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The athletic department just absolutely sucks at promoting.....they can't even get a t-shirt cannon to work. The only thing they do to promote is a free Chik-Fil-A sandwich or a student has a chance to win a 40-inch tv.

The Elephant in the room (IMO) is our lack of attendance. Let's not stop talking about it. ABQ is an awful, boring town. But the bball culture - specifically attendance - is what we are striving for. If that was in Denton, the SP would be selling out regularly under Grant/Ross. And, if I'm Jared, I'm not getting complacent. The opposite: i'm getting angry. Fired up. i'm not going to give in to Denton being Denton. Fight it or let the next guy try. These things should be huge motivators.

This is like saying the quality of food at Taco Bell has increased significantly over the past four years...it's still subpar.

Given the news that was just given to WSU and OSU about their loss of "autonomy conference" status, what makes you think they or Cal would have anything to offer once the ACC is no more? I don't see the ACC being allowed to remain a "P4" once the best of that conference has been taken in by the SEC, Big XII and Big 10

I don't know if we will ever see a 4-year player (or should we take this path) with recruiting or player development again. IMHO we should not waste our time recruiting HS players unless they are certified difference makers that will or are ready to start game one. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to a attract that type of player (yet). Our path to relevancy in the college basketball dialogue is winning by bringing in older, more experienced players even if it's only for a year or two at the end of their eligibility and then do this season after season, hanging banners and firmly establishing our program. We need to do this with 22-23 year old players not 18, 19 and 20 year old players.

For a post about transparency, that is pretty vague. Next…

My point is the place isn't just a lousy city where nothing is going on (which has been used both to say there is nothing but basketball to do there or why would anyone go there) like has been bandied about. More people visit there for tourism in a given year than Denton probably gets in ten.

Albuquerque has a lot of tourism videos out there. Hell, my wife and I just went through there recently and stopped at Petroglyphs National Monument and took the Sandia Tramway. I LOVE Denton, but Denton doesn't have a National Monument or a tramway that goes up to 10,300 feet to watch the sunset. Albuquerque's also an hour away from Santa Fe which is a great place to visit. Would I rather live there than Denton? No. But I can see why many would and I can definitely see why a 20 year old would.

You have a billion alumni. You don't need mega donors like we do to play the game at the AAC level. $1,000,000 would make a massive impact. That $100 from 10,000 alumni. That's doable. You can't even take a family of four out to a decent restaurant for that much. Or $50/month from just 1600 people. Find players looking to move up or down and sell them on coming back local to DFW so momma can watch him play. Give him some basic NIL. That's all you need.

A couple RBs leaving means Mattress Mac coming back?

We aren’t in the locker rooms or coaches’ offices so we don’t know. It’s all speculation. The body language on the court wasn’t bad and all injured players worked hard to come back . I am clueless on transparency comments.

Why not both? Have you seen our DL depth lol

I may ruffle a lot of feathers here, but he and his team won tourney championships, regular season championships, CBI championship, NIT Championship, and an NCAA game, and it still didn't move the needle. Attendance was still poor, and those players deserved better support.

https://meangreensports.com/news/2024/4/21/mens-golf-allen-finishes-runner-up-at-aac-championship UNT senior Tucker Allen ended a great weekend at the American Athletic Conference Championship with his third round under par and a runner-up trophy as he finished the three-day event at 6-under par, two shots clear of third place, to wrap up his collegiate career. Allen was one of two golfers in the field to finish all three rounds under par with his 66-69-69 and entered Sunday's final round in a tie for first but ran into a buzzsaw in the form of South Florida's Jake Peacock, who fired a final-round 64 to separate himself from Allen and claim the championship.

Did Morris lie to the kid about us having a baseball program?

If you're a basketball player, aren't you more concerned with basketball goings-on, like gameday atmosphere, level of competition, opportunities to play for championships, etc...? Also: UNT finished this past season 19-15 with a NET ranking of 79 (7th in AAC) UNM finished this past season 26-10, with a NET ranking of 22 and an at-large 11 seed in the NCAA tournament as the 6th place finisher in the MWC. Seems like maybe the NCAA tournament selection committee "cares about them". Given the above, it would seem UMN's program is a little more "competitive recently".

