A Sea Of Red

Big night for CUSA. Some opportunities to really improve rankings.

New Mexico State has 43 Dayton.

UTEP is playing 115 UC Santa Barbra.

Disappointing result for New Mexico State last night. They were down 1 at half and lost by 21. Dayton is now the 39th ranked team in the country.

UTEP however, got a nice win over 125 UC Santa Barbara. UTEP is now in the top 200 at 194.

CUSA remains the 10th best league for men’s basketball.

157 Middle Tennessee plays 160 Ohio tonight, while 187 Jacksonville Sate gets a huge opportunity against 137 unbeaten ECU.

Not CUSA related, but our former conference foes the might Dolphins of Jacksonville University went into Blacksburg and knocked off the Hokies last night . Mike Young is a good guy, but he’s struggling to get it moving forward at VT.

CUSA currently has 2 teams in the top 100 and 9 of 10 members in the top 200 of KenPom. It should be a very competitive conference race.

R i wrote: ↑November 21st, 2024, 7:06 am Not CUSA related, but our former conference foes the might Dolphins of Jacksonville University went into Blacksburg and knocked off the Hokies last night . Mike Young is a good guy, but he’s struggling to get it moving forward at VT.

The worst part about this is that it gives Va Tech/P6s more reason to avoid mid-majors and McKay another excuse to justify our pathetic home non-conference schedule.

LUOrange wrote:
and McKay another excuse to justify our pathetic home non-conference schedule.

Yeah, because it is his fault, right? Aren't you in every thread whining that we're not playing Alabama every game in every sport?

jcmanson wrote: ↑November 21st, 2024, 10:29 am CUSA currently has 2 teams in the top 100 and 9 of 10 members in the top 200 of KenPom. It should be a very competitive conference race.

Crazy jump to 10th best conference from 23rd best conference. ASUN has zero teams in top 100 and only 4 teams in top 200.

LUOrange wrote: ↑November 21st, 2024, 11:23 am

R i wrote: ↑November 21st, 2024, 7:06 am Not CUSA related, but our former conference foes the might Dolphins of Jacksonville University went into Blacksburg and knocked off the Hokies last night . Mike Young is a good guy, but he’s struggling to get it moving forward at VT.

The worst part about this is that it gives Va Tech/P6s more reason to avoid mid-majors and McKay another excuse to justify our pathetic home non-conference schedule.

It's one thing if you want to insinuate that coach McKay is incompetent because you disagree with his scheduling philosophy. You have a right to your opinion and to express it. That is not what you are doing. You are calling him a liar. He has stated repeatedly that each and every year he goes into the scheduling process with the goal of playing at least 2 or 3 high major teams, with one of those games at home. They won't even take his calls. They know that we are not an automatic w, and we are not yet at a level where a loss to us is "acceptable". Response from the quality low/mid major teams for home games is similar.

That leaves us with non D1 and D1 bottom feeders to fill out our home non conference schedule along with the occasional game linked to an early season tournament (ie: Charleston and FAU next year.) It will only change when potential opponents see a win over us as a big enough positive to outweigh the negative of losing to us.

Didn’t we just play CAROlINA from Chapel Hill?

The Flames are currently ranked 344 out of 364 DI teams in the country at FT%. Currently shooting 60% on the year from the charity stripe. Is it too small of a sample size? Maybe...but
The Flames finished last year at #339, at 66%.

This is abysmal!
An easy explanation is the bulk of those shots are from Cleveland who shot 144 free ones last year..at a 54% clip. No idea how many of those were on the front end of a 1&1. For context, Kyle Rode was was the next highest with 58 FTA. Cleveland is awesome and creates offense but that is a sharp negative to his plus's.

Noticed that FAU is playing right now and that reminded me how that W would have been big at seasons end. The game we dropped against FAU was lost at the FT line. LU went 12-21 with, by my count, 4 misses on the front end of a 1&1's in regulation (Aquino had 2 of them). One in OT by Peter in a critical juncture. That is the equivalent of a turnover in each instance.

This is likely to cost the Flames 2-4 games this year in a solid conference, if not improved. If I am scouting this team, I hack Cleveland as soon as he touches the ball in a crucial possession. Especially in a 7-10 foul window.

Team is greatly improved and Cleveland looks like he put some time in his post game. However, I will never understand how someone with unlimited access to a ball, a bucket and and a rebounder cant figure it out?!

Tothehoopyall1 wrote: ↑November 21st, 2024, 4:10 pm Didn’t we just play CAROlINA from Chapel Hill?

And beat them by 36 points!
Why wasn't this national news?

Middle Tennessee handles Ohio and Jacksonville State beat previously unbeaten ECU! Both were underdogs, and both improved their National rankings.

CUSA now only has 1 team outside the top 200, FIU.

MORE WINNABLE OPPORTUNITIES TODAY! NO LIMITS ON US!

Middle Plays 125 USF, and Jacksonville State plays 121 Toledo. Our Flames play 221 Louisiana.

I am loving the eary season success of the league. Is it enough to avoid being a 1-bid league? Most likely not. But it takes continued success to change perceptions and this is helpful.

If this team can get above 70% from the FT line it will really help this team compete. I’m sure the coaches are working on it.

R i wrote: ↑November 22nd, 2024, 9:37 am
Middle Plays 125 USF, and Jacksonville State plays 121 Toledo. Our Flames play 221 Louisiana.

MIDDLE WINS!!!!

Unfortunately JSU blew a 7 point halftime lead to fall 82-80

Conference is continuing to do well in non con, I wouldn’t say we are an at large team yet, but if we continue to play well and the conference provides good ranking matchup ups , it could happen. Currently we would have 3 games on our conference schedule that would be Quad 2 opportunities. @83 Louisiana Tech, @110 Sam Houston , and @ 125 Western Kentucky. Middle Tennessee is just outside Quad 2 but is quickly climbing!

Here is a quick Quadrant guide:
Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353

Games to watch today around the league.

161 Jax State vs 152 James Madison
172 New Mexico Sate vs 88 UNLV

R i wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2024, 7:15 am
161 Jax State vs 152 James Madison
172 New Mexico Sate vs 88 UNLV

Lost both of these. Three more oppertunities for CUSA vs top 100 teams today, including Liberty vs 72 Kansas Sate at 8:00

Today is probably the biggest day for the conference becoming an at large, multi bid league. Three opportunities against top 100 teams.

I don’t wanna jinx anything so just cut on your TVs to CBS Sports network to watch the Kennesaw State game, they are playing the number 24 in the country Rutgers

R i wrote: ↑November 24th, 2024, 3:05 pm I don’t wanna jinx anything so just cut on your TVs to CBS Sports network to watch the Kennesaw State game, they are playing the number 24 in the country Rutgers

Whew, KSU up 18 at the half holds on for a 2 point win.

KSU bigger guards are destroying LU’s small guards. What’s up with the floor? There are more slips in this game than hockey games.

Our guards were two of the best players on the floor tonight. Word from the paradise jam is that the building is super humid, it was designed as an airplane hanger, and it’s very hot and moist in the building especially the floor.

Great day for CUSA!

Agreed. CUSA made great strides today.

And those two short guys in our backcourt played their tails off to get us the win tonight.

Credit where credit is due: We hit FT's down the stretch!
The movement on Offense and the hustle of our “bigs” was really impressive. Love this team! Athletic, long and heady guards.
Lock in for a fun season of LU Hoops!