outoftown

The last three holes went pretty badly. especially for Diego Prone who went +4 on the last three. UNT finishes the day at 5th one shot behind 4th placed UAB. gonna have to overtake them tomorrow.

First three holes weren't great, but since they are doing awesome. particularly Bergson -who sat out yesterday and was subed in for Winkler who was +9 on the back nine yesterday- is having himself a day. -3 after 12. Need to stay focused though, lots of stuff that can still go wrong before the semis.

Had a fairly decent finish, and after everyone was done finished the day tied for 3rd, 2 shots ahead of Charlotte and UTSA who are 5th and 4 shots behind UAB -who leads. You couldn't win the tournament today, but it was possible to lose it. Three teams lost more than 14+ shots. 7 teams are within 4 shots of the cut line, so plenty of suspense remaining. On the individual side Marzillio is tied for second after day 1.

down to fifth, with 3 players have still some holes to go. since 4 will qualify for the semis, that is right at the line. currently 2 shots behind fourth.

Starting today. You can follow the scores at: https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=teamPlayer&tid=27668 After a very inconsistent season there will be no NCAA regionals unless UNT wins the tournament, and they are not the favorites. It looks pretty open though in the sense that almost all teams may think they have at least a chance, with nobody really good enough to get an at large and almost all teams A-game good enough to beat a top 70 team who itself has an average day. So given that it is first qualifiers and then semifinals-finals match play, I can really see it being the team that gets hot at the right moment rather than any team just being outright and consistently better than the rest. That is probably good news for UNT as it comes off one of its better results with a runner up finish at a decent tournament a week ago. Golfstat rankings prior to the tournament: MTSU 69 Charlotte 82 UNT 109 La Tech 119 UTSA 124 UAB 125 FAU 126 UTEP 136 Rice 139 WKU 164

And its over. Rice won 4-0 with the non-finished matches also looking like Rice was going to win them (match #3 being the potential exception). The tennis program at UNT used to be a perennial conference championship contender until about 6 years ago. I feel Lama had multiple problems hit him at the same time, so he may still get this back on track. But I assume the AD will want to see some tangible progress at getting back to that prior level in a not too distant future. Since the pandemic it has not really appeared as things are getting back to where UNT competes for the championship

I don't fully get it either. but it appears that there simply is no regular season conference schedule, teams just "happen" to play each other sometimes, hence UNT having played 5 C-USA teams, while FAu has played only two, making it pretty much impossible to take direct games into account in any form.

Then there is no apology needed

That is a good result. The tournament had 3 ranked teams. Happy for the team, as they have been very inconsistent in the tournaments prior to this one. Hope they can take this one into the conference championship. Ranking wise they are a bit too far behind, so no at large possibility. need to win it to get to regionals

Now this is one where semantics matter. Did you PLAY with them or did you TOY with them (while showing them who is good at golf). One of these two things is more ok than the other.

Ended a lot closer than comfort would have wanted, but still always nice to come out with a conference championship. Now the ladies can go and get that NCAA finals qualifier in the regionals. The quality is certainly there that this could be the year.

Looks like its UNTs tournament to lose.

Lol. They fired him one season after winning the sun belt regular season title. Scott Cross just completed his second 20-win season since leaving UTA, being in the same conference UTA just was booted out of. UTA just finished firing its second coach since firing Cross.

Sadly I have to say it: the mens program has regressed in the last 2-3 years. They were always at least close to the at large range, if not outright in it sometimes. Currently ranked 123 and it does feel like that is about appropriate given the results. Meanwhile the women, who 6-7 years ago were the absolute dregs of the conference, have been nothing but great for each of the past 2-3 years, and are currently ranked 35th. Safely inside of the at large range. Every year now feels like it might be the year they might make the NCAA final tournament and not just regionals. Edit: added graphic to this regard

Don't know how i feel about him leaving. but I know he will a) be missed and b) be sought after. The athletic came out with a ranking of the 80 best available transfer portal players. Number one was michigans 7-1 center. Number two was TP. When you are the best guard available, you get paid in the current transfer portal. Unless I missed him scrolling through by the way, Ousmane did not make the list

Maybe its a good sign about team culture. But it is a tremendous indictment on the quantity and quality of university independent media coverage UNT attracts.

I get from a coaches perspective that he likes this, because usually the AD who hired you is the first line of defense against getting fired. And Mac had some leverage when negotiating the last time. However SL had essentially the same clause. And I will say what I said at the time: I get that coaches and ADs like them, as it benefits them both, but it is the regents job to say no to that because it is a clear conflict of interest. If this is the AD negotiating the contract with the coach, then both negotiating parties benefit from that clause at the detriment of the school. It wasn't that crazy problematic this time (other than NT missing out on a bigger buyout), but imagine WB would have gotten a job closer to Denton. Chances are good he would have poached the succesful coaches (who would then have poached players) and would have been able to do it for almost nothing. Its better to pay bigger bonuses than to allow this.

I mean, i can hardly imagine anyone would think he is not a UNT HOFer the very moment he becomes eligible.

2 out of 3 championships wrapped up. Now FAU better do their job.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-college-basketball-experience/id1567990327 This podcast has a number of f-bombs and loads of adverts. But they clearly watch more CBB than most pundits. At the end they discuss their picks for the final.

Yeo, some good thoughts there. I think UNT absolutely has the same issues in scheduling as FAU when it comes to what they address in these articles https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/2023/03/26/would-you-like-to-see-usc-play-fau-next-december-heres-how-it-could-happen/ https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/2023/03/26/college-basketball-can-learn-a-lot-from-international-football-on-scheduling/

My last chance of doing anything went out the window with K-state losing....and I am rather happy about that.

Gonna be interesting to see how the new AD goes about this. Is he keeping WBs penchant for only hiring folks with head coaching experience?

The problem there isn't what it would do for SMU (not that much indeed), but what it would do to the conference UNT is in.

I want SMU to stay in the conference. It is the most surefire way for UNT to be able to do to them what UCF did to USF. I also think that if the AAC can stay stable in the 2024 composition it could really start improving it place in the world. However failing that, I am ok with them going to a terrible Pac12 made up of mostly WSU OSU and MWC teams and having the terrible west times while also seing the money dwindle back to AAC levels quicker than they can imagine. My worst case scenario is that the PAC12 reconstitutes itself with more AAC teams but doesn't include UNT. Say adding air force, CSU, SDSU, Memphis, SMU, UTSA or somesuch thing.