They do

NCAA will no longer include the Pac-12-10=2 as an autonomy conference. If the league survives they'll have same voting power as the G5 leagues. They won't be on the Board of Directors, but will stay part of the Division I Council like the G5 which beats being FCS and non-football who have less representation. The autonomous group have a limited ability to make optional rules (such as full cost of attendance) that the non autonomy can choose to follow but they get no say in those rules. Losing that status and with it the better than G5 independent but not as good as P4 payout from CFP is another blow to Pac-2 having big carrots to offer schools that might make them willing to pay exit fees to join. Supposedly Pac-2 wants Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, UNLV, SDSU and some mix of Memphis, UNT, UTSA, Rice, Tulane. With those advantages eroded, they are going to have to show an impressive media rights deal to successfully raid.

Memphis did snag PJ from Tulsa

I just don't see how the general consensus is that UNT cannot compete at a high level under the current system. Who in the AAC has a better combination of location, facilities, financial infrastructure, etc.? You could maybe argue Tulane and Memphis. That's it. UNT should be cleaning up in the portal with guys from DFW looking to finish out their career and/or get more PT. That's how you build a competitive advantage over schools like UTSA, Rice, Tulsa, UAB, FAU, etc. And as Denton aptly stated you've got hundreds of thousands of living alums in DFW. You can't find a few thousand to donate $100? Maybe one less trip to Applebee's or Olive Garden and you'd have a roster than can compete at the top of the G5.

Oh man. Poor Memphis. I feel so so bad for them. They were so convinced.

It's all about how this gets settled now. FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, UNC, Miami, Duke, UVa, Va Tech, NC State, Louisville, Pitt, and Syracuse will find homes in the Big Three Conferences that will be left. My guess is that the B1G gets UVa, UNC, Duke, and Georgia Tech, the SEC gets Va Tech, NC State, FSU, Clemson, Pitt, and Miami. Louisville and Syracuse will go to the Big 12, probably with UConn and Stanford. Cal gets WSU and OSU to join their new far flung setup with BC, SMU, and Wake Forest, while they add in Memphis, Temple, Tulane, USF, ECU, and FAU to join their league.

That's weird, I guess the most recently completed season doesn't count? I'm sorry Lifer, but everything prior to 21-22 (when Pitino showed up at UNM), and honestly, prior to 23-24 (when Hodge took over at UNT) needs to be removed when comparing the two teams for players who are actually playing RIGHT NOW. Those other programs belonged to different people. When talking about recent success for dudes who are considering playing for both schools, the only thing that matters is this past year and future predictive success (re: momentum). Unfortunately, NT is on the wrong side of both of those factors as of right now.

My ex told me that before we got divorced.

Maybe. If a reasonable cap is placed. But attorneys will call that racist and unethical... and somehow get their way.

And to think, the mgsf paid for his education. And food, dorm, weights, training, etc. for 5 months for absolutely no reason. How is this sustainable again?

Agree on all accounts, sucks for us, but he gave us everything he had. His family were great supporters. I can't blame the young man for going out and trying to elevate himself and get national exposure if he can have a great season.

Depends on where you draw the line. Within the American, we were 6th which is above par.

It is not an elephant in the room. Team oriented players are more likely to WANT to play defense and WANT to stay where they are at. To me, this is a non-issue. Full disclosure: I have no idea what I am talking about. But I am starting to think that maybe CJ and Edwards were cancers to this program. CJ, the use-to-be P5 transfer and Edwards the up and comer that wanted a bag... Maybe they just talked shit all the time about the program to other players and how much money there is out there to go snag and it got our grounded players thinking about it... Last year our nucleus stayed and seemingly wanted to stay. Rubin and Aaron had offers out there to take at the end of last seasons NIT run. Enter CJ and Edwards into the fray and now they're all gone. Just uninformed speculation. But it's definitely worth noting that a coach has to always keep in mind what kind of player they are bringing around your current guys that have proven to be loyal...

There was an increase from an abysmal number to a higher abysmal number. Getting 4k in a Saturday game and being happy about it is pretty sad. And I have never understood people looking at other cities and saying, "They are able to draw because there is nothing to do." That's a total bs scapegoat excuse. There's the same ole crap to do there than there is anywhere else: overpaying for 'craft' beer, shopping at aesthetically pleasing dumb outside malls, movies, bars, restaurants, museums, etc. ABQ has all of that. ABQ also offers scenery and 2 hours from fantastic skiing. Dallas offers zero scenery or winter sports to speak of. If anything, ABQ is low key underrated.

