Terps Crush Spartans

UNCG 56 - Maryland 99

News-Record
UNCG Athletics
Maryland Athletics

This broken record is getting old.

At least G held them under 100.

UNCG (0-7) @ Maryland (6-3)

When: Wednesday December 8 7:30 pm
Where: Comcast Center (17,950)
TV: Comcast SportsNet

Maryland Athletics
Maryland Forum (Rivals)
Maryland Forum (Scout)

UNCG on TV Seven times

Spartan basketball will have 7 games shown on various television networks. This is the most ever for UNCG men's basketball. Below, I have listed the game and network ...

11/14 FSU @ UNCG FSN-South & FSN-Florida
11/21 Va Tech @ UNCG Comcast SportsNet & NESN
12/8 UNCG @ Maryland Comcast SportsNet
12/15 UNCG @ Wake Forest ESPNU
12/19 UNCG @ Clemson FSN-South
12/29 Duke @ UNCG ESPNU
2/19 UNCG @ Elon SportsSouth

New Schedule Released

UNCG has released it's 2010-2011 basketball schedule. There are 15 home games including restarting a rivalry with a crosstown rival. Times haven't been finalized and and I'm sure that TV can move dates if needed. Also, tomorrow is the last day to renew season tickets (which, sorry guys, the new baby is keeping me from doing this year). Single game tickets go on sale October 22 through Ticketmaster.

Nov. 12 @ VCU
Nov. 14 Florida State
Nov. 21 Va Tech
Nov. 27 @ ECU
Nov 29 NC A&T
Dec. 2 @ Wofford
Dec. 6 Furman
Dec. 8 @ Maryland
Dec. 15 @ Wake Forest
Dec. 18 @ Clemson
Dec. 22 Richmond
Dec. 29 Duke
Jan. 6 Samford
Jan. 8 Chattanooga
Jan. 10 Elon
Jan. 13 @ App State
Jan. 17 Davidson
Jan. 20 Ga Southern
Jan. 27 @ Chattanooga
Jan. 29 @ Samford
Feb. 2 App State
Feb. 5 @ Western Carolina
Feb. 7 Citadel
Feb. 12 @ College of Charleston
Feb. 15 Miami (FL)
Feb. 19 @ Elon
Feb. 21 Western Carolina
Feb. 24 @ Ga Southern
Feb. 26 @ Davidson
March 4-7 SoCon Tournament*

* Chattanooga, TN

Terps Hammer UNCG

UNCG 63 - Maryland 97

News & Record
UNCG Athletics
Maryland Athletics

UNCG finished up the ACC portion of their schedule at 0-6. However, this game wasn't really close at all. Grevis Vasquez and Landon Milbourne propelled the Terps out to a big lead early and the Spartans could never recover.

Positives
Mikko is back --- Even thought he shot 1-5 from 3 point land, Mikko Koivisto scored 7 points and got a nice cheer from our section for making back to the court. It seems like the guy hasn't been able to catch a break this season. He's been hurt most of the year and had the stomach bug for a couple of recent games. Hopefully, he can really help UNCG make a big run in the SoCon.
Free throw shooting --- The Spartans shot 81% (22-27) from the free throw line in a game that the refs decided to call really tight. For the season, UNCG is shooting 71.8% from the line. Being a good free throw shooting team will pay off soon.

Negatives
Not even close --- As I've already pointed out, this game was over from the start. I guess playing this level of competition 3 times in 7 days just took it out of the Spartans. The guys have to get ready in a hurry, though. A very good Wofford team will be at the coliseum on Thursday night.
Home sweet home? --- UNCG is now 0-7 at the Greensboro Coliseum this season. As much as we've all enjoyed seeing our Spartans battle these great teams, we'd love to see some wins. Hopefully, the SoCon season is full of home wins.

Maryland (8-4) @ UNCG (2-10)

When: Sunday, January 3 1* pm
Where: Greensboro Coliseum (7,617/23,500)
TV: Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic

Maryland Athletics
Maryland Forum
Turtle Waxing Blog
Testudo Times

UNCG Athletics Preview

* The game time has been moved up from 2 pm (as printed on the season tickets) to 1 pm to accommodate TV.

Spartan Notes:
- On Thursday night, UNCG went to the locker room at halftime only being down 4 points. A strong second half by NC State prevented any thoughts of an upset, though. The Wolfpack won 89-67. Ben Stywall led UNCG with 18 points and 13 rebounds.
- Maryland is the sixth (and last) ACC team that the Spartans will face this season. This game also marks the last out of conference game for UNCG as well.
- With the New Year's Eve loss to NC State, UNCG's home record fell to 0-6.
- According to RealTimeRPI, UNCG strength of schedule is 33. Even though the Spartans record is 2-10, they are still 195 in the RPI ranking.
- Stywall (12.3 pts & 9.5 rebs) and Brandon Evans (12.3 pts & 6.0 rebs) lead UNCG in scoring and rebounding. Kyle Randall leads in assists (2.3).
- For the year, UNCG is shooting 38.9% from the field, 30.9% from behind the arc and 70.5% from the free throw line.

