[Florida International (2/6/10)]

That was way too close. FIU plays well against NT if no one else.

[Florida International (2/6/10)]

Anyone else enjoying the some women's game instead of the NT game on NT athletic site.

[Florida International (2/6/10)]

Not the first half we wanted. NT defense needs to get a lot better in the second half.

[All Bets On 2010]

You can't do that for very long. Since besides the 85 limit, there is a limit on the number of scholarships you can offer each year. As Matt Simon found out the hard way, after 3 years of most of your scholarships going to guys who graduate (or run out of eligibility) in two years instead of four or five you start finding a decreasing number of total players on scholarship. It then takes a number of years with almost no JUCO transfers to build back up to 85 total.

Simon's problem was not signing jucos, it was he ran off the majority of Parkers' players plus the inherent issue of raising the ship level to 85 from the lower 1-aa level. Recruiting jucos is not a particular problem with maintaining scholarship numbers. Where it hurts teams is when you want to reduce the number of jucos, it leaves a shortage of upper class players as a larger senior class buoyed by two year players are replaced with freshmen.

While there are a few success stories of teams who thrived by recruited big numbers of jucos, in the long run most coaches don't think it is a good strategy.

[Last Recruit Came In]

Anyone else notice Rivals was in the know on this guy before most of us were? I was just re-reading the live chat transcript from today and came across this post (that went unanswered btw):

It is obvious who the last recruit was. However, I didn't know the name and had hopes he was a 5 star defensive end.

[Women Lose To Fau]

I am still holding out for a 9-11 seed from the girls in the tourney. I would love to see an upset up there this year. I believe they were 11 last year and knocked of 6 seeded Arky State, but not 100% sure. Anything lower than 11 makes things look grim for the first round of the tournament, so they need to string some wins together to end the season... Go Mean Green!

- Matt

Hopefully they can finish strong, they are young and definitely playing short handed. They are going to have to start playing defense, they just can't continue to let players drive uncontested to the basket. Maybe they were trying compensate for the 20 threes they gave up against Middle but there was no interior defense tonight.

[Best Coaches In Unt History (Top 5)]

I am going to exclude current coaches because their legacy is still in progress.

Best:

1. Hayden Fry - A true visionary, too bad not even he could wake up the North Texas Administration.

2. Dan Spika - Coached exciting fast break basketball against the best in the nation and beat several top twenty teams.

3. Ron Rust - Coached IMO the best NT football team in history. Too often remembered for his last years which were largely unsuccessful due in part to continued budget cuts.

4. Bill Blakeley/Gene Robbins - Robbin's teams never had a winning record but he recruited arguably the best basketball class in history, Blakeley won big with Robbin's recruits but was a .500 coach after they graduated.

5. Darrell Dickey - Four conference championships and first bowl win in decades.

H.M. Corky Nelson - Provided a lot of entertaining football and had a great knack for playing the big games.

H.M. Johnny Gales - Coached a good brand of basketball, first to take a team to the NCAA tournament.

Worst:

1. Vic Trilli - Horrible record but even worse was how he treated the players he inherited. Never let the truth get in front of a good story.

2. Darrell Dickey - Could have had the success somewhere else he coveted; if he could just have kept his mouth shut. Seemed to never miss a chance to run down his employer and play the poor me card. (Note: Being on both lists is probably not fair, but couldn't totally ignore his accomplishments )

3. Tommy Newman - Newman collected a bunch of highly talented but apparently non-academic minded players at Texas Wesleyan and won a lower division national championship in a year they also stomped NT. NT then hired him and preceded to get a number of not only losing but boring basketball seasons.

4. Jerry Moore - A great coach for years now at Appalachian State, but an absolute horrible hire for NT. Taking over after Fry, he inherited a 10-1 team almost intact. He took a team build on speed that ran a multiple offense and tried to turn them into a 4 yards and a cloud of dust Nebraska clone. For example: Bernard Jackson one the best runner in NT history did not start for Moore, he also replaced all of a defensive backfield that was close to leading the nation in interceptions the year before.

