basketball a victim of football

drex · February 19, 2004

I am as excited as all of you folks about the success of the football team. However, is football sucking the life out of basketball? The lack of attention given to basketball worries me. There are no promotions for basketball, the Mean Green donors are stuck in an oversized broom closet in the coliseum for basketball games, there seems to be no real immediacy as to having cheerleaders at the games, half time entertainment is sparce. Some universities are unable to maintain a good basketball program if football is king, and other schools are high profile in basketball while football suffers. Can we strike a balance? Do we care to do so? Just wondered what y'all think.

CMJ · February 19, 2004

Some schools excell at both. No reason why we can't.

February 19, 2004

Can we strike a balance? Do we care to do so?

That's the thing. Many people couldn't care less about basketball and give football 100% of their attention and support even when the basketball team is doing well and it is the football offseason. Then those people complain about UNT's other sports not being good enough to get us into a better conference.

GreenLignt · February 19, 2004

I agree that as we improve, so will the interest. If the Mean Green Room is consistently too small then htere is a larger room that could be made available on the west side.

Great promotions aren't going to help a lot if the team isn't competitive. JJ could become a showman a la Bill Blakeley but that's not him. He's just a great player or two away from having some great crowds.

As to halftime, the last game was the best that I've ever seen. Honor a million dollar donor each game and then have the Little Dribblers follow that and I'd come just for the halftime.

greenjoe · February 19, 2004

The cheerleaders spell it out loud and clear. Football is king. But we have a huge committment to basketball (ie. the super pit) and the notion that basketball is there to keep football and spring football from bumping into each other is crazy.I can't comment on the situation with the Mean Green donors as I get to the games just before tip off and stay in my seat for halftime. By the way, I've got the answer to basketball halftime--The UNT Dancers abd Frizby-Dogs. Please don't read anything into that. I like pretty girls and dogs that can fly!!

Zeke · February 19, 2004

Its been mentioned before, but it appears that North Texas is very content to do absolutly nothing to promote basketball.

GrandGreen · February 19, 2004

Well only a few years ago, Basketball was supposed to be were our emphasis was. Vic Trilli was going to led the way for NT sports programs. Back in the stone age when I attended NT, NT had probably the best basketball and football teams in NT's history at the same time. The Joe Hamilton led basketball team had 18 wins in the best conference in the nation at the time. The football team that included Joe Greene, Steve Ramsey, Cedric Hardman, etc was not bad either.

BUNT · February 19, 2004

I've had basketball season tickets for over 20 years, and for the life of me, I don't understand why more students don't attend games. You can say if UNT won more they would come, and that's no doubt true. But how many students live within a mile of the Super Pit? 10,000? Maybe more? Then you probably have another 2,000 to 5,000 within five miles? So, is winning the only thing that would get 3,000 - 4,000 students to a game every time out? The "community" fan base seems to be around 1,200 or so - which has got to get better as well. Basketball, probably as much or more than any other sport, feeds off the energy of the crowd. So, I guess it's a chicken-and-egg thing. Win, and we'll come out and yell, we come out an yell so you play hard and win.

So, what is it? The right coach seems to be here. The Super Pit looks great. The team's competitive. Used to be in the Blakely years, UNT would beat the Hardin-Simmons of the world by 100+ to 60, and fans would go ape crap wild. But you have a game like a couple of years ago against Alabama and lose by 1 or 2, and fans write you off.

February 20, 2004

Students don't come because they don't know when games are, which is truly insane if you think about it. No effort is made to promote the basketball games and the result is that no one knows when games are or cares about the team.