First WAC Titles since Rejoining

 April 16 was a milestone for the UT Arlington Athletic Department as both tennis teams won their final regular season matches to claim a conference championship, the first of any team in the UTA Athletic Department this year. As this was the first year the Mavericks were back in the WAC, it marks two important championships.

The women's team is no stranger to winning titles. They are now back-to-back-to-back champs, with the prior two coming in their last two years in the Sun Belt Conference. But for the men, it's the first regular season title since 2010. Now, in 2016, they were near the top of the SBC, but the seedings weren't based on conference matches as the SBC didn't play a round-robin schedule. But outside of that, their tenure in the SBC wasn't one of winning. Only three of nine seasons saw them finish in the top half. 

The WAC (re)tenure started with a bang for both teams.

More First Steps

Football is a topic of never-ending speculation, gossip and desire in the UT Arlington community. Football was again on the ballot of a two-day election that was held on campus this past week. The results were announced on Tuesday and unsurprisingly, students voted for it in a large number, 1,004 in favor to 625 against.

Now, before I proceed, let me be clear that this is a non-binding referendum that asked if students supported increasing the athletics fee from $8.50 a credit hour for a maximum of $115 per semester to $18.50 an hour for a maximum of $250 per semester. The funds would go to the Athletic Department and be used to fund a football team and women's sports programs, presumably beach volleyball and a soccer team. It's non-binding, meaning the University has no requirement to follow through with the vote.

But it does fulfill the requirement the administrators and power-brokers have said for decades, the students have to care.

Certainly Improved

 After a little less than two months into the 2023 baseball season, one thing has certainly emerged from the UT Arlington squad. After one of the worst seasons in program history, pretty much everything that is measurable needed to be improved. To paraphrase a popular manager, they couldn't hit, they couldn't pitch and fielding was suspect. Other than that, they were doing all right. 

Before I get to this year, I want to look back at certain stats from last year. Discounting the COVID shortened year, the 15 wins earned last year was the lowest since 2007. Same for last year's 37 losses. The .289 winning percentage was the worst since .245 in 2007. Prior to that, you have to go back to 1977's 14-39 record with a .264 winning percentage to find the worst year.

The .248 batting average by the team actually looks good when compared against the .235 average in Sun Belt play, which only beat perennial doormat Arkansas State. It's the lowest cumulative average on UTAMavs.com, though that only goes back to 2018. 

There's a New Sheriff in Town

I'm in California for spring break, so this commentary is delayed more than I would have liked, given its magnitude. The UT Arlington Athletic Department is in the process of finalizing the hiring of current University of Kentucky assistant coach K.T. Turner as the 11th head coach in the program's University history (10th if you remove interim coaches).

Social media is showing a lot of excitement over the hire. In his history, Turner hasn't stayed anywhere very long (more on that later in the post). He was with the Wildcat program for one season. In 2021/2022, Turner was an assistant with the Oklahoma Sooners men's team. He was there for only one season as he was an assistant with the University of Texas-Austin for the 2020/21 basketball season. 

The longest stretch of his career at one place was a seven-season stop as an assistant at SMU. Interestingly, he was an assistant with the Mustangs under two different head coaches from 2013/14 to 19/20. That period was an anomaly as he was at Wichita State for one season, 2012/13, the year prior. In what is more the trend than an outlier, He was an assistant at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for just one season in 2011/12. 

WAC Basketball Facilities Ranking

I wrote the following post on the WAC message boards on CSNBBS.com. I had pondered it for a while, and after rediscovering an article where the Sun Belt Conference coaches ranked College Park Center the best in the conference, I had a renewed vigor to do the same for UTA's current home. After a robust conversation on Twitter, there is no better home for this than here on the Maverick Rambler.

I ranked all 13 current members in the conference. New Mexico State and Sam Houston State will depart, but since there are no new members on the horizon, I say the more the merrier.

The list includes on-campus venues only. All schools played three-quarters of their games on-campus and as such, I believed that ranking was best. 

With out further ado, ranked worst to first, here's the list of best on-campus basketball venues.

The Grass is Decidedly NOT Greener

 I came across some interesting tidbits due in part to the UT Arlington men's basketball coaching change. I briefly mentioned it in the last post, but one of my main concerns is losing the High School pipeline that was temporarily halted when Scott Cross was fired.

Some of that was mended when Royce "Snoop' Johnson was added to the staff of failed head coach Chris Ogden. That still didn't help as many of the local coaches had a loyalty of some kind or another to Cross. Some of the coaches were his former players and highly looked down on the way the school and Athletic Director departed with Cross.

When Greg Young was promoted and Johnson stayed on, the pipeline started re-opening, as freshmen Brandon Walker and Chendall Weaver have shown this year and Montez Young, Jr last year, that is paying dividends. One reason Mavs fans were frustrated with the coaching change, at least those I talked to or observed, was that Greg Young compiled a talented, young team and then tried to fill the gaps with older, experienced transfers. There was no doubt they were getting better as the year progressed. There's also no doubt the inconsistent play exhibited is a trademark of young teams. 

But let me get to the point of this post. A large fear is that some of the talented youngsters may depart at the end of the year. Obviously nothing can be done now except let it play out. But in the meantime, I wanted to take a look at a few recent Mavericks who utilized the transfer portal and may be regretting that decision. 

A Coaching Change Hold my Beer

This one won't be a long one. Maybe there's too much deja vu from the last time the UT Arlington men's basketball team made a coaching change. It was announced on Friday that Greg Young has essentially been fired mid-season. I'm just in a WTF frame of mind. 

It's not like the Mavericks were underperforming. The currently sit in 10th in the WAC, right where the media pre-season poll had them and one spot better than the coaches. There's a young roster full of potential talent. In the current NCAA era, that doesn't mean much for the long run as the transfer portal has made some non-power schools a farm system for the "bigger" universities. There are only two seniors on the team. Had G.Y. stayed, next year could have been a big year. Now, maybe not. Roster turnover is common in coaching changes. I see no reason that won't be the case here too.

A young team will struggle, as evidenced by close games against good teams and inexplicable losses to teams at or below the Mavericks. But there have been upsets this year too. At this point, the only reason I'd see you firing a coach would be due to that young talent not being developed. That's now not the case. UTA has won four of seven. Of the three losses in that time frame, only Abilene Christian was lopsided. Yes, letting Tarleton slip away hurt, but again, that's what young teams in Division I do the vast majority of the time.