KoldBeer

Going to be a long year. Team is young but we have to get these winnable games at home. Very frustrating.

Kenpom has this as #236 North Texas vs. #261 UALR Sagarin has this as #214 North Texas vs. #261 UALR

Arkstfan - I agree that the Big 12 needs to get a couple of schools to go w/ WVU. I wonder how lawsuit b/t WVU and Big East over exit date impacts this. I was a little surprised that the Big 12 just didn't invite two more Big East schools and try to kill the league. That way they could have at least 10 teams by 2012. Right now, the Big East/Big 12 battle over WVU is going to be interesting.

Several reports are out that Auburn OC Gus Malzhan has taken the head coaching job at Arkansas St. Bowen is probably having nightmares tonight

Jason King is main college basketball writer for ESPN.com. He used to be KU beat writer for KC Star and had covered college basketball for Yahoo for the last 5 years until moving to ESPN. He knows his stuff. Three key players who become eligible second semester 1. Tony Mitchell, North Texas -- Mitchell is a forward and potential one-and-done player who originally signed with Missouri but didn't meet academic requirements. He enrolled at UNT midway through last season and will likely become the team's top player the minute he steps on the court. http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7347872/the-king-court-scours-nation-all-latest-college-basketball

Here is CBS story talking about all sport merger between CUSA and MWC. That would leave Sun Belt unchanged and WAC needed just one football school http://brett-mcmurphy.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/29532522/33745889

BYU didn't want to join (issues with their TV deal) so the Big East needed another western team to convince Boise to join. Boise, SDSU and AF are football only members. For football there will be western division of Big East. It'll have BSU, AF, SDSU, SMU, Houston and probably Louisville.

Freeze is rumored to have taken Ole Miss job. Should be official tomorrow. http://olemiss.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1302435

Down 7 with 3 1/2 minutes to go. Just blew chance to cut it to 5. Overall still playing pretty decent down stretch. Just need to convert more often.

Man we had a couple of chances to get right back in this game. Playing decent in 2nd half. Hope we have a run left in us.

Carl Pelini http://brett-mcmurphy.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/29532522/33619310

I wasn't a huge fan of Davies in both so I'm happy to see him go. It isn't exactly a new trend of old coaches going to non-AQ schools. Price went to UTEP. I remember Earl Bruce going to Colorado St. after leaving Ohio St. Howard S from OU to FAU. It might be a little more common now but it has always been going on. I thought UNM was going to get Glen Mason. I like him better. He rebuilt KU and Minnesota. Davies will make UNM better but they have a long way to go to get back to respectability.

I think TCU joining the Big 12 will reduce the chances that Tech and UNT will continue the basketball series. Tech will be playing in DFW every year now. I'd love to see it continue but I don't think it's going to happen.

I like this tweet. It has good news and says good stuff about North Texas.: GoodmanCBS Jeff Goodman North Texas is already loaded - and just got the news that Oklahoma State transfer Roger Franklin received NCAA waiver. Can play this year.

NCAA just ruled that two Kansas players were ineligible last week. The clearning house takes forever even with big schools. There have been a lot of kids lately ruled inelgible.

Good pickup for the Southland. ORU was in Summit. There was some people who thought the Sun Belt should add ORU to replace Denver in Sun Belt. BlairKerkhoff Blair Kerkhoff Here's a league change that definitely will be announced today: Oral Roberts leaving Summit for Southland. 2:30 news conf.

The dates the best I can find seem a little off. North Texas hired Dodge on 12/12. Stanford didn't announce Harbaugh until 12/18. Now maybe Stanford had a two week process to make the hire and knew for awhile before they announced the hire, but the dates seem a little off.

Sounds like it will be some sort of alliance for football and not a full merger. I'm guessing something like MWC champ plays CUSA champ for BCS bid. It'll be interesting to see if this keeps teams from jumping to Big East.

I'm not as worried about who these guys pick for the Sun Belt. Most years there are 3 or 4 teams that have a really good shot to win the tournament. I'm sure we'll see a few national guys pick UNT. I look for two things: 1) Is there a second bid? No. Would love it to happen but it's only happened once in last 5 or 6 years. 2) What seed is the Sun Belt team? 14 - Obviously you always want a little bit better but this gets the Sun Belt out of the 15/16 area. This indicates that at least people think the Sun Belt is respectible. A #14 seed does win every now and then.

