GrandGreen

RV has applied for several AD jobs over the past few years, most would be viewed as lateral moves. I guess I am missing something, but that seems to indicate that he is, for whatever reason, not satisfied at NT. IMO, NT needs to have an AD that wants to be here and will devote all his/her's effort to improving NT's athletic programs. As I have posted before, I am amazed that so many fans are willing to give RV praise for everthing positive but offer excuses for the negatives that have happened under his tenure. If you give majority credit to RV for facility improvments, upgrading women's sports to be in compliance with title 9, and greatly improving the Fout's experience than you also should be critical of the things that have not progressed as planned. One of the main reasons, that RV was hired was his reputation as a fund raiser. So I definitely think he should be subject to criticism for his lack of success. As far as hiring and retaining Coaches, RV imo has been questionable at best. If RV gives Slinker more than a 1 year contract that grade will go down.

He may turn out to be a great player, I hope so. But there were 45 players chosen first team all district in his conference. Anyone else concerned he was not? Post in error, apparently he was chosen first team his senior year.

Maybe he is confused because the GMG recruiting site states Northwestern State.

Don't you think it is part of the recruiting process to evaluate the likelihood that a recruit may have academic issues. Teams like NT take more chances than more established programs with borderline recruits because they can't compete for less risky top tier players. The rewards are sometimes substantial, for example the signing of Lineberry and Buckles. On the other side, there are many players that don't make it; for example Ruff, Raymond and Byerly. I am not sure that I would be to quick to blame recruits for academic issues. Unless you know that particular players' background, you have no basis to evaluate their effort. There are computant hard working people that just are not cut out for college.

My observations of Thursday's games; Women Totally awful game. NT played like they never saw a zone defense and were beat by a road wary much less talented team on their home court. Denver's 6' post completely dominated NT's quartet of 6'2 + players. NT went back to their no offense high turnover game. I hope this is just an off night and not an indication that this team is overrated based on the easy oc schedule. If nothing else, this game proves the value of comparitive scores in predicting winners. In the last week, ULALA beats Denver by about 25 and NT dominated ULALA by about the same amount; so it is obvious that Denver should win on NT's home court. Men NT had a relatively easy game against an outmatched but gritty opponent. The first half was very entertaining run and gun basketball by the Green. With the exception of Quincy Williams all the regulars had good games. Hines was outstanding, by far his best game of the year. Davis and Sturns sparkled on the offensive end. Despite foul trouble, Simmons had a good game. Barnett contributed and Watson had two monster dunks. JJ put the stall game in about mid-second half to protect a big lead. Does this ever work? IMO NT would have been better off continuing to run their normal offense. Embarrassing coaching decision to put in the third team in with a 15 point lead with about 2:30 remaining, had to reinsert the starters a minute later after Denver got within 9 points. Good crowd for game based on NT's recent history. Big games Monday, both teams could climb to 3-1 and be in the thick of the race. Based on Belt's results so far, it appears that there are no truely dominate teams and the race is wide open. Last I looked both Denver and FIU women were at the top of the standings, so these should be great games.

Lyons was not a Robbins' recruit. Blakeley 20 games winning seasons were done with a team made up almost entirely of Robbins recruits, unlike Gales' couple of good teams that only had a few Newman players. Blakeley did recruit Weasel Johnson but most of the other contributing players were recruited by Robbins/Tubbs. Carl Jones, Fred Mitchell, Melvin Davis, Terry Bailey and Kenneth Williams, who anyone would agree were the backbone of Blakeley's 20 win teams were all Robbins signees. I am not way saying that Blakeley was not a good hire, just that he benefitted from inheriting a very strong group of players. As far as bonehead NT administration athletic moves, it would be hard to pick a winner because you have so many choices. My choice would be failure to any significant degree to fight going 1aa in football.

You are exactly right on both his offense and NT's decision process. Texas Weslyan had a boat load of 1a talent that could not get in NCAA 1a schools or were second chance players, and they stomped NT that year. I do disagree on that it was an off night, TW had the much better team. As an aside, anyone who thinks Newman is a great recruiter; couldn't have watched his teams. Worrell turned out to be a good player for NT but to suggest that Gales' ncaa tournament team was build on Newman's recruits is imo not true. Morgan, Hunter, Roberson and most of that team were recruited by Gales. Worrell was an under the rador recruit from North Carolina that really didn't develop until his junior and senior year under Gales.

