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  1. DENTON — Tony Benford is in his first year as the head basketball coach at the University of North Texas. So is his associate head coach, Rob Evans. Between them, they have a combined 60 years of college coaching experience. "You know, we've experienced it all," Evans said. "So when we see something that happens, we probably saw it before it happened." "He's just a great ambassador for us here at North Texas," Benford said about his colleague. "I tell my players, 'Guys, you are very lucky and fortunate to have somebody with Coach Evans' knowledge on our staff." Benford and Evans have a relationship that goes back to the 1980s, when Evans helped recruit Benford at Texas Tech. Both are from Hobbs, New Mexico. "It was a big time Hobbs connection," Benford said. "I tell you what — Coach Evans, he was the best recruiter for football and basketball back in the day when he was at Texas Tech." read more: http://www.wfaa.com/sports/college/At-North-Texas-coaching-is-all-in-the-family-187044931.html
  2. Wednesday afternoon basketball notes (Overlander update) Caught a bit of breaking news here in the last few minutes. Clarke Overlander has a sprained ACL and will be out two to four weeks. Thats great news for UNT, which thought Overlander might be out for the year. UNT cant afford to lose any more players. And in other news, a few people have asked me if I have asked Tony Benford about any underlying problems UNT is experiencing in the wake of a tough season and a series of suspensions. Keith Coleman was suspended for a game against Troy, while Alzee Williams sat out UNTs loss to Louisiana-Monroe. Yes, I have asked. Here is what Benford had to say: Guys are making bad decisions. Thats all it is. That has happened everywhere I have ever been. It happened at Marquette and Nebraska. I told the guys we have team rules, you have to follow them. We are going to play to win every game. No one is going to give up. No one is going to quit. We are going to keep working hard and keep playing hard. I think the thing is still wide open. We want to get back into the race. That is our goal. Its a long season with a lot of games left to be played. I think Benford has a point here. Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2013/01/wednesday-afternoon-basketball-notes-overlander-update.html/
  3. I put an Freedom of Information Act request in for Tony Benford’s contract right after he signed on with UNT. After a longer wait than anticipated, I got a hold of it late last week. I will have a story on the deal in tomorrow’s paper, but here are the basics: Benford signed a five-year contract with UNT that will pay in excess of $350,000 in base salary and guaranteed incentives annually. read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2012/12/tony-benford-contract-details-full-story-in-tomorrows-paper.html/
  4. He promised his team would play defense and rebound. They did neither against a D2 team. Allow 12-27 from 3 point land. Outrebounded 45-40. Give up 78 points to a team that scored 58 against a d18 school of five Japanese guys located on a hill in San Diego. Where is it, Coach!?!?!?! They have forgotten how to shoot free throws. They have forgotten how to shoot, period! Substituting players every 20 seconds (yes, 20 seconds on the floor) is a great way to establish a rhthym, eh coach? I cannot tell you how concerned I am for this program after this game. This team is way overhyped and VERY poorly coached. Just another terrible disappointment to get in the back of a long line of nut kicking disappointments administered to UNT fans (all 30 of us) over the last 6 years. EDIT: I really don't know how some of you old timers have done it for so many years. You must seriously hate yourself.
  5. Tonight's loss really disgusts me just as much as any of you. I've been guilty of hyping this team up to my fellow students, friends, and family. Here is my "it's not that bad thread," which is honestly just as much for me as it is for you. During the first week of the football season the MUTS football team lost to FCS (D-1AA) Mcneese State, who hasn't even turned out to be a very good team even by FBS standards. Their fans were calling for their coach, Rick Stockstill's head on a platter. Since then they are 6-2 with a blowout win at Georgia Tech and are in position to make a bowl game and control their destiny to win the conference outright. I know a loss to a D-2 school is much more embarrassing than a loss to an FCS school, but there is no reason this year can't be a tale of two seasons for us either. I'm gonna try to wake up and find out this is a bad nightmare, but if that doesn't work I'm going to wake up in the morning with a sick feeling in my stomach but still root like hell for us on Wednesday against Lamar.