They're not on sale yet but here's the latest info from the website on mini-plans... Mini Plans On Sale Soon! Holiday Pack - $45 Premium reserved seating for following 6 games: Dec. 18 vs. Jackson State Dec. 20 vs. Grambling State Dec. 22 vs. LSU Dec. 27 vs. New Orleans Dec. 29 vs. UALR (DH) Dec. 31 vs. Tory (DH) 4 for $40 Plan Premium seating for your choice of any 4 Men's or Women's games* during the 2011-12 Basketball Season. *Excludes Dec. 22 vs. LSU Individual Game Tickets On Sale Soon! LSU: $30 Premium Reserved -- $15 Baseline Reserved Regular Season: $12 Premium Reserved -- $7 Baseline Reserved Family Fun Packs: The Mean Green Family Fun Pack includes 4 tickets to the game, food, and 4 drinks. Fun Packs are $35* pre-ordered and $40 at the gate. *LSU - $65

The BCS money isn't that big apart of conference payouts. You're probably talking a couple million per year. The biggest differece betweeen conferences is the TV deal. The Big 12 is expection to payout $17M to $18M next year. Most of that ($15M) will be TV money. The rest is basketball money and BCS money. The big question is going to be TV money. The Big East gets a bigger BCS payout and gets more NCAA tournament money (although CUSA does decent in this thanks to Memphis run and not splitting 16 ways like Big East). But the biggest upside is TV money. CUSA just signed a deal so that amount is known. The Big East is getting ready to do a new deal. Nobody knows what they'll get until they know who'll be in the conference. I'd guess the numbers are better in the Big East but it's not as big of slam dunk as it would be moving to other BCS AQ conferences. The biggest benefit would be access to BCS bowls but there is no guarantee that the Big East keeps their bid after 2014.

This is strange timing with all the realignment talk going on. I guess Dan Beebe is available.

This is kind of interesting to look at. I think it gives you a little feel for where schools are with regards to overall popularity (the sample size on the popularity numbers seems a little low and rankings based on favorite team and not on teams people would watch). North Texas finishes above a couple of schools we hear a lot about in realignment. School of interest: 5. UT 6. A&M 19. OU 33. Texas Tech 65. TCU 85. Baylor 86. North Texas (3rd in Belt behind Troy and Arkansas St) 97. SMU 103. Rice 105. Tulsa 112. Houston http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/?src=twrhp

Great job. Hopefully a few more people get this channel. UT will be down this year so I think we can make this a good game.

Mix of Non-Conference and Big 12 Home Contests to Begin Nov. 13 University of Texas men’s basketball fans will see 12 UT regular season games on Longhorn Network this season. The games – nine non-conference and three Big 12 matchups – will further enhance the channel’s live events offerings. In addition, the network will televise basketball-themed programs to take viewers inside the team to get to know the players and coaches as the Longhorns begin their 2011-12 campaign. Dave Brown, LHN vice president, programming, said, “We’ve compiled a terrific regular-season schedule in our first year of coverage. These games, paired with our comprehensive pre- and post-game coverage shows, continue our mission of delivering high profile programming to fans of UT athletics.” Rick Barnes, head men’s basketball coach at Texas, said, “Our program is excited to have so many games televised by Longhorn Network this coming season. When our fans and college basketball viewers in general see the quality of the telecasts, they will think they are watching an ESPN or ESPN2 national telecast. In addition, the Texas GameDay show that will air courtside at the Erwin Center creates a great opportunity for our students and fans to come early and provide a great home-court advantage for our team.” Longhorn Network men’s basketball schedule: Date Time (all times CT) Matchup Sun, Nov. 13 6 p.m. Boston University at Texas *Sat, Nov. 19 8 p.m. Texas vs. Oregon State *Mon, Nov. 21 5:30/8 p.m. Texas vs. NC State/Vanderbilt Sat, Nov. 26 7. p.m. Sam Houston State at Texas Tue, Nov. 29 7 p.m. North Texas State at Texas Tue, Dec. 6 7 p.m. UT-Arlington at Texas Sat, Dec. 10 7 p.m. Texas State at Texas Tue, Dec. 13 7 p.m. Nicholls State at Texas Sat, Dec. 31 1 p.m. Rice at Texas Sat, Jan. 7 6 p.m. Oklahoma State at Texas Tue, Jan 24 8 p.m. Iowa State at Texas Sat, Feb 4 6 p.m. Texas Tech at Texas http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2011/09/15/longhorn-network-to-televise-12-texas-men%E2%80%99s-basketball-games-in-2011-12/#printpreview