Look at your sample of years, 91-93 was coached by Dennis Parker, 94-97 by Matt Simon (including first three years back in 1a), and the following years are all DD's teams. Even using your sample, DD's record is 39-56 versus other coaches 35-52-2; not a whole lot of difference. I don't think when taken in total DD has set us back and I give him credit, the 2002 and 2003 teams were the best at NT since Fry. The critical question is can he get the team not only back to that level but to the top shelf of the non-power conference teams?

Football Best 1. Hayden Fry (No one else is close) 2. Rod Rust (imo, very good coach; suffered from budget cutbacks and change in recruiting rules in his last 3 years) 3. Corky Nelson (Solid coach who always managed to get up for the big OC games) 4. Matt Simon ( Did a very good job his first couple of years; promoted the program and played respectable ball when you consider the teams he played and that NT had just returned to 1a ball) (Completely lost it his last year) Worst 1. Bob Tyler (Fired after one year) 2. Jerry Moore (Detroyed a potentially great team) 3. DD (Would rate higher if only based on results, but his continued imo stupid comments about NT and the program puts him in this list) Basketball Best 1. Dan Spika (imo easly the best, lousy record but played in equalivant of ACC at time.) 2. Bill Blakeley (Best modern record achieved with Robbin's recruits) 2. Gene Robbins (Great recruiter, bad record but played a much toucher schedule) 4. Jimmy Gales (Played exciting bb and had NT's one NCAA experience) 5. JJ (Jury is still out) 5. Tim Janovitch (It was obviously a mistake firing TJ and replacing with Trilli) Worst 1. Vic Trilli ( In a landside) 2. Harry Miller (Left after 1 year to take Wichita State coaching job) 3. Tommy Newman (Was hired with 1 year of college coaching exp at lower level) W. Basketball Best 1. Tina Slinker (Only coach in modern era of w. basketball, could also be on other list) 2. Judy Nelson (I hated losing her more than Corky at the time) Worst 1. Cherri Rapp (left after 1 year to take A&M head coaching job)

Not true. Texas is one of if not the top state in producing 1A basketball recruits.

Very disappointing loss, this looked like the easiest conference game on the schedule. As stated before, NO a winless away team without their best player actually dominated the game. With 8 of the last 11 conference game on the road, NT cannot afford to lose these early home games.

NT has already got one more committment than they have ships, so I doubt they are interested in the player. This is the downside of early committments. Even though the college has a contract that they must honor for one year, they can make life miserable for someone they no longer want. The downside for Tech or any other school is that they will get a deserved reputation that they don't honor their committments and eventually their recruiting will suffer. NT has done the same thing as Tech so I don't think we should get too high and mighty. At least of two of Trilli's last recruiting class were advised to seek opportunities somewhere else after signing with the Green. It is doubtful that the Trilli's recruits could have come close to playing 1A ball. So what is a coaching staff to do? Remain silent and bring in a player that has litte chance of success or level with the player and strongly suggest he find another opportunity.

Guys, Tulsa is sagarin rated #221 and 3-7 in 1a games. A good win but one that NT should have won. Anyone know what is up with Hines not on the court at the end with the game on line. Zero points and rebounds in 19 minutes of play. Hopefully, this game is a sign of things to come from Quincy Williams.

My memory of that game. Kenneth Lyons elbow to Aguirre that staggered him all the way into the bench. All heck almost broke out.

Steals by what I believe to be the most common usage are players that are not heavily recruited that turn out to be excellent players. Most DD's signees are lightly recruited at the 1A leval and many turn out to be solid or great players. So by this definition, NT has a great number of steals. If steals are defined as taking players that have committed to another, there are very few NT steals that I can think of. Pruitt from Kansas State was probably the biggest. Others were Harrison from New Mexico, Gilmore from UTEP and Zuniga from ULALA. I don't consider it a steal to hang on to a player that gets a late rush after qualifying or late in the recruiting process when the shifting begins and some teams have late ships to fill. Examples of these players are Bishop, Thomas, and I am sure many others.

Kennedy was not offered per more recentKennedy article. However even if he was, so what. The 2000 recruiting year was excellent and everyone should know this. There were 6 or 7 on the state 100 lists, which is more than DD has signed in the 5 years after that. Spencer, Casey, Gardner, Buckles, Kennedy, Hall, Zuniga, Jones and others were all in that class. If the rest of DD's classes were remotely close to 2000, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. My question with much better support, facilities, and records; why has NT not come close to recruiting that level since 2000? How in the heck did you get out of my post that my logic indicated that we would have never offered anyone because La Tech and SMU did not want them. My point was that signing a recruit over the likes of La Tech and SMU should not be considered a "steal", but the norm. . Kassel was recruited by Simon not DD so I am not sure how he fits into this discussion. I also stated that we get good recruits just not enough to go into a higher tier of football. Any time you question DD's recruiting you are immediately reminded of all the great players he has signed. I got a message for you, NT got excellent players when we were 1aa, just not enough of them to compete at the highest level. There are a lot of players that are under the so called radar that turn out to be players that could play for anyone. I sometimes think that we have fans that have not been advised that NT is a 1a program and they are estatic with recruiting classes that are close to Corky Nelson's.

