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After we fire Benford, we'll be naming the practice facility for him.

I don't think Arkansas State will ever be in a Conference USA that has 10 or more of the current members. We don't fit the model. Even if we did, CUSA is still a continuation of the same wrong thinking plaguing the Big East and CUSA of trying to be a national or multi-regional league with a national oriented revenue stream. Until the thinking lines up with what MWC and MAC are doing, it will always be a mess in the south and east.

Starting off 2013 undefeated!

I've just learned Benford has suspended the entire team for tonight's game. He did however, find replacements. This is your starting lineup... PG - Air Bud SG - Bugs Bunny SF - Jackie Moon PF - Foghorn Leghorn C - Sean Bradley Should be quite a match.

The quote by local "hoteliers" cracks me up. That is nothing but a cover for their fear of a real hotel entering the market and providing competition. There are some decent places to stay in Denton, but it wouldn't hurt for some of them to feel a little pressure to "step up their game."

Who hired this slouch coach? I need answers!

We win the Internet no matter what conference we're in. FACT

UTSA has come a long way in a very short time. It is impressive. If they beat us this year, I will not be surprised. Their trajectory seems to be mirroring South Florida, for sure. Here are my two caveats: (1) UTSA really is in San Antonio; we are not really in Dallas. (2) UTSA has not other football options to compete against in their metropolitan area; we compete against SMU, TCU, and the Dallas Cowboys. San Antonio is a big city that didn't have football until UTSA erected their program. It has an element of newness to it. So, there are thousands of football fans to draw upon. Remember, San Antonio had a USFL team, it's had a long time bowl game, and it's had the Dallas Cowboys' training camp. This isn't a city that hates football. Denton is not in Dallas, and it's nothing like Dallas. For better or worse, our reputation, perhaps holds us back. First, our legacy, in the eyes of many, is a losing one. Very few remember the Abner Haynes/Spider Lockhart/Mean Joe Green/Steve Ramsey days in Denton. Then, we dropped off the map into I-AA when the arms race for television contracts and facilities fired up in the late 80s/early 90s. Also, the student body has a reputation of being more "hippie" than "social." And, finally, whether it aggravates us or not, we also had the reputation for being a commuter school. I want things to change for us, and hope they do. I thanked Dan back at the May gathering in Plano for giving us hope again. I really do want him to get things done on the field. Off the field, he's swimming upstream alot more than UTSA or USF had to, given their built in big city metro campuses, football starved citizens, and shiny newness. He and we can't match that, so he - or, anyone else who is our head coach - will have to win and win big to get us on the map.

Stay tuned CROATAN. It's still very early in the off season. Before very long you will see debate of the pros and cons of helmet stickers, how much green an Athletic Department member should wear, and discussion of the selection of tunes played by our marching band, the Green Brigade. We have a large number of dedicated fans most of which have an opinion on any given topic. Accurate or not, an opinion. We're agreed, I think, that we are excited to join CUSA. I hope you can visit our new stadium soon and I look foward to visiting all our new conference mates. Go CUSA GO MEAN GREEN

Rick, Way to completely change the subject. I'm not going to argue pro-choice vs pro-life, but you conservatives quickly forget that while planned parenthood might provide the largest number of abortions, they also prevent more abortions than any other organization. De-funding them will only increase the 'slaughter of brown babies' as you call it.

Tulsa would be nuts to join that disaster.

