Kim Record Press Conference

Here's the link to the video of Kim Record being introduced as the new AD at UNCG.

I'm ready to work hard. I'm ready to have some fun. And ... I'm ready to win.

Gotta love that attitude. Good luck Kim and welcome to the Spartans !!!

Another UNCG Game on TV

Add another UNCG game to your TV listings. The Southern Conference announced it's TV lineup for the 2009-2010 men's basketball season today. In addition to UNCG's games with Duke, Clemson & NC State, the Feb 20th game at the Citadel will also be shown. Here's the full schedule.

SoCon Men's Basketball Telecast Schedule
Nov. 13 UNC Greensboro at Duke 7:00 p.m. FOX Sports South
Nov. 20 Clemson at UNC Greensboro 7:00 p.m. FOX Sports South
Dec. 14 Georgia Tech at Chattanooga 7:00 p.m. FOX Sports South
Dec. 31 NC State at UNC Greensboro 7:00 p.m. FOX Sports South
Jan. 9 Appalachian State at Davidson 2:00 p.m. SportSouth
Jan. 16 College of Charleston at Chattanooga 2:30 p.m. SportSouth
Jan. 23 Davidson at Georgia Southern 2:00 p.m. SportSouth
Jan. 30 Furman at Wofford 3:00 p.m. SportSouth
Feb. 6 Samford at College of Charleston 4:00 p.m. SportSouth
Feb. 13 The Citadel at Elon 6:00 p.m. SportSouth
Feb. 20 UNC Greensboro at The Citadel 1:00 p.m. SportSouth
Feb. 27 Chattanooga at Western Carolina 3:00 p.m. SportSouth
March 7 Conference Tournament Semifinal 6:00 p.m. SportSouth
March 7 Conference Tournament Semifinal 8:30 p.m. SportSouth

New AD

From UNCG Sports' Twitter page:

UNCG chancellor Linda Brady has called a Friday, 12 noon news conference to announce Kim Record as the new Director of Athletics.

Spartan All-Access will be carrying the press conference live. Here is the link to the article.

This is from the N&R story:

Record has been a consultant with International Sports Properties for the past year after working for 13 years in athetics adminstration at Florida State.

At Florida State, Record oversaw the Seminole men's and women's basketball teams and soccer programs. Her responsibilities also included coordination and oversight of all multimedia contracts and overseeing the areas of sports information, sports marketing and video. She left there as senior associate athletics director.

Also, Friday is Blue & Gold Day. So far on previous Blue & Gold Days, UNCG announced they were moving to the Greensboro Coliseum (12/5/08) & played Davidson (2/5/09) in front of 11,000+ fans. Anyone seeing the trend here?

Let the Previews Begin

Throughout this preseason, I'll be posting many previews of UNCG basketball. Don't be surprised at how low most places have the Spartans listed. Remember that this is indeed a team coming off of a rough season and nobody is paying attention to the number of seniors on the team. That being said, let the previews begin.

Our first of the year is Rivals.com. This is a pretty poor one. Written by someone who simply read through UNCG's roster. The proof is that Damian Eargle's name appears as a key returning player.

291. UNC Greensboro

CONFERENCE: Southern

BEST PLAYER: F Ben Stywall

QUICK TAKE: UNC Greensboro is the other school in its market, playing in Wake Forest's shadow. BUZZ: Mike Dement's second four-year stretch as Spartans coach hasn't gone as well as his first. Dement was 55-56 from 1991-95; since his return in 2005-06, UNCG is 52-70. But there is reason for optimism as guard Mikko Koivisto (12.4 ppg) and forwards Stywall (11.7 ppg, 8.4 rpg) and Damian Eargle (9.2 ppg, 5.6 ppg) return.

G'boro to host NCAA's and Other Info

It's been a very slow month waiting for the season to get started. So I though I'd put together a post with a few interesting story links.

- The News & Record is reporting that the Greensboro Coliseum will again be a host to the first and second rounds of the 2012 NCAA Division I basketball tournament. The coliseum is hosting thing the women's ACC Tournament in 2010 through 2015, and the men's tournament in all of the same years except 2012 (Atlanta). Greensboro was a host site for last year's first and second rounds.

- UNCG will play host to both East Carolina and Wake Forest this season. However, it won't be the first time these teams play in the coliseum. Wake and ECU will meet in Greensboro on November the 15th. You can buy tickets here.

- Former UNCG AD Nelson Bobb will be enshrined into the Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame tonight. He served as AD at UNCG for the past 26 years.

- Don't forget that if you haven't bought your season tickets yet, you can do so here. Its still a really great deal since parking is included in the price. Single game tickets go on sale Monday, October 19 (10 am) and can be found here.

Awful News

This is sad news from our SoCon bretheren at Samford. Condolences go out to his friends and family.

"The Samford community is profoundly saddened by the death of Jim Griffin," said Samford President Andrew Westmoreland. "He was a popular student on campus in addition to being a member of the men's basketball team. It never is easy when any life is lost, but it is more difficult to lose one of such great promise."

Where's the Line?

This site is a fan site devoted to UNC Greensboro basketball. It is not a media site. It's nothing more than my opinions mixed in with links to stories from actual media sites. I assume that anyone who reads this site regularly knows these facts. If not, I have a disclaimer at the top of the page on the left hand side and even a little note at the bottom of the page in my "About Me" section.

There's a reason I'm pointing all of this out. Last week, the Washington (D.C.) Post ran this article about the blurring of the line between fan site/media and the problems that this was causing in recruiting.