  6. From the album: UNT Hoops 2012-13

    © gomeangreen.com

  7. From the album: UNT Hoops 2012-13

    © gomeangreen.com

  8. - Tony Mitchell is making quite the impression on first-year North Texas head coach Tony Benford. “He’s by far the most athletic person I’ve ever been around in basketball,” Benford said of the 6-8 Mitchell, who will likely be picked as the Sun Belt’s Preseason Player of the Year. “He’s does things that just make you shake your head and say wow.” Mitchell, who averaged 14.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per game last season is the main cog for the Mean Green but don’t discount two sophomore guards, Chris Jones and Jordan Williams that both averaged in double figures last season. “They’re top 100 caliber players coming out of high school,” Benford said of Jones and Williams. Benford also said he is waiting to hear from the NCAA on whether or not former Marquette commit T.J. Taylor will be eligible for the Mean Green during the upcoming season. The 6-4 guard originally committed to the Golden Eagles when Benford was an assistant under Buzz Williams before he became the head coach at North Texas. Read more: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/09/14/rothstein-files-challenges-ahead-for-uconns-ollie-and-more-college-basketball-notes/
  9. UNT’s push to build a basketball practice facility appears to be picking up some steam. I mentioned a while back that the project is one of a few the UNT athletic department has a committee formed to look into. Uber booster Ernie Kuehne is on the committee and told me a while back that he will play a key financial role in the project. UNT has looked into what the best locations are for a practice facility. The committee considered the gym across from the Super Pit that is now used extensively by the university for physical education classes, both in the gym and in the classrooms that are also located in the facility. The logistics of putting a practice facility in that location didn’t make sense, so the committee has now moved on and has settled on a vacant gym on the old Liberty Christian High School campus that is now a part of the Mean Green Village. UNT converted one of the gyms in that facility into the Mean Green Volleyball Center. Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2012/08/basketball-practice-facility-tidbits.html/
  10. North Texas added one final piece to what is expected to be among the best teams in school history Tuesday when T.J. Taylor made Denton the next stop in what has been his long and winding road in college basketball. The former Denison standout began his career at Oklahoma, played one season at Paris Junior College and spent a few weeks at Marquette this summer before returning home. New UNT head coach Tony Benford recruited Taylor at Marquette and convinced him to follow him to Denton. Taylor, a 6-foot-4 guard, announced his decision on his Twitter account Tuesday afternoon in a message that mirrored what LeBron James said when he left the Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat. “I Terrance Taylor will be taking my talents to the University Of North Texas for my last 3 years of college basketball,” Taylor wrote. UNT can only hope Taylor’s stay in Denton will unfold in a similar fashion to James’ tenure in Miami, which won the NBA title this spring. This much is certain, Taylor will be another highly regarded addition. Read more: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/colleges/north-texas-headlines/20120731-men-s-basketball-unt-adds-former-denison-standout.ece
  11. I checked in with a few different people to see where T.J. Taylor, the former Oklahoma/Marquette guard, stands in terms of deciding where to continue his college career. Shelli Taylor, T.J.’s mother, said that he was not in town and didn’t give me much more than that. There is a sense from talking to other people close to the situation that Taylor will land somewhere in the next few days, and that UNT makes more sense than anywhere else. Taylor needs and wants to stay close to his home in Denison. UNT fits that need perfectly. It also doesn’t hurt that new UNT head coach Tony Benford recruited Taylor when he was at Marquette. I have mentioned this before, but Taylor would be a perfect fit at UNT, which could use another perimeter shooter to go along with Brandan Walton. UNT would like to see Jordan Williams take more of his shots inside the 3-point arc, Chris Jones and P.J. Hardwick are going to be handling the ball a lot and Clarke Overlander might not be quite ready to be on the floor for 20 minutes a game. Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2012/07/tuesday-morning-t-j-taylor-update.html/
  12. T.J. Taylor, a former Denison standout who spent time at Oklahoma and Marquette, is on an official visit to UNT today. A UNT source confirmed that the 6-3 shooting guard is on a visit to the school Thursday afternoon. Taylor said earlier in the day via text message that, “nothing is set in stone” as far as where he will continue his college basketball career. New UNT head coach Tony Benford is a former Marquette assistant and recruited Taylor to the Big East Conference school. Taylor arrived at Marquette in early July and left the school in a matter of days to return to Denison. “We are in complete support of his decision and we wish him all the best in his future as a student-athlete,” Marquette coach Buzz Williams said in a statement after releasing Taylor. read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2012/07/taylor-on-campus-today.html/
  13. This is the last AAU event of the year. I don't have much info other than he was on hand for a Urban DFW Elite game ( Jordan Mickey,Karviar Shepherd,Kendal Harris,Brandon Parrish)
  14. A prior relationship with Buzz Williams, as well as Williams’ track record with junior college players attracted Taylor to Marquette, where he said he was looking forward to proving people wrong playing the underdog role. But it didn’t last long. Just two weeks into his stay in Milwaukee, Taylor left the program. He couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday, but rumors have floated about the Texas native feeling home sick. A source also said Tony Benford, Taylor’s lead recruiter, leaving for North Texas’ head coaching position did not help matters. Taylor has enough talent to latch on elsewhere, perhaps closer to home (perhaps at North Texas with Benford). Regardless, Marquette now finds itself in a bind in the back court, a statement which would have been laughable two seasons ago. read more: http://painttouches.com/2012/07/19/what-t-j-taylors-departure-means-for-marquette/