Thinking back over Harry's Epistle on realignment which was a great hammer/nail effort. The Gang of Five (particularly Big East) are being driven by trying to do what the Rich 5 do. The problem with that is there is apparently insufficent value to drive a big national contract. Clearly nothing that remotely touches what the Rich 5 have and debatable that it can be significantly greater than CUSA much less MWC. The only hope is that a newer player to the market (NBC Sports, the new Fox) will pay a premium merely to secure content and believes that there are enough national viewers vs any other available content to justify paying extra to lock that content in. This would require an NBCS vs. FoxS bidding war because ESPN will drop out quickly unless they want to pay a premium to keep NBCS or FoxS for getting it. I think ESPN drops out early because they aren't going to over-pay after Big East rejected the big offer. So if you have a Big East that is now in the CUSA/Sun Belt/MAC realm of the nation deal being less about money and more about exposure, how do you drive maximum revenue? With regional TV. Drawing 1% of the national audience on a national channel gets you no premium, but let's say that you can draw the same number of viewers by only being available in 10% of the national market. Now you are drawing 10% of potential households for the network. That makes it more valuable for the network. Look at Fox SW. It's divided into five zones that will carry different pro-content based on the NBA territorial limits but otherwise runs identical content across the zones as long as some black-out restriction or schedule conflict does not arise. The Fox SW coverage area is: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas with all but a sliver of Arkansas (during the NBA season due to territorial limits), parts of the Gulf Coast regions of Mississippi, Alabama and northern Florida (mainly again NBA territorial limits). With a teams in each of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas you've covered virtually the entire Fox SW system. Add a school near the Mississippi gulf coast and one in the far edge of Texas or southern New Mexico and you've covered every area of Fox SW coverage except the Alabama/Florida gulf coast area receiving Hornets coverage on Fox SW. Fox SW covers 10.898% of the nations market. With UTEP, Houston, Rice, SMU, UNT, UTSA, Tulsa, Tulane, ULL, La.Tech, Arkansas State, and Southern Miss you have a league that is present or reasonably strong in markets that make up 7.977% of the national market or 73% of the Fox SW market with areas I consider absent being Oklahoma City, Austin, Waco, Baton Rouge, Tyler, Corpus Christi, Amarillo, Lubbock, Wichita Falls, Abiliene, Laredo, and San Angelo. I would think it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to assemble an over the air syndicated network across a big portion of this area and tap into local advertising dollars.

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeee! You go ladies! Nicely done.

The showdown for the top spot in the Sun Belt West Division was a classic battle that saw the North Texas (5-10, 4-2) women's basketball team outlast UALR to pick up a 68-65 win at the Jack Stephens Center. The win vaults the Mean Green to a 4-2 record and sole possession of first place in the West Division. http://www.meangreensports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1800&ATCLID=205902161

It should. I seriously doubt UNT markets its Athletic Dept like these people do. UTSA knows what they are doing as evidenced by their seamless entry into FBS football.

Maybe it is the fact he belittles anyone that doesn't share his opinion. Just maybe.

I am an ECU fan and somewhat of a message board nerd. When the new schools joined Conf USA, to learn more about them, I went to each of the message boards to glean what I could about the history of each school . In my opinion, this forum has some of the most well informed and level headed posters among all Conf USA schools, including ones already in the conference. I actually have learned quite a bit about your school through some of the excellant posts. I really think Conf USA will be a competitive league and it certainly was important to ECU. Except for Southern Miss and Marshall, ECU did not have any rivalries in the Conf when we started in it. Over time however, ECU developed some very good ones , as well as benefiting from better recruiting, and fan support. Anyway, good look to you guys are you enter Conf USA. I think you will be pleased with what it can do for a school.

If only folks spent as much time finding positive ways to help UNT.

Wasn't Croatan carved into a tree on Roanoke island when they found the colony there abandoned?

Thanks for the good words...we are really happy to be free of SBC and into CUSA.

I also listened and will be there to see them on Saturday as well. They deserve and have earned our support. Great job ladies!

I listened to some of that greatness on KNTU, last few minutes of the game. I promised myself last year that I would attend some WBB games. I plan to start making that good on Saturday, Jan. 19. A man needs to be careful about the promises he makes, even to himself, but I don't think I'll regret following this team. And...plus 1's all around.

If I said anything I would be accused of "shilling for the AD" or some fool would say something negative about why I might have that info, so....I'll just say....gee, don't have a clue. Sometimes it just isn't worth it. Indeed, will be a great addition.

Everyday, and twice on gameday.

Anyone heard anything new about building a hotel at Apogee...last I heard, they would start construction in the 1st qtr of 2013. Thanks

Thanks Harry. Just saw this. I really appreciate the birthday wishes! Awesome cake too! GO MEAN GREEN!

This past season I could never find a close place to the stadium...ended up at a crappy place once. If this happens me and the lady would be pumped.

It's times like these that I wish I could force myself to give a rip about girls basketball. Glad they're doing we'll.

Come on...how would you know? You never attend. I have been looking forward to your attending one of events for several years now.....don't make me keep waiting...I'm not getting any younger...and neither are you! :-)

^ this I learned way too much about Wanchese, Skyco, etc when I was in the Outer Banks last summer

Thanks for the kind words! Best of luck to ECU.

Lol. I see.