The article uses an example of two guys that run a website devoted the NC State basketball and how a simple conversation with a recruit turned into a situation that made NC State officials very uneasy.

The scene illuminates a growing concern in college basketball. NCAA rules explicitly state that fans of teams cannot be involved in recruiting, but those regulations blur when the fan wears a media credential. Such credentials, which are issued by whatever entity is running a particular event, designate the bearers as media members, giving them access to prospects that even college coaches don't have during the all-important summer evaluation period. College coaches are not permitted to interact with prospects during the period.

NCAA officials and prominent figures on the summer basketball circuit are alarmed at an increasing number of fans who are creating Web sites, obtaining media credentials and becoming amateur recruiters. Rachel Newman-Baker, the NCAA's agent, gambling and amateurism director, said one of the organization's biggest concerns this summer was who was obtaining media credentials and for what purpose.

Fan sites are just that, sites by fans. The internet has given a voice to anyone who registers with blogspot, wordpress or any "Iheartmyteam.com" web address.

But Bradham maintained that supporting and promoting their favorite team is their "number one goal," that he views former Wolfpack players as heroes and that he hopes the best recruits go to North Carolina State.

"We're not recruiters," said Bradham, 25. "We know there is a fine line. But we'd be ignorant to say [recruits] didn't know we were representing N.C. State. When we go up to a player and say, 'Hey, we're from WolfpackHoops dot com,' they get it."

The article points to individual schools sites that fall under the umbrella of Scout or Rivals as sites that do not operate in this gray area. However, even that doesn't always hold true.

Since then, he [Myers] has served as a recruiting analyst for the site, a role that brought him to John Paul Jones Arena on the University of Virginia campus in June for the NBA Players Association Top 100 camp. Sitting in the stands during a night session, Myers placed a call on his cellphone to Demon Deacons men's basketball assistant coach Rusty LaRue.

"Coach, I've got C.J. Barksdale here for you," Myers said. "I'm going to put him on the line now."

Reading this article scares a little 'ol blogger like me. It also reminds me to stay away from almost all things relating to recruiting. I have received emails in the past from people telling me they saw player "ABC" or "XYZ" here or there around campus on visits and I haven't written anything about it. Why? Because if I don't have a article to link to, I just don't think it's a good idea. I even felt a little uneasy this year about discussing players who verbally committed to UNCG before they signed their LOI. However, I don't think I'm doing much more than saying, "Hey, go look at this article about Jon Doe, and here's a summary of what it says." I would never knowingly break the rules, and I try to shy away when I'm unclear about the rules.

I started this site last year to simply be an internet cheerleader for UNCG basketball and let people know that there are fans out here that care about our school and our team. I don't do this to make any money. I don't have any ads sold on the site. I work a full-time job (that's sometimes more than full-time). I started this simply for fun. I wasn't sure if anyone would find it, read it, or even care about what it said. I have been very surprised by the response. I appreciate the emails I have received from people telling me thanks or that I'm doing a good job (even though I'm not always timely in replying to them). I'm sure if I keep doing this long enough, I'll get some that think just the opposite, and I'll appreciate those too.

The point is that I'm not trying to claim that I'm a journalist or that my site is media. Shame on these guys for doing just that.

Floor Unveiling Event

Stories
UNCG Athletics
WFMY/Digtriad.com
WGHP Fox 8
News & Record

Pictures
Greensboro Coliseum - Twitter
Greensboro Coliseum - Facebook
UNCGfans.com - Floor
UNCGfans.com - Locker Rooms
UNCG Athletics

(Thanks to Steven @ UNCGfans.com for taking and posting those pictures)

The first UNCG home game is November 20th against Clemson. I can't wait. Especially after last Thursday's VIP (first time I've been called that) event at the Greensboro Coliseum. Several hundred people turned out to eat catered food, see the new playing surface, look at the new lockers rooms and listen to speeches from Terry Holland, Linda Brady, and Mike Dement. Let me just say that I was quite impressed with the turnout and impressed with the show put on.

I owe everyone an apology for not checking the batteries in my camera before sprinting out of the house. I was very disappointed when I hit the power button Thursday evening, to have it turn on and then right back off again. So I guess I will just have to describe the things I got to see throughout the night.

First off, the food was very good. I did spill my wife's red wine on my yellow polo shirt, which is kind of par for the course for me. Thank god that the basketball team showed up about a minute later handing out blue & gold scarfs.

The staff members walking around selling tickets were very nice and spent time talking to everyone. Apparently, UNCG has already sold double it's normal season tickets, and it's only the end of August! I assume there will be a media blitz in the next few months to really turn up the heat. I also found out the seat selection proccess should start in the next few weeks for those who had already purchased season tickets (that's me).

The speeches were nice, but I was not the target of those speeches. Most of the points were intended to be heard by businesses and community leaders who need to get behind this move to the coliseum in the way of sponsorship and ticket sales. Terry Holland was very entertaining, though. His story about looking like Tom Smith of Food Lion commercial fame brought back some memories. Plus, he made a good point about the "big" guys from the ACC needing schools like UNCG and ECU just as much as we need them.

The light and music production surrounding the actual floor unveiling was cool. I hope this is the type of introductions that take place before every game. Plus, it was great to see the UNCG name and logo on the ribbon going around the coliseum and above the scoreboard.

As for the court and locker rooms, I will just have to let the pictures and stories linked to above here speak for themselves. It was a great touch to let everybody wander through the locker rooms and offices to see what it will be like for the players and coaches on game day.

All-in-all, it was a wonderful event and it left me a little sad that the games won't start for another 2 1/2 months. But it also left me with something to be excited about until then too.