GrandGreen

My view, bring in a very heavy hitter fund raiser, put most of the athletic development staff under this person and have the person report directly to the President or BOR. His/her's one job is to get donations for athletics and structure stadium financing. Leave the Mean Green Club under the AD, but relieve him of major fund raising duties. Structure the new position's contract on results, pay big dollars, and be able to terminate easily if objectives are not met.

No that is not what happened in the first Troy game. NT shot 13-28 3 pointers for 46.8% to Troy's 12-39, 30.8%. Troy beat NT because IMO NT thought that they didn't have to give a lot of effort to beat Troy. Troy won because they out hustled NT, out rebounding NT, had more steals and less turnovers. Hard to believe seeing Troy in person. I think if you are afraid of playing Troy then you must be horrified to play almost anyone else in the Belt. Yes, they could get hot at the 3 pointers and put up a good game, but what team couldn't do the same thing. On a side note, NT still can't handle the press and they have been seeing it all year.

Blakeley inherited the best recruiting class possibly ever at NT and took them to three straight 20+ win seasons. He was basically a .500 coach once he had to live on his own recruits. The class Blakeley inherited, recruiting by Gene Robbins and chief assistant Tubbs. 6'8 Melvin Davis and 6'8 Fred Mitchell both 5a all starters and 6'7 Kenneth Williams a second team all state player. (5 man all state teams not the 20 players teams common now). In addition, a first team Juco all American, 6'8 Terry Bailey and one of the best shooting guards ever at NT, Carl Jones who transferred to NT and became eligible Blakeley's first year. Blakeley added one piece to the puzzle, point guard Weasel Johnson and he was off to the races. However, Blakeley like most after him could not recruit and hovered about .500 for about 5 years before being dismissed. Blakeley, right or wrong, continued to publicly lambaste the administration for poor budget support and IMO hastened his firing. Bill Blakeley's record: TeamWinsLossesPct 82-83 North Texas 15-15 .500 81-82 North Texas 15-12 .556 80-81 North Texas 15-12 .556 79-80 North Texas 13-14 .481 78-79 North Texas 11-16 .407 77-78 North Texas 22-6 .786 76-77 North Texas 21-6 .778 75-76 North Texas 22-4 .846

I think it is past time for NT to make a change, but I take exception to a lot of your comments. In general I think Slinker has recruited fairly well over the years. Actually much better than the men's team until the last couple of years. I have no idea of what you are referring to, with your players with baggage remark. Yes there have been a few minor incidents but compared to most programs, I would give Slinker high marks on the character of her players. I hate to break it to you that NT doesn't compare with Big Twelve Schools in most if not all sports. If NT had a million to pay a coach like Baylor's wbb coach, I would rather they spend it elsewhere than a single wbb coach. You may have not noticed that the women's team is doing better in the Belt than the men. Again I think it is past time for a new head women's coach not because as you opined that Slinker is a bad coach. A truly bad coach would not be coaching in her nineteenth year at NT. The fact is that Slinker has had more than enough opportunities to demonstrate that she can take a team above the mediocrity level. I think RV made an enormous blunder committing NT to a new contract for Slinker in mid season three years ago. This years team IMO has a lot talent and hopefully a new coach can take more advantage of it next year.

I think Fitzgerald and Fentress are the closest to being locks in the starting lineup. The other two positions will be up for grabs with Sam Roberson, Sam Dibrell, Beece Johnson, Brock Stickler, and Ken Washington fighting it out. Dibrell actually started at the end of last year. Ken Washington is probably the fastest of this group but may not start because he is more of an inside receiver and I expect Fentress and Fitzgerald to be the inside starters. Brock is a great blocker but may not have the speed of some others. I also see Johnson as an inside receiver. The true freshmen maybe all so in the race, but based on last year; I think TD will be slow to put them in a starting positions unless one truly excels. My guess at starters, Fitzgerald and Fentress inside and Roberson and Dibrell on the outside.

