VideoEagle

Tickets are renewed and I have the "monthly checking deduction" set up for my MGC.

I want to say "there but for the grace of God of us," but I hope our players are a bit smarter than that!!

While I think Baylor probably deserved the Death Penalty in this case, what they got certainly was NOT a slap on the wrist. SMU was only banded from playing one year. They could have played an all road schedule the next year if they had chosen to do so. The second year was their choice. In basketball, having NO non-conference games is the one step short of the Death Penalty. The NCAA gave Baylor's regret as a reason for not giving them the Death Penalty. Baylor did everything short of cancel games as they're self imposed punishment. They did far more the Alabama did!

If I can digress to the original thread... I don't think what the TCu folks were says was all that insulting. They seem to feel TCU has moved beyond where North Texas currently stands in the world of college athletics and don't think RV could help them move further. While I disagree, I think he could help them, I'm not going to encourage them as I'd rather keep RV with us.

Did JJ start in the summer and not get to recruit his first year? Did he red shirt a most of his recruits? If the answer to either is no then his first recruiting class just went through their senior year!

Glaciers move faster! Football players need to grow and develop from high school to college. It legitimately 5 years with redshirts to build a football program. That's not the case with basketball. In football, you need a number of good players - one or two stars can't get it done alone. In basketball, just one or two and you're a champion. Dumping a guy after two years means you didn't give him a chance. But four? How long should someone get?

Back when JJ was hired, I remember hearing RV tell an interesting story. "If I had Trilli's record would you still be my friend," asked JJ. "Of course I'd still be your friend," says RV, "But I wouldn't still be your boss!" There has got to be someone out there who can get the job done. It takes longer to build a football program than a basketball program. We've got great basketball facilities. We're next to a hotbed of high school talent in the DFW area.

Those of us who remember the Bill Blakely days are pretty disgusted with the current state of NT basketball. I will grant you we are somewhat better this year than last. Last year 13-15 and this year we're 14-14. At this rate, we'll have another 20 win season in 2011 with players currently in junior high! Remember Blakely's chair slogan of "Don't expect miracles" was followed by "Miracles never cease." The football program has lousy facilities and is still recovering from NT virtually dropping the program in the 80's. The basketball program never had these problems, but has never gotten back to the level of the late 70's. We need to find some former NBA guy who's hungry and got something to prove!

I was just reading on their board that they are pretty sure they will be a one bid conference this year if Nevada wins. Everyone seems to think UTEP's lose to Pacific doomed them unless they win the conference.

Maybe the guy has tenure! They can't just fire you if you've got tenure - even if you need to be locked in a room with soft walls for awhile. I remember having a few professors I THOUGHT ... well, never mind.

After the SMU mess in the '80s, the Texas Legislature at least debated a law that would make people legally liable if their actions caused NCAA sanctions. I don't think it got anywhere - the NCAA, without real legal authority, would have a hard time getting anyone to talk if real legal penalties could result.

UNT had great success in the late 70's, well after integration in the other conferences. We had Bill Blakley, former coach of the Dallas Chaparrals of the ABA and still the coach with the most wins in school history. I know this seems hard to believe now, but the Pit was 3/4 full for most games back then. If you lived in a dorm, THE thing to do was go to a BB game. There was a game against either Texas or SMU back then that the Denton Fire Marshal was theatening to shut down because the turnstile count show 12K in the 10K seat arena. I never did understand why Blakley was fired. He had one (1!) "less than 20+ win season" and was let go. Can you imagine that now? Of course, once he was gone, the anti-athletics folks who were in power at the time managed to get an idiot hired. Bill had built a "run and gun" team. He even had Spud Webb coming to play at UNT. He successor, who's name I can't remember, wanted to switch everything to a "half court, defense first and second then think about taking a shot" team. His ideal game would be a final of 50-49. It was awful. The fans deserted and still haven't come back.

At one time back in the 70's, UT Pan Am actually WAS good. They had a coach named Abe Lemmons. Didn't make the NCAA's since they only took 32, or maybe it was even less back then. Lost their coach to UT and started a slow decline to where they are today.

I'd heard the rumor as well. Possibly from the same source.

I've been reading posts on the AF board and their folks are more upset with that kid's behavior than we are. And from what I've read in news reports, not bbs', the NU coach swung an elbow at him and all the kid did was shove the coach back. The kid was ejected, and that sounds about right. The NU coach should have been banned from the sideline, but I don't think NCAA rules allow that. I think this is going to be a great yardstick game for UNT. North Texas isn't near an OU yet and we've proven to be better than the Baylor's of the world. This game ought to be a good showing of where we fall in the middle. Lastly, F16Jock, I hope you can forgive some confusion that the "i before e" thing. Hell, Einstein got it wrong twice in his name!

I doubt Baylor’s team this year will be better than an intramural team.

I’m not sure that would solve any problems. It appears the Bliss was the source of most of the direct problems. Of course, the AD (what’shisname) either gave tacit approval or was completely derelict in his duties as a supervisor. I’m curious about what’s going to happen to Abar Rouse, the assistant coach who secretly taped Bliss. While ethically, Rouse is a hero, assistant coaches who turn on their head coaches probably have a hard time finding jobs. BTW, you something had to be rotten before the taping to make Rouse want to make those secret recordings to cover his own butt. But shutting down the program for a year or two mostly hurts the other players on the team. It kills recruiting for a several years, although I really think SMU’s self imposed recruiting limits hurt more than the death penalty itself. This has got to hurt Baylor’s ongoing capital campaign.

I don’t think we want someone of Bliss’ ilk. It’s coming out that he was working on covering up the phoney tuition scheme by claiming Donnelly was a drug dealer, when Bliss knew that was not true. How low can one sink!

Looks like things are getting much, much worse for Dave Bliss. An article in the FWST for Saturday shows that Bliss was working on a cover up for his tuition deal. Bliss appears to have wanted to spread the word the Donnelly was involved in drug dealing to pay his tuition. Here’s the link!

I grew up in Edinburg and can tell you it's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there! It's about a 10 hour drive if you stay 70 or under. You can fly into McAllen on American or Harlingen on Southwest. Harlingen about the same distance as Denton to DFW and a little closer than Denton to Love Field. You can usually get a better car rental in Harlingen. UTPA does have a strong basketball tradition. Back when I was in school, Abe Lemmons was the coach. Also was a strong baseball school.

I had lunch with Chuck on Thursday. He has some good things to say. I signed up! By the way, it's Chuck Vinson, not Benson. I kept wanting to say "Carl Vinson," thinking of the aircraft carrier. It turns out the aircraft carrier is named for Chuck's great-uncle.