Secret Scrimmage

According to Fox's Jeff Goodman, UNCG will be scrimmaging High Point on Saturday. Here's the list from his blog. SoCon teams in bold.

Friday, Oct. 30
San Diego at Long Beach State
Montana vs. Washington State in Spokane
San Jose State at Sacramento State
Illinois-Chicago at Chicago State
Northwestern State at Louisiana-Monroe

Saturday, Oct. 31
Villanova at George Washington
Northeastern at Boston College
Western Kentucky at Georgia Tech
Arizona State at Texas Tech
Davidson at Texas
South Carolina at Wake Forest
Boston University at UMass
Saint Mary’s at Nevada
Virginia Tech at Charlotte
East Carolina at Richmond
La Salle at VCU
UC Irvine at Stanford
Penn State at Duquesne
DePaul at Bradley
Colorado at Utah
Winthrop at UNC Wilmington
Hofstra at Bucknell
UT Arlington at Lamar
Murray State at Lipscomb
Cal State Fullerton at Pepperdine
Buffalo at St. Bonaventure
New Orleans at Southeast Louisiana
Toledo at Youngstown State
UNC Greensboro at High Point
Jackson State at Middle Tennessee State
Rider at Columbia
Savannah State at Georgia Southern
UC Davis at San Francisco
Hartford vs. Towson at Stevens Tech
Northwestern State at Louisiana-Monroe
Lafayette at Cornell
Hampton at James Madison
Norfolk State at William & Mary
Bowling Green at Oakland
Drake at UMKC
Stephen F. Austin at SMU
Jacksonville at College of Charleston
Charleston Southern at Furman
Central Connecticut at Stony Brook
Presbyterian at USC Upstate
Niagara vs. Robert Morris in Erie

Sun, Nov. 1
North Carolina at Vanderbilt
St. John’s at St. Francis (NY)
Marquette at Virginia
Georgia at Clemson
LSU at South Alabama
Kansas State at Wichita State
Michigan at Eastern Michigan
San Jose State at California
Iona at Rutgers
Baylor at TCU
Wyoming at Fresno
Marist at Long Island
Albany at Colgate
Southern Mississippi at Samford
Quinnipiac at Penn
Wofford vs. Belmont

Texas Guard Picks UNCG

According to Rivals.com/TexasHoops.com, 6'-2" PG Drew Parker (La Porte, TX) has committed to UNCG.

The Houston-area HS basketball website RCS Sports says this about Drew's commitment.

The floor general wanted you guys to know why he chose UNCG. "They have been recruiting me the hardest". He took a visit to the campus last week and that played a huge role as well. "The visit was an awesome experience, and I know I have an opportunity to start and make an immediate impact as a freshman. Playing in the Coliseum in front of 24,000 people doesn't hurt either". Actually the school decided to move all home games to Greensboro Coliseum which can seat up to 24k, but is sectioned off to accommodate 11,687 during UNCG games - an easy amount to sell out for the Spartan fans.

Here is an article by the UT-San Antonio website UTSAtailgaters.

"He has great leadership. This will be his fourth year on varsity at the 5A level. He's a great student and he'll graduate in either the top 5 or top 10 of his class", said Coach Mason (LaPorte HS Head Coach). Athletically, Parker is known as a true point. He can break down the defense of the dribble, is known to push the ball ahead to his teammates and is always looking for the open player. Drew has been evaluated as having a nice jump shot up to three point range, but does need to work on his shot being consistent.

Some of the schools according to Coach Mason that are showing interest in Drew are Columbia, Dartmouth, UNC-Greensboro, Cal-Poly and other SLC schools along with UTSA.

Coach Mason also filled us in and let us know that dating back to his junior high days, Drew just knows how to win as thus far all three years on varsity have resulted in more than 20+ wins each season. Drew looks to make 2009-2010 his fourth straight year of 20+ wins.

With all the talent in the state of Texas year in year out, Parker is obviously one of the best to be ranked in the Texas Top 20.

This article is from a Montana State blog.

Parker is an excellent student who is looking at much at the educational opportunities at the schools who are recruiting him as much if not more than the athletic opportunities. He currently holds offers from Texas State, Montana State, Cornell, UNC-Greensboro, UTSA, Columbia, HBU, Lamar, Lehigh, the Naval Academy and Air Force. He has already visited UNC-Greensboro and Columbia on official trips and plans to take an unofficial trip to Texas State.

TexasHoops.com ranks Drew as the 17th best player in the state.

Drew is a savvy floor leader with a good understanding of the game. He sees the floor very well, can push the ball up court and kicks it ahead to the open player in stride. He can break down the defense off the dribble, always knows where his teammates are and can knock down shots out to the 3 point line. He is a good shooter but does have an odd release that can lead to him being streaky at times. He is a solid one-on-one defender, really knows how to run a team and plays with a ton of confidence/cockiness.

Drew plays AAU for the Houston Clippers. Their team website has tons of pictures, videos and information.

Welcome to the Spartans, Drew !!!