  15. Taylor, 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, was entering his first season at Marquette and had three seasons of eligibility remaining. He averaged 14.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists last season to help Paris to a 23-7 record. He was a third-team All-American pick who signed with Marquette in November. Williams said at the time: "History has proven that the guys we have signed with three years of eligibility remaining have been really good for us, and I have great belief that T.J. will be next in that line. "Similar to the guys in the past we have signed with three years left, T.J. fits into what we do with our perimeter players. He is a switchable and has the versatility we rely on from those guys on both ends of the floor." A Marquette source said Wednesday that Taylor, a native of Denison, Texas, was homesick. The source noted there were posts on Taylor's Twitter account referring to personal issues back home. In addition, Tony Benford no longer is on the Marquette staff. Benford, who was the primary recruiter for Taylor, was named head coach at North Texas in April. Read more: http://www.jsonline.com/sports/goldeneagles/mu-recruit-taylor-makes-quick-exit-ju663a7-162979126.html
  16. Tony Benford was sound asleep the morning after the 1986 NBA Draft when the call came. Benford had spent the previous night out with his girlfriend, cousins and friends celebrating after being selected in the fourth round by the Boston Celtics. Boston had taken only one player before Benford, an All-American from Maryland named Len Bias. “I got a call at about 6 a.m.,” Benford said recently inside an office he had yet to finish decorating at North Texas. “It was a beat writer from Boston. He asked if I had heard the news. I had no idea what he was talking about because I had not turned the TV on. He said that Len Bias had died of a cocaine overdose. “It was on every channel. It was like someone shot me.” The experience still resonates with Benford, who took over as UNT’s head coach this spring, more than 25 years after that ill-fated morning. Even though he had never met Bias, Benford had seen him play on television and knew what a waste the death of a player considered by many to be a sure NBA star represented. He vowed that day to continue making the most of every opportunity to come his way. That philosophy guided Benford throughout his playing career and a successful run of nearly 20 years as an assistant coach, and it will be the basis for his efforts to capitalize on the biggest opportunity thus far in his coaching career — at UNT. The Mean Green has all of its key players returning from a team that fell one game short of reaching the NCAA tournament last year, including Tony Mitchell, who is projected as a first-round pick in the 2013 NBA Draft. Benford has spent his career preaching about taking advantage of opportunities. His biggest opportunity — since his short stay in the NBA — is staring him in the face now. Read more: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/colleges/north-texas-headlines/20120708-basketball-chance-of-a-lifetime.ece
  17. Read more: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/colleges/north-texas-headlines/20120629-mens-basketball-mitchell-using-camp-to-improve.ece
  18. UNT picked up another commitment under new head coach Tony Benford late this week when Anthony Norris decided to play for the Mean Green after one final year at Midland College. What is interesting about Norris is that he is a player with a high ceiling, one he has yet to reach. Norris is 6-7 combo forward who can shoot the ball and play on the wing. Those guys don’t grow on trees. There is a reason Norris was committed to Memphis before he had a few bad months on the summer circuit and ended up back on the market. By all accounts, Norris has a ton of talent, and he just so happens to be family friends with Benford and assistant coach Rob Evans. All three of from the basketball hotbed of Hobbs, N.M. Benford will likely have six spots in his next recruiting class. Taking Norris was about as big a no-brainer in recruiting as one is ever going to see. read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2012/06/are-we-seeing-a-trend-emerge-with-unts-new-basketball-staff.html/
  19. Over the last couple of days, I have had a chance to catch up with UNT’s new basketball coaches Tony Benford and Mike Petersen and picked up some extra tidbits and thoughts to put on the blog. I spent a few minutes with Benford to start on a profile (it’s just something you do with a new coach in a major sport like men’s basketball) and also talked with Petersen after he added Cayla Petree to his staff. Benford spoke a little about this on his interview on TXA 21 last night, but he also mentioned to me how important this upcoming recruiting class will be for UNT’s future. He called it the biggest and most important class for UNT going forward. It’s a good point, one I had not thought a lot about. The assumption is that Tony Mitchell is headed to the NBA after this year, but you also have to figure in that Roger Franklin, Jacob Holmen, Justin Patton, NIko Stojkovic and Brandan Walton will be seniors this year. That is a whole lot of talent to replace in one shot. UNT will have a six-man recruiting class this next year, and the staff is getting off to a bit of a late start considering the assistant coaches have just arrived. New LSU head coach Johnny Jones, the guy who built UNT from a disaster of a program into a consistent winner, laid the foundation with a lot of players that Benford and his staff can build around. Benford said he has been impressed with the quality of the players he inherited not only in terms of their basketball talent, but also in the type of people they are. That has made the transition easier. But there is still a lot of work to do. Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2012/06/random-wednesday-afternoon-basketball-notes-and-thoughts.html/
  20. Read more: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1185461-frank-martin-college-basketballs-new-coaching-hires-ranked/page/13
  21. He had some kind words about Benford but also North Texas...you have to scroll down a bit. http://painttouches.com/2012/05/08/transcript-of-buzz-williams-interview-on-540-espn/
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