So my alma mater, the University of Alabama-Huntsville beat North Texas last night in the opening round of the NIT. To stress how much of a big deal this is nobody on campus or in the surrounding community even know we were invited to the NIT. It's pretty rare for a DII school to even be invited to the NIT so its pretty cool they went and at least won a game before they get railroaded by KSTATE. The reason everyone around here is unawares of this is because UAH is a predominately engineering school with just under 8K students. It's a gigantic sausage fest (70/30 male/female). Most of the people that go there don't "get" sports. Guys spend all their time playing WoW, Halo, and CoD not because the games are awesome (some of them are), but because most of the guys are too scared of talking to the ladies. The joke around here is that UAH stands for University At Home, because on the weekends the place turns into a ghost town. Everyone drives back home and the campus is dead. We do have a local Pike chapter that presumably buttchuggs on the weekend, but outside of that you have to make your own fun. I say all that to point out how embarrassing the loss should be to North Texas, our basketball program is really good by DII standards, but we're a bunch of nerds. So I axe you to root on the Chargers tonight against KSTATE and not let the fairy tale end.
Lumberjack, I had no idea you went to UAH. I played basketball there from 01-02 season til the 05-06 season. UAH is the first DII school to ever be invited to the NIT. However, there are several points in your message that are completely wrong. 1. UAH has been having sell out crowds for several years now, so people are aware of the basketball program. 2. Those players are far from "nerds". The student body is full of nerds, but the players themselves aren't. 3. UAH is actually growing at a very nice rate, and there are more and more kids living on campus.
That's cool snake, I was there from 05-09 for my Bachelors and went back from 10-12 for my Masters. I went to most of the games my freshman year ya'll were pretty good then. They've turned it up a notch the last couple of years as well.
Ya that was my SR yr. Ranked as high as 12th in the nation. However there's a lot of changes that have taken place. 1. Montevallo is no longer in the conference(Ranked 4th Sr yr). 2. Delta State sucks(SR yr they were ranked #1). 3. Valdosta State sucks(ranked in the top 25 Sr yr as well.) 4. Christian Bros in the top 25, and Harding wasn't bad. The GSC also had Lincoln Memorial. I believe the conference had around 18 schools. Now the conference is just a two school show(UAH/Christian Bros) due to schools changing conferences, and some schools going D1.
Gulf South is a juggernaut. All of this is bringing back bad memories. [I play a team-building type online basketball game where you're coaching actual college teams. The conferences are all a little out of date, and some had to be gerrymandered for competitive balance, but they're real conferences by and large. And the Gulf South is absolutely dominant. I'm coaching at Kentucky Wesleyan and can't even try to recruit in Tennessee, Arkansas, or Missouri becuase everybody gets picked off by Gulf South teams. I think they had 10 teams in the Sweet Sixteen last year] Oh I know, but I think people outside the South know about them because of the novelty of being an Alabama school with a hockey team.
Well, pretty much figured this would happen. They gave it a good effort and should be proud of their accomplishment against North Texas.
