untjim1995

I tend to agree with what you posted here. The culture, although slower than we all wish, is moving toward a more spirited campus amongst a growing core of students and faculty. When we won in the early stages of the SBC, most fans looked at the collection of schools in that conference as a glorified 1-aa league. The gameplan for those games, no matter who we played, seemed to always be run-run-run-punt, then go back on defense. When we had a great defense, we won with that system against lesser-talented teams. Most fans recognized this, so they didn't really get all that into a big SBC championship run, for the most part. If we start winning again, we will see a bigger jump in attendance, which will help the entire athletic department. As far as basketball goes, what most fail to recognize is that college basketball is not all that popular in the state of Texas, unless you are winning big. Even then, its a crapshoot sometimes (see A&M and their support this year of a ranked team.) Texas has had trouble getting attendance to watch a great program play lesser teams. Tech is even worse, attendance-wise, unless they are winning big. I really believe that a lot of people are missing the boat on college basketball and its entertainment value during the regular season, but that is probably another story. The point I want to make is that we have improved our attendance over the last 5 years--with very little help from the league we play in--and there are few schools in the state that can say that. As a matter of fact, I would challenge any of the Big XII or CUSA schools in this state to see how their attendance would be if they got ULaLa, ULaMon, F_U, Denver, etc..to play conference games with them and we got Kansas, K-State, Mizzou, Oklahoma, and OSU, as conference mates. It would make us all laugh to have to see Baylor host Troy for a conference game or SMU to host ULM for a conference game while we got to play Kansas at the Pit. It will never happen, but its why I think attendance issues for UNT are apples/oranges when compared to other schools in the state.

You, sir, have given me a good laugh. Nicely done. You forgot about how we don't hold up our talon correctly as a a fanbase, too.

I agree on the CUSA/SMU deal, too. But the question was who should we compare ourselves against, but none of the schools listed were SBC schools. As far as football is concerned, we will draw ok in the SBC (average around 20-25k per year) in the new stadium just because football in Texas is always going to be king and we will not always be a bottom-dwellar of the SBC. But make no mistake about it, being in the SBC does affect attendance negatively in all sports. There's nothing we can do about it, but it is an albatross around the ADs neck. We really need the SBC to get back up again in men's hoops, as it was the only sport that helped our league get some respect in a revenue sport when we were having success in the Tournament.

Well, lets see how Tech's attendance would be if they got to play SBC schools instead of Big XII schools, especially big schools in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Then, look at UH and see how they do with SBC scheduling versus CUSA scheduling. BTW, UH doesn't do that great, either in attendance when you factor in their enrollment, too. Finally, how would our attendance look if we were in CUSA, since we know that the Big XII is obvious? I contend that we would average more, but it wouldn't be 6000 or something, but we would average between 4k and 5k in CUSA.

I can't imagine that this season will help us in our bid to get an invite from the MWC. The SBC is usually much better than this in mens hoops, so I believe we have no choice but to just hold out hope that we and the rest of the league can get back to being a quality hoops conference again soon.

I read that line "We play in the Sun Belt" often, which I take as "this league is up for grabs every year". The only problem with that line of thinking is that it is fairly inaccurate. The bowl teams from the SBC have been: Troy, MTSU, and F_U over the course of the last 5 years. FIU just got their first bid this year, while FAU dropped off (could be similar to UNT's drop to oblivion in 2005 if the Owls aren't careful). I know that ULM and ULL have had years of late where they finished at that SBC Fabulous overall record of 6-6, but they each got no bowl invite. Maybe 6-6 UNT would get a bowl bid, but I am more focused on the idea that I want to see us get to 4 wins in a season, which would mark the first year above 3 wins since 2004. "We play in the Sun Belt", but I think we have a ways to go to get to where 6 wins is achievable, much less 7 or more, which is what the SBC champ will have. Troy, FIU, and MTSU will still be good teams in the SBC. I know we beat MTSU at their place last year, but I don't think that we will be favored against them this year, with our QB situation and DLine issues at play right now. I don't doubt for a second that this staff is the best UNT has ever had in the last 30 years, and I think we will see big improvements as the year goes on, as well as on the recruiting front, but I also think that if we finish 4-8 or 5-7, that will be serious progress around here. I hope that folks don't lose sight of this, even with a brand new stadium finally at hand.

