Mean Green

The UNT swimming team is in the hunt for the Sun Belt Conference title out in Nashville. A little historical perspective here.

UNT was horrible until Joe Dykstra took over the program a couple of years back. He and tennis coach Sujay Lama have been two of UNT's best coaching hires of the last couple of years.

Here's a link to the Sun Belt story on the first couple of days of the meet: UNT in the hunt

And in other news, it looks like Western Kentucky athletic director Dr. Wood Selig is bolting to take over at Old Dominion. WKU losing Wood

Earlier today I posted what UNT needed to have happen today on its bye night in the Sun Belt Conference for it to have a chance to win the West Division or maybe the whole ball of wax.

It worked out perfectly for the Mean Green, which is now sitting in a tie for the SBC West lead with Arkansas State, not to mention a five-way mess atop the overall conference standings.

Louisiana-Lafayette did UNT a huge favor by beating ASU at the Cajundome and Troy beat Middle Tennessee.

UNT and ASU in the SBC West and MTSU, Troy and Florida Atlantic in the SBC East are all 10-5.

Western Kentucky might be playing the best of anyone right now and is 9-6 along with ULL.

The good news for UNT is that it has Arkansas-Little Rock and ULL at home before finishing at Louisiana-Monroe on the road. If UNT can win out it will at least finish in a tie for the league title.

ASU has the tiebreaker on UNT, but still has to face WKU and Troy.

The schedule favors UNT.

Beating ULL won't be easy. The Cajuns snuck by UNT 74-72 earlier this season at the Cajundome, but one has to like UNT's chances to home.

UNT has won five straight and is playing the best it has in a while with a veteran team with a lot of confidence at the moment. Head coach Johnny Jones will lay it all out for UNTs veteran guys like senior Eric Tramiel and juniors Josh White, George Odufuwa, Shannon Shorter and Tristan Thompson.

If UNT wins out, it has a real chance at a the division title, not to mention the overall Sun Belt title and the guaranteed postseason berth that goes along with it. UNT is aiming for the NCAA Tournament, but winning the overall league title would assure the Mean Green at least an NIT bid.

UNT is off tonight, but there are six Sun Belt games on the slate, including a couple that should be of interest to Mean Green fans.

The big one is Arkansas State's game at Louisiana-Lafayette. UNT (18-8, 10-5) is a half a game back of ASU in the Sun Belt West Division standings. The Cajundome is a tough place to win and ASU has already played once this week. It's not of the realm possibility that the Cajuns could pull this one out.

The other big game tonight is Middle Tennessee at Troy. Middle (16-11, 10-4) is atop the East Division with Troy (14-11, 9-5) and Florida Atlantic (13-12, 9-5) a game back. UNT is still in the hunt for the top overall seed in the conference. FAU is at cross-town rival Florida International.

ASU has beaten UNT twice, so the Mean Green needs some help, but there is still a chance UNT can win this thing outright if it can win out.

The best scenario for UNT would be ULL, Troy and FIU winning. That would vault UNT into a tie for the lead in the West and the overall conference standings.

The big one to watch, though, is ASU and ULL.

Earlier this year, I was talking UNT hoops with someone close to the program, who told me something that came to mind tonight.

The person (who I am not going to out) said that Richard Thomas might just be the most gifted player on the Mean Green's roster.

It never quite worked out for Thomas, who left the team today.

Thomas had his moments and scored in double figures a few times. The problem was he joined a team with a loaded backcourt and fell out of favor late in the year. Josh White wasn't coming out of the lineup and neither was Tristan Thompson, who has to fight for his spot every year -- and wins, every year. Shannon Shorter has developed into UNT's glue guy as the third guard in the lineup. Alzee Williams is the Mean Green's backup point guard and the defensive specialist it pairs with Shorter in key spots.

That left Thomas without much of a role.

The guy in from New York, so it is hard to blame him for wanting to get out and go somewhere he can play closer to home.

The interesting aspect of this whole deal is that UNT now has an extra scholarship it can use to add a player to its next class that already includes Lon Morris JC forward Alonzo Edwards.

Johnny Jones said that UNT will take the best player available, but would like to land a backcourt high school guy.

UNT has a lot to sell. White, Thompson and Shorter will be seniors next season. UNT has won 20 games in three straight seasons and is going to get there a fourth time this year.

It was mentioned at practice today that Jones was headed to Corsicana. I couldn't resist the temptation to look it up. Navarro is playing at home tonight and features Matt Pressey, a 6-2 guard who ranks fourth in Region XIV in scoring at 17.0 points a game.

