry 1-7 in the finals. That's a winning percentage of 12.5 percent. That's about as close but nope as it gets. If they won it 50/50, they quadruple the all-time tourney appearances. Instead, it was 1/8th of the time. Close but nope.

Now we transition to watching the team get whittled away in the portal. In my chat with the Athletic Director this summer, Jon Fagg said they approach it as an opportunity to get these talented kids for one year, similar to Kentucky from a couple of decades ago. 

And that is the right approach from an administrative level. The portal isn't going away. I wish the one-year sit out rule after the first transfer was still in place, but that's not current events.

But as a fan, I hate it. So mixed with the emotional loss of watching the shot just miss, the immediate thought went to the portal and how bad the roster turnover will be this offseason. While typing this, sophomore guard Cash Chavis has already declared. What could this team have done this year if Chendall Weaver, Makiah Williams and Kade Douglass were still on the roster? I'd wager that is a championship caliber team. 

As it is, the sample size is small, but Coach Turner has fielded competitive teams in this era and Mav fans will cling to the hope it continues.

As for the ladies, a season chock full of disappointing close loss with one bad quarter ruining a good output culminated in a 2-1 run through the WAC tournament. In the first game, the seed held as the sixth-seed Mavs beat the seventh seed Utah Tech Trailblazers 77-73. In the quarterfinals, UTA upset the third seeded Thunderbirds, 70-65. In the semis, Abilene Christian showed they were just a tier above the rest of the WAC, defeating the Mavericks 70-50.

In both wins, it looked like the formula for the season was on the verge of repeating itself. Against UT, they built a 15-point lead in the first quarter, but then coughed it up in the second. By the end of the third quarter, the Mavs trailed for the first time. In most games this season, UTA would play a tough fourth, but just not have enough overall. However, this game was different a s six-point UTA advantage led to a four-point one. Halfway through the final quarter, the Trailblazer lead swelled to seven points. I knew UTA was done. But they proved me a cynicist and went on a 13-5 run to get their first lead of the frame. The Mavs made all seven free throws attempted in the last thirty seconds to keep the lead and seal the win. 

Against SUU, UTA trailed early, but chipped away until a free throw from senior point guard Nya Threatt gave UTA their first lead early in the third. SUU regained it to start the fourth and built a multi-possession lead. Like the previous game, UTA's opponent had a lead under five minutes remaining. Again, I just knew UTA, like they had done many times this year, was about to finish a game on the short end. And again, they proved I was a cynicist when they initiated a 7-3 run after a tie ballgame with two and a half minutes left in the game. Defense won the last 35 seconds as the team only shot four of eight from the free throw line. The defense didn't allow a basket on three shots while also getting a turnover in that time to guarantee they won more games than they lost in the WAC Tournament.

ACU, as expected owned their game start to finish. I thought there clearly was a delineation between the top two teams in the WAC and the remaining five. ACU proved that with the 20-point win. California Baptist proved that on their end as they would win the whole thing.

Historically, this is where I'd point out the potential this team would have in the coming years. While the women don't have the roster turnover by percentage the men do, there's still a lot of movement. UTA lacked a scoring guard this year who could consistently put up points. Former Mav Gia Adams was 11th in scoring for Tarleton State this year. Her 11.7 points per game would have put her second on the team, 2.5 points ahead of Threatt. Since she is a point guard, it is safe to say Adams would have added about three more points for UTA on average at that position. That certainly would have cut into the negative scoring margin of just over six.

But at least the 2-1 run in Las Vegas let Mav fans go to the offseason with a small sense of confidence.

Hoops, Track and Diamond Updates

It's been a while for the Maverick Rambler, there was a perfect storm of factors the last month or so. First, as happens every year, February and March has the most activity from the UT Arlington Athletic Department than any other point. Both basketball teams are in the final stretch, baseball and softball started their seasons as did the tennis teams. The Western Athletic Conference meet occurred for the indoor track teams. That is 8 of the 15 programs (17 now I suppose with the wheelchair basketball teams). I don't really cover golf, as I'm not much of an enthusiast and covering them would be generic at best, but I believe their seasons have started too. I always get paralysis of options this time of year. Several ideas at once ironically leads to less coverage and writer's block.

Secondly, I volunteer at my son's school to do public address for the basketball teams. He just finished his first year on the varsity team in the playoffs and that took a lot of my personal time. These are moments I won't get back as a dad as I walk the path so I'm doing my best to treasure it while it goes on.

Third, I had a personal matter pop up a couple of weeks ago that both required lots of my time and attention, while also stifling my motivation to write.

