chrisfisher

That website has been scary accurate on our other seasons. I sure hope that the damn College Football Poll computer lost its mind on this one. Otherwise we are in for a long season.

How did they know that there was not anyone in the building? The owner or someone could have been in there collecting last minute momentous. This was an act of stupidness.

It sounds like the kid is trying to redeem himself, and should be given a another chance if so... but, I am more concerned about the fact that we probably don't need another 5" 7' player on the team right now... and we have plenty of able guards... we need to be thinking about another big man... I will be interested to hear what JJ says about this signing if the rumors of his transfer come true..

Lots of folks love the Spurs... I think people were not interested in the game because they already knew the outcome. Had Detroit another stronger team played San Antonio you would have seen more interest because it would have been more of a match up. Cleveland never had a chance and everyone knew it. Go Spurs!

Ya! That's the one! Let's just hope they don't have the same restrictions... I can't wait to see our team on TV again under the new direction of Dodge!

5 year construction time line??? I thought we are getting one sometime in 2009 or 2010????

Doesn't the big 12 have some weird TV restrictions - that games can only be broadcast in the state they take place else the TV company has to go through hoops to broadcast it?? I seem to recall being pissed off that a Mean basketball ball or football game against a Big 12 opponent could not be broadcast in Tx even they were playing in a neighboring state. It turned out that the station couldn't broadcast it 'cause of said Big 12 rules. Maybe I am remembering this wrong, but I am pretty sure.

OK. I'll bite. Why is Chrisfisher a Hispanic name?

Maybe... they may have one good "team" game here and there... but in my eyes, they are a 1-man show... a show the Spurs are going to shut down

Some of you underestimate the Spurs. I hoped that Clevland would make it past Detroit, b/c Detroit was probably the better team and would give San Antonio more trouble. With the one-man show of Lebron, Spurs will know how to handle him and the rest of the Cavs. The Spur's play-off tested veterans will spank the Cavs.

We all do. That's what makes it such a good rivalry.

I think he means local rivals... in my eyes, anyone whose name is something other than North Texas is our rival. I would love to see local rivalries start/continue between UNT and SMU, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, UTA, Texas State, Houston, TCU, and maybe even Rice (BTW, we probably owe them a home game this season). UTA, Texas State, and Houston all brought fans to the Pit this past season, though Houston had a football thing going on in FT. Worth when we played them. Of course, UT and A&M would be great games and natural rivalries, but until we can fill the Pit they will probably not play home games here unless they have severe scheduling problems. Tulsa actually brought fans, but I wouldn't consider that a true local rivalry and I think they had enough of us given they lost each game in our series.

I think it may be a lack of confidence so I still have hope for him. I recall in one home game this season, Howerton exploded to the basket with a one handed slamn dunk right over a defensive player... it was beautiful. Everyone in the student section had comments like, "Damn, look at Howerton! Let's see more of that!" I actually stayed after the game just to tell Howerton what a great play it was. He seemed surprised that I noticed when I talked to him.

Why the "wow." Was that a bad post? I thought it more a statement of fact. By flopping I mean acting as though he was knocked over (i.e. charged into by the offensive player). He does it fairly regularly. I have only seen him get an offensive charge called against his opponent once or twice. He needs to be thinking about playing tall and strong, rather than flopping to ground to get a charge call.

The one thing that really bothers me about Howerton is that he is a big time "flopper". He fell down against Memphis, and it looked silly seeing a 6'10" 250 guy dropping to to floor like a stiff piece of wood after getting bumped...

I've been wondering the same thing Harry. In my eyes, Howerton has made huge strides since his freshman year. He handles the ball better, is more aggressive to the rim, and his overall reflexes are adjusting to the speed of the game. Moreover, last summer he really bulked up from weight training. That said, he still has a ways to go, and I hope he has worked hard over the off-season. At 6-10 250, he could be a major contributor. JJ seems to have confidence in him, and recall that Quincy only recently blossomed in his Junior year. I also recall reading that the Howerton signing was a major steal from the likes of Texas A&M and others so JJ isn't the only one who sees something. I know we are quick to judge Howerton, but I've decided to suspend judgment until we see improvements, if any, this season.

