Gosselin: New SMU, TCU, UNT basketball coaches to pan area for gold

[Harry]

For the first time ever, all three schools hired new coaches in the same off-season. You’d have to go back to 1975 to find the last time two of the schools hired new coaches the same year, much less three.

And that’s great news for high school basketball in Dallas, Fort Worth and all the suburbs that surround the two hubs of the Dallas area.

The stakes have been raised. All three coaches — Larry Brown at SMU, Trent Johnson at TCU and Tony Benford at North Texas — plan to make local talent an emphasis in their recruiting.

“I was shocked when I saw the talent here,” Brown said. “I’ve seen some kids who are pretty special. I don’t know that we have a chance [at them], but I don’t want to lower the bar for us.”

Don’t look for any of the three new coaches to lower the bar.

Brown has the cachet. He’s the only coach in history to have won an NCAA and NBA title and has already been enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. What recruit isn’t going to answer the door when Larry Brown comes a knocking?

Johnson has been selected coach of the year in three different conferences — the WAC (Nevada) in 2003, Pac-10 (Stanford) in 2008 and SEC (LSU) in 2009. He’s taken teams to five NCAA Tournaments and reached a pair of

Sweet 16s. What recruit isn’t going to answer the door when Johnson comes a knocking?

This is the first head coaching opportunity for Benford, but he arrives in Texas with a slight edge over Brown and Johnson. His primary recruiting responsibility over the last 20 seasons as an assistant at New Mexico, Arizona State, Nebraska and Marquette has been the state of Texas.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/college-sports/headlines/20120510-gosselin-new-smu-tcu-unt-basketball-coaches-to-pan-area-for-gold.ece

[GangGreen]

"I was shocked when I saw the talent here," Brown said.

Seriously?

"I've seen some kids who are pretty special. I don't know that we have a chance [at them],

Well, NS, Sherlock.

[NTGabe15]

Seriously?

Well, NS, Sherlock.

He's getting senile what do you expect?

[cdizzle86]

It is nice to see an article like this. In the past, they wouldn't have even mentioned North Texas. We have built a winning program and gained a great amount of respect. Now we need to continue to do this in football.