Come again? Buckles did not qualify until late and NT did a great job getting him, but NT did not steal him from anyone. Kennedy was not offered by SMU, so I am not sure we stole him. Pruitt did change his committment from Kansas, NT had about six other players from NEO at the time so NT benefitted. Kassell was not offered another 1a ship per him. How is recruiting player to a position that no other school wants to play them, stealing a player? Do you realize how pathetic this list is. In eight years of recruiting you can only name a handful that had legit offers from other 1a schools. Imo NT should be recruiting at least evenly with La Tech, Houston, SMU, UTEP, and Tulane; not getting crazy when we beat them out for a random recruit or two and calling it a steal. NT has gotten some great recruits and will continue to do so. But imo NT cannot build a program without being competive in recruiting with at least the non-power conference teams. Not that many have not turned out to be good contributors to the programs; but to depend on players that are not highly sought will never get NT's program level out of the bottom third of the teams.

Look at the roster on NT's official athletic site.

These attendence estimates are always all over the place. My estimate of the crowd was at the most 60% Houston. I am not sure were these 3 and 4 to 1 estimates come from. I really didn't think that the Houston crowd was as overwhelming as some. If NT had played a game 30 miles from the superdome on bowl day and had plenty of time to make both games, I think that they could have easily doubled the fans that Houston had in Denton. Of course, with NT's current support of basketball; it would have to be like the NO bowl games, people that never bother to see a regular season game would attend.

Watson looks bigger and stronger than ever. I also think his overall game has improved but he is not hitting a high percentage of his shots. Watson, imo just doesn't have the talent that Davis and Sturns have. In addition, Stewart is also taking minutes that might have gone to Watson. Hopefully, Watson will get back to shooting a very high percentage of 3's and become a greater plus factor in conference play.

Yes the decision to drop out of the MVC was what has held NT back! It didn't have anything to do with failure to capitalize on what few athletic successes NT has managed and allowing the football team to go to 1aa. Past NT administrations have continually dropped the ball. At one time, NT basketball program was one of the best in the state. NT constructed a great new arena and hired Blakeley and the future never looked brighter despite gettting out of the MVC. At the same time Fry developed a winning football program. The NT administation was unable or unwilling to adquately fund either sport. Blakeley was ultimatily fired after complainting too much about lack of funding. Fry went for a better opportunity leaving a winning team with almost all players returning for the next year. NT administration hired Jerry Moore, and placed more emphasis on getting under budget than winning. I have heard that NT could have remained 1a with a minimun of effort, but decided that 1aa suited them welll and they could reduce the athletic budget even more. It is my strong opinion that failure to be included in conferences like the Metro Eight had more to do with the will of NT administration than any conference affiliation. Dr. Pohl and the current BOD deserve a lot of credit for recognizing the important of a competitive athletic program, it is sad that type of vision has been most uncommon in NT's history.

7)We don't have fans. We have ticket holders with spare time on their hands. Houston's crowd was loud, together, and knew when and where to get into the game. We were made to look bad fan wise on our home floor. You can say "they had a bowl game tonight" all you want. You can say "the students were home for the holidays" all you want. You can even complain that it was a weekday at 1pm. You can't, at least not while being honest with yourself, say that even with perfect circumstances we would have looked like a 1A crowd. We don't know what colors to wear. We don't know how to stand. We aren't loud. We were embarrassed today. ←

NT did what they are supposed to against a team like UC-Irvine. But if UC-Irvine at 1-8 and ranked 312 in the sagarins doesn't qualify for a poor team, who does? NT did beat UCI worse than any team other than UCLA.

When your best player Bobo goes 1-13 shooting, your other guard Williams has 7 turnovers mostly in first half; you are not going to have much of a chance. I also wonder about a coach that thinks that a 20 point loss is making progress even against a top 20 team. Yes it was closer till the last 5 minutes and NT did not get completely blown out, but with almost 30 turnovers and a shooting % in the teens the second half, the game certainly was not that close. This team has a lot of talent but without any outside threat at all, it could be a tough year against the top of the Belt. I hope that Slinker plays the 3 freshmen guards more in hopes that one or more have an outside game.