About 7 minutes into the game I realized that this is the first opener that you’ve missed in almost 50 years, and you know what’s crazy? I’ve been sad today… like ALL day. I figured it was just that time of year, or that the depression was really kicking my ass today, but nope. Just the feeling of impending doom about this exact realization.
After I realized that I just cried. I’m currently crying as I’m writing this, but I wanted to talk. We usually talked on the phone after every game to shoot the shit so I’m hoping that this will help the sting a little. Will it? I fucking doubt it but let’s give it a try.
You know how openers go; it’s basically a tune up game. I will say that Mount St. Mary’s isn’t exactly, in your words, a “blind Catholic girls school.” They’ve got some pretty good ball players so they, unfortunately, kept this game a little closer than what we would have liked. There wasn’t one player that was busting our ass so it was more of a team effort on their part. One part that I think you’d get a kick out of was the student section. St. Mary’s has this kid, Xavier Lipscomb, who I will say is pretty good but he’s 23 years old. I’m not sure why he’s still playing? Maybe he had a redshirt year, I’m not sure, but the student section was letting him HAVE IT. EVERY time he touched the ball the crowd was yelling “GET A JOB” at him. You can tell it kind of bothered him too which was the best part.
Our guys look good. I know that both of us were kind of skeptical about this roster but I think that Ross Hodge did a really good job. I wasn’t tapped into North Texas last year but he brought a couple of kids that can HOOP. Coach Hodge brought Jasper Floyd and Brenen Lorient to West By God and I was really impressed with them. They’ve got a really good connection; their pick and roll game already seems dialed in. We don’t run a lot of pick and roll in this offense but it was nice to see that we can break that out when the offense gets stale. Oh and you would LOVE Jasper Floyd.
He’s this 6’3″ guard out of Tampa and he seems to be ready to take on that Jevon Carter/Deuce McBride role for this team. I don’t think he’s as good as they were on the ball defensively, but he’s a bloodhound. He had 5 steals and all of them were just shooting the gap in the passing lanes. I do kind of worry that his gambling will come back to bite him once we get into conference play, but damnit. He looked great. I know you don’t care about offense as much but I can’t not mention the fact that he ended the game with 25 points, 4 assists, and went 9/13 from the field.
I won’t say that this team is as good defensively as those Bob Huggins’ “Press Virginia” teams, but they gave it a good run. We forced 20 turnovers for the game and if we could have turned those into some points, this game wouldn’t have been as close as it was. We only had 25 points off turnovers; I don’t think that it’s that big of a deal but I also know that Kansas and Oklahoma State will take our lunch money if we can’t convert.
You would have pulled your hair out if you saw our rebounding effort, though. We got out rebounded 38–29 and they didn’t have any 7 footers on their end. We don’t either, to be fair, but we were getting our ass handed to us. Some positive notes though? We were pretty disciplined. We didn’t foul much. Part of that is our guys being older and mature. The other part of it is that even in this tune up game Ross Hodge only ran an 8-man rotation. I’m not sure how sustainable that is, but I do know that Coach Hodge is running a really well conditioned team.
We ended up winning that game, thank god, 70–54. We had 3 guys in double figures but not much else. We already talked about Floyd, but Brenen Lorient finished with 11/13/3 stocks, and Honor Huff (sick basketball name btw) finished with 16 points and 2 steals. I’m kind of worried that 3 point shooting is going to be this team’s downfall because we shot something putrid like 28%, but it’s a long season and hopefully they can turn it around.
You want to know something wild? After the 20+ years of disrespect by ESPN, their Basketball Power Index is predicting that we’ll have a really good season. They predict that we’ll finish the year 25–5 and 14–4 in the Big 12. Hell of a first year for Coach Hodge, huh? I’m not sure how reliable that thing is but I’ll take the praise where I can get it.
Overall, I think that Coach Hodge has a good system. It’s defense first which I know you’d love, and he has the personnel to score when we need it. I think that our team will rely pretty heavily on Floyd, Huff, and Lorient for their offense, so hopefully everyone else can chip in. I’m a little upset that our new recruit Amir Jenkins didn’t get a lot of burn, but he’s got a lot of competition in front of him. It’ll come, but probably not this year. A lot of the “experts” say that we’ll be a tournament team, probably around the 6–8 seed range.
As I’m writing this sentence they’re playing “Country Roads” and BOY is it fucking me up. I never really understood what you meant when you said that the song hits different when you don’t live there anymore, but now I do. I’ve heard it every so often: commercials, TikTok sounds, when we beat Pitt’s ass in football. When I hear it I cry like a fucking baby, just like I am right now. Hopefully we can keep playing that song all the way to a National Championship this year.
Anyway, I’m going to let you go. I’m sure you’re busy but I just wanted to chit chat a little bit about the game. I love ya, Pops. Let’s have a good season, yeah? LET’S GO….. MOUNTAINEERS!
Round The Game 
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