AUSTIN...SAN ANTONIO...HOUSTON????????

[ALEX LIFESON]

What's up? The first two cities have already been toured, with Houston on tap for this evening. Let's have some reports....how many people were there? What was said?....etc.....etc....come on!

[smupony94]

Austin had a good turn out. Rhonda spoke and said she has a good class this year and expects good things. Bennett was upbeat as usual and all I cared about was that he said we were going to beat UNT. Doherty looked like he has somewhere else to go. He did mingle with the crowd some but not a very energetic or magnetic person that night

Oh, I am also a total Orsini fan now. Complimented Copeland and said he laid the foundation and that it is now his time to lead us to the next level.

[ALEX LIFESON]

How many would you guess were there? Thanks for the report!

[smupony94]

I would say 25-30 people. Good crowd, mom of one of the women's basketball players and some incoming freshman.

Tom Rossley was there too.

[PK]

Tom Rossley was there too.

Cool!

[OC Mustang]

Rossley? Izzat a fact? Well, that's...interesting....

[ALEX LIFESON]

I wonder how Tom even knew about the wing-ding?

[CA Mustang]

Hard to guess the attendance in Houston tonight as the event was held at residence, but I'd guess the 60 - 75 range.

Good crowd with ex-football players for every age group. For the old timers, there was Jerry Levias. The 80's crowd had Jerry Ball. For the recent generation, Austin Adami and Chris Cunnigham were in attendance.

Both basketball coaches talked about the benefits of a practice facility and how it will help both in operations and recruiting. They both also stressed how important improved attendance will be to the programs. In fact, the need for increased fan support was repeated several times during the event.

As for upcoming schedules, MBB will play both Memphis and UH twice next season. In non-conf. play, they have a return trip to Norman while hosting Dayton. In WBB, they'll visit Arkansas and play in the Cancun tournament in November (http://www.sporttours.net/tournaments/torneo_cancun.html). RR says Duke is in the tournament and may be the first round matchup.

PB was very upbeat about the prospects for 2006. 19 starters return and he was able to redshirt 17 of the 19 freshmen from last year. He's confident in Wills as the QB and feels the current depth at the position is better than it has been in awhile. He did seemed concerned about the kicking situation as he will be breaking in two new kickers.

MD and SO both talked about what attracted them to SMU and why they feel the the athletic programs are ready to take off.

All in all a great evening and a good kickoff for the 2006-2007 year.

[OC Mustang]

Did Matt Wisenbaker show up for this deal? He is from Kingwood, I think, and finished up circa 1992-1993. Played center. Good guy.

[BRStang]

Can I ask a dumb question? What is the purpose of shelling out a bunch of money to send all those coaches and alumni to events in Austin, SA and Houston with 30-60 people in attendance? Unless those 30-60 people are all multimillionaires, which doesn't seem to be the case, the bang doesn't seem worth the buck. Am I wrong?

[Hoop Fan]

hopefully you are not saying that our best non conference home game next year is Dayton. I'm sure we will have a soft schedule, but need one or two draws at home. We dont even have tcu at home next year. Can we get UNT maybe? Baylor?

[PK]

Can I ask a dumb question? What is the purpose of shelling out a bunch of money to send all those coaches and alumni to events in Austin, SA and Houston with 30-60 people in attendance? Unless those 30-60 people are all multimillionaires, which doesn't seem to be the case, the bang doesn't seem worth the buck. Am I wrong?

I will give you a qualified "yes, you are wrong." For years, Mustang Club members outside of the DFW area have felt that all they got out of their membership was request for more money. This is a way to keep some of these folks more involved. I am guessing that SMU hopes that these gatherings will draw more people in the future as word gets out about them and our programs become more successful. Let's just say that the folks who attended probably were happy to have the opportunity to be involved and were not thinking "we shouldn't do this."

[smupony94]

We had fun in Austin, saw people that have come all 3 years and then we went to a bar and watched the Mavs win.

PK is right, sometimes we feel neglected down here and Orsini said he is going to try and work on that.

By the way, he told me we are talking to UT about playing them again and that the they don't want to play 2 games in Dallas is wrong. It would be a 2 for 1 series.

[CA Mustang]

hopefully you are not saying that our best non conference home game next year is Dayton.

Obviously OU and UD aren't the only teams on the non-conference schedule, but they are the first two MD mentioned. Since it is still May, I'd bet they are still working on the schedule.

On a related issue, MD mentioned specifically the need to improve the RPI both for SMU and CUSA. He said the MVC aims for its teams win 70% of their non-conference games to ensure a decent league RPI. He said CUSA got hurt last year because with a number of teams having losing records in non-conf. play, the league RPI couldn't go anyhwere once conf. play started. As for SMU, the best way to raise the RPI is simply win more games.

[The PonyGrad]

By the way, he told me we are talking to UT about playing them again and that the they don't want to play 2 games in Dallas is wrong. It would be a 2 for 1 series.

This is confusing. The series is 2 for 1 and UT does want to play two in Dallas. What is wrong with this picture?