Spending more money on marketing at UNT is not going to increase attendance at this point and time in our program. Right now, a 10-2 season, consistant winner or a win over a big name will blow away any marketing campaign for us. We have 10 years of suck behind us. They have 10 years of nothing. Nothing > Suck. UTSA can spend money and print posters all they want but if they go 2-10 followed by 3-9 followed by 2-10 you can't spend enough money to market that program and fill that stadium. It's all smoke and mirrors right now. They've played what? At most 6-7 FBS schools in a season? They're a shiny new toy but unless you're in the SEC or another big conference, football fans have the attention span of a 3 year old. I'm not saying they're not doing a good job marketing. They're doing what they need to do, but I don't see why we should be so impressed or concerned with their marketing campaign. They're brand new, of course they're pumping money into marketing. Take another look at this admirable marketing program after they go 7-29 over the next 3 years and you can hear echos in that cave they play in.

Cliff notes please.

Posted on the other link but just in case i'm in.. XL... and big thank you to all the sponsers

Kram1...I have no idea but he should be. I watched this kids film and he has natural ability and quick feet. He reads the ball and is out in front of the call. He hits with purpose and pain, along with only being a soph. His size is open to growth and his maturity and vision for future hard work impressed me at 15 or 16. He appears to have a fantastic wing span. He talked about opening his hips and I believe he will have many offers. Just my opinion

I can't wait to see how the WAC does next year.

Benford quoting Todd Dodge....can it get any worse?

Who's excited for NT Basket Baaaaaaaaaallllllll! Goooooooo Meeeeeaaaannnnnn Greeeen!

The issues with conference alignment involve a lot of problems, but the biggest of them is really simple: perception. For decades, the university literally didn't care about athletics, the students and faculty followed suit, along with the locals. That mindset easily floated down to the Metroplex, whose media always cared about SWC schools, anyway, but the few times we mattered on the sports page, it was treated like an after thought. I-aa, as I have argued for so many years, was the real killer here. No matter what happened after the SWC said no to any overtures to admitting us in the late 70s and Fry leaving once the writing was on the wall, we should have never late i-aa happen. Sure, we had some great games and players back then, but it just killed the one thing that UNT did have on its side--history as a i-a school. Even with a poor following and non-existant administrative support, North Texas still played at the highest level of football--until 1982. After that, there was literally no way that any 1-a school was going to ever consider UNT as a potential conference mate if they were in this region of the country. Even after we moved up to i-a in 1995 and played in the Big West, no one cared at all. In 2001, the Sun Belt throws our program a literal lifeline, but again, it was the flimsiest of conferences, with all of its teams playing multiple bodybag games to SEC and Big XII powers most of the time. North Texas ran the damn conference as the king for four straight years, only to see the next conference up the foodcahin, CUSA, with all of its Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma ties, basically agree that we weren't really a good fit for them, even with a bigger enrollment and football success than SMU had at the time. Now, SMU had other private schools again, just like they did in the SWC days, to band together and sway their conference leadership. It still goes on today. It might be the sad flipside to being in the Metroplex that no one ever really brings up--that we really don't have any DFW sway in the local media, so all of these conference look the otehr way when considering possible schools for membership. Any other school, with the size of ours that was located anywhere else in the state, where they arent two other golden choldren from days gone by, would never have had to endure what we have had to. Much of that is on us, but much of it on the fact that we cannot use our location to our conference benefit. To most of us, that's the most frustrating reality that we probably know will always be in place, even if we somehow miraculously stay at the FBS level in the next decade.

Benford suspended the photographer

This conference could hire a very small staff, just two or three, and fill in with contractors to own the network themselves. Plan on one "Game of the week" during football season and two or three a week during basketball season. They can rent a truck at a nice rate for an annual contract and get an annual rate on sattlite time as well. The conference can split the ads with the local stations and divide the profits with the conference members. Maybe even have an internet feed available trough someone like Amazon Video serices since the over the air broadcast will cover the production costs. Yes, the confernce takes more of the risk but it should then get more of the reward for games that sell well. Never happen happen though. It makes too much sense.

Never had one, never will. http://youtu.be/ewpYq9rgg3w

You don't need to look to the past to find a record that is abysmal.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/player/gamelog/_/id/28332/tony-worrell Come on, coach!!!!

One good reason to recruit Texas high school talent is because the scholarship of a Texas resident is cheaper. My understanding is that out of state recruits, even those on scholarship, must pay out of state tuition. To say nothing of the fact that a Texas athlete is more likely to bring his Texas friends and family to watch him play.

From the AD whose school led to the current defections.

Is he on UNT's radar screen?

Killing Me Softly , the Remix - Tony Benford