Around The Unt Athletic Department

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Around the UNT athletic department

10:30 PM Thu, Jul 03, 2008 | Permalink

Brett Vito E-mail News tips

It's a slow time of the year and with the holiday weekend upon us, there is not a whole lot going on in the world of UNT sports, but I did pick up a few tidbits to put on the blog today.

I have put up notes the past couple of days on new UNT women's basketball recruit Raquel Cuffie. Well, today is going to be Day 3. I put in a call to Cuffie's AAU coach a couple of days ago. He called me back this morning. In an interesting twist, Delaney Rudd played four seasons in the NBA, three of them with the Utah Jazz. Rudd was a backup for John Stockton.

Not a bad guy to have coaching a future member of your backcourt, if you ask me.

Rudd said Cuffie's strength is her consistency and all-around game.

"Raquel has very good knowledge of the game and does a little of everything on the court," Rudd said. "She could come in and contribute for North Texas right away. I know that I am going to get 12 points and four rebounds from her every game. That's a lot better than someone who is going to give you 25 one game and six the next.

"She comes in and does a lot of extra work on her own. Those are the ones you know are going to be successful."

Rudd said that UNT head coach Shanice Stephens has been after Cuffie going back to her days at Clemson.

"Shanice has a good relationship with Raquel," Rudd said. "The most important aspect of recruiting is to find a coach you can build a relationship with and work for."

Cuffie said she found that match with Stephens and the rest of the staff at UNT.

It's pretty dead on the football recruiting front, but UNT target Phillip Gaines, a cornerback from Converse Judson, did talk to Scout.com a few days back. Gaines is one of a handful of prospects with a UNT offer at this point.

Gaines has offers from UNT, Texas State, Mississippi State and UTEP. Gaines said he is favoring Mississippi State and is holding out hope he might be offered by TCU or Texas A&M.

Gaines could be a key target for UNT because of his talent and the fact he is teammates with Chris McCallister, a defensive end that has offers from UNT, Houston, Kansas State, Tulsa and UTEP. UNT needs linemen and impact defensive players. Signing the Converse Judson duo would go a long way to filling UNT's needs in its next recruiting class.

UTEP also picked up its first commitment in Mario Turner, a defensive end from Pearland, which really doesn't matter other than it means that every Division I school in Texas has a player on the board at this point. Texas leads the way with 20 commitments, while UNT and UTEP are at the other end of the spectrum with one each