What better way to end the first week of school than with some Moody Magic news?
SMU Men’s Basketball announced its American Athletic Conference 2014-15 schedule on Thursday. There will be 18 home games at Moody and 18 conference games will be nationally televised.
“The television schedule is a reflection of the quality of the basketball teams in The American [Conference],” Head Coach Larry Brown said. “We have a chance to play great teams in great environment. There are a lot of great opportunities to continue to elevate our program.”
The Mustangs set a record last year going 18-1 at home and broke its season record for attendance, selling out nine of 13 games, in the renovated Moody Coliseum. The new season attendance record was set at 107,412, averaging 5,653 fans per home game. That was an increase of 2,210 over the previous season.
They earned the No.1 seed in the NIT then on to the title at Madison Square Garden in New York. SMU played in its third NIT and first national tournament final.
“We would have introductions last year and I would look to (associate head coach) Tim Jankovich and say, ‘What the hell are we doing here?’ You know, if you said anything on the sideline, everybody heard it,” Coach Brown said in April. “But now, we are a major program playing for a major championship, and that’s neat.”
Coach Brown was one of five finalists for the 2014 Naismith Men’s College Coach of the Year. He gained respect from not only the team, but the student body. For the first time in a long time students were camping out in hope for tickets to the upcoming game. Fans lined the Coliseum to welcome the team back from away games.
“They really care about us,” Keith Frazier, shooting guard, told the Washington Post.
In July, the Mustangs were named the Best Sports Team in Dallas by D Magazine. And to top it all off SMU was ranked in the AP Poll for the first time since the 1984-85 season.
“I thought it would be next year before we would get in the top 25 and have kind of a national presence, so far as I’m concerned, we’re running a year ahead,” SMU president Gerald Turner told USA today in April.
SMU Basketball hopes to have a great season again this year and continue to play the right way.
The Mustangs opens this season against Lamar at Moody Coliseum on Nov. 14 at 8:30 p.m. hoping to bring more Moody Magic to the Coliseum.
“I’m just hopeful that this carries over to all the sports,” Brown told the Washington Post. “There’s a different sense of pride in the school.”