And the fourth reason... Candidly, things just haven't been going well as a whole. I'll touch on each team in this post, something I generally don't like doing. But I've seen the blasé feeling is shared by other Mav fans too. Some good things are happening as well, so I don't want to sound all bad.

First Week In - the Bad

The UT Arlington women's basketball team was given a gauntlet of a schedule by the Western Athletic Conference to open conference play and the record reflects it. At 0-4, UTA has a hole to climb out of the rest of the way.

Credit to Derryl Trujillo on Twitter, or X, for getting to this stat first as teams in the WAC are 11-4 when they play on their home floor. That's not a terribly good stat for this squad as their schedule has three of the first four conference games away from the friendly confines of College Park Center. The lone home game featured a team that has a legitimate chance to win the conference regular season title. 

The losing streak was also exacerbated by the injury report. The good news for UTA is much of that slump came with senior point guard Nya Threatt out. She was back on the floor after missing the first three WAC games to start conference play. She returned to action against Abilene Christian on Saturday.

The Season that Counts, Women's Version

Since I've rotated between weekly UT Arlington men's and women's basketball teams, non-conference games come at a sporadic pace, I haven't really covered the Lady Mavericks this month. As we exit the Christmas break, the non-conference portion of both teams schedule has concluded and there's no better time to check in with the UTA women's team.

UTA had just successfully competed in the North Shore Classic, going 2-1 against two P4 teams and an A-10 squad. In that time, they have compiled a respectable 2-2 record, defeating Little Rock in Arkansas, 62-55, losing in Houston to Rice, 75-54, defeating Texas Southern at College Park Center, 81-73 and closed out non-conference in Baton Rouge to the fifth-ranked Louisiana State Tigers, 110-45.

In the wins, UTA beat who they should have with the Trojans 30-40 spots below UTA in the NET ranking while the Tigers are 150 or so. In the losses, there wasn't anything shattering either.

End of November Quick Hits

I wanted to touch on a number of sports for this week, so instead of doing half a dozen separate blog entries of varying lengths, I'm going to wrap all of them into this is one single entry. I don't normally do that, but I suspect that will prevent a post overload that I feel would have happened with six in a short period of time. I'll go in chronological order to avoid confusion.

-THE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL season ended a week ago. Prior to the start of the Western Athletic Conference tournament, the All-WAC teams and postseason accolades were given. Even though there were two Maverick players leading the conference in their respective stat categories, I wasn't expecting a player of the year honor for the team, given its fifth of seven finish in conference. Junior setter Mira Ledermueller was first in the WAC in assists with 896 and assists per set at 9.05 to conclude the regular season. Second place had 860 and 7.89 respectively. Junior libero Samantha Glenn had 422 total digs in the regular season, good for second in the conference and had 4.18 digs a set, good for first. 

What irked me is neither made an all-conference team. Senior outside hitter Jalie Tritt was a second-team member. There were two freshmen on the All-Freshman team: middle blocker Sophia Krichev and middle blocker Camryn McMinn.

Early Hoops Return

While the early 2-4 record for the UT Arlington women's basketball team isn't appealing on the surface, there's certainly things about this team that should build excitement for the part of the schedule that matters most, conference play.

Looking over the Western Athletic Conference, scores have not indicated a true favorite like there was last year. UTA's schedule was known to be challenging prior to the start of the season. Given the Mavericks recent conference performances the last few years, it seems something is working. The hope is this translates to a success WAC performance.

The Mavs opened the season with two straight losses at Houston (59-76) and at home to Missouri State (53-69). The first win was in College Park Center to Wyoming (64-44) and a second in a row to Tennessee State (78-58). In the one-that-got-away category, UTA suffered a 55-66 loss at Lamar. There, they led the Cardinals 38-26 with less than a minute gone in the 3rd quarter and it ended with the Mavs down 44-45. Most recently in the Hawaii North Shore Showcase, UTA slugged it out with Colorado, dropping another 60-71. In that game, UTA had a lead late in the first quarter before it ended in a tie. UTA was trailing by a point before a basket as time expired gave the Buffaloes a three-point lead at the half. The game was tied again halfway through the third before Colorado went on a spurt to keep the lead for good. UTA trimmed the lead to one with two minutes gone in the fourth, but gave up an 8-0 that was integral to the 11-point defeat.

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:

Schedules Released

I think I'm just about to finish playing catch-up with the next couple of posts. In this one, both basketball teams released their schedules last week and both have some really good highlights in the march to conference play. There should be a challenging yet winnable games along the way.

I'll posts the schedules and after each off, provide my take.

