UNTstormchaser

my dorm stories will have to wait until mid-May when I can no longer be compromised by telling them while living there...

I'm concerned that you remember that it was me, that it was 25 wins, and that it was immediately after the UAH loss. But I'll disregard the slight creepiness of that... It didn't. Benford made me look like a fool and I'll readily admit it. I went out on a limb over the summer back in RI when talking to all my friends about the upcoming basketball season, and I'll never live down the talk of Mitchell as a top 10 pick or UNT being fringe top 25, despite the fact that every scout and "expert" was in my camp as well. But hey, life moves on, I'm over it. Feel better now that you've called me out?

If Benford is our coach then we shouldn't be looking forward to home games against SE Louisiana, lest we actually lose this time 27-14. Oh wait, sorry, thought this was football. The score should be 7-4.

If you add up the home games I didn't attend that I easily could have, I ended up with about 24 more hours to do as I pleased than I otherwise would have had. A full day of life was added to my existence because of this terrible season. That's a positive, right?

I opened this thread hoping to wallow in pity with the rest of you. But this was one of the funniest threads I've ever read. Thank you for this.

The truth lies in the middle with the Mitchell debate. Yes, he put up great numbers on a terrible team. No, he didn't hype himself up, and by all accounts, he's a humble, intelligent kid. The problem is that he's literally one of the best 5 athletes in the entire country. Guys with his measurables make NBA scouts drool more than a dog looking at a filet mignon. In workouts against the BEST competition at this level, he's shown that he has the talent to go with the athleticism. Chad Ford literally said, months ago of course, that we'd be looking at Mitchell as the FIRST OVERALL PICK if he was on a Kentucky or North Carolina type of team. Yeah yeah, weak draft weak draft, blah blah blah....those still aren't words tossed around lightly. Draft analysts know the repercussions of going out on a limb like that for a small-school guy that goes wrong (though luckily for Ford, UNT seems to always maintain a level of obscurity high enough to have avoided him looking like an idiot for saying that). But he only put up 2nd Team All-Sun Belt numbers this year, and our buddy Chad Ford has said that scouts EXPECTED (not hoped) that Mitchell would put up NATIONAL PLAYER OF THE YEAR numbers. That's a massive underachievement. That should be put in the UNT Hall of Shame rather than being heralded. What if LeBron had regressed in year two in Cleveland by averaging 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists per game (he averaged 27/7/7)? One could say that those are great numbers for a 2nd year player, and that a woeful franchise like Cleveland should be stoked at that. Or they could look at it the other way, and see that it's a massive underachievement for a player of his talent. I'm torn on whether or not I want TM to stay. Of course, he's far and away the most talented and productive member of this team, and losing him could be detrimental. But, on the other hand, ridding the team of the mentality that Tony needs his touches and numbers could allow for better team play and better fundamental basketball. Just look at the Celtics without Rondo this season. Sucked with him while he was putting up MVP numbers, he goes down and they start winning. Are they as talented without him? Hell no...but they're a better team.

Unfortunately I've got no idea what actually happened in this particular case. What I CAN tell you though, from the perspective of a student who lives with the basketball team in their dorm, is that the lack of discipline/intelligence/seriousness/etc/etc/etc/etc is far too under-appreciated when looking at what happened this year. Not saying they're bad kids, but the only guys who seemingly have any semblance of a touch of reality are Niko and Roger.

If one is to truly play the "what if" game, those injuries wouldn't be included. Had we hired someone else, none of those injuries would have happened, and different ones may (would) have. Regardless...in retrospect, any choice would have been better than Benford. Even with the freak Walton injury early on, there was NO excuse for our horrid start, and the injuries didn't start piling up until it was far too late to use them as an excuse for the poor season. Deep tourney run though? Nope. I think we all completely underestimated just how much the hype would effect the team, as well as the amount of luck that went into our run last season. The team was clearly not nearly as talented as we thought, and when you combine that with the inflation of the team's collective ego rivaling that of the inflation of the dollar, it was a recipe for disappointment from the beginning. That being said, I will not go to another UNT basketball game while Benford is the head coach. I went to EVERY home game excluding the few I missed during winter break during the 2011-2012 season. I went to one this year, the Cameron game. And I live in the basketball team's dorm literally 200 feet from the Super Pit. Sorry, I'm not going to take two hours out of my day to sit there miserably watching a miserable excuse for a basketball team. I'll do that for football if the time comes. But not for basketball.