Call me crazy, but Big Oil's reign may have a real challenger... There is a company called ESSTOR that has come up something called a "ceramic battery" (technically not a battery, but they call it that to gain better public acceptance). ESSTOR is a small, private company in Texas (Keller I think, and then moved to Austin). The "battery" received a patent last year, and a Canadian electric car company called Zen Motors has invested millions of dollars into ESSTOR this year. At this point, I'm sure you are saying, "ya, so what?" Here's the kicker: the ceramic battery plugs into regular household electric sockets and fully charges in 5 minutes... "fuel economy?"....it gets 500 miles to the 5 minute charge. It reportedly can produce enough "horsepower" to compete with a Ferrari (depending on how the car manufacturer configures it). Obviously, when you charge your battery you use an electric provider that probably uses oil. However, 5 minutes in a wall plug consumes considerably less fuel than filling up with 20 gallons. If you happen to live in an area that provides wind based electricity, you could conceivably be oil free in 2008 (assuming you can purchase a Zen car). This is NOT science fiction! This ceramic battery exists and Zen plans to release cars with this technology in 2008. There are blog discussions (i.e. pure speculation) that once GM, Ford, etc. realize what is happening that there will be huge bidding war for ESSTOR. BTW, I am very pro-capitalist. However, oil is at the center of nearly every problem in the world today including social, cultural, political, environmental, and military. We can end our problem in the Middle East if we end reliance on oil, and thus stop funding the war against ourselves. The Middle East’s second largest natural resource is sand, which I'd love to feed them with. Their economies will collapse if the world stops buying their oil. I, for one, have made living an oil free life a priority for all the reasons discussed above, plus the fact that I am tired of getting raped by Big Oil simply because "I can tolerate it."

CMJ... great! This news deserves its own thread.. please report CMJ... Great news!

Great idea! You never know who might watch these recruiting success press conferences including unsigned recruits. Moreover, it would put future recruits, especially current high school players, on notice that UNT basketball is a program on the move and attracting top ranked players.

I hope this is not an opener for us though I certainly wouldn't turn down the game either. I'd love to get a couple of games in before we play OSU so that our mostly new lineup have a chance simmer. Nonethess, let's whoop OSU!!

I think all the transfers and persons leaving the team this off-season count against us... which isn't really fair. As far as I can recall, all seniors (KD, Watson, and Young) will/have graduated.

So far we have lost KD, Watson, Young, Edwards, Sturns, Flemmings, and Jackson; and signed White, McCoy, McCoy, and Thompson... and probably Odufuwa. Collin Dennis starts playing this season. We also lost 1 assistant coach (Taylor) and replaced him with Tic Price. We also signed Jones to a 5 year contract. What a busy (and entertaining) off season this has been! When you can look at the formidable list of players we lost, and still feel very good about this upcoming season, you know we had a fantastic recruiting season. By they way, how many scholarships do we have to give now? I think 2, but I am not sure. After Odufuwa then 1?

I didn't mean to imply that I was satisfied with the status quo, only that we didn't need to waste recruiting efforts or a scholarship to get a new big man that could play the upcoming season. I have enormous confidence in Williams, Wooden, and Stewart.

I disagree. I think we are very strong in the big men department for this coming season... we have Sunbelt's best duo of Wooden and Williams, plus Stewart, Jackson (maybe), and Howerton off the bench. I think JJ is going about it correctly and worried more about finding someone to play with Stewart when he takes over his senior year.

No sir. You are not naive. There is alot to be excited about! I started following UNT basketball in 05-06, two seasons ago when I enrolled. For the first season, I thought we had a pretty good team, but were missing a player or two needed to accomplish big things. For 06-07, with the addition of Wooden and Bell plus several other factors such as Quincy and Watson playing really well, I knew, despite the detractors, that we had a good thing going and expected that we'd have a fantastic season. All I can say is that the months can't go by fast enough because I am super excited about the 2007 season. If our new signees and Collin Dennis are "as advertised," we are headed straight back to the NCAA tourny. You can bank on it.