The women's schedule is as follows:

Conversation with an AD Part Four - Sports Quick Hits

The first three parts of my sit-down interview with UT Arlington Athletic Director Jon Fagg focused on a near singular topic each. As the interview reached the half way mark, the topics came closer in time and at a quicker pace. There has been a small delay in the release of part four as I originally envisioned part four being the last portion. However, the post itself started becoming too long. 

As we transition from the topic of football, we started discussing the sports we have on campus.

The Maverick Rambler: Well let's talk about pouring the efforts into, into men's basketball.

Jon Fagg: Yeah, sure.

2025 Schedule Detective

As summer closes and Universities across the country start to release the upcoming basketball season schedules, it is time to start compiling what we know about the UT Arlington schedules. To refresh your memories, UTA is usually makes their schedule known at the back end of school releases. They are usually quite late to the game. It gets harder and harder to schedule teams at UTA's level to get quality games, or in some cases, games at all. 

I get my non-conference information from two sources generally. The individual teams that have released their schedule already and Rocco Miller, who does about the best job out there of covering every school in the country as you'll find. Occasionally a third source comes out, but that is rare. 

Additionally, the Western Athletic Conference has released the upcoming conference slate. As was rumored, there will be a third game, ending the traditional round-robin, home-and-away format that has been the staple. Once the schedules are released, I'll opine my opinion of that and how the Mavs fare with that third game.

Here's what we know:

Top Five 2024/25 Moments

 As July transitions into August, the end of the collegiate summer doldrums is in sight. Volleyball opens the 2025/26 athletic season at the end of the month. While many schools have been analyzing the offseason moves of their respective football team or pontificating on whether a new coach was the right hire, we UT Arlington Maverick fans are gauging if UTA can repeat as WAC champs on the volleyball court or looking for pieces to the basketball schedules.

As fall is still a lonely time for Mavs, that doesn't diminish the anticipation some have for the upcoming year. With that constraint, let's look back at past year and see the top five moments from 2024/25.

There will be some guidelines I will impose on the list. First, no team can have more than one moment. Without that constraint, it is probable that one team could own multiple spots and the list would rapidly lose balance. Second, this list will be constrained to athletic feats or milestones. For example, as excited as I am about women's flag football coming next season or as newsworthy as the Western Athletic Conference transforming to the United Athletic Conference was, they will be excluded from this list. Third, it doesn't have to be performance or scoreboard based, just has to revolve around a program at UTA.

With that framework set, let's start the countdown.

Hoops Closes Out 2025 - Women's Edition

 As mentioned at the start of the last post, the UT Arlington women's basketball team concluded their season this month. Unlike the men, they ended on a higher note. Like the men, the losses they faced were to teams that are hard to lose to in any sport. 

UTA opened the Western Athletic Conference tournament against California Baptist and after splitting the season series, UTA was looking to advance, which they did, 72-66. UTA used a nine-point first quarter advantage and two two-point second and third quarters to weather a seven-point deficit in the fourth for the six-point win. 

That set the stage for a semifinal affair with Tarleton. Like CBU, UTA split the regular season games against the Texans and were looking for a series win. UTA trailed by one at the half, but wore out the Texans for a 66-55 win. 

Ladies Tourney Tidbits

UTA opens the Western Athletic Conference Tournament tomorrow and like the men, here's some random factoids regarding the Lady Mavericks and their respective conference tournaments.

Entering the 2025 WAC tournament in Las Vegas, UTA earned the third seed after finishing in a tie for second and losing the tiebreaker to Tarleton State. It will be the seventh time UTA will enter a conference tourney at three spot.

After hosting a tourney in 1983, the Southland Conference abstained for four years, hosting the second in 1989. UTA got its first three seed in 1997, beating UTSA.

It was the first of three straight years at that seed as in 1998, the Mavericks lost to Northwestern State and in 1999, the Mavs defeated Sam Houston.

WAC-ing time

Both basketball teams start the conference tournament this week after different ends to the conference schedule. While there are clear favorites for both sides, both teams are certainly capable. However, enthusiasm is not where it was last year overall, though the teams seem on different trajectories.

For the ladies, after a previous five-game losing streak, they ended the year with a dominant 87-73 win over California Baptist. After trailing by three at the end of the first quarter, the Mavs got on one of those runs I mentioned were lacking in the five-game losing streak. An 18-7 stretch in the second quarter keyed the victory. A layup by Senior guard Taliyah Clark gave the Mavericks a 26-25 lead and UTA would never trail. The Mav advantage climbed to almost 20 in the third quarter. UTA did give up a 13-4 run in the fourth quarter to narrow their lead to five. Graduate forward Avery Brittingham got back-to-back baskets and the Mavs turned it on the remainder of the way to seal the victory.