Junior guard Richard Thomas is no longer on the Mean Green' roster. Thomas started for a while this season, but has been coming off the bench lately.

He was a member of UNT's big junior class.

I have to go pick up the dog at the vet, but will be back with more later.

It's been a few years now, but in the first year of the Todd Dodge era I did a little math heading into the Mean Green's game against Florida Atlantic.

I counted up the years of experience UNT's coaching staff had on the FBS level and compared it to the number of years the Owls' coaches had. It was an extreme comparison -- FAU's staff with Howard Schnellenberger has been around since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The point, though, was the tally came up to around a hundred years for FAU to a few dozen for UNT.

I can't find the paper where I had the exact totals.

The point remains the same, though.

UNT was at a disadvantage at times when it came to college experience on its coaching staff when it went up against the FAUs and Middle Tennessees of the world. Those team's coaches had some serious skins on the wall on the college level.

UNT had some guys with a lot of good experience on the college level in Chuck Petersen, Shelton Gandy and Spencer Leftwich, but it didn't have the experience overall of a staff like FAU or MTSU.

That should change next season. Todd Ford left his job at UNT to return to the high school level, and now Clayton George has done the same in accepting the same job he used to have at Carroll under Dodge.

UNT brought on Mike Canales to replace Ford at offensive coordinator, which will increase the number of years of college experience UNT's staff has by more than 20 years.

Dodge has hired experienced college coaches at every opportunity since putting together his original staff. I doubt that changes now.

The last of UNT's high school hires is now gone. Ron Mendoza, Robert Drake, Ford and George have all returned to the prep ranks.

All four guys did some good things for UNT, especially Ford and George. Ford helped in the transition to a passing offense and George recruited Lance Dunbar and coached Casey Fitzgerald.

Enough said.

The hope, though, is that UNT's new and more experienced assistants will help it avoid some of the problems this team has run into in the past, whether it be its inability to convert in short-yardage situations or making better in-game decisions.

There have been a lot of good calls made over the last few years, but have also been times when it's hard not to question what UNT is thinking.

Will the changes make a difference? Only time will tell. But they will give UNT hope going into next season and a better shot at turning the program around.

That's all one could ask for at this point.

It was a packed day when it comes to news on the UNT football front.

Wide receivers coach Clayton George is headed back to Southlake Carroll, William Cole won't play for UNT next season and backup safety Darien Williams is planning to transfer. All three moves have been in the works for a while, but it wasn't until today that I was able to get a few minutes with Todd Dodge so that he could go on record to confirm them.

It's got to be tough for Dodge to see George go. He described him as almost like a little brother or a son. The two have coached together for a long time. And if you look back at it, George did a lot for UNT.

George helped coach Casey Fitzgerald, who became the Mean Green's all-time leading wide receiver in terms of receptions in essentially two years. He also convinced Lance Dunbar to sign with UNT over offers from schools like Colorado.

The addition of Dunbar was critical. He was UNT's best player last season, and it wasn't even close.

George played at UNT. It would be nice to see a letterman stay around, but the draw of Carroll is easy to understand. His wife is a principal in the district and his kids go to school there. That job will offer a lot of stability.

As far as Cole goes, he was a risk from the beginning. Transfers always are. Transfers with knee injuries are an even bigger risk. UNT fans had dreams of having the next Dez Bryant playing in the Mean Green's offense. It didn't work out, but teams like UNT roll the dice on players like Cole because of their upside. And Cole had a lot of upside.

As far as Williams goes, the writing was on the wall. He started early in his career, but was a backup last season. UNT has two safeties coming back and signed two more who will have a chance to start next season in its last recruiting class.

Williams could transfer out and start right away at a Division II program. That seems like the likely scenario.

I was able to track down a couple of news items from the football world today after catching up with Todd Dodge.

Dodge confirmed that Clayton George has taken the offensive coordinator position at Southlake Carroll.

William Cole, the Oklahoma State transfer, is no longer with the team.

Darien Williams has decided to transfer.

I will be back with more later.

UNT played a somewhat non-descript nonconference game tonight against Houston Baptist while I sat in the office and cranked out the paper in Denton.

UNT kept right on rolling in a 107-87 win.

There is not a lot not like about how UNT is playing at this point of the season. One could argue that UNT has the best combination of four players in the league right now in Josh White, George Odufuwa, Eric Tramiel and Tristan Thompson. Shannon Shorter is the perfect glue guy who is holding it all together.

