BillySee58

Let me put it this way. Mccasland’s benches have been notoriously short in his tenure. Maybe his biggest weakness has been the lack of depth on our roster. We were playing a 7-man rotation in tournament play, we were 8 deep the year before, and basically 7 deep the two seasons before that. To play for Mccasland you have to be able to play defense and you have to be able to hit open shots, unless you’re the 5. We have had so many roster spots taken up by guys like Jalen Jackson, Larry Wise, Jahmiah Simmons, Terence Lewis, Shakeem Alcindor, Abdul Mohamed, etc who Mccasland could not play because they couldn’t shoot/were complete liabilities offensively. This has been my biggest gripe with Mccasland. He signs these guys who can’t shoot, then is unable to play them because they can’t shoot. Zephir’s quantity on his stats aren’t impressive but he hit 50% of his threes and took a decent amount, plus made 16-17 from the free throw line. He has good size and he’s a lights out shooter. Obviously there is more to basketball than shooting, but he has the track record that indicates come March he shouldn’t be burning a hole on the bench because the coaches can’t trust him to hit open shots.

Yes! The NCAA needs to be allowed to go back to violating antitrust laws. Can’t imagine enjoying college sports again knowing these kids get scholarships and FTC protection.

https://247sports.com/college/north-texas/Article/What-North-TExas-mean-green-basketball-gets-in-versatile-bryce-zephir-168549719/Amp/?__twitter_impression=true Can officially mark this as our 13th scholarship player. 4 years of eligibility left due to extra COVID year. Sounds like the coaches could see him playing the 2 and the 3 but also potentially 4 and 1 in a pinch as well.

Also, another lefty

Keep in mind the team he played for made the national JUCO semifinals so that’s one of the top JUCOs in the country as a freshman. Also, he was 5th on the team in scoring so he was a pretty integral bench piece. The guards who finished ahead of him in scoring were sophomores and one freshman who we offered (Jaeden Zackery), and ended up signing with Boston College. Could be a case of Mccasland locking up a guy who may be on the verge of a big breakout with the players ahead of him moving on. Shooting numbers are really good so it appears to have more to do with him playing for a really good JUCO and having to take a seat behind sophomores than him not being capable of more volume. Sophomores are going to get first crack at JUCOs since it’s their last year to earn a scholarship, and the ones ahead of him didn’t do anything to blow that chance. That’s what I was thinking but either way it’s one roster spot left and I don’t see Mccasland using that last spot on another walkon.

Maybe but we already show two walkons on the roster. Arsh Mattu and Dylan Mckeon. I think two walkons on the roster is the max. https://meangreensports.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/2021-22

Says he will be joining the team this season. Guard who came off the bench for his Junior College Chipola. Not very impressive stats but his shooting percentages are really good. https://chipolaathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2020-21/bios/zephir_bryce_vlrh?view=profile

Doesn’t that make more sense of the idea he may have “pushed” out the door though? He was going to backup Simpson and Shorter if he stayed and him leaving opened up a spot to bring in Tommy Bush. Seemed like it made sense for both parties at the time, still probably does now. He’s getting his school paid for and will very likely get the ball much more down there than he would here. I think we’d rather have Tommy Bush and he’d rather get the ball thrown to him more while still getting his school paid for. Again, seems like a win-win rather than a cautionary tale of a bad decision.

Right now on our roster, by my count we have 82 scholarship players. Of those 82, 65 of them have 3 or more years of eligibility left due to COVID allowing players an extra season of eligibility if they were in college last year. 47 have 4+ years of eligibility left. So we have plenty of 2-3 year down the line starters to choose from. And even if you concern is more of a long-term concern, again, I point to this past season on how it can benefit us. We lost backups but replaced them with P5 backups like Tommy Bush, Jace Ruder, and Enoch Jackson, all while keeping our starters. Our backups might be leaving but so are P5 backups to make room for HS and transfer newcomers. Just have to keep landing them too. Play the game. I think we did a good job of it this offseason.

Sure, I agree the sample size is small. But your statements “This new rule instead of helping HS players in recruiting, is going to have the opposite effect. ” and “The NCAA is going to completely ruin the game because of their fear of adverse court decisions. ” read like this is just a sure thing that’s going to happen and doom non P5s. My point is that so far the evidence is failing to show mass pilfering of G5 starters by P5 schools. I think how it could benefit schools like UNT is what we saw this offseason. We kept our starters then essentially swapped out our backups for P5 backups and non-P5 D1 starters. Take defensive line for example. We lose backups Asher Frow and Jimmy Walker and gain Arkansas transfer Enoch Jackson and Abilene Christian standout Kameron Hill, all while keeping our starters in Novil, Mccrae, and the Murphy twins. Honestly I think we played the transfer portal game pretty well this offseason.

