Leaderboard

If I told you that we just signed a kid who would come in and give you, on average, the following stats: 13.1 ppg 8.4 rpg 2.4 blocks per game (and is your all-time blocked shots leader in 1 1/2 seasons) How many of you would say "nah, I don't want that guy"? Yet, I've talked to at least five different people who refered to Tony Mitchell as a disappointment, over-hyped or told me we will be "better without him". I'm amused. When Tony came back from the Amare and Lebron camps, how many articles did he write touting himself as a superstar? How many ESPN blog entries did he write? How many draft projections did he put out there? Last I counted, none. Does he write for Meangreenaports.com? Yet, somehow, many want to lay this dumpster fire at the feet of a kid who did ZERO to hype himself up. We deserve the void that will be left when he exits.

I really don't know if you can put the Benford argument aside. I really don't. And honestly, I have no opinion of him either way because I just don't watch or understand basketball enough. I do know that for the games I went to, I saw these immense, hulking figures who had track speed, wearing North Texas jerseys, who couldn't have beaten Denton Middle School. So, there is, in my uneducated a opinion, one of three possibilities: 1) The problem lies completely with the players attitudes and unwillingness to play 2) The problem lies with the coaching staff and its inability to get players to buy in or formulate effective game plans 3) Some crazy combination of the above two that lies somewhere in the middle. I have no idea. I just shake my head in bewilderment at what could have been and what really happened.

I think judging Rick must be a weighted process. You must consider all of the facilities (yes, he deserves credit for Apogee, and yes, I'm aware of Flyer's efforts and grassroots movements to influence the student vote). Rick's certainly in the black here. But this is only a part of his job. If all of the coaching hires were weighted the same, Rick would be in the black here as well. He's made some fantastic hires in the olympic sports. But there are 3 sports that will weigh a little more than the others (baseball will join this group when it's up and running): FB, MBB, WBB. Football should probably be weighted at 40% of all coaching hires, that's how important it is, and Dodge was a failure. McCarney is muddling, but he's got his guys in here now. This should be his last shot. Anything less than 5 wins this year is unacceptable and he will be a failure too. We'll know the answer to this in 9 months. But so far, Rick's FB hires are not good overall. Didn't he extend Dickey once before firing him? At least Dickey was winning... Rick's in the red here. Women's basketball - 10% weight - has been a failure for a while. Slinker was not good and Stephens was downright horrible. It looks like we have some good players here now, and a coach with skins, but Peterson definitely grades an "I" right now. Rick's in the Red here. Men's b-ball - 20% weight - Benford can maybe turn it around?? The only glimmer of hope I have in this is how Jordan Williams' play improved during the year. He and his staff must be doing at least one thing right. The rest is a freaking let-down of epic proportions. Rick gets credit for hiring and extending JJ more times than hiring Benford, but if Benford is left to continue deconstructing what JJ built, his bad hire will weigh more than JJ's extensions. Rick's in the black here (for now). That leaves 30% of the weight to be carried by the likes of Golf, Soccer, Swimming/Diving, Track, Softball, Volleyball, & Tennis. Rick's definitely in the black here. He has a balanced ledger in coaching hires. But if both McCarney and Benford fail, he'll be in the red here. Lastly, there's the task of raising funds. It appears that Rick has made some new friends recently since we're supposedly extremely close to announcing baseball, we're upgrading the Pit and all kinds of other things thanks to donors. Mean Green club memberships are up, right? Season ticket sales are up across the board right? Rick's in the black here. I think, overall, Rick is doing a good job for us, and as some of you mentioned, he cares for UNT. His mistakes are glaring though because they affect the 3 big sports.

The future holds staffers with no pressure to excel, hiring with no pressure to get it right because there is a long line of ready apologists, and middle of the pack success in CUSA. Other than that we're golden.

