Mean Green

I had to design the paper tonight, which ranks right up there with cleaning the litter box in my book, but since you see everything on the wire sometimes you run across something interesting.

That was the case tonight.

Van Malone is headed to Tulsa to coach its secondary.

For those of you who have not been around long, Malone played in the NFL and pretty much launched his coaching career at UNT in 2005 under Darrell Dickey. Malone eventually left for A&M and will now be the main secondary coach at Tulsa.

Malone did a nice job at UNT, and I am pretty sure he recruited Kelvin Drake.

As for the mailbag, you guys are way too sensitive about what players have to say about UNT these days. City College of San Francisco defensive end Frank Gaines said he was taking a calculated risk by waiting to see if anything else came along before signing with UNT.

That's what he had to say, straight up.

The situation is one UNT is going to have to deal with until it can start having some success on the field. I have talked to plenty of recruits this year who were really enthusiastic about signing with UNT. Others, not so much.

That's the case just about anywhere, especially at places where teams are not winning. UNT hasn't won more than three games in a season since 2004.

There was a question posted on the blog today about what we will see from John Weber this spring.

I am interested to see what we see from him as well. He looked like an athlete along the lines of Adrian Awasom early in practice last year, but was injured and disappeared for the rest of the season. He would be an interesting option at defensive end.

Todd Dodge is supposed to start interviewing candidates for a wide receivers coach early this week. We should hear something by Friday or so.

I talked with City College of San Francisco defensive end Frank Gaines for a few minutes today about his plans.

UNT is sitting on one last scholarship, and all indications are Gaines is the guy the Mean Green is targeting. He visited campus over the weekend. He is a Rivals three-star guy.

Wyoming offered at one point, but pulled its scholarship after landing another player. Hawaii was also interested until it signed a guy higher up its board.

The bottom line is Gaines says he has just one offer from UNT.

Gaines said that he is going to wait a few weeks to see if something better comes along. There is always a chance a team might lose a player in spring practice to injury or someone won't qualify.

Gaines said that if nothing works out, he will sign with the Mean Green, which really needs help on its defensive front. The idea last year was that UNT could rotate in a series of players and generate a pass rush that way. It didn't work out. UNT finished in a tie with Florida Atlantic on the official NCAA leaders list with 12 sacks, a total that ranked No. 116 out of 120 teams nationally.

Only Western Kentucky, Akron and Fresno State had few sacks than UNT.

UNT appears as if it will try the more conventional route with more conventional looking defensive ends next season. The Mean Green signed strong side end Michael Miller on national signing day from the California JC ranks. Gaines is a weak side end that would provide a nice complement.

Gaines said he will decide within the next two weeks if he will sign with UNT.

I stopped by basketball practice today to work on some stories for later in the week and got into a discussion with some UNT guys about the Sun Belt's tiebreaker system.

They made another good point about formula that will be used if UNT ends up in a three-way tie with Middle Tennessee at Troy at the end of the season. The point is UNT would end up as the West Division champion, while Troy would win a tiebreaker with MTSU for the East title.

I don't see a problem with that, but UNT would be the second seed behind Troy, which it beat head-to-head due to a round-robin tiebreaker between the three teams based on the games played between them in the regular season.

Troy would be 2-1, UNT 1-1 and MTSU 1-2.

The point is the No. 1 rule about seeing for the Sun Belt Conference tournament (outside of not talking about seeding for the conference tournament) is that the division winners earn the top two seeds.

If this plays out to where the three-way tie comes into play, the conference is going to throw out rule No. 1 and break the tie on the basis of entry "e" in the Sun Belt tiebreaking rules.

Really? Tiebreaker subsection "e" is going to supersede the basic rules for seeding for the conference tournament when the league went to this format?

That seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

The standings in the Sun Belt Conference are pretty much a mess at this point in the season, so I put in a call to the league office to see for sure how the tiebreaker scenario sets up.

I traded messages with John McElwain, the associate commissioner/communications.

The way things look right now, it is possible for UNT, Troy and Middle Tennessee to finish in a three-way tie for the overall league title at 13-5 if all three win out.