Terrapin Notes:
- Last time out, William & Mary handed Maryland their first home loss of the season, 83-77. Greivis Vasquez scored 26 and Landon Milbourne had 19 points and 10 rebounds.
- This game will mark only the third true road game of the season for Maryland. Chaminade (W79-51) & Indiana (W 80-68) were the other two.
- Including Wednesday's game against William & Mary, Vasquez has scored over 20 points in 4 straight games.
- Vasquez leads the Terrapins in scoring (16.8) and assists (6.2). Three other Maryland players (Milbourne, Sean Mosley & Eric Hayes) also average scoring over 12 points per game. Jordan Williams leads the team in rebounding (8.0).
- For the season, Maryland is shooting 47.9% from the field, 35.8% from behind the arc and 69.2% from the free throw line.

My Thoughts:
An NBA level guard and a team that shoots very well, make a bad combination for the Spartans. Vasquez seems to have torched teams for a lot of points and still hand out a ton of assists. The Spartans will have to do a tremendous defensive job on him to have any chance. Also, UNCG will have to do a better job of taking care of the basketball. Hopefully, the Spartans can again take advantage of second chance points. Maryland hasn't been a particularly good rebounding team this season.

Three tough games in the span of 7 days may have taken their toll of UNCG, but I still wouldn't be surprised the see UNCG hanging tough in the end.

Go Spartans !!!

5th TV Game

Another TV game was added yesterday, according to the UNCG Athletics website. The January 3rd home game against Maryland has been picked up by Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic (carried by DirecTV). This brings the total of UNCG games being carried on some TV network to 5. Last year UNCG had 3 games on television.

For those that live way outside the viewing area, may I suggest you look into getting a subscription to Spartan All-Access. I did this last year, mostly for the road games (there were 9 road games carried). Between that package and using channelsurfing.net and justin.tv was able to watch a majority of the road games last season. I'm sure the schedule will be released sometime in the next month or so. I will post it when it comes out.

New UNCG Season Brochure (Updated)

Here are some scans of a brochure that's available at the UNCG ticket office. Big thanks to John for sending these to me. As you can see, there look to be some really affordable ticket plans. Also, it looks like being a member of the Spartan Club will pay off for anyone interested. There are some cool promotions being planned with Thirsty Thursday and free parking with the purchase of 2 season tickets.

UPDATE: The UNCG Athletics website now has this article up as it's "splash" page. The article takes you to a place where you can reserve your tickets and also it lays out exactly what everything costs, including the free parking with season tickets. I think that alone makes season tickets really worth the price. There is nothing worse than having to deal with the irritation of parking. If they could get a part of the lot reserved, there's no telling how much extra I'd be willing to pay.

4 ACC Opponents in the Coliseum (Update)

The News & Record is reporting that UNCG will play home games against 4 ACC schools this upcoming season in addition to out of conference games against East Carolina and Princeton. Maryland, Clemson, Wake Forest & NC State will play the Spartans in their new home, the Greensboro Coliseum.

According to the article, the schedule is not completely finalized yet. There are possibilities of several of these games appearing on TV.

"I know there's been some interest from Raycom with us making this move," Hirschman said, "and when you're playing those caliber opponents, there's also some interest from ESPNU.

"Let's face it: We want to be on television as much as we can. So you want to keep the door open. And when you do that, you don't want to tell your fans, 'We're playing this team on this date at this time' when TV could move that game two weeks."

UPDATE: Here's what fans of NC State and Clemson are saying on their Scout.com forums.

Links & OOC Scheduling

Now that I have some free time for the next couple of months, I'm going to try to exchange links with a few more college basketball websites. Feel free to send me sites that you think I should check out. I'm going to start by contacting websites of teams that UNCG is playing this upcoming season.

Which brings me to my to my next point. I'm adding a new space for confirmed out of conference opponents. I'll use this post to point out where I found these teams from. Hopefully by the time the real schedule comes out, we'll already have a good portion of it figured out. If anyone comes across a link or knows something that they'd like to share, email me.

- NC State, ECU & Princeton - We've known about these 3 for a while. All three games will be at the Greensboro Coliseum.
- Duke, Clemson, Maryland, Virginia Tech & Wake Forest - The article points out that the Duke game is in Cameron (11/14). Other than that game, it's unknown where the rest of these will be played.
- NC A&T (rumored) - I'm going to leave this one off the list because the article only vaguely says that the series will be restarted.
- Richmond, VCU & Charlotte (rumored) - The article just says Barakat is working on these teams. I also believe these are the same teams he mentioned at the press conference in December.