I'm with you 100% on this Harry. Everyone is completely overreacting to this loss as if we just lost an internationally televised game that decides which school's students gets free tuition for a year against the Southwestern Oklahoma School for the Blind and Deaf. This loss cost us an opportunity to play KState on national television. That's all it did. It didn't cost us an at large, it didn't cost us our conference season, it didn't cost us our lottery pick, it didn't cost us anything other than that opportunity. Does it hurt? Is it an absolutely humiliating loss? Should Benford be ashamed of himself and his team? Should the players be ashamed? Hell to the yes for all of those. Do we all need to take a step back and realize a few things, like that there are 28 games left, games against Lehigh, St Louis, and Virginia left? That this game doesn't affect our RPI directly? That this is still a team with a lot of pieces who haven't had game-time to get into the flow of things with each other, a team with a new coach and new system? Yes. Yes we do. Relax everyone. It would have been time to hit the panic button had we lost to Lamar and then Cameron. We're 1-1 in games we should win, and 0-1 against better teams. Doesn't seem too bad when you look at it that way, does it? UAH is a name, but it goes on the record as just an L. 99% of the world doesn't even know the game happened. Chiillllll oouuutttttt... Last note: Stop the comparisons of KState dismantling UAH to our loss to them. COMPLETELY unrelated. In one case, you have UAH playing the game of their lives, shooting the lights out better than they probably ever have before, putting 150% energy into this game since it's been touted as the biggest game of their lives, etc. And you have UNT coming off of a 20 point loss to a top 15 team to play a D2 school, looking ahead to the matchup with KState, lost a couple key guys to injury, TERRIBLE shooting night on top of that, etc etc etc. Result? UAH barely escapes with a win. Next game, UAH is completely exhausted, lacks the motivation they had since they did what they set out to do already, and has the worst shooting night of their careers against a damn good team that is a lot better than the team they played the night before. What the frig did you expect UAH to do to KState? Of course they were going to get demolished. Just take a deep breath, come see UNT beat the shit out of Cameron on Friday, and move on with your lives. Before long, we'll be beating UTA by 20 and then steamrolling through conference play like we expected.

I'm gonna be candid here. You're like a whiny little girl who didn't get her way. It was one game. We lost by 3 points. Had anyone on the team other than JW had remembered the object of the game is to put the ball IN the basket, we'd have won by 25. Any normal shooting night from both sides, we win by 30+. Re-f*cking-lax dude.

I think everyone is COMPLETELY overreacting to this loss. This isn't football guys. It's basketball. There are 28 freaking games left. We played a better than expected opponent who had the game of their lives when we had one of the worst games of ours. It happens. There isn't a regional/national perception hole to crawl out of. That's all in your imaginations. Relax everyone. My god, it was one freaking game. Beating Lamar by 15 isn't exactly something to celebrate, no, but there are positive signs out of all of this. Tony took 16 shots. CJ finally shot well and had 7 assists. Alzee had a great scoring night. JW put up 26 the other night when no one else showed up. The team will come together, it takes time. This is a team with a lot of talent that hasn't had a lot of time together. Tony and CJ/JW haven't all played together since early conference play last year. Come year end, we'll be 14-2 in conference with 25 wins. Book it.

Man, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. For all we know, USA could have tried to throw a screen at the 1 only to have it picked by Whitfield and returned for 6. Or, perhaps they score, we score on the kickoff to nullify it, and never look back from there? Or perhaps, USA could have scored, we could have fumbled the kickoff, and then they return it for a score. Point is, saying that we needed that call to win is purely speculative. USA had plenty of chances after that call. UNT won the game, and that's the way I look at it. A win is a win is a win.

I know, I know. The point was that worse has happened to teams (in regards to one game collapses) and they've recovered from it. Hell, I even think Penn State will recover eventually. Well...okay maybe not. Oh me too, I absolutely agree. I hope Benford shows this team clips of that game at the start of every film session, before every practice, and before every game. This team should be HUMILIATED by the loss. But, us fans need to relax. Crazy things happen. Even UAH's coach liked it to a 16 seed beating a 1 seed in the NCAA Tourney. We'd beat this team 99 times out of 100. It was just the perfect storm of events...going up against a super motivated team with nothing to lose that happens to have a fantastic night shooting, and on our end, lots of talent that hasn't had time to coalesce, coming off a 20 point loss to a top 25 team, looking ahead to the matchup against K-State, new coach, and then a bad night shooting on top of it. These things suck, but they happen every now and then. Unfortunately for us North Texas fans, they seem to happen to us a lot in our money sports. I think the #1 thing going forward is Mitchell getting touches and shots on offense. He took 16 shots tonight and 8 free throws. Only hit 6 and 4 respectively, which is a VERY off night for him...but the fact that he took 16 shots is VERY promising. When he's shooting at his normal 50% clip from the field and 75% from the line, we will win when he takes his shots.

This certainly doesn't make me feel any better about the loss last night. But everyone needs to relax. It was essentially a glorified exhibition game. If Michigan can recover from losing to Appalachian State when they were ranked #5 in a sport that has 1/3 the amount of games and 10X the amount of money involved, we'll be just fine.

It is a rather big coincidence...I'm pretty alarmed by it, not gonna lie.

Andrew: must be a really weird coincidence. I only have one ESPN account and that's the Oats4234 account that I've had since I was like 11. And I don't comment with that one because I'm banned from doing so after I found the loophole way to swear on there while drunk and angry...What has my imposter been saying??!!! I'm glad we got a W tonight. As I type this, the commercial touting this as the most talented team ever is playing...man I sure hope that they start showing it after this win.

No, no he did not. You are correct sir. Tony is humble and that's great...but come gametime, he needs to become a lot more selfish and just take over when he needs to. There's a reason he's #5 on ESPN's NBA Draft Big Board. He's 100 times better than anyone else on the team is. Time to show it. Hopefully tonight he gets 30 and 15 and we'll all relax.