Rivals Preview

Here is the UNCG team report from Rivals.

Program Direction: Dragging themselves out of the bottom of the Southern Conference North Division is obviously priority No. 1. But coach Mike Dement’s overall record proves that he can have success at the school. In two stints in Greensboro, it took that 25-loss season from a year ago to drop him to below .500. It’s going to be a long road for the Spartans, but there’s little reason to believe they will repeat their 5-25 record from last year.

Hoffer Out For The Year

Not good news being reported by the athletics website. I guess he'll be redshirting and getting 5 years to play 4. Hopefully, Taylor can have a speedy recovery while still working towards his degree.

Lots of Links

So, I've been a little behind in posting links. Never fear. Here's plenty of them.

- First off, here is video of the Friday's first practice from the UNCG website. The guys are practicing in the coliseum.

- Here's an article from an Austin Peay website about the newest UNCG commit Cody Henegar. Not only was Cody looking at APSU, but he's also linked to the Govs by UNCG assistant coach Corey Gipson. Gipson played PG at Austin Peay for 2 years.

- Also, ESPN's scouts changed Cody's grade from 70 to 76.

- Rush the Court doesn't think very highly of UNCG's chances this season. Neither does the Sporting News.

- Rivals picks UNCG to finish 5th in the North and Ben Stywall as second team all-SoCon.

- Single game tickets for UNCG home games are now on sale here. The prices for individual games are listed here. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of Ticketmaster service charges added. So, I would advise anyone interested to just buy season tickets. It's just a much better deal. You can get season tickets here.

- Don't forget that the Blue-Gold game is 2 weeks from this coming Saturday at 12 noon. I'll post more details as this gets closer.

New Spartan

Rivals, Scout and Yahoo Sports are reporting UNCG has received a committment for the 2010 class.

UNC-Greensboro has snatched up 6-foot-9, 200-pound power forward Cody Henegar of Jasper (Tenn.) Marion County High School.

According to his travel team coach Alex Waddy of the Nashville Celtics, Henegar chose UNC-Greensboro over offers from Tulane, MTSU, Richmond and Belmont.

- Cody has already been nominated for the 2010 McDonald's All-Amercian game.

- Scouthoops and Rivals have him listed as a 2-Star prospect. ESPN recruiting graded Cody at a 70 before his senior year.

- According to his AAU (Nashville Celtics) team's website, Cody's nickname is "Dirk".

- From his coach's Twitter page:

He loved the coaching staff and the schedule was very intriguing. Not many schools can offer playing Clemson, Duke, NC State and Va Tech.

- Here are discussions on Cody from Richmond and UT-Chattanooga forums.

"Henegar has the frame to put on some weight and muscle. He has a nice touch all the way to behind the 3 point line. He's able to block shots without fouling, that's probably not as easy as it sounds even though he's usually at least four or five inches taller than the opposing team's posts."

"Cody is a very skilled but finesse 6'9 Forward who shoots the ball well from outside and passes the ball well for his size. His game is face to the basket with more of a european style. I think any program with his size will benefit by having him in the fold."

- Article from Tennessee Prep Hoops.

- N&R blurb about the committment.

Practice Starts Today

Who's ready for some college basketball?

Goodman on SoCon

Fox's John Goodman had a short review of the SoCon offseason and a bit of a season preview. Here's the UNCG portion ...

UNC Greensboro: Kevin Easley (High Point) and Ben Thompson (St. Leo) both left and were replaced by Corey Gipson (Virginia State) and director of basketball operations Kevin Oleskiak. The Spartans have a brutal non-conference schedule that includes road games at Duke (Nov. 13), Virginia Tech (Nov. 17) and Richmond (Dec. 22) and contests in Greensboro against Clemson (Nov. 20), Wake Forest (Dec. 28), N.C. State (Dec. 31) and Maryland (Jan. 3). Three players left the program: Landon Clement (NC Central), Daniel Oliver (St. Leo) and Damien Eargle (Youngstown State).

Notice that Daniel Oliver is now at St. Leo University. I want to wish him luck and hope he has a great finish to his career.

Roster is Official

UNCGspartans.com now has the updated 2009-2010 roster on their site. This isn't anything major, and there are no changes that haven't been long documented. I'm simply posting it b/c I'm starving for some basketball news. I'll update the website with the newest player and coaches roster soon. Also I'll be adding a "Countdown to Duke" clock soon. In case you were wondering, it's 5 weeks as of this coming Friday.

5th TV Game

Another TV game was added yesterday, according to the UNCG Athletics website. The January 3rd home game against Maryland has been picked up by Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic (carried by DirecTV). This brings the total of UNCG games being carried on some TV network to 5. Last year UNCG had 3 games on television.

For those that live way outside the viewing area, may I suggest you look into getting a subscription to Spartan All-Access. I did this last year, mostly for the road games (there were 9 road games carried). Between that package and using channelsurfing.net and justin.tv was able to watch a majority of the road games last season. I'm sure the schedule will be released sometime in the next month or so. I will post it when it comes out.