North Texas was ranked weren't they? :hammer: :thumbsup:
Believe it or not, Iâm slowly coming to the conclusion that North Texas was a wise team to put on the schedule. Iâm amazed that they can potentially be a 20+ win team at the end of the year and you want as many beatable 20+ win teams on your schedule as possible. Iâll give Bobby credit for that one.
Iâm just pissed that we were put in a position to lose that game, especially since menâs basketball is supposed to be the bread-and-butter of the athletic dept (the back-to-back games thing)
Iâm also kind of surprised that anyone who witnessed the out-of-conference games could come to the conclusion that our opponents werenât challenging enough. As much as I hated hearing it, Iâve heard fans of other schools encouraging us to dumb down the OOC schedule to our level. Itâs tough to argue with them when your team has 9 losses at this point in the year.
IMO - The school has to shift its mentality from a gambling style to more conservative style. Gambling worked great just prior to the recent run of NCAA Tournaments bids, since the school was really off the college basketball radar at the time. Recruits werenât exactly beating down the NC Char (or whatever ESPN was calling us) 49ersâ front door instead of Louisville or Cincinnati - as a result, the school was at a real disadvantage in C-USA. Obviously, gambling with Diego and Jobey worked out really well and beating quality opponents really worked wonders for the basketball program.
Now, since a Big 6 conference affiliation is not currently on the horizon, the mentality has to shift from âunderdogâ to a team that is supposed to beat up on teams game after game after game. It doesnât matter if Charlotte is in the A-10, C-USA, MVC, SoCon, Horizon, or the MEAC - to maintain the type of success weâve become accustomed to and to earn the attention of a BCS conference or a top conference yet-to-be-created, Charlotte is gonna have to win a whole bunch of games. Thatâs it. Losses against quality teams might put a few extra butts in the seats in the short-term, but it will hurt in the long run. No more gambling - you do it by building a dominant team through outrecruiting your competition, particularly in the frontcourt. Think Cincinnati without the criminals.
The way I see it, the keys to a successful Charlotte basketball program in the future are pretty obvious: The members of the A-10 have to lay individual foundations for successful basketball teams, the A-10 needs to get a damn TV contract to give the teams and players some freakinâ exposure, and Charlotte has to remain at or near the top of the conference until the next conference shakeup. With the exception of St. Bonaventure, you could easily argue a case for each team in the A-10 that they are all building some nice foundations - especially when you look at the coaching and the youth movement around the league. The lack of media exposure is total BS - seriously, heads need to roll if it isnât fixed soon by the people running the conference (and some better refs wouldnât hurt either). And of course, the one thing Charlotte has control over - we gotta win some damn games. I gotta have that first A-10 championship banner so I can start talking s***.
