GrandGreen

Actually he and teammate Jackson have more than committed, they have signed LOI's.

Men Team should be the best in JJ's career. Great depth. The guards could evolve into the best since Hamilton, Winfield, and Whitaker in the MVC days. If Sturns continued to improve, watch out. Davis is a much better player than I thought he would be. Davis, Sturns and Watson give NT a great group of shooting guards. Hines at point has been solid but I don't think he has yet played up to his level of last year. Brown is a very solid backup point. In the front court, Simpson has continued to develop but needs help. Quincy Williams seems to have all the tools but still is inconsistent. Barnett's last game was his best this year and hopefully he can improve on that. Last game, JJ had Barnett and Simpson in the game at the same time and I hope he experiments with this lineup more. Summary; it is early yet, but this team has very good players in Hines, Davis, Simpson and maybe a developing star in Sturns. They are currently not a good team, but the parts are there to become one and challege for the Belt title. Women Imo, the most talented team in NT history. Not the best, but they possess the most raw talent. Erica Bobo is the leader of this team and should have an outstanding year. She can flat take over a game, great speed and excellent defense. I thought she should have remained at point last year, but with the depth at point this year that is not necessary. My prediction is that Trica Lee will take over the point position this year and years to come. Other guards Williams and Wali appear to be much better than last year. S. Jackson looks to be a start in the future and a good candidate to take over for Bobo next year. The overall guard play should be very good this year, but they need to develop an outside scoring threat . In the front court, 6'3 Howard, 6'2 Sanders, 6'2 A. Jackson and 6'3 Ajewu all have the ability to be excellent players. Each at times has had big games but for the most part have been inconsistent. RS freshman Amber Jackson based on the few games she has played looks like she may have the inside offensive game that NT has lacked for years. IMO, one of the problems this year is that teams are packing the zone because of the poor NT outside shooting and it is difficult to get the ball into the posts. Summary, good start at 5-1 but the Belt is a top notch women basketball league and NT must continue to get better to be successful. In my view, Slinkers' teams underachieve. They play hard and usually play good defense, but are generally poor shooting teams with way too many turnovers. Slinker to her credit has the talent this year and I am going to be dissappointed if they don't get close to 20 wins. I have been critical of Slinker's coaching for years but little would make me happier than to see her succeed and elevate this program to a top tier status. Let me tell you that both of these teams are great fun to watch and I encourage you all to support the team with your attendence. It is a shame that so few were entertained by last Saturday's double header.

Chuck Mills?

Am I the only one that thinks the largest problem illustrated by this fan's observations is not that Fouts is a second rate facility. But that we have school districts building athletic palaces when the state cannot even adequately fund the academic mission of schools. This unlike college facilites comes straight out of the taxpayers pockets. I think that is far more pathetic than some complaining fan's disappointment at having to endure a game at Fouts.

I have no idea what you are saying?

I think if nothing else many of you are proving my point. First, I didn't say that RV was not a good AD. I pointed out things that over a five year period that could have been handled better imo. Then as I stated in my comments, many give RV most of the credit for the improvements that have been made on his watch, but tend to blame others for the failures or setbacks. IMO, you can't have it both ways.

Yes $95m was the fund raising goal as I remember. RV was brought in partly because he was supposed to be a great fundraiser. After this last football season, many are willing to throw almost everyone under the bus; DD, coaching staff, UNT angels, the chairman of the BOD, our biggest contributors, radio team, Chancellor, security team, other fans, etc. But few seem to want to hold RV accountable for the current state of the NT athletic program. The very person who should be responsible for both the good, bad and ugly of the program. While many generally laud RV's performance, he has not been without issues such as these: Security company problems, who hired them and gave them directions. Questionable approach to obtaining additional student fees for athletic use Limited NT options by giving Long term contracts to coaches Belt Basketball tournament at Denton fiasco Failure to gain any significant fan support for the basketball programs Allows a coach to continuously make comments critical and detrimental to NT athletic program Applies for other Belt jobs Fund raising far below objectives Commitment to effectively communicate with fan base not fulfilled Some are going to say most of the above deals with things that are not under RV's control, and they maybe right. However, if you give RV credit for Eagle Point and the substantial improvement in NT's facilities, enhancing the Fouts experience, etc. doesn't it follow that he should also be criticized for other functions that should be AD responsibilities.

Dang, I don't hear anyone complaining about the"old nester" alumni side being docile this year. Actually I sit maybe 10 feet from Bob and frankly I don't particularly care for his ranting. I was not there for the George incident, but did hear his comments loud and clear for the entire ballgame. At no time was there any profanity and what he was saying was no different from a lot of other fans, it just happened to be a lot louder. I wonder who RV's witnesses were citing cussing, cause it didn't take place.

I fail to see how building a school in South Dallas is going to keep UNT from building a stadium in Denton. State funds can be used for building academic buildings not athletic. The number of possible contributors to a stadium that would divert their gifts to UNT South would be very small imo. The fact that it will eventully take students from the Denton campus is a given but how is this any worse than if the campus was under the UT, Tech or A&M flag. They where all interested in developing an university in Dallas. Last I heard the law school was being planned for downtown Dallas and could be an independent college separate from both the Denton and South Dallas universties. I agree SMU as an entity has done as much as they can to hinder the development of NT, but to suggest that NT employees because they have some relationship with SMU in the past or present are intent on derailing NT is frankly silly.

Lineberry is hopefully going to play another year at NT. If he makes satisfactory academic progress, he will get to play another year.

