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.
I pondered making this topic its own post, but there's probably not enough substance. So I'll add it here. I'd rather play a school like Arlington Baptist and here's why. Anyone who knows UTA's history knows basketball was bad for decades when it became a four-year school. It took seven seasons to get its first winning season, that at 14-12. Three of those seasons were eight wins or less, one at nine, one at ten. Five seasons of the first 30 were above .500, nine of the first 40, 14 of 51 prior to College Park Center opening. Due primarily to that, UTA has a winning record against 86 teams, a losing mark to 120 and are tied with 24 (two of those tied teams are opponents later this week). Many of those schools in the losing column are non-DI schools.
Arlington Baptist was never an opponent prior to this year, so that upped the win column by one. If UTA has to have non-DI games, and it looks like they do to fill out a schedule, I want UTA play schools like Adams State (0-1), Angelo State (4-5), East Central Oklahoma (3-3), East Texas Baptist (3-6), Louisiana College (1-3), McMurray (3-9), Midwestern State (3-16), Missouri-Rolla (1-1), Oklahoma Baptist (1-2), Oklahoma City (1-16), Southeast Oklahoma (1-1), U.S. International (1-1) or Westmont (1-1). Some of these schools beat UTA when they played in the lower division. Some were in the highest division and beat UTA before moving down. These non-DI games would move the needle for me more than what has been of late.
Anyway, moving on...
Sandwiched between those two non-DI games was a guarantee game at the University of New Mexico. While UTA played them close two years ago, losing by a coast-to-coast layup at the buzzer, this was not quite the same thing. The Mavs kept it within 20, barely, at 74-56. I was hoping for more offense, as only Senior forward Raysean Seamster and sophomore guard Bahsil Laster, a transfer (as is 80 plus percent of the roster) from Harcum College, scored in double digits, 17 and ten respectively.
Overall the team went 18-51 from the field, a shooting percentage of 35 percent, and three of 25 from beyond the arc, a paltry 12 percent. There was a very good bright spot. Playing in front of 11,000 plus rowdy fans, the team went a combined 17-24 from the free throw line. Also encouraging, Seamster was five of six. Fans from last year remember how many close games were lost by poor free throw shooting. Seamster got to the line a lot. But he was roughly a 50 percent guy from the line. If he can get that to 75 for the season, it will be a tremendous impact to the overall output of the team.
The most recent game is hopefully a really good indication of where this team will be headed. Missouri State is a school in the general vicinity of where UTA is. They were not a high level Missouri Valley Conference school last year, finishing last in the 12 team conference. The Bears went 7-5 outside of conference and any fan of NCAA Division I basketball knows the MVC is a tough bball conference. They are currently in Conference USA and it won't get much better for them.
In the game, the teams played close throughout the first half. If I said the final score first, there would be a disbelief that the Mavs trailed 9-2 to open the game. But UTA chipped away at it, using runs of 7-2 and 14-2 plus a four minute stretch where no team scored to take a 34-25 lead at the half.
The same intensity carried over into the second as both teams scored one less than they did in the first for UTA to take a 67-49 win. Seamster led the Mavericks with 17, shooting seven of 15 from the field, one three-pointer in three tries, but a regressed two of seven from the charity stripe. The team also regressed, making six in 17 tries.
Senior guard Marcell McCreary, a transfer from Northern Colorado, added 14 points with nine of them coming from behind the arc. Sophomore guard Cash Chavis, a transfer from Arkansas, contributed 11. Sophomore forward Cam Jackson, the only other returner besides Seamster, had a game high 15 rebounds, helping UTA win the battle of the boards, 42-35.
UTA plays Evansville tonight, a return game of a home-and-home series that will be played in Indiana. The Mavs won last year 80-54 in College Park Center. The Purple Aces won once in 1983 so the series will be tiled one way or another.
On Friday, the Mavs travel to Utah for the Weber State MTE. They'll get the Campbell Camels on Friday and the Weber State Wildcats on Saturday.
After this week, the sample size will be large enough and against enough competition at UTA's level to have a good idea how competitive this team will be, especially when conference play starts.
No comments:
Post a Comment