We may have seen the glory days of UNT basketball

[untphd]

Next year , I hope , becomes a success or it is going to be going backwards really fast.

[Green Lantern]

2 minutes ago, untphd said:

Next year , I hope , becomes a success or it is going to be going backwards really fast.

Define success for next year.

[97and03]

9 minutes ago, Censored by Laurie said:

Mac had 3x the sample size and it seems like the expectation you’re holding Hodge to last year was an undefeated season. 

In the context of what our program is, last season was a big success. 

Very fair point. Mac also started with a  program in shambles. I don’t expect the team to win every top level game. I am just saying I don’t think we won any. And I think it is fair to say that is why we had 25 wins and still ended up in the NIT again despite the 7-game win increase. 
I am not sure what you mean by “what our program is” in your post. Does that mean we should expect to lose most tough matchups and the NIT is our goal? Because we lose all our players? So does everyone else at our level but some make the Dance. Let’s do that. 

[untphd]

I see success as most people, getting to march madness, but that isn't going to happen here so any tournament.

Winning the conference or conference tournament. Strong regular season record with games won against good opponents.  I used to consider player development, but they really don't stick around anymore. Have a great team chemistry- players who can push others to be the best. Public perception is included if you want the arena filled to the top.

[GRN-WHT]

This has Benford written all over it. 

[Green Lantern]

3 minutes ago, GRN-WHT said:

This has Benford written all over it. 

How so? I don’t see the similarity at all.

[Greendylan]

3 minutes ago, GRN-WHT said:

This has Benford written all over it. 

How could we possibly know that at this point?  Benford's massive failures were not about recruiting.

[MeanGreenZen]

2 hours ago, 97and03 said:

A 15 win Minnesota gets you excited? An Oklahoma St team that also won 15 games in the regular season and ended with a losing record?
 

Both of those wins got me excited. I used to live in Minnesota and the amount of greater support and resources that school has compared to us is ridiculous. And I also loved beating OK St and Abou Ousmanne (who quit on our team a few years ago). Not only do they have mountains more support and resources than us, but they are also a regional rival. 
Only thing that would have been better would have been if Mosley hadn’t fudged it up and we could have done it in front of a full home crowd. 
If those two wins don’t get you excited, then I would suggest doing something different with your time than following North Texas basketball. 

[MeanGreenZen]

1 hour ago, greenminer said:

Don't agree with the idea that those B12, B10, and MWC wins are anything like a a FB win over any P5.  NCAA MBB has so much more parity, and has like 3x the number of member schools at this level.

Agree with your overall point and standard/expectations.

I agree that football is obviously a bigger deal than basketball.
But we have no chance to beat the P4 schools in football anymore. Heck, look what happened when we played Texas Tech. 
The larger rosters in football and the ability of the P4 to monopolize the biggest, strongest and fastest players is too much for our limited budget to overcome. 
But in basketball: there are so many great guards that the P4 can’t take all of them. Stack a few great guards with a few serviceable big men (99% of the great big men are in the $$$ conferences) and we have a fighting chance against anyone. 
The best of the SEC schools would never play us in basketball but they would invite us to their football stadium almost every week if they could. 
And your point about NCAA basketball having more parity is a reason that we should invest more heavily in basketball. Why not fight a fight that you can actually win?

[GrandGreen]

2 hours ago, 97and03 said:

A 15 win Minnesota gets you excited? An Oklahoma St team that also won 15 games in the regular season and ended with a losing record?
We lost to every team that could have bolstered our record for the selection committee. Super happy we won the games we did, but mostly lost the games that really mattered - just like football. That Indiana win in 2011 and the 2018 Arkansas win didn’t do much for football either. An average or a bad team is just that, even if P4. We have to win against top teams to be a top team.
I would rather be the sort of good team that we are than a crappy team (like Minnesota or OkSt) but we won’t take the next step until we win big games again. Mac did that. Hodge didn’t. 

Funny, teams usually lose to better teams.  Yes, it is exciting to win over big time programs that spend, including NIL, 10 plus times what NT can.  

