I don't know much about McCasland, but after just a few minutes of clicking around, consider me intrigued.
One of the most predictive stats in college hoops is 2-pt FG%. Our F4 team allowed one of the lowest 2-pt FG % in college basketball history. It's something that tends to show up every game. I haven't watched much North Texas basketball, but his last two teams lead the CUSA in 2-pt FG % (offense). That's really difficult to do. They ran away with it both years, too -- no one was even close. And that's a tough league because there's so much parity. Based solely on his UNT teams' kenpom profiles, his offense looks to be a lot different than Beard's. They shoot a lot more threes, draw a lot less fouls and make a lot more jump shots. It indicates to me that his UNT offenses are not primarily based on driving the ball to the basket / getting to the rim like Beard's last few teams.
McCasland was at Arkansas State for one year, where they went from #281 in Kenpom at the beginning of the year to #120 by year's end. That's a really big jump for a first-year coach. He did the same thing at North Texas. His first year they started #303 in Kenpom and finished #149. Another huge jump. By the end of his third year, UNT was #68 in Kenpom, a better finish than most of Tech's teams in the last 20 years. His last team finished #57 in Kenpom.
McCasland also appears to have a very strong appreciation of the genius that is Mark Adams. Even though he had UNT rolling pretty good, relatively speaking at least, he wasn't afraid to completely scrap what he was doing on defense and convert to the Mark Adams defense. This past year, UNT allowed the 28th fewest points per shot attempt. That's damn good. https://dentonrc.com/sports/mean-gr...cle_09f32944-976c-5c04-ab12-8d85b766af97.html.
He played a relatively slow place before transitioning to the Mark Adams defense. But after making that move, he slowed it down to a snail's pace. I like that a lot. Some coaches who aren't good enough offensively might try to ratchet up the pace to generate easy points. Under McCasland, UNT had it's most productive offensive season in school history while using a pace that was only faster than Virginia.
He apparently was able to land Big 12 caliber players while at UNT. His first year there he signed a transfer from San Diego University, a guy originally from Mansfield (Ryan Wooldridge). That guy played a lot for him for a couple years and then finished his career playing an 80% share of minutes at Gonzaga. I think he's now on the OKC Thunder's G-league team.
He also signed Umoja Gibson out of HS, who was really good at UNT for a couple years. Gibson shot over 40% this year at OU on 140+ attempts from 3. He has at least 2 years of eligibility left.
His last year's team was basically built from scratch. Out of the 6 major contributors, 4 appear to be juco transfers, another was a transfer from Buffalo, and the other a SR big that he signed out of HS in Abilene. His best returning players transferred to high-major programs each of the last two years, and he still produced the best two-year run at UNT in a long, long time (maybe ever, I have no idea).
McCasland was playing really tough schedules at UNT. A home and home with OU & road games at Arkansas, Loyola, VCU, Dayton, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, etc. Also played in some tough early-season tournaments. He won about 70% of his games against teams that were mid-majors.
Tony Benford won 32.6% of conference games at UNT. McCasland won 59%. Out of the 5 post-season tournaments McCasland participated in while at UNT, he won 2 of them (CUSA and the CBI) & made it to the R32 in the NCAA tourney in another.
He won a national championship at Midland College before the age of 30. From there, he won 82% of his games in two seasons coaching in the Lone Star Conference. I don't think our former coach posted a better record than that.
I like the shout out to the "legendary" Mark Adams in his UNT bio:
"Despite being young and having to cover a variety of duties including team bus driver, McCasland guided the Chaparrals to the 2007 National Junior College Athletic Association national championship. He coached against legendary college coaches such as Mark Adams who had over 25 years of head coaching experience at the time and he still led Midland to win four games in four days at the national tournament to win the title."
One of the most predictive stats in college hoops is 2-pt FG%. Our F4 team allowed one of the lowest 2-pt FG % in college basketball history. It's something that tends to show up every game. I haven't watched much North Texas basketball, but his last two teams lead the CUSA in 2-pt FG % (offense). That's really difficult to do. They ran away with it both years, too -- no one was even close. And that's a tough league because there's so much parity. Based solely on his UNT teams' kenpom profiles, his offense looks to be a lot different than Beard's. They shoot a lot more threes, draw a lot less fouls and make a lot more jump shots. It indicates to me that his UNT offenses are not primarily based on driving the ball to the basket / getting to the rim like Beard's last few teams.
McCasland was at Arkansas State for one year, where they went from #281 in Kenpom at the beginning of the year to #120 by year's end. That's a really big jump for a first-year coach. He did the same thing at North Texas. His first year they started #303 in Kenpom and finished #149. Another huge jump. By the end of his third year, UNT was #68 in Kenpom, a better finish than most of Tech's teams in the last 20 years. His last team finished #57 in Kenpom.
McCasland also appears to have a very strong appreciation of the genius that is Mark Adams. Even though he had UNT rolling pretty good, relatively speaking at least, he wasn't afraid to completely scrap what he was doing on defense and convert to the Mark Adams defense. This past year, UNT allowed the 28th fewest points per shot attempt. That's damn good. https://dentonrc.com/sports/mean-gr...cle_09f32944-976c-5c04-ab12-8d85b766af97.html.
He played a relatively slow place before transitioning to the Mark Adams defense. But after making that move, he slowed it down to a snail's pace. I like that a lot. Some coaches who aren't good enough offensively might try to ratchet up the pace to generate easy points. Under McCasland, UNT had it's most productive offensive season in school history while using a pace that was only faster than Virginia.
He apparently was able to land Big 12 caliber players while at UNT. His first year there he signed a transfer from San Diego University, a guy originally from Mansfield (Ryan Wooldridge). That guy played a lot for him for a couple years and then finished his career playing an 80% share of minutes at Gonzaga. I think he's now on the OKC Thunder's G-league team.
He also signed Umoja Gibson out of HS, who was really good at UNT for a couple years. Gibson shot over 40% this year at OU on 140+ attempts from 3. He has at least 2 years of eligibility left.
His last year's team was basically built from scratch. Out of the 6 major contributors, 4 appear to be juco transfers, another was a transfer from Buffalo, and the other a SR big that he signed out of HS in Abilene. His best returning players transferred to high-major programs each of the last two years, and he still produced the best two-year run at UNT in a long, long time (maybe ever, I have no idea).
McCasland was playing really tough schedules at UNT. A home and home with OU & road games at Arkansas, Loyola, VCU, Dayton, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, etc. Also played in some tough early-season tournaments. He won about 70% of his games against teams that were mid-majors.
Tony Benford won 32.6% of conference games at UNT. McCasland won 59%. Out of the 5 post-season tournaments McCasland participated in while at UNT, he won 2 of them (CUSA and the CBI) & made it to the R32 in the NCAA tourney in another.
He won a national championship at Midland College before the age of 30. From there, he won 82% of his games in two seasons coaching in the Lone Star Conference. I don't think our former coach posted a better record than that.
I like the shout out to the "legendary" Mark Adams in his UNT bio:
"Despite being young and having to cover a variety of duties including team bus driver, McCasland guided the Chaparrals to the 2007 National Junior College Athletic Association national championship. He coached against legendary college coaches such as Mark Adams who had over 25 years of head coaching experience at the time and he still led Midland to win four games in four days at the national tournament to win the title."
