Mean Green

UNT women's basketball coach Shanice Stephens landed the second recruit of her tenure with the Mean Green this week, 5-10 shooting guard Raquel Cuffie of The Patterson School in North Carolina.

Cuffie averaged 12.5 points a game for hoops powerhouse Oak Hill in Virginia before transferring.

Stephens was recruiting Cuffie at Clemson and picked up right where she left off when she became UNT's head coach. Wake Forrest, Ole Dominion and James Madison were also recruiting Cuffie when she committed to the Mean Green.

Cuffie appears as if she will fit in alongside Brittney Hudson, a point guard who is transferring from Rice. Hudson will sit out the upcoming season and will be eligible the same season Cuffie arrives in Denton.

UNT really needed multiple guards in its next recruiting class with the number of senior backcourt players it is set to have next season.

There will be a full story on Cuffie in tomorrow's edition of the Denton Record-Chronicle.

Post your thoughts on the blog. Are you impressed with the players Stephens has landed thus far in her short tenure with the Mean Green?

A couple of UNT fans have questioned today whether players committing to other schools who had offers from the Mean Green is news.

Yea, it's going to happen. Your right, it does to every school out there.

That doesn't mean it's not news. At this time last year, UNT fans were thrilled to see the Mean Green landing players early and gaining some momentum in building a recruiting class that ranked among the best the team has seen in recent years and somewhere among the top three in the Sun Belt, depending on what rankings you put your faith in.

Take a close look at that class, and it was built in large part on head-to-head wins over Texas and Oklahoma rivals for key players like Riley Dodge and DaWaylon Cook.

That's why I report it when a player commits to another school that has a UNT offer. It's a gauge of how UNT is doing. Plus it is relevant news at this time of the year. If UNT lands a player with a host of offers from other schools, we report it, just like we did with Riley Dodge last year. We reported that Daniel Mayberry had an offer from UTEP when he committed.

It's our job to report the news, and UNT fans love recruiting news.

To illustrate just how important recruiting against in-state and Oklahoma schools is, I went back and looked up how UNT fared against TCU, SMU, Rice, Tulsa, UTEP and Baylor last year. In short, the Mean Green got pretty much whomever it wanted when it came to head-to-head battles. That isn't the case so far this year.

By my count, UNT went 15-6 a year ago against those six rivals. I went though each school's signees list and went back and checked who each had offers from. That's not an exact science, but here is what I came up with:

UNT-TCU (1-3)
TCU recruits with UNT offers (WR Corey Fuller, OL James Fry, K Ross Evans)
UNT recruits with TCU offers (DB DaWaylon Cook)

UNT-SMU (3-0)
UNT recruits with SMU offers (QB Riley Dodge, DB James Hamilton, DB John Shorter)
SMU recruits with UNT offers (none)

Rice (4-1)
UNT recruits with Rice offers (QB Riley Dodge, DB James Hamilton, DB Royce Hill, DB Jeremy Phillips)
Rice recruits with UNT offers (DB Jarrett Ben)

Tulsa (5-0)
UNT recruits with Tulsa offers (QB Riley Dodge, OL Troy Franklin, DB James Hamilton, RB Jeremi Mathis, DB John Shorter)
Tulsa recruits with UNT offers (none)

UTEP (2-1)
UNT recruits with UTEP offers (DB James Hamilton, DL Joe Hawthorne)
UTEP recruits with UTEP offers (OL Eloy Atkinson)

Baylor (0-1)
Baylor recruits with UNT offers (OL Cameron Kaufhold)

Count it up the same way this year and UNT is 1-5 so far.

Tulsa (0-0)

UTEP (1-0)
UNT recruit with UTEP offer (WR Daniel Mayberry)

TCU (0-1)
TCU recruit with UNT offer (DB Trenton Thomas)

SMU (0-2)
SMU recruits with UNT offers (WR Darius Johnson, DT Marquis Frazier)

Rice (0-1)
Rice recruit with UNT offer (LB Jarek Lancaster)

Baylor (0-1)
Baylor recruit with UNT offer (WR Glasco Martin)

There is a long way to go. UNT could be holding out for players at some need spots and has fewer scholarships to offer this year. UNT could be after higher caliber players. A host of talent could be on its way tomorrow.

When it comes down to it, though, UNT's coaching staff has publicly said that it wants to recruit the Dallas-Fort Worth area first and land the best players in Texas. To do that, UNT will have to win head-to-head battles for players. I am sure they will win several. They already have won one. That's why we track how those battles come out.

It is after all, news.

Am I wrong? Tell me why on the blog.

And for all of you recruiting junkies, we will have some news about a new UNT recruit that has not been reported later tonight on the blog and in tomorrow's paper.