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During his pep talk at Midnight Madness, coach Tubbs compared SMU to some other private schools around the country that have had big success in basketball. Georgia Tech and Stanford were a couple that I remember, and he said he expects SMU to do the same. Lofty goals indeed, but I like the attitude.

It would be nice if our football coach would set some lofty goals as well. Why not try and have a football team that plays more like Georgia Tech or Wake Forest? We have way too much in common with the way that Duke plays football - the only difference is that most of their losses come from teams in the top 25 while ours.......

Coach Bennett does have lofty goals, and he's made no secret of that since the day he was hired. He was a little optimistic at the beginning, but he still has high goals, and while we're taking our lumps now, he's done a hell of a lot (recruiting better athletes, changes to admissions, JUCOs, etc.) to lay the foundation of a program that can achieve those goals.

PonyFan wrote:....he's done a hell of a lot (recruiting better athletes, changes to admissions, JUCOs, etc.) to lay the foundation of a program that can achieve those goals.

He hasn't done anything to change admissions--all he's done is take advantage of looser restrictions than his predecessors. Of course, he's still hamstrung as reflected in that Moats comment from last week. And frankly, in his fourth year, his team still sucks, maybe as bad as ever.

I'm not saying his goals aren't high--but going backwards is no way to reach them. This is not his fault, just indicative of the fact that as far as we've come trying to get competitive again through internal reform, we still have a long way to go.

let's not get ahead of ourselves, here. Bennett is in only his 3rd year. It just seems longer. He's gone 3-9, 0-12 and it looks like 1-10 is on the horizon for this season, although I'm still holdingout hope we can beat either Tulsa or Nevada.

But..back to basketball. I like coach Tubbs attitude and completely agree with him. In hoops, all it takes is a couple of special players and you can compete with most teams. I'm anxious to see what this year's group might accomplish. I really think we could be one of the surprise teams of the year. Hopefully, but the time the bracket buster games roll around, lots of folks will be curious to see that upstart SMU team that's knocking off teams they weren't supposed to.

That is the important thing...knocking off teams SMU isn't supposed to beat (which only happened once in the Dement era I can think of last year against Purdue). I hope to see it more often...I can assure you we won't see any embarrassing 40 pts losses to Rice.

I was not on the Jimmy Tubbs bandwagon when the coaching search began because I believed we had to get this hire right and that meant hiring a PROVEN program builder. The coach that was proven never became a candidate so I think hiring coach Tubbs was a no brainer given the other choices. The big upside is if coach Tubbs can coach the college game then we will be very lucky fans because of his recruiting skills and local ties. I am very excited about this season and can't wait for the season to begin.

As for the football portion of this thread, I hate to admit it but I have lost all interest and hope. When you hire an assistant coach to be your head coach it is like playing the lottery, and so far it doesn't look like we won. TCU turned it around by hiring a proven div. 1A program builder in Dennis Franchione.

DickerJames wrote:I was not on the Jimmy Tubbs bandwagon when the coaching search began because I believed we had to get this hire right and that meant hiring a PROVEN program builder. The coach that was proven never became a candidate so I think hiring coach Tubbs was a no brainer given the other choices. The big upside is if coach Tubbs can coach the college game then we will be very lucky fans because of his recruiting skills and local ties. I am very excited about this season and can't wait for the season to begin.

Hopefully Tubbs can get back on track with recruiting Dallas - soon. So far he has not managed to get a single commitment from any of the area's top players. Maybe he has lost his edge with local recruits after they think about all of the players that were never able to get SMU to the NCAA tournament: Sasser, Davis, Q,Hancock, Isham, Hopkins......

PonySnob wrote:Maybe he has lost his edge with local recruits after they think about all of the players that were never able to get SMU to the NCAA tournament: Sasser, Davis, Q,[deleted], Isham, Hopkins......

dude, where do you get this stuff? I don't know if its mean spirited or just idiotic. You take your pick. Yes players want to play in the post season, but they also want a chance to show what they can do and make a living playing basketball. Sasser became an NBA first rounder at SMU, and made some good money as a result. Q is on track to make a great living playing ball either with the Clippers or someone else and Hopkins will too. Tubbs has his challenges beating out the Big 12 for players but your theory is just off base. He will get some studs to SMU.

HF, no need to worry with this guy. Every post he puts on either side of the board is negative and usually ridiculous.

PonySnob wrote:Maybe he has lost his edge with local recruits after they think about all of the players that were never able to get SMU to the NCAA tournament: Sasser, Davis, Q,[deleted], Isham, Hopkins......

Again, man, you've got every right to be fed up with the football program and bash it all day long and twice on Sunday...but Tubbs has not coached his first game yet--at least give him that before you come out declaring him the next great SMU failure.

jtstang wrote:Again, man, you've got every right to be fed up with the football program and bash it all day long and twice on Sunday...but Tubbs has not coached his first game yet--at least give him that before you come out declaring him the next great SMU failure.

I don't think I declared Tubbs the next great SMU failure. I was just saying that there have been numerous top players in the metroplex commit to other school and none of them appeared to seriously consider SMU.

I hope that Tubbs can get things turned around this year. I am tired of going to games in Moody when there are only 1500-2000 in attendance. The place has a great atmosphere to itonce there are over 5K in the building.

PonySnob wrote:I was just saying that there have been numerous top players in the metroplex commit to other school and none of them appeared to seriously consider SMU.

I hope that Tubbs can get things turned around this year. I am tired of going to games in Moody when there are only 1500-2000 in attendance. The place has a great atmosphere to itonce there are over 5K in the building.

Look the fact that some top tier local talent were considering SMU at all, even if not seriously, is an improvement over what Dement could do without Tubbs there. I think Tubbs will get back to old form, bringing in some good local talent, and this time he'll get to coach them as well. That in itself is an improvement over the prior system.