North Texas: A down year in the Big Three

Harry · June 25, 2013

There was a lot to like about what transpired during the 2012-13 school year when it came to UNT athletics. The UNT soccer and tennis teams made the NCAA tournament. The Mean Green volleyball team made the conference tournament final.

UNT fans spent time looking forward to the school’s move to Conference USA this summer.

But not everything that transpired was candy and nuts.

Today, we look back again in our fourth installment of the year in review on a historically tough year in the Big Three (football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball).

The UNT football team was just a year removed from coming within a game of .500 at 5-7 in 2011, but slipped back to 4-8 last year due to a few missed opportunities while rebuilding under Dan McCarney.

The UNT women’s basketball team was also coming off a season where it just missed breaking through to finish .500 only to switch coaches and fall back to 11-19 in its first season under Mike Petersen.

And then there was the real downer. UNT came into the men’s basketball season projected to be among the top mid-major teams in the country. UNT had posted six straight seasons with at least 18 wins, had a future first-round NBA draft pick in Tony Mitchell coming back, along with its other top six scorers. Then Johnny Jones left for LSU, UNT suffered a host of key injuries, the guys that were left struggled to adjust to the system installed by new head coach Tony Benford, Mitchell stopped being Mitchell and later admitted he coasted through the year and the Mean Green crashed to 12-20. UNT hadn’t finished with a record that poor since the 2002-03 season.

Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2013/06/looking-back-at-the-school-year-part-iv-a-down-year-in-the-big-three.html/

letsgiveacheer · June 25, 2013

Shoot, these are some "glory years" compared to what we have been through in the past. Who remembers 98, 99, and 00 when we won a grand total of 23 men's basketball and football games combined?

98 3 wins in football, 4 in BB

99 2 in FB, 7 in BB

00, 3 in FB, 4 in BB

UNT90 · June 25, 2013

Shoot, these are some "glory years" compared to what we have been through in the past. Who remembers 98, 99, and 00 when we won a grand total of 23 men's basketball and football games combined?

98 3 wins in football, 4 in BB
99 2 in FB, 7 in BB
00, 3 in FB, 4 in BB

Shooting for the stars, eh?

untjim1995 · June 26, 2013

The money sports are all that matter to most of us--soccer, tennis, track and field, cross country, golf, softball, volleyball, etc...they are fine and I'm glad we compete in them. But they bring in no money to a broke ass AD (or cheap-ass AD, depending on your view) and are often used as a mask to hide from the hideous performance of the sports that really pay the bills. Even Women's Hoops is on the edge, but I get that it can be a money sport, so I have no problem including it. The media cares the most about the two main sports--when we fail at both, especially with what was expected in basketball this year, it just kills any momentum we want to build here, both in attendance and in PR.

Bubas Cup or Capital One Standings are not the metrics we need to follow right now. We need to get to bowl games and to the NCAA Tournament, or at least the NIT. Do that and most of us will be very proud of our AD. If the other sports do well, too, then that is gravy. But we need to get the meat and potatoes cooked first.