Calm down

[Nacho]

It was only Rice. I'll be impressed when SMU beats a good team on the road, like Tulsa.

[Pony_Fan]

Sir - Calm down?
We won a road game and played a good Rice team...gimme a break dude. We haven't played/shot like that in years on the road much less at Moody. You haven't suffered thru some god awful games obviously. This was something to get excited about. When was the last time someone went 12-12 from the FT line?

[Nacho]

Real exciting. I can barely contain myself. Yawn. Same old boring Rice. We beat them every time. Rice will end up in the lower half of the WAC like always. Bring me a real win. How has Willis Wilson kept his job for 13 years with a losing record? Sounds like they have a commitment too.

[LA_Mustang]

Nacho, your posts puzzle me sometimes. Beat a good team on the road? If you dont think Rice is a good team you dont know much about college basketball. They are smart, well coached, strong inside, and have beaten a couple of very good teams, Colorado by 20 (who beat Kansas the other day), at Boise St. Also, they lost by 1 at Fresno, which is very tough place to play and battled Stanford close late into second half on the road. With the way this team has struggled on the road, any conference road win is impressive. Did you see the game?? They havent played a complete game like that in LONG time. If you are expecting more from this team right now, your expecting too much.

[Nacho]

I fully expected SMU to beat Rice. No surprise to me. They can beat the average to bad teams. Rice isn't a good team. Where did that start? CU isn't exactly a basketball powerhouse. Let's see where Rice finishes in the WAC standings at the end of the year. Probably just ahead of UTEP and SJSU. Sorry to rain on the parade.

[boulevard bum]

I will agree that I fully expected us to win that game. Rice has had a very weak schedule. Just read what Rick Alonzo of the Dallas Morning News had to say about the game. He said " Rice should learn something from this being 7-1 at home before tonight. It looks real good to have blowouts on your record against teams like St. Edwards, Louisiana College, and Lamar but it doesn't help you prepare for conference play." Although I agree with this I am very excited about the win. Did anyone see that Colorado team beat Kansas the other night? Rice beat them. Did anyone see that Boise State team beat Tulsa and Hawaii? Rice beat Boise State on Boise's home floor. Although I think Rice's record is sugarcoated with BS wins they have something good going this year. It is a good win. We've won 2 road games and 3 of our last 4. We are back to .500 for the first time in a long time. How can you not be excited about that? We may not beat Tulsa, but we will finish over .500 in WAC play as well as overall. I stand by that statement. We've got a lot of home games left. (Playing in El Paso against the miners is a home game as far as I'm concerned. Considering that, we have 8 home games left and 4 road games.)

[Nacho]

About Kansas. They are now going for an 0-3 stretch with games against Zona and UT. Not exactly Roy's best team ever.

[The PonyGrad]

Using an objective standard like the Sagarin ratings Rice is the 98th team and SMU is the 140th. This actually only corresponds to about a three point difference or close to the homecourt difference. Rice's schedule strength (counting only 1A games) is #168 while SMU is #38, one of the toughest.

So, Rice is a good win on the road given our start to the season and the youth on our team.

[PonyTime]

ANY win on the road in the WAC is a GOOD WIN.

Have you not watched WAC Basketball over the last 5 years????

In my opinion - This is Rice's best team in the last 5 years - maybe 15 years (since Adam Peaks et all in 93 - Igo's team was also pretty good about 7 years ago) - everyone is healthy for once and these guys are pretty good athletes.

They will give us a good game at Moody.

[Nacho]

SMU beat a medicore team. Nothing to get excited about. You can get excited if you want to but I've seen it all before. After Saturday I want all of you to come back and tell me how wonderful everything is in SMU basketball land.

[PonyTime]

They may not be Duke, Oklahoma, or Fresno for that matter.

But they are a good team - not great - not horrid. And it was on the road - in front of almost 1,000 fanatical Rice fans.

Better than beating Sam Houston State or Stetson, or North Texas in my opinion.

Does it impress me?? Not too much - but I did not think that this one was in the bag like you must have.

Beating TU would impress me - I wish it were on TV.

[Fingers]

Fine, Nacho. I fully expect you to show up again after Saturday's loss to Tulsa (which I also fully expect) just so you can say "I told you so." What does a loss Saturday prove? Nothing. We know we are not yet on Tulsa's level, so they should beat us at home. However, if the game is close, or if the Ponies pull an upset, please have the balls to come back and say "Maybe there is hope." Don't know how many games you have seen in person, but I have seen enough of this team to believe there is lots of potential - which, of course, means it hasn't happened yet. But the good signs outweigh the bad ones at this point.

[This message has been edited by Fingers (edited 01-24-2003).]

[The CPC]

Rice is the best team we've beaten so far, and it was on the road. The first 10 minutes was the best we've played in recent memory, and while the rest of the game wasnt a work of art, it was good enough to hang on. These are signs of progress, and progress is all CPC asks for.
Rice is very similar to Appalachian State, a team that quite frankly embarrassed us a month ago. Compare that game to this one, and you can see its a step forward.

[Nacho]

I'll be back.

[BTPony]

I'll conceed the Rice game was a step forward. However, it mean nothing if we take two steps back against Tulsa or fail to punish UTEP at home. Consistent improvement is what should be expected.