UNT would win the West Division, while Troy and Middle would tie for the East Division title.

There would be a couple of ways to break the tie, but this is how the Sun Belt would approach that scenario -- all three teams would be involved in a three-way tiebreaker based on head-to-head meetings.

Troy would be 2-1 and would come out on top, UNT would be second at 1-1 and MTSU would be third at 1-2.

To me it would make a lot more sense to determine the division winners first because the division winners are supposed to get the top two seeds.

If everyone wins out, UNT would be the No. 2 seed behind Troy, even though UNT won the only head-to-head meeting, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

What makes even less sense is that the teams didn't play an equal number of games against each other. UNT played just two games against the other two teams, while Troy and MTSU both played three because they are in the same division.

UNT would essentially be penalized for playing fewer games against the other two teams. UNT won at Troy and lost at MTSU. UNT didn't play a single home game against either team.

The way this sets up essentially also completely discounts the divisions when it comes to seeding in this particular scenario.

Basically, it is possible for UNT to win the West outright, Troy to technically win the East after sweeping MTSU and the Mean Green to not win the conference title through the tiebreaker, despite winning the head-to-head matchup with the Trojans.

There is no good way to break a tie in a situation like that. Anyway you do it someone gets the short end of the stick. It looks like a distinct possibility that UNT could end up that team.

The UNT women continued to struggle today and lost to Aransas-Little Rock, which is on that same tier with Middle Tennessee among the top teams in the league.

UNT hung in there pretty well early, but the Trojans are just too much for the Mean Green to handle.

The big question right now in men's hoops is how the tiebreaker scenarios will play out if UNT ends up in a three-way tie for the overall conference title.

I am going to have to make some calls tomorrow, but at first glance it comes down to whether the conference would break the ties atop each division first and then determine the overall conference winner or throw three teams tied atop two divisions in one hat and determine the winner that way.

The bottom line is if UNT takes care of business, it will win the Sun Belt's West Division. From there I don't see any way the Mean Green wouldn't at least be the No. 2 seed.

I will be back later.

This is turning into the blowout everyone expected it to be. UNT is down 22. Chastity Reed has 18 points for UALR, twice what any individual player has for UNT, and she has hardly played because of foul trouble.

UALR is still in control of this one. UNT doesn't have a player in double figures.

UNT is down 14 midway through the second half here at the Super Pit.

Brittney James has nine points for UNT. The Mean Green keeps hanging around, but hasn't made a big push to make this interesting.

UALR has a 25-19 edge in rebounds.

UALR opened the second half on a 6-0 run and has pushed its lead to 12 points at the 15:55 mark.

Brittney James hit a 3-pointer or this would be even worse for UNT.

James has seven points for the Mean Green.

UNT is down seven at halftime against UALR.

UNT was down 15 at halftime the last time these teams played, so that's a sign of improvement.

Jasmine Godbolt, Caitlin Hawkins and Raquel Cuffie all have five points for UNT.

Shanika Butler has eight points for UALR.

Chastity Reed played just seven minutes in the first half, which helped UNT. Reed still managed to score seven points, despite being in foul trouble.

UNT has hung in really well in the first half against the Sun Belt West Division champs. UALR is up just five with 2:11 left in the first half.

No one is having a huge first half for the Mean Green, but Jasmine Godbolt and Caitlin Hawkins both have five points.

Chastity Reed has barely played, but has seven points.

UNT is down 10 at the 7:45 mark of the first half.

UALR is on a 7-2 run.

Brittney Hudson and Brittney James have four points each for UNT.

UALR has extended its lead to five at the second media timeout and is headed to the line for a pair of free throws.

Brittney Hudson has four points for UNT in her return to the Mean Green's lineup.

UNT is down three at the first media timeout. Chastity Reed has six points for UALR, but is on the bench after picking up two quick fouls.

Brittney Hudson hit a 3-pointer for UNT after UALR took a 6-2 lead.

UALR brought a lot of fans today. It's nearly an even crowd, which is a little unusual.

It's a pretty big beating for UNT to have a Sunday early afternoon game, but that's the position the Mean Green is in heading into a game against Arkansas-Little Rock.

