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.

Passing of a Character

Former UT Arlington men's basketball coach Robert, Bob, "Snake" LeGrand passed away on July 19 of this year at the ripe old age of 81. For those who know the history of the Maverick program, the loss hits pretty hard. He had a personality larger than his impact on the court for the UTA basketball program.

Snake coached from the 1976/77 season to the 1986/87 year. In those 11 seasons, LeGrand compiled a career record of 122-184. That amounts to a winning percentage of .399. Within the Southland Conference, LeGrand was 30-78, a worse .278 percentage.

It is important to note several things working against Snake during this time.

UAC Find

Any time a university changes its conference affiliation, it creates headlines and is a hot topic. It creates conversations on a national scale where people who wouldn't mention a school are now discussing the changes. Some even try to present themselves as experts, though they knew little about the situation or school prior.

UTA, along with the remaining members of the Western Athletic Conference, certainly qualify as they and the members of the Atlantic Sun reorganized 15 schools into two conferences. The members of the two entities rarely garner much national attention so to hear all of these "experts" know the ins and outs of Tarleton State and Bellarmine make me chuckle.

However, I did find the following video on the WAC message board from the Big Mountain Podcast on the WAC being re-branded to the United Athletic Conference and the reorg with thew ASun. The Big Mountain guys tend to focus on all conferences in the western end of the U.S. and have more knowledge than the average folks.

A New Coat of Paint

There was big news from both a UT Arlington perspective and conference affiliation shuffling that came out this week. As has been the case for its entire history, the Western Athletic Conference will survive, despite the handwringing from the media and social media circles.

What was known prior to this week was Seattle University and Grand Canyon were out of the conference at the end of this month. Common belief among the remaining WAC members was good riddance to the second. That left seven schools, Abilene Christian, California Baptist, Southern Utah, Tarleton State, Utah Tech, Utah Valley along with UTA, for the upcoming athletic year. Seven is the minimum for an automatic berth into the men's basketball tournament.

California Baptist accepted an invitation from the Big West Conference several months ago and Utah Valley formally did the same last month. That would leave only five members for the 2026/27 athletic year. With limited options in the footprint, schools bailing for competitively weaker conferences and no Division II schools ready to move, people were predicting the WAC's demise.

End of Year

With the Western Athletic Conference Tournament over, UT Arlington baseball again getting eliminated and a sub.500 record, the year is over. With the exception of a few individuals in the track and field sports, that effectively means the 2024/25 athletic season is over.

I'll do a brief recap, later, but in the WAC tourney, the Mavericks over performed as a seven seed and went 2-2 in the field.

In the entry prior to the conference tournament, I pondered how hard it was for a team who swept another in the regular season to win a fourth game in the postseason. UTA took all three from Tarleton State, one by a run, another by two.

Somehow, the opening game was never close and it was UTA, who either wins big or loses close, who bombed the Tarleton State Texans 10-1. TSU had one of the better front-line pitchers in the WAC with Junior pitcher Brian Panneton. For whatever reason, he didn't start. The Mavs got four runs off the starter in the first inning and never looked back. UTA's Sophomore pitcher Caylon Dygert went six and a third innings pitched and gave up the one earned run. 

That was an important win as seeds five through eight play each with the loser's run in the tournament ending at one game. That set the stage for UTA taking on Utah Valley, the three seed. UTA swept the Wolverines in Arlington and going for a fourth win would be tough. 

Postseason Baseball

The UT Arlington Mavericks start the Western Athletic Conference Tournament on Tuesday. This may be one of the hardest conference tournaments that UTA has participated in to handicap as UTA can play with anyone but has proven they can lose to anyone as well.

I'll start with how they got there. Going into the last two conference series of the year, UTA was on track to really move up in the standings. They were facing the two teams at the bottom of the WAC in Utah Tech on the road and Seattle at home. Sadly, they lost both series, but didn't get swept. Had they won both series, but not swept, they'd be in a tie for third place and have a first round bye. Instead, they are in sole possession of seventh place.

Against Seattle, they lost by scores of 2-6 and 5-10. I've noted a few times this year that UTA specializes in losses of three runs or less. I haven't determined if I'd rather have the Mavs lose to the only team not to make the conference tournament by larger or smaller margins. A loss is a loss, but it would have been nice to see a little more fight. The Mavs won on senior day 8-1.

To recap, UTA has a 19-31 record. Nine losses, roughly 29 percent of their total losses, are by one run. Five losses are by two runs and three L's are by three runs. Over half of the losses were a base hit or home run away from a different outcome. But when they win, it is by a large margin. 11 of the 19 wins are by five runs or more.

Maverick Stadium will see the Pigskin Again

 Big news out of Arlington Thursday as the UT Arlington Mavericks will be bringing football to the official sports offering of the Athletic Department. 

I thought about using that line on the Western Athletic Conference message boards, but wanted the full qualifier in the title there to avoid misleading the average reader. I did it to one of my sons who got really excited. He wanted to go to Maverick Stadium in the fall.

But here, either you already know the news or, for some weird reason, you choose the Maverick Rambler as your news and know my irreverent style already.

Women's Flag football will debut on campus for the Spring 2027 season.