GrandGreen

Not only horrible performance, but an insufferable announcer on Cajun broadcast and they show not one but two replays on every ULL basket. Maybe a good thing the way UNT is playing, seldom see the NT offense.

Another horrible start, down 15-29 with 3 left in half.

Huh, Money games are played for money, not because they enhance your bowl opportunities.

I think there are many people that care what the academic standards are. There is sure a lot of money spend on I guess what you would call window dressing at universities all across the line for tutors and academic support for college athletes. The primary people who better care about academics are the athletes themselves. At least at most universities the pay the athletes receive is in the form of an education. Why would Troy recruit the way they do unless it gave them an advantage? I guess they just want to commit or sign twenty borderline athletes and rely on fate to see which ones actually eventually qualify. I don't fault Troy for their stradegy it is obviously working for them on the field or they would not do it. Do you think per a recent article that UT's Administion is happy that their football squad's average SAT scores are approximately 300 points lower then the average student? I would assume that UT believes it is advantageous to the win column to have a football team made up almost completely of special admission students. So I don't think anyone can rational deny there is a strong correlation between success and admission standards.

corrected, thanks

I can't think of any excuses for being blown out by a ASU team starting three freshman. White after maybe his best point play ever at Little Rock, looked very bad two days later. Only Thompson among the guards had any success. The front court after being at least adequate the game before was totally outplayed. The only highlight was the forgotten Knox, who in nine minutes had 2 points, 3 rebounds, 1 block and a steal. I was hoping for much better, but JJ's team is about were it always is at this point in the schedule. Last year's team started out the conference schedule 1-3; in the 2007-2008 season, NT lost the first two games and was 2-2 after 4 games and in the tournament championship year NT also started out 2-2. The good thing is that NT finished those years strong; 2008-2009, NT won 6 of 7 regular season conference games; 2007-2008, NT won 5 of the last 6 and in 2006-2007, NT won 3 of the last 4. In the last three years, NT finished well and if had not been for an outstanding WKU team could have more than one NCAA appearance to show for it. In my opinion, NT has been at best mediocre this year, but JJ's coaching history does give hope that this team still may jell and be something special.

Knox is playing about as well as anyone else on this team.

The first half maybe our best half.

Hope JJ fires them up, I don't think they can play another half that bad.

You mean NT got rid of the coach who instead of building on the momentum to better the program, chose to use it instead to try to get a better job.

Lucky to only be behind 10. Shows what happens when no one is hitting on an bad offensive team.

Messy but hard fought game by both teams. White was clutch at the end. Great game by White, Odufuwa and Thompson.

Not bad, I agree White has played well at the point. One of Odufuwa best offensive halfs, Holman also holding his own.

You need to read more. I am netrual on Leach, however I am somewhat astounded by the venom toward the James'. It is obvious to most that Leach was trying to embarass Adam James, a truely stupid move no matter what the player did or did not do. As to the elder James, there are not many parents who would not have been very upset at the threatment of their child.

Sure it is a loophole. The intent of the 25 scholarships a year and 85 total scholarships maximums are obviously to limit the number of players at any university? Conversely, signing a letter of intent is supposed to signify that player and school have a contractual agreement. The loophole is that even though they sign more than the limits, less than that number actually qualify to enter school. Per their coach, he always has scholarships available for those that qualify which is hard to believe given they over sign every year. Sure there is academic hypocrisy at every turn in the NCAA as you have stated. Is Troy's manipulation of the recruiting process any worse than some of your examples? No, but it is more blatant and it does give them an advantage over the other Belt schools. The truth is that Troy has little to give up in terms of academic reputation and I assume the school is okay with trading a piece of their integrity for a winning team. As far as Troy provided educational opportunities, that is a real stretch.

Didn't you just answer your own question? They have the lowest of standards, therefore anyone that can make it through the NCAA minimums has a great chance to be able to play at Troy.

Good points by Tasty. I can't remember a JJ team that is this bad at rebounding which is strange because the front court is the same as last year. Teams are really dominating their offensive glass against the Green. The defense is very disappointing inasmuch as that was supposed to be improved over last year. However, I do believe the biggest issue is at point guard. All last year, I took issue with those that thought NT's problem was bad point guard play because Johnson and White was a good point combo. This year with Johnson out, and White having to carry most of the load, the point is a big problem. White having to play long minutes at point is taking away a lot of his offense. He is not a natural point and I believe he is being forced into using much too much of his energy on just getting the ball down the court. Unfortunately, he is about the only option on the team. Hopefully as the season progresses, Williams can at least give him longer rests. As far as Thomas and Shorter, it is still a little early to tell. McCoy was not a big factor until his senior year and Dennis had the benefit of a redshirt year. I do wonder about the opinion that Thomas as the second best natural shooting. He hasn't shown much yet and I would rate his shooting definitely behind White, Thompson, and Mangrum. Nether Thomas or Shorter have yet shown the defense of Dennis despite being taller. I do prefer Thomas as a starter with Mangrum coming off the bench with more minutes.

This guy is going to have a lot better opportunities than NT can offer at this time.

Best game of the bowl season thus far. Obviously, if Idaho can do it; NT should definitely be able to turn it around. Idaho in a state with a handful of FB division recruits a year and maybe the worst facilities in the nation. The MAC can't win a bowl game.

A strange game, The NT team did not look good at all; yet most of the individual performances appeared good. I thought Shorter had his best game of the year. Holman showed why many were so excited about his potential at the first of the year. He shoot well including the game winner. Yes, I would have been the first to criticize if he had missed that shot. Thompson had another very strong game, his outside shoots were not falling but he was going strong to the basket. Mangrum also added hustle and fire to the team if not consistent play. The team might have been so out of sync without Tremial. Luckily TSU has little offensive inside game, so NT barely survived. The good thing about the game was that they won over a very athletic if not good team without Tremial and without good outside shooting. NT's defense overall was inconsistent and gave up too many easy buckets that has to be fixed. NT's offense was too often stagnant and seemed to be primarily pass it around on the exterior and then take a long shot. There were a few series were they moved the ball well mostly with Mangrum in the game.

The much ballyhooed new assistant coach Saudia Roundtree is apparently no longer with the team. Looking for something else, noticed a posting for a new asst. bb. coach at UNT. Being curious to see who had left, noticed that Roundtree is no longer listed as a basketball coach. Turnovers for SS seem to remain problems on and off the court. Not unusual for asst. coach turnover but in the middle of the season.

Again, I wonder what authoritative sources that you are reading; surely not fan message boards. I frankly doubt the private school dominated Western CUSU is going to give much support to La Tech. SMU probably would support Dallas Bapist over NT, but other than that; I don't see a lot of enthusiasm for an underfunded, small market, Northern Louisiana University with mediocre academics. This by the way, is an opinion; not supported by any documentation.

Being that there should be less than 400 top 100 players eligible in any one year, and over half the football teams get a bowl game; I don't see much surprising in that statistic. Being the top 100 players are concentrated in a few teams, there are lots of them sitting on the bench at USC, UT, etc. Also with the number of teams in bowl games, there are a lot of mediocre bowl teams with very few top 100 players on the squad. I am willing to bet that 8.4% is a lot higher than the second 100 players, third 100, etc starting in bowl games I guess the point is that recruiting ratings are often wrong and that some teams do very well with few highly touted players. Obviously true, but it is also true that there is a very strong correlation between recruiting ratings and high ranked teams.

NT getting out hustled right now, this team can't seem to maintain a good lead.