TheTastyGreek

Another round of Plus One. On this date 3 years ago, we were still in the Sun Belt. We were just about to finish our first season in Apogee, our new head coach surprising me by leading what I thought was a 3 win team to a 5-7 season. I was in Los Angeles, having sexy fun adventures with CMJ and Shuke-D, because I'd taken a week off work and dragged my wife out there for a meaningless MTE tournament at Loyola Marymount. We were coming off of our 5th straight 20 win season, we had an NBA talent joining us in a matter of weeks, and we were on our way to coming up one minute short of what would have been our 3rd NCAA appearance in 6 years. I already had a reservation for a 5 bedroom, 3 story megahouse on the lake in Hot Springs, eventually filled up with a dozen people who were excited about a week in Arkansas in March, all because of Mean Green athletics. One of the big topics of conversation at that conference tournament was Baseball, which most of us had, for one reason or another, been led to believe was just around the corner. If they'd have taken deposits, I'd have bought season tickets then and there. Three years later, I feel like we're further away from a baseball program. Not that I care, because it seems like just one more way to dilute whatever money we're going to spend, and do a half-assed job at yet ANOTHER sport where success is more coincidence than a result of a plan or (more importantly) driven by expectation. Three years later, what was once a mid-major of sustained success and almost unprecedented consistency that seemed poised for a breakthrough to the next level of success and prominence is in the toilet, being dragged down in terms of success and ethics by a failure and disgrace that a real basketball program would have fired a year ago, if not two. But we're sticking with him, and we'll basically be starting from scratch again whenever the next guy makes his way in for the rebuilding project. Three years later, our football coach had his first season that finished below my expectations... But at a time when he should be exceeding them, with his own players in his own system. Instead, we were bad, and in a way that I didn't really want to watch. For crying out loud... I went to Kansas, Houston, Louisiana to watch TODD DODGE, but I only made it up to Apogee two times this year. I missed one game to take a trip with my wife (SMU! The last two times we played SMU, I bought and distributed over 50 tickets to bring people out!), I missed one game for a wedding (Southern Miss), and I skipped one game because another die hard UNT fan and I decided we'd rather take advantage of free tickets to watch TCU play Kansas State instead of going to Apogee to watch McNultyball against FAU. And I didn't bother to go out to FIU because of weather and the absence of some people I'd have wanted to 'enjoy' the game with. I #Hit2, #Skipped4, #TailgatedZERO, and I don't feel like I missed anything. And I don't know if I'm going to renew my season tickets for next year, because even though I like Mac, I don't know that I'm going to see anything worth watching next season if we don't get a quarterback in here. I drove hours to see TODD DODGE, and I don't want to drive 30 minutes to see an actual good coach that's had some success here. And I went all over the country to watch that basketball team... 5 guys piled in an Altima to drive to Monroe and back in 2011 (MONROE!), MeanGreenMatt, NT03 and I had driven down and back to Houston the year before to go see Texas Southern for crying out loud... Not exaggerating at all, I went to 66 games in person in three seasons. Houston, San Marcos, Louisiana, Los Angeles, Alabama, Oklahoma... Basically, a deadhead following the team bus all around the country. And LOVED it. This year, I haven't even listened to a damn game. And I haven't missed it. Three years ago, we were in a dead end conference, and I felt like we were on a good path on all fronts. Now, what used to be obsessions, I've completely disengaged with. The obvious response is: "Fine, complainer... Shut up and go away. We don't need fans like you." And, frankly, I feel like I'm on the cusp of actually GOING AWAY. If Harry hadn't made me a moderator here, I think I probably would have checked out entirely by now. I feel like we're further away, across the board, than we were 3 years ago. And you can say the same thing about 10 years ago with respect to football. And, even though I'm not one of the "Fire RV!" guys... We're 16 years in, almost every hire he's made has failed, most of them he can't or won't acknowledge or amend until they've done so much damage that we end up trapped in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding. I don't think I have unreasonable expectations, or an outrageous threshold of what constitutes "success". Remember, I basically worship Johnny Jones, and I still like and appreciate Darrell Dickey. And there are a lot of people around here who don't really have much respect for either, or any real fondness/appreciation for whatever level of success it was that they were able to reach and maintain. But, frankly... This is not fun. And I have almost no confidence, based on how we handle or ignore our failures, that we're ever going to get appreciably better. The more time goes by, the less I want to devote my free time and personal enthusiasm to it. A big program has enough fans and casual attention to deal with losing people who are like me (don't believe in college sports as charity, frustrated/disillusioned, etc.). I don't know that North Texas does. And if I haven't quite reached the point where I'm ready to spend ALL of my time, money, energy, and enthusiasm on non-UNT interests... I'm very close.

You are not alone on that, for sure. Totally with you.

Honest question, and not meant to start an argument... How far into the future do you expect us to be before that happens? Two years? Five? Ten? More?

It's a bit silly for me to try and throw on the serious face here, especially after a couple rounds of P1 friendship bracelet hijinx... But, this is very astute, and it deserves a lot of consideration. If you support this program, you're either donating to a charity you really believe in, or buying a product. A lot of people here like to throw around the "shareholder/investor/etc." metaphor, but that's not at all accurate. It's nonsense. You're not a shareholder, you're a donor or a buyer. The problem our administration is facing is that a lot of people seem to be sliding or ratcheting down their emotional investment, and they're turning (or threatening to turn, however sincere or hollow this time around) from donors to buyers. Once that happens, and the emotional buy-in starts going away... Well, it's a lot more likely that buyers disappear entirely when the product isn't worth buying on its own merits.