5. Stacy Segel - NT first softball coach in the new era. After being hired almost 2 years before the initial season, she was fired after her first season went 22-57. Not a bad record for a new team unless you factor in she played about 20 games more than the NCAA limit.

H.M. Bob Tyler - Didn't make the worst list because he only messed up one year before fired.

H.M. Harry Miller - One year basketball coach who left for greener pastures after one year.

[Women Lose To Fau]

FAU beat the Green 76-94. This team plays no defense.

[Middle Tennessee (1/30/10)]

You know someone who has followed the team for decades probably has the perspective to compare one period to another in that time period. I wonder, however how someone with nothing but a record book has the background to accurately compare teams over difference periods. For instance there is a lot difference in playing in the MVC at its best and the Belt today with the currrent relatively easy oc shedules almost all teams play. Based on my time as a fan, Spika's last two years (18-8 and 15-10 in the MVC) were easily the best and Blakeley's first 3 years (only time NT was ever in top 20) were the second best basketball period. I would rate JJ's last three years the next.

[Western Kentucky, Hawaii To Play In 2012]

Hawaii trips are subsidized with among other things, the right to schedule a 13th game in that year.

[15 Worst College Crime Areas]

I am surprised no one has mentioned the obvious correlation between UT football players' criminal activities and the crime rate in their area.

[A Look At Why Recruiting Ratings Matter]

I don't have a problem with the star ratings. My concern is with the team totals. Last year both Arkansas and Mississippi had great team standings because they signed everyone they could. Troy seems to do this too. You could have more highly rated players, not sign as many, and wind up with a lower standing than the other team simply because they outpoint you. It is kind of like track meets where a school wins simply because they outpoint you by having so many entrants.

The star ratings are one thing but I don't get all the bonus points they hand out for a variety of reasons. If you look at rivals and/or scout you will see that the average stars awarded per recruit at NT is higher than a lot of schools further up on the list. As an aside, Scout currently has NT rated 119 out of 120 schools.

[A Look At Why Recruiting Ratings Matter]

Doesn't look like it. If I remember right, Rivals rated Jenkins a 3-star while Scout (not Scouts) rated Hollivay higher than Jenkins. If you are talking about Justin Edwards, he never made it here.

You are correct it was not Edwards but Adams. Jenkins and Adams were scout 4 stars, NT has never signed a rival 4 star. Edwards was a three star athlete that was at NT only a short time.

[A Look At Why Recruiting Ratings Matter]

So, a 5-star recruit is 10 times as likely to become an All-American as a 3-star and 25 times more likely than a 2-star...

And, a 4-star recruits is 3 times as likelu to become an All-American as a 3-star and 6 times as likely to become and All-American as a 2-star...

And, a 3-star recruit is 2.5 times more likely to become an All-American than a 2-star....

Yeah, well. We kind of already knew all of this. That's why I pooh-pooh Rivals and Scout for handing out too many 3-star ratings.

Look, it isn't difficult to watch a high school football game and see who are the men playing among boys. To me, what Rivals rates as 3-star guys are those who contributed more than the average high school kid and may have a shot a starting for a couple, maybe three years in college.

I like the Scouts, Inc. numberical rating system better - although, this year, they caved an now show the numberical score and along with a star rating. They've dumbed it down for the salivating masses who may venture over form Rivals and Scout.

Scouts, Inc. says we have two "3-star players"...Rivals says we have 7.

Scouts, Inc. breaks it donw like this:

5-star: Immediate impact starter at what they call "major college level" coming out of high school

4-star: 3- or 4-year starter for at the major college level

3-star: Could develop into a starter at the major college level

2-star: Solid starter a mid-major level

1-star: No skills "at this point" to play at a major college level, could contribute at mid-major or FCS level

This is a more realistic gauge to me that Rivals and Scout giving out a ridiculously high number of 2- and 3-star ratings every year.

