Arkstfan

Doubt hoops happens until y’all get another coach. Football? Who knows. 2026 game with TCU is first game non-conference against a Texas school since 2019. Meanwhile go home/home with Kennesaw, buy a game with West Georgia and travel to Georgia Tech over next three years. Atlanta is a few miles close to Jonesboro than Denton. Alabama and Georgia have been bigger than Texas in our recruiting last 15 years. Parts of Northern Alabama are closer to Jonesboro than UAB.

I was upper deck end zone of Superdome for LSU-Ohio State BCS championship. Son and I realized early in the trip drunk Tiger fans couldn’t distinguish between Arkansas State and Ohio State shirts so we bought cheap game shirts with both team logos. One shirt purple other yellow. We had cheered a good Ohio State play and quickly realized not a great idea. Just before half Buckeyes are getting ready for a field goal at the other end but raise net on our end. Lot of moaning groaning before they lowered it. I yelled they just know Tigers gonna block it for a touchdown and getting ready extra point. They freaking blocked it but couldn’t beat last man for TD. Them drunk bastards about beat me to death wanting high fives and slapping me on the shoulders and back congratulating me 🤪

Pretty bad game from three for us. First half was as good as anyone handled us in the paint this year

Heard Hodge as possible at Colorado State if Medved takes Minnesota. Only thing worse than having your coaches be mentioned in searches is being MTSU with guys too good to fire but not good enough to be wanted.

Well at least got paid at +4.5. Congratulations!

Nope I’m currently in North Central Arkansas during house repair and renovation so two hours longer than coming from Little Rock

That’s accurate.

Tough for me. I love every Memphis loss then I remember that’s our signature win for the year.

My perfect world NCAA Tournament. Top 8 rated leagues based on prior three seasons ratings their regular season champ is pre-assigned to a sub-regional (ie Big East champions to Providence, ACC to Raleigh, SEC to Lexington, B12 to Wichita etc. Tournament champions also get auto bid. Regular season champs still want to win for seeding. Next 8 rated leagues auto bid for regular season champs and tournament champs. Now bottom 8 leagues, no more first four for them. Pair up two leagues based on geography for four “NCAA District Tournaments”. Teams with 2 best conference records in each conference makes the district tournament. Then pick 2 at-large from what’s left based on NET for a total of six teams. Each regular season champ gets a bye. Winner of the tournament gets auto bid but no First Four. Change First Four to the 8 lowest at-large selections. I think the NCAA could sell the District tournaments for more money than these leagues make off tv for their conference tournaments.

I learned long ago that when you are in an event where someone else gets the gate, announced attendance usually drops (major exception Arkansas at Arkansas in WNIT).

I am but wife loves hoops and finally have a coach she doesn’t hate so we haven’t missed many home games last two seasons

I posted a bit after we played and before your game with Furman. Batshit week. Tornado missed us by two miles last Friday. Winds this week had wildfires near us. Wednesday 130 year old orphanage near us that has been turned into a community garden, farmers market, meeting space, RV park, farm, and AirBnB burned while my daughter was working at the farm market. My wife volunteers there and my cousin is on the board. Apparently got hit with the Irish curse “May you live in interesting times”

Story goes that back when the school was still affiliated with the Baptist Church they had a president who had been a bomber pilot and at halftime would lead the cheer "FU once, FU twice, FU all the time". An older lady called hime to express her concern that the cheer had vulgar undertones. He kept acting like he had no idea what she was talking about and basically forced her to plainly state what she thought was implied. He replied "Oh madam, I'm shocked, that never once occurred to me." 🙂 Only other thing I know about them is my cousin's husband went to The Citadel and he hates them which is a big plus in my book. He's a roided up dude who looks like a 5'6" fire hydrant.

Red Wolves can be really good at times. Routed Memphis at Memphis, massive comeback at UAB to win there, lost to Kent State (routed St Bonnie tonight) by one at Kent, beat Akron (13 seed auto bid from MAC) by 5 in OT, lost by 9 at Bama after being tied with 7 minutes left. One the other hand... Lost to Hofstra who finished 10 games out of first in the CAA, lost to Rice who finished 12 games out of the American, and barely escaped Texas-Arlington who finished 9 games out in the Southland. Sun Belt had crazy four way tie for first and we lost four to the other three teams in first and one to Marshall who finished a game out of first. So we can be a buzz saw or a wet noodle depending on the night.

Started slow but has 22 with 8 boards. Runs like he’s in sand.