We are so insolvent that a group of donors led by Ernie Kuehne started and completed a basketball practice facility dedicated only to basketball. A new digital scoreboard was installed in front of the scorers table, and a new sound system and a center hung scoreboard has been ordered for the pit. When you add all of those things up, it does not come close to the 3 million that was donated. What do you think the balance is going to be used for? Lets see, donated to "basketball enhancehment fund". The problem is, no one except 15 people who scream on this board want to see Benford fired. So strap it up and get ready for next season, With Tony Benford as your head coach. I will be there sitting at every home game I can attend. I thought I was part of the solution, by doing everything in my power to give coaches and players tools to succeed. By attending every game I can home or road. But because I support Coach Benford, then I guess I am part of the problem. While you are dogging the best athletic director we have every had, why don't you start with Ernie and put on this board that he is the stupidest donor we have every had, because he supports Coach Benford and thinks he did a good job with what he had to work with this year. Call him out and say how stupid he was to write his SECOND million dollar check to support your university. This is a team sport. In the university setting the team is Coaches, players, fans, donors, university support system. We are finally getting people around here that are supporting financially the way it needs to be supported. They are not on your side right now, and that is why Benford will be here.

Actually, UH has never been out west. Lone Star Conference (1946-1948) Gulf Coast Conference (1949-1950) Missouri Valley Conference (1951-1959) Independent (1960-1975) Southwest Conference (1976-1995) CUSA (1996-2012) When the SWC split, Rice, TCU, and SMU went west, but UH decided to be founding members of CUSA instead.

Unfortunately I've got no idea what actually happened in this particular case. What I CAN tell you though, from the perspective of a student who lives with the basketball team in their dorm, is that the lack of discipline/intelligence/seriousness/etc/etc/etc/etc is far too under-appreciated when looking at what happened this year. Not saying they're bad kids, but the only guys who seemingly have any semblance of a touch of reality are Niko and Roger.

I would like to see the perimeter defense improve. We allowed 209 3-pointers on 581 attempts (36% with 6.5 threes made per game).

Funny, how many people profess how dumb the NT fan base is; when they really mean how dumb that part that doesn't agree with them are. This years' mbb team was a disaster. Even with the injuries and losing JJ; this team should have been one of the best at NT. If you really analyse the situation there is only one plausible reason, a bad HC hire. How does anyone with any analytical ability think the players that are the most highly regarded group at NT at least since the seventies, all of a sudden don't give a damn or just cannot play. Does anyone really doubt that if the ULL and NT head coaches switched jobs, that NT would have won all three games? Problem, you can use that analogy with almost any coach and team; NT played. Tony Mitchell is a talent that a team like NT will seldom get. Only one close in athletic promise I can remember was Bobby Iverson. Mitchell seldom had big offensive numbers once teams started concentrating on him. He just is not a player that can create his own shots. Despite his down year and court manner which hurts him with the fans, he was the best player in the league and should have been first team all conference. Not going to happen with a bad team, and coaches that want to forget all the effort they used to nullify him on the court. Can Benford succeed here, not likely. First, it is highly unlikely that he will ever have the talent that he just squandered in his first year. Second, Benford was far from great recruiting at NT before this years disaster. Does anyone think that he is going to bring in better players? The only hope is that Benford can transform from a truly awful coach to a good one, again far from likely.

Jamize Olawale should have dominated in the Sun Belt....

http://tonymitchell13.com/ What TM proved this year is an inability to lead on the floor. It's his body language that bothered me more than anything. I want my best player to at least look inspired. Blast away, but a top 2-3 athlete in the country should dominate Sun Belt competition.

Has anyone been able to find out what Alzee did to get suspended from Friday's game? The school officials we asked weren't going to say, just that it was a "serious" violation and was his third violation of team rules this season. I think we deserve to know what happened and is this the type of kid we want in our program his senior year? College age kids make some stupid choices but for me, if it was serious enough for him to have to miss a tournament game, can we count on this kid going forward next year. He really let his team down when they needed him the most. Very selfish on his part. Not knowing what he did makes me question Benford's decision to make him sit out. Back in the day, coaches just ran your butt off for team violations! Just another moment in a horrible season.