Usually, it takes at least two years to get a program turned around. Now, SMU was able to do it quicker with June Jones in 2009, as was Dennis Franchione when he went to TCU back in 1997, but generally it takes a while. Cristobal had to build up his program at FIU and now they are bowl winners. I just think that this year's record is kind of a mulligan. Just like Cristobal at FIU, McCarney is having to take over an absolutely beaten down program and its gonna take time just to convince them that they can be winners here. That sounds like we aren't raising expectations, but I do believe that year 2 is when we should expect a winning record and to compete for a bowl berth. Coach Mac is going to have to find and develop a QB and entire defensive front. Other than the OLine, those other two areas on your team are the hardest to build. Its gonna take some time. My guess is that we will probably go 0-fer in OOC again, but we will be able to win 4-5 SBC games. Right now, ULL, WKU, and Ark State are games I think we win, and I think we will win at least another game against the next tier up in the SBC (FAU, MTSU, ULM). I think games at Troy and at FIU are probably out of reach right now, but, just as I want to see in the OOC games (sans Bama) is being able to compete. We might get beat by UH and Tulsa in OOC, but hopefully we can be competitive. At this juncture, I think that will help recruiting just as much as moving up a tier in the SBC would.

You went too far...

The answer to both is Western Kentucky Unviersity.

I just look at these overall records and think that if FAU doesn't win the SBC Tournament, our rep will be surely playing in a play-in game. Heck, the Owls may still be a 16 seed even if they don't have to be in the play-in game because this league sucks so bad this year. This conference sent two teams to the Big Dance in 2008, with one of the teams advancing to the Sweet 16, and the next year had a last-second bucket keep WKU from going back to the Sweet 16. How on earth did we become such a lousy basketball conference so fast?

Seeing how the caller gave exact details of what poison he used and that it would definitely kill the trees and then ended his call with "Roll Damn Tide", I think it is fairly easy to go ahead and say it was an idiot Bama fan. I used to like Alabama. They were a team that I generally rooted for during the season. I always liked Gene Stallings as a coach. They have great uniforms, great tradition, and had Bear Bryant as their icon. But since they hired Saban and we have all seen their fanbase just show their ass to the world since that point, they are no longer worth any fandom--mine or anyone else's. I'm not a UT fan, just in case anyone thinks this is because Bama beat the Longhorns for the NCAA Title two years ago.

And the worst poster on gmg ever--at least he has that going for him. Seriously, he made PMGs posts look really short!!

That MWC basketball league is legit--and has been for a very long time. What the Aztecs are doing right now is phenomenal. UNLV really needed that game at home, but SDSU is too tough. That league would be an awesome place for UNT, for both football and basketball. IMO, a much better place than CUSA, which is a much better place than the SBC.

This is what all those complaint emails to the sports stations do in this town.

My $.02 on this topic is that both camps are correct here. Denton is so close to DFW that it isn't a big deal to go down to the Metroplex for the weekend. Denton doesn't have the entertainment that the Metroplex offers, so that is an obvious pull. College Station, although about an hour and a half from Houston, is still pretty much its own town--not to mention the need for Aggies to stay amongst themselves. In Austin, the entertainment options are very strong (live music, bars, outdoor activites, etc.), so their students usually stay. The biggest difference between those schools and ours is the decades-old advantage that they have in being "cool" to be at. And it is my experience, as well, that more financially-advantaged students attend either A&M or UT than UNT or other smaller state schools in Texas. But that has a lot to do with status and their academic reputations. Both are Tier One and have been for many years, which generally makes employers very eager to hire their graduates, especially in the engineering, science, and business areas, which is where the big-monied alums normally come from. Once someone graduates from one of those schools, often their children will only go to one of those schools when they get ready for school. Not saying that this doesn't happen at UNT, because we know it has happened, but the reality is that UT and A&M (and now to some degree, Tech) have really created family legacies that have paid off greatly for those schools.