If you were not excited about NT basketball in the McCasland and Hodge era, you are likely to be disappointed in any team,  

[Censored by Laurie]

1 hour ago, 97and03 said:

Very fair point. Mac also started with a  program in shambles. I don’t expect the team to win every top level game. I am just saying I don’t think we won any. And I think it is fair to say that is why we had 25 wins and still ended up in the NIT again despite the 7-game win increase. 
I am not sure what you mean by “what our program is” in your post. Does that mean we should expect to lose most tough matchups and the NIT is our goal? Because we lose all our players? So does everyone else at our level but some make the Dance. Let’s do that. 

I think more what I meant by “what our program is” is the fact that some 90% of the banners hanging in the Pit got raised within the last decade. 

So given that in the century before Mac got here we had three 15-seed NCAA appearances and zero NITs, imma still be pretty ok with a 20+ win season and basketball into late March/early April. That doesn’t mean that I don’t WANT more…but I’m also not going to downplay really good basketball after a whole history of at best mediocre. 

Our OOC schedule (definitely a topic worth discussing) and a down AAC meant we had to be near perfect for an at-large and if we’re being honest last years team was not even near perfect. 

that said, I’ll choose not to diminish some nice wins against power conference foes that a decade prior we’d have (and did) storm the court for. 

[NT80]

1 hour ago, GRN-WHT said:

This has Benford written all over it. 

No, Benford had talent on the team, but he didn't know how to coach it.

This coach has three consecutive 20-win seasons in DI.  He can coach; it's now about finding the talent.

 

[greenminer]

4 hours ago, MeanGreenZen said:

I agree that football is obviously a bigger deal than basketball.
But we have no chance to beat the P4 schools in football anymore. Heck, look what happened when we played Texas Tech. 
The larger rosters in football and the ability of the P4 to monopolize the biggest, strongest and fastest players is too much for our limited budget to overcome. 
But in basketball: there are so many great guards that the P4 can’t take all of them. Stack a few great guards with a few serviceable big men (99% of the great big men are in the $$$ conferences) and we have a fighting chance against anyone. 
The best of the SEC schools would never play us in basketball but they would invite us to their football stadium almost every week if they could. 
And your point about NCAA basketball having more parity is a reason that we should invest more heavily in basketball. Why not fight a fight that you can actually win?

My point was, I don't think beating those teams in MBB is a significant win.  It's a win by the Mean Green that was expected, over teams and brands that don't really mean that much once you step outside the CFB arena.

[MeanGreenZen]

12 hours ago, greenminer said:

My point was, I don't think beating those teams in MBB is a significant win.  It's a win by the Mean Green that was expected, over teams and brands that don't really mean that much once you step outside the CFB arena.

If you thought beating Texas Wesleyan was an insignificant win, then I would have to agree with you. 
I don’t care what sport it is, if North Texas beats a Big 10 or Big 12 team, I think that is a really big deal: especially men’s basketball. 
Just curious: what would you consider a significant win? 

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, MeanGreenZen said:

I don’t care what sport it is, if North Texas beats a Big 10 or Big 12 team,

Sounds like you think a lot about brand, and not caring if their quality of play is good or not.

At best, those teams compete for CUSA titles.

I'm at a point where none of the people I have water cooler talks with are so dumb that only conference affiliation matters to them.  Thankfully, we can dig a bit deeper than that and understand that Utah State, Creighton, and McNeese States of the world are better wins.  And not just by metrics: IMO, those schools are in fact bigger, better basketball brands than Minnesota or Oregon State.

If ya got friends that spit out the generic conference assumptions, don't just nod! Speak up! and tell'm that this ain't football and there are tons of qualtiy Mids that can whip some arse, especially when it comes to these programs that dwell in the sub-0.500 range, year after year without fail, in their Major conference.

Edited 7 hours ago by greenminer

[Censored by Laurie]

9 minutes ago, greenminer said:

Sounds like you think a lot about brand, and not caring if their quality of play is good or not.

At best, those teams compete for CUSA titles.

I'm at a point where none of the people I have water cooler talks with are so dumb that only conference affiliation matters to them.  Thankfully, we can dig a bit deeper than that and understand that Utah State, Creighton, and McNeese States of the world are better wins.  And not just by metrics: IMO, those schools are in fact bigger, better basketball brands than Minnesota or Oregon State.