I like the 64 idea. The WNIT at least in the past took highest rated team from each conference that didn’t get invite to NCAA. If it were my call, I’d delay start of the round of 64 in NCAA tournament to Monday week after Selection Sunday and instead of 16 games a day have 8 in a four day first round

They spend. They had a good run and clearly will spend to get another run.

Fresno won 9 last year, 10 in 2022 and won the MWC, 10 in 2021. If that ain't good enough they ain't finding 8 teams. Colorado State gets a pass over down years because they spend.

I’m a skeptic regarding UTSA

I think the fact that Air Force and UNLV weren't in the first round tells us a lot about what they have in mind. They know they can get their special status back. If you build a league that is the frontrunner for the 5th champion spot in the CFP, you are in a good spot. Pac didn't grab the UNLV market, they didn't grab the national tv interest in Air Force. They are hunting schools who can win OOC games and be playoff contenders. They'll come hard after Memphis and Tulane and whomever else they think helps but they aren't looking for academic peers, geography, or markets. They want winners and they want schools willing to overspend to be good. Will the pitch work? Who knows. If not they will grab up UNLV and Air Force and maybe Nevada and whoever is flavor of the day. Think they really have their mind set on 8-10 teams who look like contenders.

I have a theory about what Pac-6 is doing. Don't think they are giving a lot of consideration to whether someone is an academic peer, geographically compatible, or bring a large market. My gut instinct is the pitch is this: We get the teams that make this conference the frontrunner for the 5th auto bid. You aren't going to recover the special status but you make the Pac-6 into the Pac-8, 9, or 10 and go to the playoff four out of five or five out of five years, the media is going to treat you as one of the serious leagues. If you are making the playoff, your tv value arrives right there because you might not be a big boy but you are a bigger boy than MWC, AAC, Sun Belt, MAC, CUSA. If they were market chasing, UNLV and Air Force are automatics. I think Tulane and Memphis are the top targets for 7 and 8. They might be on the UTSA rising star bandwagon for 9. But really think their hope is to skim contenders off and get them in the Pac and focus on getting in the big boy playoff every year.

Taking a break from writing a piece on this very subject. I don't think it's going to be what so many expect simply because nothing says the current framework has to remain.

Main is reason, unless you've got a really big NIL budget you have to develop some freshmen. AState brought in a Colorado QB and turned my stomach listening to him on a podcast talking about how NIL was going to give him a nest egg to get married to his long-time girlfriend after the season. Knew we had thrown that money in a hole. When guys see the finish line and understand there's no NFL contract waiting, they are likely to want the cash and make sure they can still walk straight and add and subtract when football ends.

Kentucky just had to back off a football player they really wanted because he didn't have enough transferrable hours. Both the NCAA and NAIA will dock you for taking a transfer who doesn't meet your requirements for regular transfers. It is the one place where athletes are treated exactly like other students. People whiz and moan about the higher NCAA admission standards for athletes. Out of 134 schools in FBS only about 5 will unconditionally admit a regular student who only meets the NCAA initial eligibility standard. Liberty, ULM, Jacksonville State, and I think Sam Houston. Not looked at Delaware. The NAIA has the right rule. If kid meets the standard applied for unconditional admission at your school, he's eligible. If he doesn't he's got to sit a year and pass like 24 hours with a 2.0 GPA or better.

I disagree. NIL pricing right now is nuts. AState ended up dropping $80,000 on a Colorado QB transfer who played two games and went 0-2 in those games. True freshman went 6-5. Held off some NIL bids to get him into the portal and he's back, basically because his family thinks he can score a much better deal after starting a full year. His number one backup will be a true freshman. You only have so much money to spend and using a money ball philosophy the best buys are offensive linemen, linebackers and strong safeties. So you either get cheap transfers who are cheap for a reason or you sign freshmen and develop them to play the skill positions. Every year a bit over 20% of the people eligible to play football run out of eligibility. Someone has to take freshmen and develop them. A-State has brought in freshman kickers the last two seasons because of the expectation the starting kicker was going to get bought. So he went this year and we will face him at Michigan. A-State can't pay six figures for a placekicker, say we possibly lose eight points over the season, we can't afford to pay $25,000 per point to make up the difference and as the UFL has shown, there are good kickers out there. I 100% believe modern roster building has to include a lot of portal activity but you still have to patch the holes by developing freshmen unless you've got a massive budget and even then the P2 are spending on high school players they project as big contributors. Way I see it, the big losers are jucos. Why would spend much on juco OL when I can get an Ole Miss castoff for just a bit more and they've faced better competition? I'd rather take a WR from Incarnate Word than Blinn because the Incarnate Word kid is getting just as many snaps but playing better competition.