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.

The Basketball Race is now a Soap Opera

It was a big week last week (as it seems every week is) in the race for the Western Athletic Conference men's basketball regular season title. UT Arlington split the week with a dominant win against Southern Utah and an overtime loss to California Baptist, both at home. That loss did not give separation in the standings. Then this week, news broke that could have a huge impact on the race.

First, the Mavericks hosted the Thunderbirds last Thursday. UTA never trailed in the game as they throttled SUU. The lead went as high as 25 a couple of times in the second half as UTA won 80-61. UTA shot 43.3 percent from the field, 35.3 percent from three-point land while allowing a similar field goal percentage and 33.3 percent from beyond the arc. Senior forward Raysean Seamster led all scorers with 16 while freshman forward Amari Reed had nine rebounds to lead all players.

That set up a battle between 6-2 UTA and 5-3 California Baptist. Utah Valley was 6-3 entering the day meaning a UTA loss would put a three-way tie for first and a UTA win would put the Mavericks in sole possession of first by a full game.

First-place UTA Mavericks

Back in a past life when I used to work at a popular local sports radio station, the Texas Rangers were in the midst of another losing season. They were last in the four-team AL West from 2000 to 2003. They were third place from 2004 to 2006. All but one of those seasons resulted in an overall losing record. During one of those years, they had a great April and either the end of that month or the start of May, the Rangers receptionist was answering the phone “first-place Texas Rangers.” The radio station got that audio and saved it and would use it often. It was an occasional jab at the Rangers, as the schedule to that point when the audio was recorded was quite easy, but it transitioned to just a general descriptor of the team. Then, after I left the station, it became an accurate way, perhaps even a proud way, to describe the team as they made their runs in the early teens.

I give that long intro to relay the first thing that came to my mind after an epic game between the California Baptist Lancers and the Utah Valley Wolverines. UVU entered the day half a game ahead of the UT Arlington Mavericks in the Western Athletic Conference standings. When CBU won, one easy phrase popped into my head.

First-place UTA Mavericks.

First Week In - the Good

With a slight hiccup at home, the 3-1 start for the UT Arlington men's basketball team was about as perfect a start to Western Athletic Conference play as there could be. Even with the loss, the start is as good as could be expected by Maverick fans. Excitement is building and the players are clearly showing confidence.

It has helped that UTA has played three of the four games to open WAC play at home. As I've watched the season unfold, both non-conference and the first two weeks of Western Athletic Conference play there are legitimately five teams that could win the regular season and six have a realistic shot. The lone road game to this point was versus the one team that I don't think can make a case they will finish near the top and are currently in last place. 

With road games this week against two competitive teams, we'll have a better idea of where UTA could be to start the conference tournament in Las Vegas. But before I get into that, let's look into the first two weeks of conference play.

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, Men's Version

This year's version of the UT Arlington men's team has had the best start to a season since 2017/18 when they had an equal 8-4 start en route to a 21-win season. I don't know what fortunes this year holds, but it has been a pleasure to watch the non-conference season.

The last Maverick Rambler post was just two games prior to the completion of the non-conference schedule and the results went the way my optimism was hoping.

UTA's lone-Power Conference game was in California against Stanford. UTA hit a cold streak in the first half while the Cardinal did not en route to a 25-40 Maverick deficit. UTA played toe-to-toe and was on the verge of getting the score within single digits on more than one occasion in the second half, but ultimately it was a 76-60 loss. UTA kept its fairly strong three-point defense going, allowing only five of 16 shooting for Stanford beyond the arc. Conversely, UTA was porous in the paint, where Stanford did a lot of damage.