Storm, you are not only off topic but off base which surprises me. Jordan is the most improved player on this team, and his improvement shows that he has been working hard. And losing Roger Franklin's leadership could be as big of a blow to this team next year as losing Tmitch. So I am glad to see Jordan step up, even with some swagger, and show some leadership. This team is sure going to need it heading into the off season and into next season.

John Wooden? If he thinks Benford did a good job, then he must think JJ is Jesus Christ himself.

Jordan really matured and improved his game this season, he may even take on Roger's role as the leader of this team. I love watching him play. He should be a player that NBA scouts come see over the next couple of years.

If he thinks Benford did a good job with what he had this year, then surely he thinks JJ is John Wooden.

J. C. Matthews? About the only sport he was friendly towards was Basketball. J.C. Matthews is the father of our modern anti-sports culture at North Texas. When he was approached by alumni who wanted to start a Mean Green club-like organization he strongly discouraged it. His attitude was "they do fine within the budget we give them, and there is no reason to raise outside money". I'm told he had the same attitude toward outside contributions for other things as well. Which is one of the reasons we were so late in starting an endowment fund (which he discouraged or downright forbid) and why it is so small compared to other schools in Texas. I voted for C.C. "Jitter" Nolan, who found a creative way to come up with the funds to pay Hayden Fry. He gave him two separate salaries, one as Head Coach, and one as AD. You can't get more athletic friendly than that.....at least for it's time anyway.

Let's consider what transpired with the Southern Miss football program this past season. First, I should point out that not only are they our future conference mates, but they are also quite historically similar to UNT as an institution. In other words, they are our slightly smaller peer. So, after one disastrous season, they recognized that they had made a mistake in hiring Ellis Johnson, and they announced his dismissal three days after their season ended. Even though they were on the hook for a 2.1 million dollar buyout, they made the only sensible choice: to not let a very successful program be destroyed by incompetence just to save short term money. Additionally, they didn't even have a clause in his contract that subtracted future coaching salaries from the buyout. We do have such a stipulation for Benford, and the buyout isn't nearly as expensive. If we are truly much less financially solvent than Southern Miss, then we need to really take a long look in the mirror and decide if it is even possible for us to succeed in major division one athletics. If we do have the financial ability but not the will to make a change, then we need to question the leadership of our athletic program.

I think a few people on these boards know but I do not think anyone will answer this.... I am pretty sure it would just make things worse and you do not want those kind of things on print. I would also like to point out that he has had issues in the past, but a past coach let things slide. That is why we ended up having players not make the grades and a few other issues that never made it to the front of a headline. I guess I am not following meangreentexas post though. I guess I could steal (not saying this is what Alzee did) and it is all cool as long as I do not get caught or the coach lets it slide. I think Alzee will be back next season but on a short leash. I hope he makes better life decisions. He has had a lot going on this year and needs to grow up a bit. I know we all want him to be here next season and make the right choices.

I agree with old guy. Taking Benford out of the discussion makes it completely pointless.

Andrew. Definitely Andrew.

Yeah that's nice and all, but he wasn't hamstrung by a 1st round NBA draft pick.

But coaching doesn't matter...

I heart tennis and swimming too. Keeps the bills paid.

I think it is really funny how some folks here give ZERO credit to RV for the great new Apogee Stadium. If you were even part way or somewhat connected to UNT in some way you would know how much and for how many years RV was working on that stadium. It takes a lot of different folks and a good bit of luck as well to make something like this happen. To discount any part of the situation or anyone who had a hand in its development just reeks of a personal agenda and a complete lack of understanding and knowledge about how this whole thing took place. Apogee sits as UNT's stadium due the the hard work of many people...all of whom every fan of the Mean Green Nation owe a good bit of gratitude and thanks.

