dahbeed

and i was there!!! asu had a good crowd. they just outplayed us in the first half. i had been telling the asu folks this wku defense is nasty. really put some hits on aplin in the second half.

only 'semi-off-topic'........what fan base went more stuart smalley after one good year: ulala or red woofs? p.s. even more off topic....that question reminds me of a laurie anderson song from the 80's. the lyric it reminded me of: la primera pregunta es: que es mas macho, pineapple o knife?

funny wasn't actually the adjective i woulda used 'this time last year'

fake lonnie, they upped him from ~250 last year to around 485 this year to beat back memphis overtures. i hear rumors we could put together 1 million per if someone else comes calling. with the money the big boys throw around i doubt that would be enough. jack harbaugh basically adopted willie. jack had a tempestuous relationship at best here. he was all smiles saturday night when the stadium club was named after him but i'm not sure what direction he'd nudge willie with fatherly advice. p.s. on a personal note....i'm a real lonnie.....that's my middle name so your posts have always amused me.

fake lonnie...we all knew what willie the player was made of. but he was just the running backs coach at stanford. i don't think anyone saw this turnaround this quick. he has raided flarda so much i call us the west flarda hilltoppers. i believe we now have 31 recruits from the sunshine state. an occasional kid outta miami or lakeland or orlando but the majority out of his hometown of bradenton. add in the tampa st. pete area. last year he brought on raymond woodie as an assistant coach. he's prolly in his 50's and was a high school legend as a coach down there. last year we had more flarda players than any other non flarda school. he's installed the stanford west coast attack in an era where everyone is running a spread. when we lost to fcs isu last year i questioned if he was in over his head. we were using every timeout just to get plays in. but we clicked in the next game against asu even though we lost. we didn't lose another sun belt game the rest of the year. everyone said we'd fall back due to the loss of rainey. this year's team is much better than last year's squad. jakes is the 19th rated qb in the country and playing like a 5th year senior. antonio andrews....mr. kentucky his senior year is doing a bobby rainey imitation. i believe he's second in the country in all purpose yards as he's a hella receiver out of the backfield. uk didn't even offer andrews. the kid i've been telling folks about is true freshman leon allen. he's 6'0 and 230 and better speed than rainey had. our true strength lies in both lines. we've manhandled everyone's lines except bammer and i believe that one was a draw. anyone that knows football knows it all starts with your lines. i hear we can go as high as a million per for him if we have a great season. but i suspect that won't be enough to keep him. i figure he's gone. i'd love to keep him one more year but that's kinda dreaming.

i think we'll be pretty good. i went up and saw the newcomers one afternoon. all should contribute. we're pumped about ray having the job. what he did in half a season was incrayeeblay. he's brought in some shooters. i talked to caden dickerson (argyle product) and he says he's fully healed. he was nailing 3's like i do when i misremember my church & industrial league days. teeng o'koul (as the tourney radio guy called him) shot nothing but jumpers. ray'll break that habit. tj price has really been working on his handles. he probably blossomed more than anyone under ray. he's gonna be a handful for anyone. george fant looks better every time i see him. preseason will probably have you guys and middle at the top. but i'm not sold on kermit. dendy finally gave him a good season but he's gone. south al has a lot back. i believe troy has their every other year 10 senior squad. we should be better than last year but i don't know if that'll be enough.

i hadn't been over here in awhile and just wondered what your boy has been up to. looks like the mean green are having a good offseason. just read up on the new guy coming from marquette. nice. not nice for the rest of us though. our offseason couldn't be better. simply because ken mcdummy is nowhere to be found. norman dale (ray harper) has been working on keeping jimmy chitwood's elbow warmed up. i'm sure before we play ya'll this year that he'll pull out a tape measure and assure the toppers that the rims are 10' high and the free throw line is 15' from the rim. he'll have no business keeping the toppers close in a game with the mean green but i'm sure he'll give it his best shot. full disclosure: my nickname for my pee wee baseball team was 'shooter' p.s. as assistant head coach i helped our pee wee team to the county championship this year. had over 1200 views on ihigh the night of the game. i'm worldwide. p.p.s. i'll miss the mean green in hoops.

i haven't missed one at western in years. i almost didn't go last year because of mcdummy. but i wanted to see all of the new kids. yes...we usually piggyback onto a volleyball game. there are worse things than watching the volleyballers. western's ladies are usually pretty good and usually pretty nice to look at. (perv points for me) the only thing i don't like is they combine the womens program with it. call me a hater. i couldn't care less about the womens team. after about 20 minutes of their slow motion pseudo hoops the men play a short scrimmage. we've had dunk contests in the past and 3 point shooting contests. they actually do get quite a few students out for it. i have no idea what chuck norris....i mean ray harper has in store for this year but i'm sure i'll be there. if i can go when mcdummy is our coach i can certainly go now.

lol.