Wonder why some write off Magrum. Not a bad freshman year but played behind all those big guards. IMO he will be back and contribute and could very well start before he is through. Obviously, if JJ placed Flemings at a juco, he is hoping he will get his academics in order and be back at NT. Flemings could very well be the best player on NT's team if he had played this year. A starting lineup of Odufuwa, Flemings, Thompson, Dennis and White next year would not be bad. Yes, a dominating big man would be nice but those are little difficult to recruit.

This team is just not very good with continued mediocre to bad front court play. For NT to have any tournament hope, Wooden is going to have to get in basketball shape and time is running out. Williams is a senior player who cannot seem to play without getting into early foul trouble. Nothing like getting beat by letting a walk-on have a Larry Byrd like night.

Very few black players from the South were recruited by integrated programs, even the teams that played black players were not recruiting great numbers. 240 lbs in that day and age was considered great size. Not sure what a recruiting comparison with over four decades ago serves. It is obvious that NT got all those great black players because they had negligible recruiting competition in Texas and surrounding states.

Obviously, Scout is the best rating system based on NT's evaluation. However, if you used rivals' average stars to rate teams; NT would move up about 17 places and be the best in the Belt. The bonus points Rival uses makes little if any sense. Take the Rival highest ranked Belt Team, the MUTS as an example. The MUTS climb to the top of the Belt was apparently related to their signing of a rival 4 star athlete, Anthony Jones, who happened to be high on their national lists. Scout has him rated as three stars so it is for from unanimous that he merits extra bonus points. NT, for example has two Scout rated 4-star athletes. Jones had committed to South Florida earlier but apparently did not academically qualify and South Florida decided to limit their number of special athletic admits. He then signed with the MUTS. Obviously, the MUTS have hopes that he can play; but MTSU is not Troy. Their academic standards are similar to NT and Jones may have a very difficult time ever seeing the field. Troy next in Rivals' rankings based on signing 33 players which is only eight over the limit. Frankly, I am not sure anyone can get a good handle on Troy's recruiting because of the great number of borderline eligible recruits that they sign. Some could be counted against last year's class but it is obvious that they expect a substantial number to not qualify. Complicating the process further, according to their local newspaper's blog; they have a number of gray-shirts from last year that should get ships. What is indisputable is that NT and TD did an outstanding job in recruiting. NT can recruit against any of the non-power conference teams and win, something other staffs have not been able to do even with winning programs.

Great second half for the Green. The team definitely played with an attitude. The guards played well, but I though this was an excellent game by the front court. I have always thought that the NT front court played soft despite being one of the tallest lines in the Belt, definitely not the case tonight. Looked like Howard was really to take on Chrystal Kelly, Koubiteb and Jackson also were stellar. If Brittany James can just get some consistency, she would be an all conference caliber player.

Very unfortunate, Dez was really comming on and this is a lousy way to end his last college year. The only positive is that it will allow the other guards more playing time. I think Thompson deserves more minutes and McCoy may be begining to get his "A" game together.

Nate Jenkins, offensive lineman; rival 3 star, juco form Mississippi 6'4 335

The best game I've seen the ladies play in years. They could have won this game by 50. Great game by Brittany James, she could not be stopped. Other standouts: Amber Jackson and Kelli Buckles. Could this team get on a roll and save Slinker's job once again?

My guess: DE: Gilmore and Horton first team; Owussu-Heming and Sykes backups, other possibilities Rexrode, Davenport, Brown, Russo DT: Miller at one position, a battle for other tackle and key backups between Ross, Stewart, Scoggin, Desoto, Krider LB: Robertson, Pinson, Mahon as first team; backups Davis, Padron, Warren, Hager TD must be happy with LB as it sure was not a recruiting priority but there is little experience in this group. CB: Bush and a battle between Jucos Adams and Edwards for other position, look for freshmen Hill and Cooks to be backups S: Juco Hill and rs Garden, Backups are Agobottah (sp), Freshmen Shorter, Williams

It is not rational to try make sense out of an irrational rating system. To rate the individual players on a number basis, but than to evaluate the team's class with some other voodoo factors is not logical. Troy being above NT is one thing, but La Tech, Tulsa, Temple and Tulane! La Tech is even above Troy. It would be interesting to see Rival ratings' correlation with the amount of revenue generated by teams' fans and websites to Rival. Naturally, if Rival choses to give some great mysterious rating upgrade, like they bestowed on Troy, to NT; most will overlook the foolishness of all this.

