The UT Dallas Comets’ season ended Friday with a 74 71 loss to East Texas Baptist in the American Southwest Conference tournament semi-finals.

This was an overachieving group who won 20 games and finished with six losses. 

They had great chemistry on and off the court. One of the hallmarks of this entire season was sharing the ball, moving it to the open man, unselfishly. The offense was nine deep (arguably deeper) and margin of victory (10.6) was best in conference play. UTD also led in assists.

The defense ranked first in the ASC points allowed (71.2) a full three points better than the next-best. The Comets were tops in rebounding and rebound margin.

This team had zero bad losses to any lower-tier team. The worst loss for the Comets was the game one loss by 10 at Rochester. All other losses were by six points or fewer.

The best win was probably an insane blowout victory over Concordia Jan 5 in Richardson, in which the Comets exploded for more than 60 points in the second half and defeated the Tornados, 107-74.

This was a team that flirted with a Division III Top 25 spot, rising to the 27th position in votes received,  and UTD actually got to number 23 in a computerized poll. In the regular season’s final voter poll, the team received enough votes for position number 33. 

It’s their best finish since 2018-19.

The big question moving forward will be leadership and replacing offense.

The team now will get younger, losing four starters to graduation, but will also gain, as guys who have been in understudy roles step up and assume those spots. (Other important conference rivals also suffered the same senior losses, arguably in larger proportion.) 

Now it’s time enjoy the off season and look back at a terrific basketball team and a great season.

Adding 2/28 –

Kyle: 1st team all-ASC conference honors.

Hunter: second team.

Luke: honorable mention.

Austin Page received all-freshman team honors.

James Curtis is the 2023 ASC Sportmanship Award winner.

and Terry Butterfield is ASC Coach of the Year.