Aquila_Viridis

This is terrible and totally in the wrong direction. Maybe Liberty is paying some crazy Jerry Falwell money for the visit?? That's some recruiting story. You get to go play in a backwater in the middle of nowhere. I went to a real school up the road from there. I've been to Lynchburg and LU. The place sucks!! This is really disappointing decisionmaking.

There is nothing Powerful about most of the AAC and MWC. Any 'schism' would leave almost all of them out. Such a laughable attempt to influence terminology is a show of absolute desperation. Sad.

Thanks for the news. Great man. Happy he found something so soon and wish him the very best. Close to Lake Tahoe; hope he gets to enjoy.

Well then it'll be that much less of a change for them. There's a lot of 'never' s getting tossed around, but I think there's gonna be some scramblin'.

They won't be happy for long. Sure there are hurdles, but those are all destinations that players can get excited about and very accessible. It makes a lot of sense.

Between DFW (excuse me, the North Texas region), Houston, Austonio, Miami, Tampa and Orlando we have almost a whole conference of schools in a relatively tight SE geography in major metros with busy airports and frequent flights among them. Add ATL and Charlotte (same criteria) and behold the new order: North Texas SMU Houston Rice Florida Atlantic Florida International Georgia State South Florida UCF Charlotte UTSA Texas State

You'll have LT, Southern Miss, Tulsa, and WK (though yes some are a haul) but, with the lack of growth in our area and depletion of flights to and from our airport, you'll also have the Memphis Tigers looking forward to their visits to Jonesboro someday.

Oh lord, this from a site whose stated goal is to bring back the Southwest Conference. Do not follow the blasphemers.

Do not be fooled by those who want to discourage and drag us down. A couple million bucks for a school as huge as ours and in such a rich area, is no big deal. We have airports. We don't need to drag our athletes around on 7 hour bus rides. It is a big deal for the tiny stAtes and LTs of the world. We do not have to suffer their fate.

Oh Gray, why stop there?? We can take ACU and SFA and maybe A&M Commerce and some of the better high schools. It's a great chance to recreate Southland-style glory!

We'll show up with the money just as soon as we collect from all the people we fronted concert tickets to.

We're fortunate to be in a conference with such an outstanding university. It is one of the very best in the nation. I hope this branding is successful for them.

In other news, I just want to make it clear that I also have no interest, despite all the reports to the contrary and my name coming up so much in discussions of the opening and the fact that I have been to Oklahoma several times and am even willing to admit that here publicly. So you can see I have strong connections to the area, but nope no interest on my part, well except that I'm interested. Could some of you repost this to some news sites and maybe email it to the powers that be at OSU just to let them know about my lack of interest?

Hey we beat out Cleveland State. What do you want??

And what if we played a body bag game against an SEC school on Friday night on another continent???

I buy merchandise that says North Texas. I do not buy merchandise that says UNT.

Outside of athletics, NT and stAte are not comparable. NT has 3 times as many full time undergrads. NT is categorized as a National university and stAte is a Regional university. The fact we mention them in the same breath is a testament to how NT has woefully underperformed in athletics and stAte has greatly overperformed. Maybe things are finally getting set right.

Oh wow it all happened so fast I forgot he came from Wake. I guess Karen came from Charlotte. Well she WAS a good hire, but too good of one!

Oh I thought this was gonna be an RV thread.

Leave stAte dude alone. He's one of the most rational and knowledgeable posters here. I can tell this hurt because there is a slightly frantic note that is unusual. As for their AD geez move on. The fact is he has clearly made some excellent moves that are benefitting stAte. Sure their spirit wolf is unnerving at best and confusing at worst, but I bet I see it a lot more up here out and about than you see green eagles down there. This is a really encouraging hire, but you know, I was encouraged when they got that WBB guy from Charlotte some years ago. Still, there is reason for optimism now. Glad to see this didn't drag on.

No we do not need to go back to Coach Jones. I went to Virginia. I've seen a lot of great basketball teams; unfortunately over the years, mostly other ACC teams though Coach Bennett certainly has his thing going pretty well these days. During NT's best days they never worked together the way great teams do. I want to see someone in here who can develop challenging game plans and get the players to work to them so that NT can compete beyond our own conference. We're not going to get that from Coach Jones.

I'm glad they got some outside help. Benford had a lot going for him coming in but early on it was very clear - similar to Dodge in football - that it was not gonna go well. So something important was missed in the evaluation. We cannot afford for that to happen again. But this is a whole new leadership team than the one that made those mistakes. All we can do is hope they get it right. They have a lot at stake to do so.

Added stress??? Maybe they should have practiced and played harder and they would not have lost as many games. It is not ALL on the coach, but no doubt, a lot is on this coach.

I have no issue with the leadership acting like the leaders of one of the nation's largest universities. If anything I'd expect people to be encouraged that they're not doing the usual small-time thing. Maybe it reflects a dramatic change in mindset, and that would be awesome.

I'm excited to see how NT can come up with the money to get a BB coach in there who could really make a difference. Hiring back coach Jones would not get me excited; though I do appreciate what he did for NT. I would actually like to see NT win an NCAA tournament game. I don't know about NC State's coach. It would be a difficult decision.