And yet the only starters we lost to the transfer portal were Cam Johnson, who played here 4 years and went elsewhere for his 5th season, and Anterrious Gray who left due to a family situation iirc. Dion Novil, Jacob Brammer, Oscar Adaway, Deonte Simpson, the Murphy Twins, Upton Stout, etc. all are high school recruits we have signed, developed, and have had success on the field and none of them were poached away. Everyone seems more concerned with these doomsday hypotheticals surrounding new rules that are going to sink schools like UNT instead of evaluating how things are actually playing out.

Sure I could definitely see it happening more but again, graduating high school in 3 years takes about 5 years of planning down the road. We have a thread on Ewers in the recruiting forum from 2016, because Littrell offered before he even coached a game here. We offered him the summer after he finished 7th grade. The wheels have been in motion on getting him graduated early and prepping him as best as possible to be a college QB since before he was even in high school. The level of planning it took outside of his control (parents) is something that very few top prospects are going to have. So yes it likely will happen more than before but graduating a year early to start making endorsement money is only an option for kids who loaded up on high school courses starting in middle school and every summer after they finish middle school. That pre-requisite alone is going to prevent most high school recruits from this even being an option.

Gotcha, my bad

Well, I’m sure there is one teammate who wouldn’t. But either way that wasn’t either of the parties I was referring too. Jake Bentley did this in 2016 at South Carolina. Graduated high school before his senior season would’ve started and ended up starting 7 games that season. I also remember Jarnell Stokes, a basketball player, graduating a semester early his senior season and joining the Tennessee basketball team during December of what would have been his senior year in high school. Those were pre-NIL. If he only has one class left heading into his senior year it’s clear Ewers and his family have been working to make this a possibility years in advance, before NIL was a thing. He didn’t just sign up for summer school last month and knock out a year’s worth of classes to go chase NIL money. Also, the 3 QBs currently competing for the starting job at Ohio State are freshmen. Probably makes sense to try and nudge into that mix now as opposed to next year when one of them is a sophomore returning starter.

“What the hell” seemed to imply a negative connotation to your view on the situation but you’re right. You didn’t there was anything wrong with it. Just seems like even prior to NIL this would be beneficial to both parties.

What’s wrong with graduating high school and enrolling a year early?

By my count, we have 82 scholarship players and 65 have 3 or more seasons of eligibility left if they want it.

https://meangreensports.com/sports/football/roster/2021?&sort=position The 2021 Roster has been updated on MeanGreenSports. The updates are a little confusing and will cause for more confusion down the line, but it’s consistent with what I’ve seen at other schools. Most noticeably, Jace Ruder and Greg Francis have been added. Ruder is showing as a Junior but he technically still has 4 years of eligibility left. A host of walkons added as well. All players did have their grades rolled forward but any player who was playing in 2020 WILL get to have an extra season if they want. For example, Deshawn Gaddie is listed as a Junior but he still has three seasons left of eligibility if he wants. Originally it was announced that everyone’s eligibility would be frozen for a year due to COVID, but instead the players’ eligibility does advance forward a year like normal, they just get to take their extra season if they choose after their original eligibility clock would have expired. The only players who aren’t eligible to return next season are listed as “5th” for their grade classification. The players listed as “SR” can come back next season if they choose.

If Wren leaves I think I’d prefer that it be while Smatresk is still here.

Looks like the re-arrangements won’t take place for a while. Lot of time for subsequent dominoes to fall.

Right, which is why I’m saying that’s the same whether we are in the AAC or CUSA.

Yeah idk how exactly it goes down. Point is if UNT gets left out of whatever super conferences are created, AAC vs CUSA probably doesn’t make all that much of a difference. Certainly not to the point of considering AAC membership the “boom” and staying in CUSA the “bust.”

Yup. Which is why I was sure to include the “again” haha.

If things really do go to Super Conferences, it’s honestly BIG XII or bust. Five 16-team Super Conferences probably means anyone not in that group of 80 schools might as well be playing FCS.

It sucks we aren’t in better position at this point in time. Hanging on to RV as long as we did may come back to bite us again.