Stevie Moore

I’ll give my two cents worth on the Stevie Moore episode. We will never know all the facts, of course, so this is only upon the basis of what we can see. Stevie was already on probation, so to speak, because of his suspension in the first two games of the year, so he had to know he had no room for error in that regard. Maybe Shields was out of line in the severity of his public chewing out, but no more than what many coaches do. It is not like Stevie is the first player ever to get a bad dressing down on the sideline. So, when he walked, he had to know that he was in effect resigning. I hate to lose his talent. The problem now is the effect his leaving will have on team morale. It seems they played well against North Texas. Hopefully it will be a positive, but time will tell.

New territory for me

Every win from here on out this season is virgin territory for me as a UALR basketball fan. The 20 wins last season was the most I have seen the team get. So, I am going to really enjoy the rest of the season. These are the good old days.

WKU

I am just sick, sick, sick. What more can you say? The crowd showed up, and was vocal and into the game. We just didn't get it done.

making others better

It is a truism, but being surrounded by other good players makes good players look a lot better. If JJ had been on a good team and could have played the 4 spot, his true position, and concentrate exclusively on rebounding, there is no telling what sort of numbers he would have had. Point guards look better if shooters get open. Shooters look better if point guards get them the ball. Etc, etc.

Just a little big torqued

Fayetteville, which is going no where and is in a significant tailspin, notwithstanding gets two front page sports section articles. UALR, who clinched a tie for the division title and moved into overall possession of first place and have a game coming up with Western Kentucky, get stuck on Page Nine of the Arkansas Democrat. Tell me again that the powers that be in the state don't deliberately try to make sure no one but Fayetteville gets any significant support. Tell me, but I won't believe it.

How?

I keep coming back to this. What makes this team good? (We are not a great team, but I think we can say that so far we have been a good team.) That puzzles me more and more. We do have four players in double figures, but the scoring drops off pretty sharply after that, so we cannot claim that this is an outstanding offensive team. Our team shooting percentages are no better than average. We out-rebound our opponents, but not by a lot. Our A/TO ratio is actually a cause for concern. We block almost the same amount as our opponents, and we have exactly the same number of steals as the opposition. We out-score the opposition by only 2.5 points/game. We do not have outstanding size; in fact, we start a very under-sized team. We limit opposition to 40.8 FG%, which is pretty good, but our perimeter defense is 33.6%, which is decent but not notable. On top of it all, we have had some very key players out for several games with health/discipline issues.

What is it? I have said it before: I study a lot of stat sheets over the course of a year, and there is nothing about ours that makes me think this team would be anywhere near 16-6 for the season. It is almost like we just play well enough to win. I guess the only place you can see heart on the stat sheet is in the W-L column.