I think we can find a balance in convincing people that Utah State, McNeese and High Point were all high quality opponents while not diminishing wins against down Minnesota and the OSUs. 

[greenminer]

12 minutes ago, Censored by Laurie said:

I think we can find a balance in convincing people that Utah State, McNeese and High Point were all high quality opponents while not diminishing wins against down Minnesota and the OSUs. 

This is not us diminishing or raising, it's a disconnect between how we view them.

If y'all like bragging about those wins just because they were B10 or B12 teams, have at it!  Just seems empty to me.

[Green Lantern]

45 minutes ago, greenminer said:

This is not us diminishing or raising, it's a disconnect between how we view them.

If y'all like bragging about those wins just because they were B10 or B12 teams, have at it!  Just seems empty to me.

I mean realistically it took everything we had to beat both of those teams (Minnesota and Oregon State). It wasn’t like they were cake walks and our team was just far superior.

The disparity in program resources alone makes those wins significant. Not hang a banner or anything, but quality wins against teams with significant financial advantages.

[MeanGreenZen]

2 hours ago, Censored by Laurie said:

I think we can find a balance in convincing people that Utah State, McNeese and High Point were all high quality opponents while not diminishing wins against down Minnesota and the OSUs. 

What percentage of the general population knows or cares that Utah State, McNeese and High Point are great basketball programs? Probably the same percentage that knows how good we are too. And that is not enough. 
My wife, kids and friends were impressed with the Minnesota and Oklahoma State wins, I count those as quality wins all day. 

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, Green Lantern said:

I mean realistically it took everything we had to beat both of those teams (Minnesota and Oregon State). It wasn’t like they were cake walks and our team was just far superior.

The disparity in program resources alone makes those wins significant. Not hang a banner or anything, but quality wins against teams with significant financial advantages.

Def solid wins.  Not taking away from that.  I guess we could go down the rabbit hole of "define significant", but I don't want to lol

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, Green Lantern said:

The disparity in program resources alone makes those wins significant. 

The point about resources is probably the best argument for this.

[greenminer]

38 minutes ago, MeanGreenZen said:

My wife, kids and friends were impressed with the Minnesota and Oklahoma State wins, I count those as quality wins all day. 

Herein lies the problem: don't just nod and fall in line, tell them all the reasons they are not better basketball schools!

Fight the good fight!  Tell them the truth!


 

Edited 4 hours ago by greenminer

[greenminer]

22 hours ago, GRN-WHT said:

This has Benford written all over it. 

How do you see this?  Here's what I see:

Benford was a guy with zero HC experience who nailed his recruiting efforts.

Our current HC did well at his last HC gig and has questionable recruiting efforts (in Denton)

[Censored by Laurie]

45 minutes ago, MeanGreenZen said:

What percentage of the general population knows or cares that Utah State, McNeese and High Point are great basketball programs? Probably the same percentage that knows how good we are too. And that is not enough. 
My wife, kids and friends were impressed with the Minnesota and Oklahoma State wins, I count those as quality wins all day. 

I guess I just don’t understand why external perception is your metric. Maybe because I don’t live in Texas and have to put up with the inane middle-management water cooler talk, but I could not care less about what some other grad whose identity is too wrapped up in college sports fandom thinks of a win or loss against USU or McNeese. 

maybe if someday it feels like “perception” legitimately cost us an at large bid I’ll worry more about it, but until then I’ll just continue to enjoy the best stretch of NT hoops in program history

[BigWillie]

4 minutes ago, Censored by Laurie said:

I guess I just don’t understand why external perception is your metric. Maybe because I don’t live in Texas and have to put up with the inane middle-management water cooler talk, but I could not care less about what some other grad whose identity is too wrapped up in college sports fandom thinks of a win or loss against USU or McNeese. 

maybe if someday it feels like “perception” legitimately cost us an at large bid I’ll worry more about it, but until then I’ll just continue to enjoy the best stretch of NT hoops in program history

Quad 1 wins are why we last the at large this year we were starting to get rumblings of. I would seriously doubt that if the committee had to chose between us and a BIG 10 team with the exact same Q1 record against the same teams, the name would win. 

Luckily, we haven't been in a situation like that, but name absolutely factors into the committee's decision sans all other factors.