I just wonder who these "fans" are that some folks are talking with? GreenP1 is 100% correct, our fan base can be pretty stupid. I just don't think it might be the same part of the fan base we are individually thinking about here. I have heard NO ONE say that TM's averages were not something that UNT could use again next season. I have heard some wonder where the TM avg's from the year before went. Even TM himself has mentioned as much. TM was/is an integral part of UNT's team...a big part, but I doubt we see him back next season based on some of the scuttlebutt I have heard recently. The selfish part of me sure wishes he would return, but the "reality" side of me understands that Tony's future lies in making his living playing professional BB be it in the NBA, NBADL, Europe or whatever comes. We can play all the games we want, and we can twist the "games" to fit our individual personal agendas, and that's just fine for a message board discussion, but that will not change the facts one way or the other. To those who think the train is off the rails for years to come, I would suggest a "wait and see" approach. For me, whenever the times comes to re-up my season tickets, it's a non-issue. My bride and I will be back in our same seats next season. I think we will have plenty of company at the Super Pit. But, it is always good to have even more company. And, I suppose we will see some new faces and say goodbye to some "old faces". Seems it is pretty much that way every year.

Roger Franklin.

At what high schools?

That's encouraging, he must have three interviews set up for that time.

UNT Tennis, ranked #57, topped #30 Arizona for a great win in Denton today by a score of 4-3. Taking the doubles point proved to be big and the match was tied 3-3 awaiting conclusion of the final contest. UNT freshman Agustina Valenzuela, who uses a two-handed forehand and backhand, came back to win the 3rd set (6-4, 5-7, 7-5) to clinch the victory. Lots of pressure for a freshman to lose the second set, but come back to win it with everything riding on her racket. Next up for UNT Tennis: #28 TCU at Denton at 2:00 on Wednesday. It should be another great match--see you there! GO MEAN GREEN!

Just saying.

Well said. For me personally, my opinion on RV hinges entirely on him retaining/firing Benford. If he retains Benford I'll be all over the "Fire RV" bandwagon, unless Benford somehow turns it around of course. But if Benford is fired, I'll be remaining in the pro-RV camp for the time being.

Where is the PJ to FIU talk coming from?

Also, I don't think you can simply count on everyone with eligibility left being here next season. You could make the case that several players don't like Benford and may transfer as a result. Benford comes from a program that routinely cuts players before they exhaust their eligibility so that may play a big role too (trey Norris)

J. C. Matthews (1952-1968), capacity crowds for exciting MVC basketball, solid track and field success, Abner Haynes and Joe Greene eras for football.

We don't know, and we probably wont know unless a student comes on and spills. What we do know is that Alzee was a fantastic guy with no discipline problems for 3 years here, and all of a sudden he has discipline issues...

But yet you complain about TM's stats. LOL

Good analysis on both your parts. Yeah, the Lehigh game was painful to watch. They made shooting three's look like the most natural and easy thing on earth, we made it look more complicated than a manned mission to Mars.

Only thing that Hurley did was not kill sports entirely. Jitter as most know went a little too far for athletics. My vote goes to Pohl. Bataille and Rawlins certainly followed his lead, Pohl advanced NT after Hurley lackluster performance in all areas in my view. Rawlins in his short time as been a pleasant surprise. Sports are only a secondary concern, but NT needs to ensure they make the right hire to replace Rawlins.

Good poll/question. I went with Pohl based on the reasons you listed.

Roger. And second half of season Jordan.

Don't get me wrong, I do take pride in our successes in sports like soccer, etc. But . . . how many Bubas Cups have we won since joining the Sun Belt?

I can save the time and gas and let you know now. They look for WINNING coaches with HEAD coaching experience...then they hire them.

Feel free to leave Hot Springs and head down the road to Baton Rouge and worship at the feet of JJ. Why live vicariously? When you get back you can let us know how things are done in Baton Rouge these days.

We are all PAINFULLY aware of who left who. We are equally painfully aware of the piss poor job we did of replacing him...and how the blame starts in an office on Bonnie Brae for doing things the easy way, the cheap way, the lazy way but never the right way. Allow us to live vicariously through a coach who actually has a positive future to look forward to.

Year 6: No matter what, a couple of posters will find something to complain about.

Stupid post.

This just means he hit up the Joseph A Bank buy one get three free sale on his way to Hot Springs, chill.

I heard he was going to start subbing his suits like he does with the lineup in hopes of better results.