Amy of Dad stopped by to point out that UNT doesn't get a lot from its bench. Alzee Williams is great defensively and Jacob Holmen continues to play well, but to a certain extent I agree. Richard Thomas has fallen way out of favor and UNT doesn't have a big scorer outside of its starting five like it used to with Collin Dennis and Adam McCoy.

That's why it's so important that UNT hang onto a top three seed and earn a bye in the first round of the conference tournament. These guys are all about 20 and play all day, but games on consecutive days can be tough after a while.

UNT was deeper when it ran through the tournament and won it a few years ago.

With the schedule UNT has left, it's hard not to imagine the Mean Green hanging on, though. This team is playing really well right now.

The UNT men appear to be hitting their stride at just the right time heading into the stretch run of the season. The Mean Green has won six of seven and everyone on the roster is healthy at this point outside of Dominique Johnson, who was lost early in the season, and Kedrick Hogans, who was lost before the Mean Green even got started.

UNT will play Houston Baptist on Monday night and has a good shot to run the table and grab one of the top three seeds in the Sun Belt tournament.

This could very well end up being the Mean Green's best regular season of the Sun Belt era. A division title is still within reach of UNT can win out and get some help. There is still a chance UNT could win the whole league outright.

UNT needs Arkansas State to drop a couple of games down the stretch, which isn't out of the question. The Red Wolves still have games against Western Kentucky and Troy coming up.

UNT picked up another win and kept alive its recent run of success that includes six wins in its last seven games with a victory over Denver tonight.

UNT is still in the hunt for the Sun Belt West Division title, the overall regular season league title and the automatic NIT berth that goes along with it.

Don't get me wrong. UNT has a real shot to win the tournament, but the overall regular season title would be a huge accomplishment for the program.

The interesting aspect of UNT's win over Denver and its season is that UNT is a whopping 8-2 on the year in games decided by five points or less.

UNT can credit that in large part to the clutch play of its core guys -- Josh White, Eric Tramiel, George Odufuwa and Tristan Thompson. All have hit big shots at one time or another late in games this season.

Tonight it was White, who hit a three and then six straight free throws to help UNT pull out the win.

Good teams win close games, and UNT looks really good right now.

It's interesting to think back. One of the complaints about UNT a few years ago was that it didn't win close games and that a few questionable coaching decisions were made during the stretch in games. Bo McCaleb and the New Orleans in-bounds play comes to mind.

There nothing to question now.

Johnny Jones and his team have been great late. The decisions UNT has made have been solid and so have the results. That bodes well for the stretch run, the conference tournament and maybe beyond.

Nice win for UNT to keep its streak going. I will be back later.

Brian Stafford just hit a wide open 3 for Denver. UNT has the ball with 44.5 seconds left and needs to convert.

Josh White has scored five straight for UNT, which is up four with 1:08 left.

UNT needs a stop. Alzee Williams is in for UNT to play defense in place of White.

Eric Tramiel just hit two free throws to tie up the game with 3:49 left at the Super Pit.

UNT was down four just a few minutes ago, which seems like a lot in this game.

Shannon Shorter has 13 points for UNT.

UNT is getting stuck in the kind of game it doesn't want to play. There is no action in the open floor and few second-chances. It's all halfcourt sets and one-shot possessions.

UNT isn't getting many looks in the paint, either.

Collin Mangrum just came up short on a 3-pointer that would have given UNT the lead. UNT is 1-for -12 from behind the arc.

Denver took its first lead since early in the first half at 35-34 a few minutes ago and extended it to 38-35 on a Andrew Hooper 3-pointer.

UNT has answered with a George Odufuwa free throw and a basket from Josh White, who is headed to the line to try to complete a 3-point play and put UNT back up.

Shannon Shorter leads UNT with 11 points.

UNT was up 28-24 at halftime, but is up just one at the first media timeout of the second half.

UNT was up 12 at one points of the first half.

Shannon Shorter has hit all five of his shots from the field and has 11 points.

Shannon Shorter has nine points and Tristan Thompson seven for UNT, which is up 12 late in the first half.

Those two guys are the reason why UNT is a terrible matchup for Denver. They are both about 6-5 and athletic. Denver has no one who can match up with either.

Shannon Shorter is having a nice game so far with five points for UNT, which is up five midway through the first half.

Tristan Thompson also has five. He just had a 3-pointer go halfway down before popping back out.

Eric Tramiel is headed to the line.