On a bright spot, the 10-1 home record this year was the best home winning percentage since a 10-1 mark in 2006/07.

The win was the tenth in conference for the Mavericks. UTA tied with Tarleton State for second with a 10-6 Western Athletic Conference record. The Texans were the surprise team of the conference at an overall 19-12 mark. The teams split the regular season by winning on their home floors. By virtue of their -.0115 score in the controversial WAC resume seeding system that former WAC commissioner Brian Thornton pioneered (and was widely despised by conference members) the Texans earned the second seed. UTA had a -1.585 score.

Limping Towards the End

Sometimes it can be a challenge getting two posts up in a week when The Maverick Rambler is a hobby. I'm a proud dad who watched his oldest son go from playing the B team in football in eighth grade, cut from the seventh-grade basketball team to an every-game starter for both sports his freshman year this season. I've got two others that play all three common sports in some youth league or another. Sports seasons are hectic. Coupled with an eighteen-month-old, a full-time job, a wife that fortunately wants to spend time with me, time is at a premium. 

Each post usually takes several hours to compose, edit and, despite the errors that do make it, proofread. I'm not a fan of articles that say little and exist to be clicked on. While I could say X team did this, it was ____ and they do this next, I like to get a little more in depth. That however, takes time. The writing time is large, but manageable. The research is much larger.

I strive to get at least one post a week for the sports going at the time. Most times that morphs into late season sports getting the bulk of the attention. I want to get both basketballs into the mix, but in the last three weeks, the women's team was neglected. 

That's a long-winded way of saying, I'm combining the two teams into this week's post. It fits as well as when the theme of this point in the season is similar.

Test Time

 It was a successful last week for the UT Arlington women's basketball team as they avenged their lone conference loss and put a little separation in the Western Athletic Conference standings between themselves and third place. That sets the stage for the toughest week of the conference season as two road trips to good teams await.

When the Mavericks previously played Utah Valley in Orem, Utah on January 16, UTA got an early lead in the first quarter before losing it, then in the second, the deficit climbed to double digits. The Mavs were unable to climb out of that hole as they basically played even from that point.

In Arlington last week, the formula was the same in the first half, but in the third quarter, UTA used several mini runs to stay within striking distance, which culminated in their first lead since the beginning of the game with less than a minute to go until the fourth. UVU answered and the fourth started with a tie game.

Tighter than Expected

When the Western Athletic Conference started play for the women's basketball teams, I thought the UT Arlington squad was a top half, but not top third team overall. I believed they might pull off an upset or two, but that there would be a clear hierarchy for the teams.

But as of this post, the team sits in second place with a solid 7-1 record halfway through the conference season, one game behind preseason favorite Grand Canyon, who, as much as it pains me to give this private (not) not-for-profit private school diploma mill the top spot, was my pick to win the regular season.

Now, there's a bit of a catch. The Mavericks have had an easy start to the schedule. Of the top four teams, UTA notwithstanding, UTA is only 1-1 so far. Against the bottom half, the remaining four teams, UTA is 6-0. 

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.

Shooting Woes

I mentioned in the last basketball post that I was slowly starting to dislike the way I was covering some UT Arlington athletic events. I don't want this to be a source straight game recaps, but rather a place for opinions to be expressed regarding the UTA Intercollegiate Athletic Department. So I'm gonna try a different approach with my first women's basketball entry.

I had something typed up prior to Thanksgiving, but an outage caused the post to be deleted. I had a self-imposed deadline because of the holidays and really don't like it took this long for the first women's basketball blog entry to be posted. But it did change the tone of the entry somewhat as my first take has adjusted slightly after the Houston game, where some of the concerns and observations I had were challenged or disputed. 

At an overall record of 3-5, with only two of those wins against Division I, my initial impression is the Mavericks are underperforming compared to the preseason expectations. However, the schedule is definitely tiered. There are four losses to teams in the top half of DI and the fifth is to one that's seven spots from the top half.

The losses include a 73-54 setback at Arizona, 71-60 at Louisiana Tech, 93-65 at Arkansas, 73-55 at Purdue and a 71-46 drugging in Dallas by SMU. Arizona was a return trip in a home and home. La Tech was a part of the Western Athletic Conference / Conference USA scheduling alliance. I'm not certain of the rest, but it would appear they are guarantee games where that school writes a check for a one-and-done series at their place. 

The wins include a 105-35 home win against the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association's Arlington Baptist, a too-close 73-71 road win at East Texas A&M (I love their name change to reflect their historic roots, BTW) and now a 61-57 home win at College Park Center, the fourth straight in the series for UTA.