I think the problem may be more with DRC management than Vito. Several from the DRC have hinted that they are almost doing a favor for NT by covering athletics, which IMO is total BS; that is the type of thing small community newspaper's cover. One of the problems is that Vito and the DRC also because of the ownership of the papers end up providing almost the total NT sports coverage through the DMN. Vito/DRC, I think should be commended for expanded coverage through blogs and Vito's willingness to add his thoughts on the GMG pod casts. However, I think Vito/DRC's handling of the racial allegation was abhorrent. I don't blame them for reporting the incidents, because it could have become a major incident. After breaking the story, they should have been responsible enough to conduct an investigation and report the truth. The whole incident was the result of some disgruntled young men making unfounded allegations, this should have been covered with the same fervor as the allegation. There was no reason to report on a player getting locked up for traffic violations, this did not effect the team and served no purpose other than needlessly embarrass someone. TD's, IMO irrational, stance of making beat writers stand outside the fence at practice probably doesn't help the situation.

JJ is now 43-58 in conference games, hardly worthy IMO of a five year contract. The truth is though, he is the only BB coach in decades that has had any measure of success at NT. Hopefully, he can at least get a home game to start the tournament and as we know anything can happen. I do hope JJ is a lot more concerned about this team than demonstrated by his usual hoo-hum post game interview. I can't believe he actually thinks this team was excellent for 36 minutes in this game. On a positive note, It looks like White is almost back to normal and Howerton played a good game.

NT should raise coaches salaries, build a fantastic stadium, and cut out the money games. Now, we have given the administration all these great free ideas, all they have left to do is figure out how to fund them.

A disappointing loss, but after watching the game Thursday; I feared that NT would also lose to lowly FAU. This team is totally out of sync, hopefully they can recover from all the injuries and illness. The team I thought was one of the most talented in NT history has looked mediocre at best in conference play. I think the major problem is that with all the new players and health issues, NT has not established a consistent rotation. NT is also getting killed in the front court without a healthy Wooden. None of NT back up front court have demonstrated they are anything but spot minute players.

There is no good answers and I think it is up to the players to protect themselves to the extent they can. Remember there is absolutely nothing binding in a verbal commit. The only thing that counts is the integrity of the players and institutions involved. Some universities such as UT will revoke offers if the players continues to look at other offers. I think this is perfectly acceptable and any committed player should know he is vulnerable. In the case of a coaching changes, in my view a player unless they get some assurance from the institution involved should know that his commitment will be in jeopardy. If an incoming coach such as June Jones decides an already committed player is not good enough to play for him, there are no good options. Revoking the offer is probably better than taking an unwanted player, who most likely will be given little change to compete. IMO a far for more egregious wrong, is those schools that rescind offers solely because they have been able to get more promising recruits. The only partially remedy is to have an early signing period in football. This won't cut out all the abuses as some schools are committing underclassmen players. Also even players that have signed and have legal contracts can be easily dissuaded by coaches that do not want to honor those contracts. It is not below some coaches, to suggest to an unwanted signee that he does have the talent to play and strongly indicate he may be better off somewhere else.

I don't think White has recovered from the hamstring injury. Obviously based on the last few games, neither White or Wooden were ready to play extended minutes. Again I don't understand why JJ with the game obviously lost, didn't rest players. I would have liked to see Howerton, McCoy and Willingham get more minutes. I was hoping that the team could have a break out year, but it looks like another usual JJ, about .500 conference record, ball club. We can only hope that the team gets through all the illness and injuries and has time to jell for the conference tournament.

If most of the team had the flu, a game Saturday, and losing by close to 30 points, why in the world did JJ keep the regulars in and in a bad full court press to boot?

Yes I think the coach meant it as a complement when he stated he wished that Josh was in another conference. The thing I didn't like was the implication that Josh White would be at ULL if they only had another ship to offer.

Slinker had 4 early signees, so I guess she didn't skip recruiting altogether. With her status, it's a wonder that she was able to sign anyone. I still question the wisdom of allowing her to use four ships when the odds are that there will be a new coach here next year.