Using this guide, here's how the Sun Belt is stacking up, according to Scouts, Inc.:

Arkansas State: 3 3-star players, 6 2-star players, 1 1-star player

Florida International: 4 3-star players, 6 2-star players

Florida Atlantic: 1 3-star player, 3 2-star players

Louisiana: 2 3-star players, 2 2-star players

ULM: 1 3-star player, 4 2-star players

Middle Tennessee: Zero 3-star players, 3 2-star players

North Texas: 2 3-star players, 3 2-star players

Troy: 5 3-star players, 5 2-star players, 1 1-star player

The X factor, as always, is coaching. But, given the hires over the past two years of Deloach, Nelson, Gahagan, and Canales, I'll stack our coaching stack up against anyone else in this conference.

Is not Scouts the one that rated Edwards who arrived at about 150 lbs and Jenkins who arrived at over 370 lbs 4 stars?

I was informed that this was wrong below. Edwards was a three star rated athlete, the four star was Adryan Adams who did play.

[A Look At Why Recruiting Ratings Matter]

I think the conclusion is obvious, mainly because the ratings are a self fulfilling prophecy. The ratings are not despite what they tell you an independent analysis of individual players. The rating services don't scout every senior player and assign a rating. What they do is largely base their opinions on who is recruiting who. The best teams are going to get the best players because they have the scouting resources to identify those players and have the pull to sign them. It would be interesting to see for example if a USC or UT recruiting an average Belt class and see the ratings of those players. There is a definite bias in this analysis also as it is much more likely that a great player is going to be selected All American at a name school than from a lower tier conference.

I found it interesting to note the rating inflation that is going on with .289 percent of the players 3 stars in 2005 compared to .374 in 2009. My guess is that 2010 will continue that trend.

[Utsa Wants Into Fbs As An Independent]

I think both TSU and UTSA are going to find the going much tougher than they expect. Many dislike or hate the ponies for their lack of support for UNT, however I have never faulted them for their approach only their stupid responses to deny their intent. College football is a business and most business's are not going to support their competition. Unless it is in the best interest of UNT to support these schools, why should they? Yes it would be good to have more games with Texas rivals but is it worth the cost of having another competitor for recruits and sports coverage. Both of these schools have very large student bodies and have had successful elections to provide great funding for their athletic programs. Other than that, neither program has a great athletic history or has gathered a lot of support.

UTSA because it is located in a huge city with no pro football competition and is twice as far from the all everything Texas Longhorns is IMO far more likely to be successful than TSU despite having no football history. TSU's main asset is a name that is some how propelled them above much more successful Southland programs such as SFA. UTSA is currently a better academic university and with the backing of the second largest city in the state seems a much better candidate for a conference than TSU. So if UNT supports either I would prefer UTSA, but I would wait until they establish themselves to be a viable fb division team before I would schedule them or lend any overt support.

[North Texas 2010 (Real Outlook And Message To All Nt Posters)]

Am I the only one who thinks this blame it on the offense, defense, or special teams is pointless? NT was bad in all areas. An above average offense until you consider turnovers and inability to score in the red zone. A defense who often was good early but usually failed when the game was on the line. Special teams that were improved primarily in the return games but punting and field goal attempts were dreadful plus an unreliable kick off return defense.

As far as Deloach, who knows; was he successful here before because he had superior Belt players or did he recruit and develop those players? I will give him the benefit of the doubt, but another bad defensive year will tell a different story. Comparing Medoza with Deloach is IMO beyond stupid. There is no way that Medoza should have ever been hired for that position.

Dodge goes into his fourth year with undoubtedly the best coaching staff and player talent he has had at NT. I hope he puts it to good use.

[Unt Women Vs. Mtsu]

I don't doubt Stephens will get her full contract to turn her program around. Note, I say her program because she inherited a pretty good squad. I hope Stephens quickly succeeds for the sake of NT and there have been signs, like the tournament win in her first year and the win over USA this year, that she may be capable.

I will state the reasons I have to question Stephens' hire and performance thus far.

I thought there were better and certainly more experienced coaches available, and the emphasis on "94 Feet of Heat" in the hiring process was questionable.