This game is part of the Sun Belt TV package.

There are maybe 200 people here at the moment, and there are a bunch who are wearing UALR shirts. The Trojans have to starters from the Dallas area. Chastity Reed, maybe the best player in the league, is from New Orleans but graduated from Irving McArthur.

Ni'qky Hughes and Tamara Torru are both out with injuries for UNT.

UALR won the first meeting between the teams this season 78-39.

UNT has three games left in the regular season and needs to make a move in the last week before the conference tournament to avoid having to play Florida Atlantic, Denver, South Alabama or Florida International in the first round.

The good news is Brittney Hudson is back from a knee injury and will play today.

UNT head coach Johnny Jones has signed his new deal.

The two-year extension has been coming down the pipe for a long time now.

The interesting aspect of it was always going to be how the new deal was written.

Here are the highlights:

Jones' base salary will go from $170,000 to $200,000 a year. It's the baseline for any coaching contract and what buyouts are based on.

Jones car allowance goes up $1,200 and his radio stipend goes up $5,000.

I mentioned this before, but Jones had a huge $100,000 contract completion payment set to come his way at the end of his previous contract term on May 31, 2012.

It seemed like that was the most likely part of the contract to change, and sure enough that is what happened. Instead of $100,000 in one lump sum, the completion payment was restructured, bumped up and spread over the term of the deal, including this season.

Jones will be $10,000 at the end of this season, $25,000 at the end of the 2010-11 season, $65,000 at the end of the 2011-12 season, nothing at the end of the 2012-13 season, $20,000 at the end of the 2013-14 season and $30,000 at the end of the 2014-15 season.

I talked with Rick Villarreal for a couple of minutes and he said that basically, the deal gives Jones some additional security, a few extra bucks along the way through his radio and car deals and moves that $100,000 up a little and spreads it around. He said Jones deserves it.

I completely agree.

Jones is about to win 20 games in a season for the fourth straight year. That's never happened at UNT.

UNT really is getting off pretty easy here, basically because Jones likes UNT and UNT likes Jones.

UNT really isn't kicking in a huge amount of extra money. Jones' base salary goes up a little bit, which protects UNT as much as it does Jones should someone come in and hire him away. He also gets a little more from his radio work. UNT also ups what was his contract completion bonus $50,000 and spreads is out over time.

That looks like a win-win to me.

If Jones continues to win, someone could come in and hire him away, but I don't see him leaving for another mid-major type program. It would take a dream (LSU, cough, cough, LSU) job for Jones to bolt. Unless that happens, Jones has a little better deal, one that UNT can afford.

It looks to me like both sides win in this one.

I am starting to think that this season might be one of those years when everything falls UNT's way.

The Mean Green took UALR out to the woodshed today, which isn't unexpected.

Western Kentucky also did UNT a favor by knocking off Arkansas State. That wasn't unexpected, either, but it left UNT alone atop the Sun Belt Conference West Division with just two games left in the season.

Collin Mangrum hit a few big 3-pointers off the bench early and just about everyone got into the act for UNT, which has now won six straight.

This team is healthy and is on a roll heading into a huge home game against Louisiana-Lafayette next week. UNT lost a close game to the Cajuns at the Cajundome earlier this year, but the Mean Green should be able to get this one at home.

From there all that would stand in UNT's way when it comes to a Division title is a game at Louisiana-Monroe.

This is a team on a mission. When it comes to the Sun Belt West Division, there isn't a good reason why UNT shouldn't complete it.

The key for UNT now is to see Middle Tennessee lose a game somewhere along the line over the last week of the season, which isn't out of the question.

UNT appears to be headed to its fourth straight 20-win season and a bye in the first round of the Sun Belt tournament as long as it doesn't blow it down the stretch in these last two games.

The Mean Green didn't show any signs of heading that direction in its win over UALR.

I will be back later.

UNT has its starters back in and it looks like they will finish this one out. Everyone is getting into the act for UNT.

UALR is not a very good team, but this will be a pretty good statement to the rest of the contenders in the Sun Belt that UNT has a good chance to win out.