UTRGV

[SeattleJay]

Good to see the message board is already in mid season mode after a win where Ryan Kalkbrenner gave everyone an absolutely historic performance.

Historic performance that was absolutely needed in order to beat a team you led by 5 with under 4 minutes left and should beat by 25+ even without Pop is justifiable concern.

Yeah — talking more about bickering and name calling over precisely where in their conference UTRGV is being projected in random preseason predictions.

There are a million details that contribute to teams that are really good having issues in games like that one. Really good teams actually lose games like that not infrequently.

But carry on with the handwringing and petty arguing about utterly meaningless stuff instead of recognizing and appreciating what you had the privilege of seeing Kalkbrenner do. Do what makes you happy.

Nailed it.

And, I am certainly guilty of some hand wringing.

[NUgradCUfan]

Another couple of things: first we just beat Purdue and lost by 1 to Iowa State. Granted those are scrimmages and so they’re different to a degree, but they’re strong positive data points that the Debbie Downers on here aren’t factoring in.

The second thing is it’s easy to look terrible when their shots are going in. We of all fans should know that since we do it to other teams a half dozen times a year.

Not good, plenty of things to work on, Kalk looks faster and even more confident than last season, and onto Sunday.

+1 well said

[SeattleJay]

Anybody else surprised that Sterling Knox seems to be buried so far down in the rotation? Is he hurt?

[HaRdWoOd]

I don’t really want to hear about projections. In the NIL era they’re a wild ass guess.

They had NU on the ropes with five minutes left and had a game under their belt already. They also had a bunch of bullshit go in that kept it close.

Consider this: they took Kalk out and put Fred in and it screwed everything up and let them back in it at the 10 minute mark. If Mac foresaw this as any small piece of a losable game he wouldn’t have done that (and maybe shouldn’t have) and we would have probably won by twice the margin.

It’s our first game against a team of an undefined value. Frankly I’m more concerned with Green not doing anything at all for the second straight game and Fred reverting to looking lost than I am anything else.

Ya, Fred isnt going to be able to help this year, is he? Ryan is playing 35+ again.

[Chicagojayfan]

I don’t really want to hear about projections. In the NIL era they’re a wild ass guess.

They had NU on the ropes with five minutes left and had a game under their belt already. They also had a bunch of bullshit go in that kept it close.

Consider this: they took Kalk out and put Fred in and it screwed everything up and let them back in it at the 10 minute mark. If Mac foresaw this as any small piece of a losable game he wouldn’t have done that (and maybe shouldn’t have) and we would have probably won by twice the margin.

It’s our first game against a team of an undefined value. Frankly I’m more concerned with Green not doing anything at all for the second straight game and Fred reverting to looking lost than I am anything else.

100% this - so many teams in the NIL era have so many unknowns. Not only do they have a ton of new players, but those players are gelling and from game to game things can change fast. They shot a lot better than they did versus NU and we still won

Agree on concerns. King was, just not good, and that's a problem. I thought that if this were a close game versus a 5-out team like last night, I think we would have gone to Traudt or Green at the 5. Hopefully King can give us some minutes against bigger centers during the year. Green really looks lost right now - maybe being hurt a bit set him back? not coming off the bench?

thank God we won -- unlike Nova

[WBR Tom]

Wrote a giant 2,000+ word recap of this one, trying to encapsulate the historic nature of that 49-point performance.

(And talk a little bit about the defense, which was concerning).

WBR's Morning After, with stats, highlights, quotes and more:

https://whiteandbluereview.com/morning- ... night-win/

[go_jays]

Here's my gamer, touching on Kalkbrenner's historic performance, what Greg McDermott called "fool's gold" and the freshmen thrown straight into the fire.

https://hurrdatsports.com/creighton-men ... in-opener/

Outstanding write-up, Jacob.

[Django]

Thanks Jacob I’ve been trying all day to find info on Pop, so it was nice to see the “cautiously optimistic” quote

[Alphawalt]

I don’t really want to hear about projections. In the NIL era they’re a wild ass guess.

They had NU on the ropes with five minutes left and had a game under their belt already. They also had a bunch of bullshit go in that kept it close.

Consider this: they took Kalk out and put Fred in and it screwed everything up and let them back in it at the 10 minute mark. If Mac foresaw this as any small piece of a losable game he wouldn’t have done that (and maybe shouldn’t have) and we would have probably won by twice the margin.

It’s our first game against a team of an undefined value. Frankly I’m more concerned with Green not doing anything at all for the second straight game and Fred reverting to looking lost than I am anything else.

100% this - so many teams in the NIL era have so many unknowns. Not only do they have a ton of new players, but those players are gelling and from game to game things can change fast. They shot a lot better than they did versus NU and we still won

Agree on concerns. King was, just not good, and that's a problem. I thought that if this were a close game versus a 5-out team like last night, I think we would have gone to Traudt or Green at the 5. Hopefully King can give us some minutes against bigger centers during the year. Green really looks lost right now - maybe being hurt a bit set him back? not coming off the bench?

thank God we won -- unlike Nova

Defense will get better. The biggest concern I have now is where is enough scoring going to come from other than Kalk, Pop and sometimes Ashworth? (and Pop to me seems to very much be a streaky shooter based on his previous few years of college ball). Green does look lost for now, Traudt is only good for short stints given his defensive limitations, Neal will always mostly only be a transition layup scorer, Miller is useless unless he is completely open and has several seconds to shoot. McAndrew and Davis don’t have it yet and are slow. Until Zugic starts playing and assuming he can score 12-14 points per game, I just don’t see how we score enough against a good defense, or teams that will be good at doubling Kalk or press the ball as we also don’t have large good physical ball handlers.

[Venturajay]

Kalk what a performance, also a super humble dude. He will need to carry this year's squad on his back.

The bench looks suspect as usual, I am not convinced that Fedor is the second coming provided he gets to play this year. Hence, Ash, Kalk and Pop will need to play 38 min a game to win the title. I mean the NCAA title , at this point in Mac's career that is probably his goal and should be the fan base's goal. We will know a lot more when we play bama and KU.

Go Jays.