Eh....worry is fine. Panic is unnecessary. If we lose to Lamar, and then Cameron? Panic, fire Benford, LSU fires JJ, RV destroys basketball program. crazed fans burn down Super Pit...

The season isn't over. Luckily, this isn't football. This loss doesn't hurt as much as a loss to Texas Southern would have in football. I'm just as disappointed/confused/lost/angry/disgusted/heartbroken as anyone else on here is, don't get me wrong about that. I had such high, high hopes for this year. Even after the Creighton game, I was sure that we'd at the very least beat UAH by double digits. Obviously, that didn't happen, and there are a lot of questions to answer. Hopefully tonight against Lamar, a worthless team from the lowly Southland conference, they can start being answered. But take a deep breath everyone. The season isn't over. Hell, even an at-large bid isn't out of the question. It certainly looks a lot more in doubt, and if I were a betting man, I'd put my entire net worth on us NOT getting an at-large bid, but it's not impossible. As someone noted, this game doesn't directly effect our RPI (thank god...), though it does prevent us from having a good Kansas State team on our record. But, assuming that things get straightened out quickly...all is not lost. We have a road game against a St. Louis team that will likely be top 25 when we play them, we have a home game against likely NCAA Tourney bound Lehigh who's also touting a potential All American, and then 2 games against MTSU, USA, and WKU in conference play. There are going to be opportunities to beat respected teams. Will we beat them? Who knows...but the opportunity will be there. Don't hit the panic button just yet everyone. For all we know, we could come out pissed off tonight and beat Lamar by 30. Or, we could come out flat and dejected, again, and blow another easy one. Either way, there's pretty much 30 games left guys. It's going to all come down to conference play anyways, we all know that. Go Mean Green....try not to have a stroke over this anyone.

We need him to do that ALL the time. I don't know why he hasn't figured that out yet, and I don't know why none of the coaches have told him that either. He's a superstar level talent in college basketball. For the Sun Belt, he may as well be Michael Jordan. Four shots ain't gonna cut it. He's talented and athletic enough to drop 30 a night if he were to want to. No one on UAH could stop him from having his way with them if this were nothing more than a scrimmage at the Rec. But for some reason...in real games, he doesn't take over like he should.

Why is he so damn passive offensively? I understand that teams are going to blanket him. I really do. But I don't understand how someone as talented and athletic as he is can only manage to put up 4 shots in 31 minutes of playing time against a D2 school. Four shots. JW took twice as many shots from behind the three point line as Tony did total. Was anyone there? Can someone please explain this to me? We've seen what he's capable of, we all saw the improvements he made in ballhandling and the like at the Green/White scrimmage when there was no pressure. Why does he remain so damn passive?????? I feel like I've felt this way for awhile, I remember wondering the same thing watching him at times last year. It's like he's afraid others won't get their chances. We need him scoring 20 a night. We need him taking over games. And he hasn't done that. On another note, does anyone know why Benford keeps starting TM at the 5, Franklin at the 4, and JW at the 3???? That's a ludicrous lineup. We FINALLY have size and we aren't utilizing it. What gives??? I'm not hitting the panic button like most here, but I'm seeing things that don't make any sense. CJ not scoring, TM not putting up shots, Coleman not playing despite all the praise Benford was quick to give him during the preseason, starting 4 guards and a small forward/power forward combo, etc. etc. etc. Someone....make sense of some of these things for me. Please. The world is a scary place right now.

I personally think the entire situation is absolutely retarded. This is a college, college students have been and always will be reckless and obscene. Not each one obviously, but as a whole. Personally, I think both sides are wayyyy overreacting. The students probably shouldn't add that part in, I get that, but honestly it isn't that bad. To have the fight song CHANGED as a result is absurd. It just seems, to me, like a misguided attempt. The MF part is probably here to stay, like it or not. As soon as it's reimplemented in it's entirety, that part will return. Again, I don't say it, nor do I really care whether anyone does or not. But this isn't gonna accomplish anything. Want to censor a bunch of college kids? Find one's who can't speak. Otherwise it's a waste of time.

Flash in the pan. We're slowly rebuilding a program from literally NOTHING to attempt to create a sustainable and respectable program. Every year has freak teams that jump up for a couple seasons or so then re-crash to earth (FIU alert). Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to get one of those seasons (or multiple of them) soon, because I'm certainly not downplaying how great they are and how much easier winning makes building, but to judge improvement based on nothing more than other teams having freak seasons is to not judge improvement at all.

Cute, yes, but so totally flawed. Pessimist="This barn stinks, just like my life does." Optimist="It smells bad in here, but I'm sure it will smell better outside so that's where I'll go." Realist="This place smells like shit. Oh look, there's the source of the smell. I will remove it and the smell will go away." The pessimist later killed himself, the optimist died outside in the cold hoping that the cold would go away, and the realist put the horse poopy on the optimist's frozen body, and then proceeded to sleep in the fresher smelling barn.

I know he's being redshirted but I don't think it's due to injury. Don't quote me on that though, not sure.