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Congrats on a good season, best of luck in the NIT

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I held off on posting last night because I know how disappointed a lot of you must still feel. But I did want to stop in and tip my hat to you guys for the big step forward your program took this season.

First off, don't look down at your NIT berth. Postseason play is CRUCIAL to legitimizing your program to higher quality recruits, and this is going to help you maintain this type of performance and bring in the next crop of Roysters and Taylors and Gantts. The NIT may seem like a disappointing consolation prize today, but by next week I hope you guys will be fired up and supporting your team. If nothing else, an NIT slot means your guys get another 2 weeks of practice without violating any NCAA rules. That's valuable, just like it was for Schnellenberger in football.

I was very angry last year when the screwed up tiebreaker implementation cost us the NIT auto bid. Having the postseason in your pocket is a big deal, and I hope you guys will get enthused about the opportunity. For a one-bid conference (and until the 150 rule starts to pay dividends, that may be our situation for another year or two), you can't determine success or failure of a season on getting to the NCAA tournament. Tournament play (SBC, I mean) is so different than the regular season… Teams that have been through it have a powerful advantage, and that shouldn't be underrated. In any event, your guys took a huge step forward this year.

Second, I read where you guys talked about our turnout and our fan support in town. 6 years ago, there were maybe 6-10 people who even posted on our basketball forum. When we won our first NCAA berth in Lafayette back in 2007, announced attendance was 409 total people. But when a program starts growing the way yours seems like it might, these things tend to snowball. The next year, we had a decent turnout in Mobile. In 2009, we had a few hundred people. Last year, I think we got about 400 folks out (not counting bussed in students) for our championship game. And last night, we had 500-700 people here for a Sunday night quarterfinal game in what has turned out so far to be a disappointing season. Part of it is the sustained success, part of it is the fact that the die hards have been trying to make the tournament an experience in itself, even when we don't make the final or win the whole thing. For those of you who are trying to build your own basketball fan base, I strongly encourage you to plan on making the trip next year. There is NOTHING like tournament basketball where every team is on the verge of elimination in every game. And Hot Springs is a great venue for this sort of thing. I met a group of your students in Mobile back in 2008, and I hope that as Jarvis keeps you guys building and building, I'll get to meet more of your supporters in the years ahead.

And finally… I very much enjoyed your women's team supporting the men, both in Denton and last night for the tournament game. I wish our women's team showed half as much passion and intensity on the court as yours did in the stands.

Best of luck to you guys in the NIT. Keep your heads up and be proud of the season you had, and the potential success you could still enjoy in the postseason.
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Re: Congrats on a good season, best of luck in the NIT

Classy as always Tasty.

Congrats on the win and GL in the rest of the Tourney.

I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick @$$ and I'm out of bubble gum.

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Re: Congrats on a good season, best of luck in the NIT

Congrats on a good season, best of luck in the NIT

owlfamily said

Classy as always Tasty.

Congrats on the win and GL in the rest of the Tourney.

Second.

Great post Tasty!

On a side note:

WKU winning it is not out of the question by any means.
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Re: Congrats on a good season, best of luck in the NIT

Thanks for the great post! Some fans may have come on here to rub it in, especially after how disappointed we all are. Very classy! I'm assuming you're a UNT fan. Good luck vs. WKU, that's gonna be a crazy game

My two favorite teams are FAU, and who ever is beating FIU!
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Re: Congrats on a good season, best of luck in the NIT

I like the way your program is coming together, and I'm always glad to see the league improving. If your squad can stay on course (and even with the loss of Royster, you still have phenomenal guards in a traditionally guard-dominated league) then I think it's good for the conference as a whole. ULL is growing again, WKU won't stay down long… With the coaches in this league and the new 150 rule, it shouldn't take more than a year or two before we're back where we were in 2008 again. Your program's development is critical to that happening.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see North Texas win this league every year… But I want us to win a league that's relevant, where the teams are competitive nationally against other non-BCS conferences (and our fair share of BCS teams).

I hope you hang on to Jarvis, I hope your fan base embraces hoops the way ours did when we started building things up in the mid-2000's. And I really do encourage all of you to make arrangements and plans for a trip to Hot Springs next year. I think you'll enjoy it.
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Re: Congrats on a good season, best of luck in the NIT

Great season boys - you won the SBC title and a trophy to add to the case!
Good luck in the NIT !!
You've made us proud !!!
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