I canāt blame Sanchez for me not coming to games. I dropped my season tix when we moved to our current conf.
I would drive down years ago to see us play UL, Memphis, Cincy, etc. Iām not coming down to see us play the teams we play now unless I make a weekend out of it to see my kid and friends.
FWIW
With attendance, only 2 games were below last years average. Pres on Thanksgiving weekend and LT on NYE with 2100 and 2300 respectively. We have had two games at last seasons average MTSU during christmas week and the recent WKU game. The 8 other home games were above last years average.
If revenue and butts in seats matter then clearly the winning ways helped immensely.
As stated above we need to change out some of the further away schools and sub in some regional programs with local interest, but perhaps not any more difficult and then try to land a few more P5 games here and there. Challenge is until we win more those games are likely not going to be HH series.
Wouldnāt you also say not only would you drive down to see us play those schools, but you did it with the expectation we would or could win the game?
If we played some of those same schools but at our current level of winning would you still drive repeatedly to watch us lose by 20-30?
My point being only that playing those better programs is only part of the puzzle. Have to be able to beat them too.
True enough. But, Even if we were at the top of our conf now I wouldnāt drive down on a Wed night to watch us play North Texas
Thatās sad because UNT might be the best team in our league.
Not that FAU moves your needle either.
(I get it).
I remember when we lost a game against UNT during Bobbyās era that we blamed on not enough rest and we were all livid about losing to a program like them. Now Iām worried about them kicking our asses again in Halton.
Iām kinda hoping that Memphis, ECU, Wichita State and Temple move the needle a little bit more, but only if we can compete with them. Iām more than a little worried about Memphis beating us by 40.
I do think for some of us that rode the Sunbelt - Metro - CUSA 1.0 train it has been a let down ever since. I never got up to play Xavier or Temple after having Sincy and Lville as opponents.
I guess I have spent enough time down in the dregs of CUA 3.0 now that my brain has been reset.
Xavier was kinda fun. It wasnāt the same thing, but we had some decent crowds and atmosphere at those games. Iād be happy getting back to that to be honest, but we need more than one opponent like that.
Itās not fair to gauge off of me to be honest. My interest level is damn near zero at this point.
About the only team I follow these days is UNCA cause they close and the wife went there
No doubt - if I had known how far we would fall I would have absolutely loved those X games more and apreciated it.
What bugs me is that we have 30,000 students and cannot get at least 3,000 in attendance.
10% of your student body for a basketball game is tough. If I recall the football feasibility committee said around 15% of your student body is your target for football. With basketball Iād guess itās like 5%. Just hard to get kids out period. Even harder when we have won anything of note in nearly 20 years.
Didnāt we used to get like 3000-4000 students to games back when the student body was only about 20,000? If the targets youāre giving are true, then we were absolutely crushing it back then.
Different time then, with less things to occupy students time/energy. I would think the number 20+ years about would have been higher.
Couple that with the consistent losing over the years, the lack of brand/regional opponents and I think that really is what hurts. The two biggest student turnouts this year were App and then a ranked FAU which made them a draw.
We are not the only school dealing with lack of student turnout either. NC State comes first to my mind on this, but have seen it being discussed about other schools as well
Itās one thing if you want to get on him for not attending and having a negative attitude. But I think youāre off on the scheduling comments. Schools absolutely can and do create tougher and easier schedules. I agree we curently canāt get top 25 programs in Halton. But we can certainly play them on the road. Thereās also a lot of other options in the 25-100 range.
Thereās many opinions on whether losing on the road to tougher competition is better in the long run for your team vs winning at home against easier competition. Thatās a whole different discussion. But you can certainly try to create tougher or easier schedules.
I donāt believe anyone has said they expect us to be perennial top 25. Btw, Gonzaga says hello. But people have definetely said they expect us to be better than 7th place in a weak CUSA in year 5.
Why cant we be a perennial top 25? This sort of mentality os a problem. Make the right hire and we can.
Actually I want us to be a Top 50 program year in year out and personally I donāt think thatās too much to ask
I like the optimism. The NIL money is not there to attract the recruits we need to be a consistent Top 25 team. If we luck out and get a great coach that is able to recruit and somehow make us a Top 25 team, he will have his salary tripled by a P5 program and leave. The chances of attracting a coach like that is extremely slim. Houston is a perennial Top 25 team but their athletic department budget is double ours and they have over 2 million in NIL money. In addition recruiting wise we have to battle the ACC and SEC with massive TV exposure to find recruits locally. It can happen, but everything will have to be based on player development. Once we develop those players they leave for NIL money and exposure at a P5 conference. In theory I would love to believe we could fix everything with a home run hire, but the hole we are in now is not the same as it was in 2005.
Our attendance is embarrassing
Totally agree on our ability to influence schedules. We certainly could take more road games vs top programs.
My issue is that idea that scheduling is one sided that we can do whatever we want. We have to have a dance partner. Part of the reason we have had crappy schedules is our dance partners donāt find us very attractive these days, we donāt want games we have to buy and we try to line up HH series.
I am not a huge fan of the schedule we played and I do think Ron purposely built a schedule he felt he could win against.