This is a dilemma that schools like UNT face. Go with an SEC lineman that probably wasn’t playing as much as they thought they should or go with the small school kid who wants to prove they are a D1 player. Tough decision but if I had to choose I think I would go with the small school standout who has a chip on his shoulder.

The Reece Mooney era was a beautiful three snap sequence on a spring Tuesday afternoon in shorts. I will always think fondly upon it.

What new arena? Until the smoke clears and the P5 and G5 programs truly separate I would be very reluctant to spend millions on bricks and sticks if I am UNT. The 70 or so P5 programs are going to take most if not all the tv money with them when they go and basically the G5 programs will be gate revenue sports as well as a farm system for the rich and famous.

I'll miss CJ. Those of you saying it's a "lateral move" have never been to a game in the Pit, or have any knowledge of the overall CBB landscape, with MWC basketball being a very respected conference. They have a rabid fanbase, and I'm willing to bet the bump in NIL is noticeable. The Pit is an incredible facility that I hope NT's new arena will be modeled after. I got to take in the NT victory over UNM back in McCasland's 2nd year. One of my favorite memories of NT Sports.

Word is the one in Dallas will give you comp tickets and money and you won't have to claim to be a fan for the first 9 years.

just making sure @Andrew knows this option exists

As opposed to being developed on top of former desert land, cactus and rattlesnake domain?

SMU was not even the most egregious cheater in the SWC in the 80's. The governor aspect made it more salacious but as far as being "an artform" all the boosters in the SWC did the same shenanigans. They called it internally as the OPEC Conference. B/c that's where the price of players was set. Everyone knew what was going on and everyone was turning each other in for doing exactly what they were doing themselves. Truly the wild west.

They withdrew. Sort of like Nixon resigning.

https://meangreensports.com/news/2024/4/22/softball-simon-awarded-aac-player-of-the-week Infielder Cierra Simon was named American Athletic Conference Player of the Week after she led UNT softball to five wins including a sweep at Memphis, the league announced on Monday. Simon finished the week with a .400 batting average (8-for-20), 11 RBI and 16 total bases including two triples and one home run. She added five runs scored and two stolen bases. For the season, the Crockett, Texas native ranks top 10 in the conference with a .352 batting average, four triples and 96 defensive assists, each are career-high marks for the junior.

What a chump. Go kick rocks and lose on another team. At this point we can boo these traitors and boo the new guys. College sports is simply pathetic. Our “new guys” are pulling the same crap. Shut it down. Nothing to cheer for anymore.

Good luck to Rubin @ Michigan. Thanks for the memories. Just curious why he just didn't walk on at Michigan from Yates HS if he loved the history and family feel so much. Had a very good career at Yates but Michigan wasn't around when only UTEP, UNT and Nichols State came calling.

They're stuck in their box of woe, which I understand. But they're still wrong and not looking at data. UNT should be cleaning up on players moving down for playing time, just like Dykes did at SMU, just like top G5's do. It's right there.

LOL. SMU is small potatoes in why college athletics is in its current state. You really think SMU was even the most egregious cheater in the 80's halcyon days? Get real. Paying players is as old as the game itself. What has changed in the last 10-15 years is the amplification of money via social media as well as TV contracts that have ballooned raising everything from coaches salaries to facilities to yes.....NIL. Blaming SMU for anything to do with where things are headed in college athletics is beyond stupid. Everything that's being done now is being directed by the TV suits. Nothing more. Nothing less. You're letting hatred blind you.

I don't understand all the hand wringing. I think UNT is positioned about as well as anyone in the G5 to consistently contend for the at-large playoff spot. Its undeniable that access to the playoff is at a level never seen before at the G5 level. Financially there shouldn't be many G5's that will outspend UNT (if the collective has its sh*t together). There is more premium talent in the portal from the DFW area than you can shake a stick at. There are only so many places those prospects can go. Why not UNT? Use the system to your advantage. Go poach some talent in the portal that would've never considered UNT out of high school. Its how you build depth and increase competition. It can also be done at a relatively low cost for certain positions. The doom and gloom is misplaced (for now). I do, however, think there will be an eventual break away by the P4 but that is years away.

Let's be honest here, the "student" and "amateur" part have been dead at the highest levels for a long time, but now the veil is completely off and the rest have to play by the same rules.

Bodacious BBQ?