Jump to content

Gosselin: New SMU, TCU, UNT basketball coaches to pan area for gold


Harry

Recommended Posts

For the first time ever, all three schools hired new coaches in the same off-season. You’d have to go back to 1975 to find the last time two of the schools hired new coaches the same year, much less three.

And that’s great news for high school basketball in Dallas, Fort Worth and all the suburbs that surround the two hubs of the Dallas area.

The stakes have been raised. All three coaches — Larry Brown at SMU, Trent Johnson at TCU and Tony Benford at North Texas — plan to make local talent an emphasis in their recruiting.

“I was shocked when I saw the talent here,” Brown said. “I’ve seen some kids who are pretty special. I don’t know that we have a chance [at them], but I don’t want to lower the bar for us.”

Don’t look for any of the three new coaches to lower the bar.

Brown has the cachet. He’s the only coach in history to have won an NCAA and NBA title and has already been enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. What recruit isn’t going to answer the door when Larry Brown comes a knocking?

Johnson has been selected coach of the year in three different conferences — the WAC (Nevada) in 2003, Pac-10 (Stanford) in 2008 and SEC (LSU) in 2009. He’s taken teams to five NCAA Tournaments and reached a pair of

Sweet 16s. What recruit isn’t going to answer the door when Johnson comes a knocking?

This is the first head coaching opportunity for Benford, but he arrives in Texas with a slight edge over Brown and Johnson. His primary recruiting responsibility over the last 20 seasons as an assistant at New Mexico, Arizona State, Nebraska and Marquette has been the state of Texas.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/college-sports/headlines/20120510-gosselin-new-smu-tcu-unt-basketball-coaches-to-pan-area-for-gold.ece

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Please review our full Privacy Policy before using our site.