derrick's been a 'one off' type since he got here. very moody. most of it has to do with his twin brother who is in prison for attempted murder. my son was friends on facebook and was always telling how derrick talked about missing him. i imagine he'll end up somewhere closer to home. supposedly he told ray he needed more minutes and more shots so he could get to the nba asap and ray told him to get in the gym and work on his shot. i loved his fire on dee and going to the boards but he was a 35% shooter and a 26% 3 point shooter. a little better version of trey finn in my book. he turned the ball over like he was shaving points. i would have been infinitely more upset if it had been tj price or george fant. i didn't want him to leave and wish him well. i have full faith that ray can replace everything he brought to the table. only not the 91 turnovers in a non primary ball handler role.

move along. nothing to see here folks.

classic movie. prolly my favorite job by dennis hopper next to his role of frank booth. he was frighteningly believable as frank. on a side note...when i was helping txtop with his coach pitch baseball team my nickname was 'shooter' p.s. can you imagine if the role of shooter had some frank booth in him? can you imagine shooter's dialogue in the huddle describing the picket fence as frank? what's sad is i can picture that.

i actually threw that out there like a hanging curve on purpose to see if anyone would call it. you can belee me or not. p.s. most folks wouldn't catch that little nugget...you're obviously not 'most folks'

i do dislike both. when we beat mee-shee-gan and the fab 2 back in 95 we played kansas in the second round and their fans arrogance is unrivalled. they act like they invented the game. fortunately i don't live in kansas. i do live in ky and the cat fans arrogance reeks as well. my appetite for schaudenfraude is enormous. if they jayhawks can rock chalk the cats i will be very pleased. i don't think they can. this uk team at times has reminded me of early 90's unlv with their ability to completely disrupt passing lanes and they are tremendous finishers off they break. i will watch it even with my complete dislike of uk.

absolutely. and to act like we never use it is hypocritical. if ray hopper said tomorrow he was signing a 4 year home and home with ut-martin our fans would be apopleptic. i get it. but i don't have to like it. i get that mike patton has a great voice and hair and i don't .......but i don't like it.

they sound exactly like vandy fans. my oldest son has had a pituitary tumor for 11 years. when discovered we could only go 2 places, jewish hospital in louieville or vanderbilt university hospital in nashville. 45 minutes closer made vandy a no brainer. the hospital and all people there are wonderful. but the arrogance of their fanbase and students is not hidden. the 'you will work for me line' is used every time we play them. when driving through campus you do notice the license plates on the beemers are from all over the country as well. the reason i asked about the entrance standards was that vandy traditionally does have good basketball teams. harder to recruit 85 braniacs than 13 so the weak football is understood. but stallings seems to bring in good sec level talent every year. stallings is very arrogant. when we beat them at bridgestone arena a couple years ago in nashville i listened to his postgame show and he basically said everything bounced right for us and wrong for them. we're not really a rival to them as we don't play them often enough. now that we have 'the hopper' on board as head coach i'd love to see us get a series going with them. right now would be a great time for unt to get a series with smu but i wouldn't look for that to happen. they'll use the conference games too tough excuse and nothing to gain, everything to lose mantra.

are the entry standards at smu any tougher than vandy?

yes.

go ohio.

i can tell you this about johnny jones. he's highly respected by the western fans that know their hoops. just like any board we have folks that call our conference the suck belt and don't have a clue about anyone not wearing a western jersey. myopic fans. but those of us that follow COLLEGE HOOPS and not just western hoops....we like johnny jones. i can't imagine he's in any trouble at all with his bosses. we have been very fortunate in the times that we knocked out the mean green. never a blowout as far back as i can remember. i might be an idiot but i see improvement in hoops across the sun belt. and even if i didn't i say we (western and unt) leave 'em behind if they don't want to take it serious. and i love our football team. these 2 recruiting classes should be a handful for somebody as early as next year but really troublesome for others their junior seasons.

i can never tell if you guys are being dry or serious but we were the first school to do that. only ours were 2 & 2's with georgia for felton and south carolina for horn. it was written in mcdummy's contract but we know how that played out.

good for you amigo. i just wanted to keep it under 20. an old friend texted me and told me he had 200 on keeping it under 30! these damn uk fans get drunk on that moonshine and will bet the trailer on it. he mighta been sweatin' it in the second half.

i wasn't sure about shaka smart. excelled with another's players. we played them twice this year with one in diddle. i was very impressed. their speed and their sellout to system is unreal. they're gonna be good for awhile. i'm sold on shaka now.

pretty embarrassing. i was proud that we didn't quit. we need a point god immediately. kevin kaspar looked pretty good but went down with injury midway through the season. word is that hickey wants to leave lsu and come home but that would involve a sit out. tj price looked good tonight. george fant had a really good second half. derrick gordon had a decent second half. all freshmen. we have some nice parts but definitely need to add more. regardless i'm very happy to have ray in charge. even as godlike a figure that he is he couldn't overcome the talent disparity.

thanks for the clip. rupp had always avoided diddle. the ncaa wouldn't let him that year. big time racial undertones in the game. rupp had insinuated a.a. center jim mcdaniels wasn't intelligent enough to understand something. the uk fans called us the western ky blacktoppers or john oldham's ni**ers. i was 1 of only 2 kids in the 7th grade that was pulling for the hometown team. needless to say i stuck it in some faces on return to school.