I've seen many of collegiate athletic events over the last few years, but nothing stands out more than beating your school's top rival.
Some of the best games I have worked over the seven or eight years that I have been around collegiate athletics have been rivalry games. Nothing is better than beating your rivals, especially when the game comes down to the wire. Even some of the close losses in rivalry games I have seen are easier to recall than wins over other schools on the slate.
Bragging rights are a great thing to have.
This past week, we had the chance to see two exciting games against our friends from Lafayette as both the men and women reversed their tough luck as of late against the Cajuns as we swept the home side of this year's home-and-home.
The women's game featured the Lady Privateers rally back from a deficit at the half and dominate the battle of the boards to stop a 10-game skid against the Cajuns. Ty Felder, single-handedly equaled the ULL effort on the boards in the second half when she had 15 rebounds. For the game, she had 19, the sixth-best performance for a UNO women's player in school history.
Just about 24 hours later, the men also walked off the floor at Lakefront Arena as victors of their contest and in the process, upped their home record in SBC play to 3-0 for the first time since 1999-2000. The game was not without last minute heroics including two clutch free throws by freshman guard Charles Carmouche and continued standout performances by a lineup of players who are committed to playing 40 minutes of defense.
We'll see Lafayette on Feb. 22 as the men and women play a doubleheader at the CajunDome. The women's game will be available on CST and CSS for those who are working the Privateer basketball schedule around their Mardi Gras parade routine. A sweep again would be very ideal and with how late it is in the season, may be the boost our teams need as they head towards the conference tournament.
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We have just confirmed that the men's basketball contest at Western Kentucky on Jan. 17 at 7 p.m. will be televised on Fox College Sports Atlantic. The women's game which has a 4 p.m. tip the same day was already scheduled to be broadcast on FCS Atlantic. You need to make sure to check your local listings, but these games appear on DirecTV 617 in addition to those who regularly have FCS Atlantic amongst their provider's channel lineup.
Other televised contests presently on the schedule include Cox Sports and Comcast Sports Southeast broadcasts of the men's games vs UALR this Saturday and Jan. 31 at South Alabama. The women's contest at Louisiana-Lafayette on Feb. 22 will also be broadcast on CST and CSS. The Sun Belt Conference tournament from Hot Springs, Ark. also has some televised contests, which will hopefully be something we can add to our lineup of TV games as we roll into early March.
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Baseball is just around the corner. First pitch will be Feb. 20 against Towson and with the start of the season rapidly approaching, we are currently in the process of preparing our live coverage on UNO Vision. We will be webstreaming each of the home games on the schedule this year, thanks to no basketball conflicts, while also streaming a large portion of the road games in which we contest games against our JumpTV partners.
Between our home contests and the large majority of the road slate, our fans should be able to catch most every pitch this year via UNO Vision or through WGSO.com. Additionally, we will have live stats for home games and as is the case with video, have the ability to share live stats from road games in which we can get a share. Please make sure to keep tabs on our baseball schedule as we get closer to the season to see the schedule evolve as far as multimedia coverage goes. Viewing our media player also helps.
And lastly, the Tom Walter Show, similar to the Joe Pasternack Show, will be available through UNO Vision in the archives following broadcast on the local television partners.
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Speaking of what's around the corner, if you look at the "Upcoming Events" listing on the left-hand side of UNOPrivateers.com, you will see that we have a tennis match at home on Jan. 17 against North Texas. The tennis team will be entering their dual season after playing a few tournaments in the fall. To bolster his lineup, head coach Burzis Kanga has added a few more players to the roster, which we will inform you about as the matches draw near.
As we did with swimming and diving over the summer, our office is currently in the process of restoring the Privateer tennis records. To date, former sports information director Ed Cassiere, presently at crosstown Xavier, stepped up with some assistance. Ed was helpful in providing background to our swimming and diving history and again, helpful in providing some "web-archived" information for this project. Additionally, Melissa Kristofak from the Sun Belt is also lending a hand to our efforts. As of now, we have most of the records from 1997 through 2005 though there are still several holes in that in addition to possible awards, accolades that are missing.
This project will be one that I will continue to work on. Once we have a record book in presentable fashion, I will put it on UNOPrivateers.com, as we have done for a few of our other sports. And do not forget -- we will also be webstreaming and archiving a select few tennis matches as Mike Wagenheim makes his tennis debut alongside Kearney Gay, a former high school tennis coach and player.
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For those who have been wondering where the "Today in UNO" e-mail went, we've now turned it into a web-format. There were a few problems that we were consistently having as far as bounced back e-mails and links that were not opening up in everyone's specific e-mail box. We also felt that it was a big overkill, especially since many of the individuals on the list got the "Spyglass" e-mails through Privateer Athletic Foundation and Adam Stowe.
It is a valuable source of information and we realize that the biggest thing that our fans have requested is having a way to know how to follow the games, which we have maintained. It also includes weeks to the UNO Media Player and the blog site. I'll update it throughout the week, so make sure to click over to This Week in UNO Athletics.
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That about wraps things up for now, we'll see you Saturday.
Inside the Athletic Department Index