For more upsetting to me however, was her handling of her players in her first year. I read a lot of junk on this board about how she was getting rid of the malcontents and players who didn't want to work or sacrifice or players that were just not right for her system. I could only guess that most of those posters had never bothered to watch much NT girls basketball because most of those girls played hard and although many fans were dissatisfied with Slinker as a coach, I have never heard anyone complain about the overall character of her players. In year one, before the season even started one of Slinker's recruits left the school and then we saw a continuous series of suspensions of this player or another. The year ended with the suspension of what was before almost a sure NT Hall of Fame player. It is my belief that an experienced coach should have been able to work much more effectively with the players she inherited. If the players are not capable of playing one style than adapt an offense and defense that can be successful. Again this was a veteran team who was picked relatively high in pre-season conference standings.

Year two begin in similar fashion. Stephen's selected MVP, only a freshman, left the team as did a number of others. Several of the recruits did not enroll and another left shortly after the beginning of the season. The end result was that NT is playing this year with 11 players or 4 under the maximum. To put that into perspective, many football fans were concerned with the APR sanctions which lowered NT's football squad by 4 to a maximum of 81 players.

Play this year has been a few ups with a lot more downs. The win/loss record is disappointing; but more concerning is NT's total uncompetitiveness in a number of games. Not uncompetitiveness in the normal sense were a team is outmatched and gets beat twenty or thirty points. Way too many games have been basically decided in the first five minutes and then are completely under the opponents coach's prerogative to decide how much they want to run up the score.

I think most would agree that Stephens is off to a very rocky start. Likewise, most would like to see her become a brilliant success. My personal opinion is that she was not ready and has make a lot of errors, but I like her fire and I have not given up on her ability to turn it around.

[Middle Tennessee (1/30/10)]

it's going to be really tough to get to 20 wins now. i think the streak is over.

NT is about as close to winning 20 as they were the last three years at this time. Remember all those 20 games season came courtesy of tournament wins. NT actually has a relatively easy schedule the rest of the regular season.

[Middle Tennessee (1/30/10)]

A dissappointing but not awful loss. Tramiel apparently just ran out of gas after two great games. Mangrum getting 25 minutes was unusual. Spencer's best effort. I think NT can handle this team in a neutral site. However, with the refs in this game, it might be misleading.

[Middle Tennessee (1/30/10)]

Not bad with Tramiel on the bench most of the half.

[Unt Women Vs. Mtsu]

I am not sure after NT suffering the worst loss in history, is the right time to be complaining about program negativity. If the last two games are not enough to question a coach, when do you?

[Unt Women Vs. Mtsu]

RV, cut your losses and move on to a new coach. This is embarrassing.

Never happen, NT is not going to buy out a wb's coach, no matter how bad it gets. You would have thought after last year debacle, the team would have been a little better prepared.

\

[Thursday's Game Against Wku On Tv]

Any win over WKU at Bowling Green is a big win. Other than NT usual slow start, NT played very well. On the refereeing, if I was WKU and had got 30-37 free throws which kept them in the game I would not complain too much. I don't think that foul was as obvious as many seem to think, they were both going for the ball and the WKU player getting rolled over occurred after the ball was out of play. Unless some type of fragrant foul is involved you don't see many fouls called when the clock is not running.

The fouling with a three point deficient is also not as great a strategy as many seem to think. Although rare, I've seen those kind of fouls called intentional and games lost. Also there is the chance of a made free throw and an intentional miss being turned into two points. Again not a high percentage play, but probably better odds then making a 40 foot off-balance shot. A foul on a three point attempt would again be a horrible conclusion to an intentional foul. Also NT would had to throw the ball in with an one point lead if the intentional foul had led to two made free throws. Fouling in NT's game end situation can be a good play but it is definitely not without risks.

Back to the game, a lot of chat on the lack of production out of the bench. Obviously, they did enough and with the possible exception of one three pointer taken by Holman, they didn't take bad shots. I actually like a tighter rotation than what JJ was using for most of the year. The team overall played good defense and given the fact that Tramiel spend a lot of time on the bench and White was playing injured, I though they had definitely one of their best games of the year. Shorter is really coming on and with this development, NT really has a good starting unit.

The game against the MUTS is shaping up to be the biggest of the year so far.

[Awful Women's Game Going On]

NT going on a 16-2 run to end the game against the very seldom played WKU reserves, keep the game out the records for worst all time loss. It ended as a 53-101 loss which is not even the worse of the year.