See, I didn't really feel like those basketball victories over Tech or LSU registered that much with any DFW media outlet, but neither of those teams are very good this year in hoops so that didn't move the needle much. If we could have given Kansas a game in the 2nd half in Lawrence, that would have gotten attention--even if we had lost. All of this is to say, that you are right about the wins, especially in King Football, over SBC teams just doesn't register with the local media or the fanbase, for that matter. If next year, we beat UH, then that would at least get some attention from the local media outlets. The only problem there is that with this being McCarney's first team, a less-than-settled QB situation here, and the fact that Houston will probably be the CUSA favorite next year, a win over them seems pretty far-fetched right now. I still think they were a great choice for the stadium opener, but we just aren't at their level (with a presumably healthy Case keenum) yet. We'll see. And by the way, I'm from Ft. Worth, and the town has gotten behind TCU big time, but Gary Patterson will be the first to tell you that FW is not a TCU town. They just don't have the enrollment or alumni base to keep up with the huge public schools within a 5 hour drive.

I agree with your post about getting better in recruiting against the Belt teams first. We can have grandiose dreams, but that is all they are until we start winning games and moving away from the bottom end of the SBC. This next year, for me, is all about getting the right attitude ingrained in the team. We have lots of young guys, so making them believe that we can win is huge--but it is easier than taking over a veteran team that has only known losing for years and years. McCarney has all of the attributes to get that instilled. I know that we all think the Belt is a crapshoot every year, but the reality is that we have to get to where we can beat ULL, Arky State, and ULM regularly again, while mixing in a win or two over the big four Belt teams of the last few years (Troy, MTSU, FAU, and, now, FIU). The track record for new coaches who take over losing programs is not full of huge turnarounds and bowl bids in season one. If McCarney can get us to the point where we win 4-5 games next year, that will be a really good sign, especially to a team that hasn't won that many games since 2004 and has only won more than 5 games 3 times as a FBS team since 1995. Where SMU is at right now is because of their coach and $$$, nothing more. They can compete in their conference and their league right now, but if the coach goes away, will they stay up there? It is hard to say. But to insinuate that they could be the next TCU is a major joke. They may both be private schools in the Metroplex, but that is about all they have in common right now. TCU, right now, has the stability with the long-tenured coach, great facilities, and a place at the BCS table. SMU may have big money alums, but they don't sit at the BCS table and probably never will. Until they can even be in a conversation of being a BCS buster, they aren't going to be the next TCU--they will be more like the next Tulsa. All that being said, we aren't even in the same stratosphere of either of those schools, so it seems silly to try and be in that conversation with any of the other Texas schools right now. Lets get back to winning seasons in the SBC and we can work our way back toward respect.

DFW is a UT (and OU, A&M, and Tech) town, too, if you want to look at it that way, but SMU gets lots of coverage in the DMN and TCU gets lots of coverage in the FWST. Both private schools always get mentioned in both football and men's hoops on local TV sports coverage, no matter who they play. In Houston, Texas and A&M both have the most attention, but UH and Rice get plenty of coverage from the Houston Chronicle and the other local TV stations. We got the DRC, which feeds the DMN some stuff, but it is minimal, to say the least, and our local TV coverage in DFW is, well, not much. All I am saying is that UTSA doesn't have the issue that we have with media coverage. Maybe it won't matter a hill of beans, but they have something that we don't have. It COULD be an advantage for them, if they play their cards right.

This annoys me, too, especially since UTSA has yet to play one down of football, but it hits on two of the advantages that UTSA does have in this case. At UNT, we have had decades of losing (and apathy from fans and media) that hangs around our neck like kryptonite, which UTSA, as a newbie, doesn't have. Maybe they will go 0-12 every year going forward, but they don't have all of the losing to hang on their neck with the media and the fans, which leads to the other advantage they have on UNT. They have a big media market that actually has no local college (within Bexar County) team to cover, so they will get the benefit of the doubt from the San Antonio Express-News and their TV stations that we don't get currently from the DFW media. I think that for us at UNT, the situation we are in now has a bright upside because we finally have a legitimate stadium and a legitimate coach. We haven't had a combination of the two most important parts to college football these days (facilities and coaching) before, which makes most of us feel very excited about our future. We should be able to parlay this into much bigger success than we have seen in a while, especially since we are in the SBC. But, if for some reason, we don't see any winning come forward in the next 5 years and McCarney doesn't make it, I will really begin to wonder if we will can have sustained success here.

