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everybody has strong opinions on what the university should do in terms of emphasis on basketball versus football, but when I asked tough questions none of you can answer.

Read my post from another thread that nobody responded to.

Now that you all have stated that the basketball talent in Texas is on par with California and New York, the questions that still need to be answered are this.

1. Can we sell our school, program, and conference to blue chip basketball recruits?

2. Who makes the "choice" or decision within the university to put more emphasis in building a powerhouse basketball program? Turner? Board of Trustees? Athletic Department? All of them?

3. What roadblocks do we face in building a powerhouse basketball program?

If you guys are serious about putting more effort into building a premier basketball program (assuming it we can attract the talent), then we can make our voices heard to key people in the university.

We have the exact same problems in Basketball that we do in Football. The Model to compete on a Top 25 Level in Orsini's words (or with our natural and traditional rivals in my words) has simply not been put in place yet for all the reasons we have exhaustively mentioned in regard to Football. It is all window dressing until the Model is in place. That's Step 1-SMU has been fiddling with Steps 2-99 for 20 years and gotten nowhere.

They at least are building the basketball practice facility which should be a positive addition to the program. Doherty is a name coach. But I agree, without transferable hours or athlete friendly majors, we are lucky to get whatever recruits we get.

Orsini has said he wants to be top 25 in all sports programs. Of course that is the goal not reality, but I think the point is we will not be emphasizing one revenue sport over another. I see no reason not to be good at both or at least as good as possible. I think it might not take as long for basketball to get there as it has been for football (not saying the football team is good). The basketball program has some things in place now that it didn't have a year ago. I should hope to see progress towards getting good in both sports next year.

I'm sure we have a shot at "getting good" by Doherty's 4th year. Becoming a Top 25 program will require Step 1.

I agree w EastStang, the new facility will help dramatically.. but if SMU wants to win and win soon, the university needs to loosen up their juco transfer restrictions (i give them credit for what they have done so far)

Along w/ allowing juco's to get in, we need athlete friendly majors.. Right now the only one i can think of is sociology.. I apologize for my lack of knowledge, but w/ the new building behind boaz, do we have a Kinesiology major yet or eduation majors..

There is no reason we should not have an education major, hell most the girls at SMU just want to teach elementary school and get their MRS degree..

Stallion wrote:We have the exact same problems in Basketball that we do in Football. SMU has been fiddling with Steps 2-99 for 20 years and gotten nowhere.

that pretty much sums up SMU...

tmustangp wrote: the university needs to loosen up their juco transfer restrictions (i give them credit for what they have done so far)

i agree the restrictions are still too high, but Jucos are only a short term fix (e.g., Baylor Bears in all SPorts except Baseball and track)... Stallion and others throw out a lot of good ideas, but there is no easy fix that will turn us into a powerhouse overnight. i just hope that one day my great great grandchildren can have the same kind of year the kids at Florida have had.