Championship

Feb. 1, 2021 | The Mercury SPORTS Comet Basketball teams start strong

Women’s team holds record of 7-2, men’s team with record of 4-2

ELLIS BLAKE HIDALGO

Mercury Staff

Early into their 2020-2021 seasons, the UTD men’s and women’s basketball teams are entering the spring semester with several wins under their belts. Despite dealing with the expected setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic, both teams remain optimistic that their seasons will play out successfully.

With a current record of 7-2, the women’s team has seen a string of victories over long-time competitors. This includes their Jan. 7 victory against the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Crusaders, who eliminated the Comets from the 2020 D-III National Tournament.

The women’s team’s early success comes despite the loss of six upperclassmen following the 2019’20 season. However, the current roster hosts 11 freshman players, the largest freshman class since the 2008-09 season.

In addition to a preseason loss against Stephen F.Austin University, the women’s team lost their matchups against East Texas Baptist University and Howard Payne University. Both games came within four points of a victory for the Comets.

With two losses under their belts, the Comets ‘20-’21 season has begun on a more successful note than their last season, which saw the women’s team take four losses by this time. However, they will be playing far fewer games, with six having already been canceled.

As a result of existing cancellations, the women ’ s team ’ s ‘20-’21 season will not include games against regular division contenders the Sul Ross State Lobos and the UNT-Dallas Trailblazers. In addition, the Comets’ second season match against the HPU Yellowjackets has also been cancelled.

Despite the cancellations faced by the women’ s team, the men’ s team has had a comparatively uneventful season, playing three games for a current record of 4-1. Beyond seeing numerous game cancellations themselves, the men’ s team did not compete in the same preseason games and tournaments that the women’s team did.

The men’ s team ’s two victories came against the SRS Lobos and HPU Yellowjackets, both ending within a margin of 10 points.

The Comets’ 75-90 loss against the Louisiana College Tigers came nearly 20 days after their previous game. Men’s team head coach Terry Butterfield said their unpredictable game schedule prevented the team from building momentum, leaving them under-prepared upon returning.

With two to three players having tested positive

→SEE BASKETBALL, PAGE 15

ROSHAN KHICHI | MERCURY STAFF ANNA PHENGSAKMUEANG | PHOTO EDITOR To prepare for the CRL championship, the team played scrimmages with national-level teams.

Rocket League team finishes in championship quarterfinals

Comets qualified for championship through wildcard event

BEN NGUYEN

Opinion Editor

In UTD Esports’ second competitive “Rocket League” season, Comets finished in the quarterfinals of the Collegiate Rocket League championship on Jan. 7 after qualifying through a wildcard event.

UTD’s “Rocket League” team made it to playoffs in the national qualifier then made a loser’s bracket run in the wildcard tournament to qualify for the CRL championships. Once there, they took a game off of the Eastern first seed Northwood Esports before being knocked out in the quarterfinals. After having a mediocre finish in the regular season standings, sophomore Benny “lubey” Lube said that even taking one game off of Northwood Esports was impressive.

“Realistically, Northwood is a team of pros and none of them are signed professionally. All of them are right up there with the pros,” lubey said. “Honestly a lot of people weren’t expecting us to take a game and we took a game.”

One of the team’s strengths comes from their ability to mentally reset after each game, which lubey said was a major part of playing nearly every series. This, combined with experience playing on stream in front of a large audience, led to a much-improved performance compared with earlier in the season. Head student coach Brenden “LuckyMick” Strenger pointed to this as a takeaway from the team’s first nationals experience.

“I would say our guys are on level with [the other teams],” said LuckyMick. “One thing I noticed is we definitely played a little worse when we were on stream versus when we were off stream, so I think getting them more experience will help them kind of settle in and not be as nervous.”

To prepare for the CRL championship, the team played scrimmages with national-level teams, including some that were almost pro-level, about two to three weeks beforehand. Lubey himself played with a separate team in a pro qualifier, nearly qualifying for professional play.

“A lot of people expected us to perform a lot worse than we did,” lubey said. “We caught a lot of people’s eyes going into that.”

Currently, the team is finishing up play in the Collegiate StarLeague regular season and preparing for the spring season for CRL.

“Our goal was to make playoffs,” lubey said. “We made nationals. Now our goal is to make nationals again, and we’re not going to settle for any lower than what we did.”