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Renaldo transferred here from LSU. Damon was a high school recruit.

Dement has had 2 JC transfers since he has been here, Josh Ihde and Billy Farris. We've pursued 2 others that I know of, Will Chavis, who is now the starting point guard at Texas Tech, and a post player who committed to us originally, then backed out and went to Creighton. Cant remember his name at this moment, but perhaps I can look it up.
Shumate was a little more active in JC recruiting, signing Ike Upshaw, Keith Hamilton, Jermaine Bracey, Jemeil Rich, Mohammed Tijani, and Andy Bliss. Also Mike Wilson was a transfer from Western Kentucky. Tijanni, Bliss, Bracey, and Rich were all on the team when Mike became head coach.

If memory serves this Smart [deleted], didn't we have some All Conference honors that went to NON JUCO's this year. How is that possible? Must have been some Florida Chads in the mix. For you to continually lay all of your beliefs about B-ball and Football ineptitude at the feet of our admissions standards is weak. Would it be easier to win if we had lower admissions standards? Yes! Yes! Yes! Is it possible to win the WAC without a total dependence on them? Again the answer is YES. Will we do it with Dement? No, and you will have to "Deal with it."

No it is a fact that NOBODY has won the WAC without substantial contributions from JC/CC players, non-qualifiers or partial qualifiers. Your theory is unproven-mine ain't.

The main thing JUCo does for a player is to get him playing time and time to mature. Our junior starters next year have had that.
Why would Steve Lavin be a good hire? Because he couldn't win at UCLA? Amazing logic considering the tradition and fan base and facilities he had to work with there compared to SMU. I'd rather stick with Dement.

A friend with direct knowledge of the situation has told me that it's been confirmed that Dement will be back. Copeland will not make any public statements regarding his basketball coach b/c to do so would imply that he is on shaky ground. He has two (2) years left on his contract. Next year will be critical for Dement so he better be on the road recruiting hard and getting ready for next year b/c it's make or break.

Why not Lon Krueger? A proven college coach that can recruit and has ties to the NBA- something all young players want in a coach these days. Granted, his ties are with the Hawks and his success in the NBA, rather the lack of, is well known. But that does not take away the fact he knows what NBA scouts want and he is a good teacher and coach. He would also represent SMU well and might have the influence on the school to ease up on the admissions qualifications for players and juco's. Duke and Ga. Tech admit players that without basketball would never even be looked at for admission. The same goes for lots of schools. I don't understand why we want to be like Vanderbilt. Stanford may be the only exception- a very rare one at that.

NC Pony-
Krueger? Are you serious? He's going to command over $1 million/year. He's too pricey for UCLA. How much do you think the SMU job pays?

I don't know. A million dollars?
I was going off of leadpony's post, that we need to make a statement with who we hire and that we are going to take winning seriously.
It won't happen, but it's fun to think about the different possibilities.
I'm fine with giving Dement another season, mostly for financial reasons and won't have to pay as much to fire him next year. I feel that if Dement was going to do something, it would have happened by now. He's a mediocre coach, at best, and his record shows that. I hope he proves me wrong because I would LOVE to see SMU do well, win the WAC and make it to the dance as a 10-seed or higher.

[This message has been edited by NCPony (edited 03-18-2003).]

Why should we look for a new coach? Looking at the progress we've made in Dement's tenure, I think it's realistic to assume that we might make the WAC finals within another 5 or 6 years. We might then be able to make a jump to the Sun Belt Conference.

That's funny as hell. We could just go independent and extend Dement's contract for another 10 years to make sure no one gets worse than us.