Wonder how anyone thinks that DD can turn his recruiting around in one year? Anyone notice that most players that are considered hot prospects have already committed? DD's recruiting like the last four years will mostly be limited to picking the best players that do not have any other non Belt IA offers. The only difference this year is that NT will most likely even be outrecruited by the other Belt members for area players.

I agree with you on all your points. I also saw Taylor being listed as going to several other schools before he signed with Nebraska. DD's major problem is it is hard to recruit under all these circumstances to adversity U. Would you sign with NT when the coach does not even convey that he wants to be here? DD has consistenly been beaten badly by ever other Texas School in recruiting since 2000. He has absolutely failed to capitalize on his own success or the substantially improving athletic facilities. One saving grace has been that he has at least recruited above or at the level of the other Belt schools, that may not be true this year.

Did you know that ASU had their own version of the grenade celebration after the game, with about 15 players involved? IF it was classless for NT, I would have to said it is classless for ASu. Also kind of stupid to celebrate barely beating a 2-9 team.

[ You love to rant on DD and his staff but lets look at the facts: In 2003 the team was 9 and 4 the football budget was cut by 11% the recuiting budget was cut by 18%. In 2004 the team was 7 and 5 so we cut the budget another 9% and the recuiting budget by another 6%. The teams that you love to make fun of FAU, MTSU and FIU have recuiting budgets over $200,000 UNT is $88,000 Next year the FIU athletic budget will be over $22,000,000 with a football budget over $6,000,000 while FAU will stay at about $16,000,000 over all and a football budget of $4,500,000. How about last years budget we were 4th in the SBC with $2,976,279 (FIU at $3,892,475, FAU $3,895,829, MTSU $3,892,130) The two Florida schools have started raising money for the new stadiums what has University of North Texas done??? Yea they got a new athletic complex on your 200 acre golf course. What about the other things that are need to bring this program up to standards. Then you wander why DD says "this is the most....." You love RV lets see the money............. ←

Losing RF would hurt recruiting? Of all the things to worry about in NT athletics, this is got to be near the bottom of the list.

Playing a team with 4 games under their belt, and you have only played a Div 2 school should present a huge challenge. This game should tell us a lot about this team.

Different ears, I guess. I thought ULM band was not in the same league as NT. I did enjoy their band and commend them for comming, but as far as the quality, there was no comparison. They like UNT played a very limited selection but not nearly as well.

Do not know if there were 19K tickets sold, obviously not 19k in actual attendence. Perhaps, NT is finally getting wise and doing what 90% of the teams that don't sell out do, and reporting higher numbers than actual attendence. Compared to some other local college attendence reported at games I've seen, I'd say NT is still very conservative. Great game atmosphere and a good game, the team fought hard. No complaints about this game.

SFA ladys were 6th in the Southland, last year. But their best player, was out for most of the conference games. NT was lucky to get this win, they were definitely out hustled and beat soundly in the inside game. All of SFA better players fouling out at the end and a very very one sided free shot total saved the Green. Thank goodness for Bobo, without her it would not have even been close.

The 1999 team beat Tech and Boise State, other than 0-52 loss to LSU, they were at least not completely blown out in games. Losing 3-28 UNLV, 10-23 Baylor, Idaho 10-28, Ark State 10-14, 28-41 Nevada, 3-27 TCU, 9-22 New Mexico State and 7-34 Utah State. If NT wins the final two games, a case could be made that current team is better than 1999 and 2000. However, not playing within 40 points of any team rated above 95 does not exactly present a strong case. Losing the last two games or getting blown out in one of the games would just about insure that this team imo is as bad as any in recent history.

May not be the worst team, but it is certainly the most disappointing. Rod Rust last team went 1-10 but talk about adversity, after his golden years with Joe Greene, etc. NT continued to cut their football budget and imo Rust did not have a chance. All clubs of Fry, Moore, and even the worst hire ever, Bob Tylers' teams would have imo beat our current club. Interesting in the 10 year period after the Rod Rust firing and entry into IA, NT only had more then forty points scored against them five times; 9-56 lost to highly rated San Diego State in Fry's first year, 0-41 loss to Memphis in Fry's second year, 7-61 loss to Okla State by Fry team that later beat Houston 28-0, and Tennessee 21-14. Jerry Moore teams had losses to East Carolina 16-49 and BYU 23-41. No team had more than 40 scored against them over once in a year. This years team has had more than 40 scored against them in every oc game including over 50 three times. Even though NT's 1aa teams all would give this years team a tough game, I assume we don't want to compare todays team with twenty more ships to the Iaa teams. An analysis of Simon's teams would seem to indicate although in first three years in 1A all were better than the current version of the mean green. Simmon's first year against the toughest schedule every played by NT went 2-9 with basically a IAA squad. His last two years he was 4-7 and 3-8. Even D Dickey early Big West teams had better showings then this year's squad. In 98 DD lost to OU 9-37, Tech 0-30, A&M 9-28 and Ariz State 15-34. In 99 lost to LSU 0-52, Baylor 10-23 and TCU 3-27 and beat Tech 21-14. DD's 2000 team was his closest to being as unsuccessful as the current team going 3-8 including beating a 1aa team and bad losses to Boise State 0-59, Ark State 28-53 and Kansas State 10-55. In summary there are two teams in recent 1a history that maybe as bad as the current team. The 2000 DD team and Rod Rust's last team. The difference is that hardly anyone expected either of these clubs to be much better. Rust's team followed two 3-8 years, and the 2000 team was after DD first two teams went 3-8 and 2-9. Compare this with the current Mean Green returning most of their offensive team including two national rushing leaders. A team that was rated higher than any NT since the Fry years and predicted to win their fifth conference championship. No doubt this team will have the most disappointing finish of any NT team in recent history.