Obviously, Johnny Jones must not be the man then to get us to where we want to go. I mean, look at all of the past SBC teams that are regularly ranked in the top 20 each year. If we can't come close to matching that list of teams, then we need some serious changes at the top. Oh wait... Having expectations raised is great. They should be raised--to realistic levels. We aren't anywhere close to being a top mid-major yet. When we get to a place where we have a deeper team than what we have now, then we can talk about going undefeated in league play and being a serious player in March. Otherwise, a team with 6 (maybe 7) componenets is not going to be able to bring it every night at a high level. It happens to a lot of schools when injuries and other issues pop up. See Western Kentucky the last two years. If this turns out to be a "step-back" year, it doesn't mean that we aren't making strides as a program still. We can't let these losses blind us to the fact that the program has made the Super Pit an awfully tough place to play and that we are getting major attention from recruits that this university would have never gotten before JJ's run over the last 5 years. If we are just gonna make this a black-and-white issue with absolutely no gray, then see my sarcastic paragraph above and take it to heart. Otherwise, lets let it play out and see where it goes. I know that we have some mind-numbing losses from the last few years and now this one. But it happens everywhere, even to top 10 teams--(Duke lost at Florida State, Villanova lost Providence).

Man, I hate to break it to you, but we were gonna have to win the conference tournament anyway to get to the NCAA Tournament. But, if by dance, you meant to include the NIT, which automatically includes regular season conference champions, then you are dead-on.

I have never thought a 13 seed was even plausible, and I have had my doubts on the 14 seed being even possible, unless we lost less than 5 games all season. The Sun Belt is just so bad this year that we were going to be on the down side anyway. Plus, with the new play-in game added, that adds two more teams who will vie for a 12 seed from major conferences, so that pushes all of the other conferences down a peg. At this point, just making it to the tournament would be huge again, no matter the seed, since it would be the 3rd year out of 5 to make it to the Dance as a conference champion. It would signify progression as a program that has jumped leaps and bounds over the last decade. Remember the Trilli years, anyone?

And they were not happy at all with the fact that growth was projected for Denton or within the college, so they decided to buy up as much land as possible in an area that is now located between Bonnie Brae and McCormick, south of I-35E. Now you know the rest of the story about Denia...

I've seen you post on the need for CUSA to move westward, especially if UCF and/or ECU move. For me, I just don't see how losing a huge public institution in the east being replaced by another huge public institution in Texas, especially in the backyard of one of the conference's small private schools, would pass muster with the remainder of the conference's membership. The four private schools vote as a block. The other Texas public schools look at us like we apparently do to Texas State and UTSA, that there is nothing to be gained by helping another Texas school move up the ladder. This isn't even talking about Memphis, UAB, and USM, who probably would like the added markets for the league that Nashville (MTSU) and Miami (FAU or FIU) would give to their TV footprint, especially replacing Greenville, NC and Orlando with much bigger locations. I think PMG is dead-on here about CUSA geography being perfect for what UNT needs, but its geography is a deal-killer for us unless SMU moves on or the conference leadership in Irving just overrides all of these concerns and lets us in. That last part seems very far-fetched to me, but I suppose there's always a chance.

So in the course of a month, we go to Louisiana State of the big, bad SEC and give them their worst loss in almost 20 years, but can't even guard anyone in a loss in freaking Lafayette. It sucks for us UNT fans. But, I will say that this is what makes college basketball, as a whole, the greatest sport for competitiveness and entertainment. In football, especially college football, the upset or near-upset happens, but it is nowhere near as frequent as it is in college basketball. ULL hits shots and UNT is flat, down goes the much better team, just as it does to other top teams in the major conferences. Its how Butler, Gonzaga, St. Mary's, Cornell, etc...can make a run in the postseason even when they play the high dollar majors. Not to mention the somewhat important fact that at least we still have our chance to play our way into something. Maybe I am just being overly optimistic, but I still think we will be ok as we head into the final stretch of conference play. Don't be surprised if we go up to Denver and beat them soundly. Just sayin'.