Fayetteville loss to Morgan State

I really don't like Morgan State because their coach is a sleeze-ball, but it is always fun to see a BCS school lose to a lower-level team. Especially Fayetteville, with their monopolistic attitude in Arkansas.

If we could just get the recruits we get

to actually show up, and the players we sign to stay their full time, no telling how good we might be.

I liked what I saw

at the St. Gregory's game. Weak opponent, but the Trojans played well. Showed a lot of good basketball, especially the 28 assists. That was just short of the 32 all-time team record for one game. I was pretty down on them, but I feel a little better. Won't be a really good team this year, but might be fair if things go well.

Cicic

Nikola Cicic has a sweet, smooth shot. I predict he will be a star for us before he is through.

Tennessee Tech game

My son-in-law and I got to see UCA play Tennessee Tech last night. Tech won in a close game. Tech is coached by Mike Sutton who received national notice a couple of years ago for his struggle with Guillain-Barre syndrome. At one point all he could do was blink his eyes. He now is on the sideline, sits on a stool in front of the bench. He walks with a cane, albeit somewhat awkwardly. Truly inspiring story.

disappointed, but not surprised

I had hoped we would stay a little closer to Ole Miss than we did, but I am not surprised that we got blown out by a good SEC team. We did a few things well, but you aren't going to give up 20 turnovers against a team of that quality and stand much of a chance of winning. Some good things happened. Bails showed he is still a force on the boards. Cicic hit his first two 3-point attempts. Burton was 4 for 5 from the field. We will get better.

sine qua non

Every other year you need to sign a freshman center and a freshman point guard. Can't have too many of those.

RECRUITING CLASS

I like our recruiting class this year. First of all, they are all freshmen (at least so far). How long has it been since that was true. Since we expect to have all five positions covered next season, that makes good sense. Second, the class includes a point guard, a scorer, and a center. Nice combination. Who knows how freshmen will pan out, but long term I feel a lot better bringing in promising freshmen than having to plug holes with jucos, even though we have had some outstanding JC players. Second, the two guards look to know how to score, and that is always a plus.

Heading into the season

We have perhaps more question marks after the exhibition game than we had before. What is the deal with this team? Was the Harding game a complete abberation, or did it reveal fatal flaws in the team? Who knows? And, I don't know if we will know any more after the Miss State game, because logically they should come close to blowing us out. It may take a good while to know how good this team really is.

Finally!

The season is here!

Cautiously optimistic

Based upon the feedback we have gotten so far on this team (precious little), I have moved from being pretty pessimistic to being cautiously optimistic. I am not suggesting that I think we will be in the top tier of the SBC, but I think we might be able to move to being on the top edge of the middle of the pack. Considering what we lost, that will be an accomplishment. If we were to be one of the top 3-4 teams in the conference, that would mean Shields has done one of his best coaching jobs and that he has significantly upgraded our incoming talent. I would like to hope that is the case, but we'll wait and see.