I'm more of a Neil Cicierega guy, but... Sure! As far as the P1 thing goes... It makes me understand how Ray felt.

YOU CAN'T GO THROUGH THE FLOOR AT COSMIC BOUNCE! But, every Saturday... I sit there at a table by myself all day, staring at a door you never walk through... Stifling my tears and eating yet another cookie cake with your name on it. Alone.

I agree with everything here. Everything. I don't understand why you refuse to be my best friend.

I wouldn't mind listening in on the call to hear whether he could stop laughing long enough to curse at us.

Start clearing his place in the HOF.

Et si abiero et praeparavero vobis locum, iterum venio et accipiam vos ad me ipsum, ut ubi sum ego et vos sitis.

Not sure where you're seeing that... Also, to be clear, I'm not basing that off ordinal rankings of conferences. I'm going off of average RPI against D1 opponents, using the RealtimeRPI.com calculations from each year in place of actually gathering and calculating it myself. Because they stop calculating at the end of conference tournaments, so that NCAA/NIT results (and the selection restrictions that influence games there) aren't biasing or inflating the stronger seasons. Last year was the only time that CUSA has dipped below .5 (.498). Even in 05-06, it was at .5021. In D1 opponent RPI terms, the 2013-14 CUSA was almost as much worse than 2012-13 as last year's Sun Belt (which was terrible) compared to last year's CUSA. The phrasing on all that is a bit tortured... If any of it didn't make sense or could be rephrased to read more easily, my apologies.

Tangent, using your mention of conference strength as a jumping off point... Last year, objectively (in terms of conference RPI), was the absolute worst year in the entire history of Conference USA basketball. As I recall, it wasn't even close to the 2nd worst year. And, we also enjoyed an absurdly fortunate run of good health all season long. The only guys who missed or DNP'd more than 2 games were Anefiok (3 games) and Kelvin Gaines, by far the least utilized guy on the roster anyway. The awesome thing about every school you mentioned (and you could have included UAB in there, too) that actually is a serious basketball program... They've all been in the same situation we're in with Benford within the past 6-8 years or less, and EVERY SINGLE ONE canned a guy with as many or more years and/or money remaining as we had on Benford after last season. When they had a guy who wasn't going to make them successful, even if the coach had a track record of previous success or a history of NCAA appearances (often at their school, and Benford has neither)... They cut ties and moved on. I got through writeups and posts about half of the stories before giving up hope during the start of the offseason. The exception is UTEP, because they haven't botched a hire as badly or seen an incumbent collapse the same way we and those other schools have in that timeframe. Anyway, the point is... Last year was the worst CUSA has ever been, the luckiest we've ever been in terms of health and continuity in-season, and we still saw what we saw. And the programs you're rightfully pointing to as powerful and serious about the sport in our league (diminished as the conference may be compared to it's glory days in bball)... They all handled their business the same way when in our situation. We did not.

I've been taking fiber supplements. No one can say I'm not doing my part to change things.

Teach oldguystudent how to do internet check marks

Start a thread about how to properly do something. Backtrack 13 minutes later. Accuse others of being overly sensitive. Scold others for daring to tell you how to properly do something. Exhibit no self-awareness or sense of irony at all. Someone has had a very busy day of interneting.

Azazel and Penemue are sounding their trumpets here, that's for damn sure.

Too touchy for an inward-looking discussion of how personality and approach might actually work against your stated goals? WHY WON'T YOU OTHER PEOPLE LOOK AT YOUR SELVES IN THIS MIRROR!???

Actually, in my experience... People who consider themselves the exemplar of North Texas fandom are the ones most likely to be TERRIBLE ambassadors, and actively repulse the rest of the active and/or potential fan base.

Hey there, gang. I just wanted to make a broad, sweeping condemnation of EVERYONE. Nothing PERSONAL, you see. But then the first guy to respond, who I happened to be tacitly attacking by association through his posts in one of the threads I specifically mentioned... Well, it turns out he actually does donate well above his financial comfort level. Kind of undercuts my whole point, feeble as it was, and it would have gotten the conversation started on entirely the wrong foot. For my purposes, at least. And even though he actually took a surprising moderate tone, didn't spark an argument, and all-in-all handled it way more politely than was probably deserved... Well, everyone else is way too damn touchy, I've decided. For 13 minutes, though... I took a bold, strong, principled position on the matter. You could all stand to be a lot more like me, instead of your terrible, terrible selves. And I say that in general, so it applies to ALL of you. Not any one person in particular. Just every one person in aggregate. See you all again the next time I think I see some high ground I can claim!

What's the official position on retire-ers? Do we need them?

Sorry, Withers. We were premature in deciding you'd solved this thread. THIS is the correct answer. +1 this man, everyone.

And if you see political content outside of the Eagles Nest... Flag it. Don't engage with it. I don't care who started it, everyone misbehaving gets punished. And I will TURN THIS FORUM RIGHT AROUND. Don't doubt it, I will. And then NOBODY goes to Disneyland. NOBODY.