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Post by Willie on Mar 5, 2011 9:41:01 GMT -5
Now that the season is over, what does everyone see as our biggest "to do list" for our players, coaches, and athletic department to make 2011/12 a successful year for Wright State?
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Post by Raider Country on Mar 5, 2011 10:00:50 GMT -5
I think Jason Bradford is the most important member of our program right now. He is Wright State's Strength and Conditioning Coach. He has some serious work to do with our current returning team to get them ready for next year. If we don't get bigger and more physical, next year could be a very long season.
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Post by Jazzfan on Mar 5, 2011 10:29:52 GMT -5
Players: Our current players need to get healthy and get into the weight room big time. They also need to work on playing more physical basketball. We got out-rebounded most games because the other team was stronger and more physical than us. I cannot tell you how many times Vest, or Darling, or Battle, or Pacher had a rebound ripped right out of their hands by a more aggressive player. I don't want to see that next year. As for our incoming freshmen class, I really hope they all enroll this summer and get into the weight room with our current players and get into as many open gyms as they can. The more they get to know each other the more we are going to gel as a team.
Coaches: I don't have much criticism for our coaching staff. I thought they did a very good job this year with all of our injuries and all of the new faces on our team. I would like to see a few changes though. I hope Coach D utilizes his bench much more next year. This year I think he relied on his seniors too much. Last night for example, we barely played Battle. He was coming off his best game as a Raider and we barely played him and I don't understand why. In the 8 minutes he did play, he scored 5 points. I think he could have helped us more this year if given the chance. Second, I really hope we go with a 2 guard/3 forward line up next year now that we are adding a few bigs to the roster. This would allow Darling and Battle to play small forward where I think they would both excel.
Athletic Department: I really hope Bob Grant considers dropping ticket prices and bumping up our advertising next year. We could really do so much better in our attendance if we have better prices and advertised better.
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Post by wolf41 on Mar 5, 2011 10:56:21 GMT -5
I agree with you 100% Jazzfan. The good news is that the new freshmen next season already have better bodies on than them than every returning player, with the possible exceptions of Darian or Mays.
There is a lot of unrest at UD, even among long time season ticket holders. I had lunch with some friends last week and they even said they had been thinking about attending some WSU games this year. Let's drop our price to the $10 or $12 range and aggressively go after the large community of basketball fans in the MV. The odd thing is they are concerned about the parking, which at its worst is better than getting out of UD IMO. Of course, I didn't go to a UD game this season with the new Stewart St. bridge being open, so maybe that has made a dramatic improvement. Even if folks have to park on the far side of our pond, that walk is no worse than walking from over by the HS stadium.
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Post by WrightStateFan on Mar 5, 2011 11:06:06 GMT -5
The odd thing is they are concerned about the parking, which at its worst is better than getting out of UD IMO. Of course, I didn't go to a UD game this season with the new Stewart St. bridge being open, so maybe that has made a dramatic improvement. Even if folks have to park on the far side of our pond, that walk is no worse than walking from over by the HS stadium. Wolf, I take it you have season tickets and can just enter the arena from the lower entrance using your tickets. For those of us that are not season ticket holders, we have to walk to the other side of the Nutter Center to get to the ticket office. If you get stuck parking on the back side of the Nutter Center by the baseball field, you have to hike around the pond to get to the Nutter Center, then you have to climb several flights of stairs to get to the box office to buy tickets. It's not a whole lot of fun in the dead of winter when you have kids or you are bringing a senior citizen to a game. I think the Nutter Center would do well to add a second ticket box office at the back entrance to the Nutter Center to eliminate part of that hike.
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Post by Fastbreak on Mar 5, 2011 11:09:41 GMT -5
The athletic department does plan to fill in part of the pond sometime in the next 3-5 years. They are also replacing the center videoboard this summer and yes it will have a real scoreboard on it.
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Post by ohiopirate on Mar 5, 2011 11:31:07 GMT -5
Isn't there already a second box office to buy tickets in the back of the Nutter Center? Everytime I come in the back way there is a Nutter Center employee directing people that have tickets to the left line and people that don't have tickets to the right line.
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Post by Raider4Life on Mar 5, 2011 12:32:17 GMT -5
Isn't there already a second box office to buy tickets in the back of the Nutter Center? Everytime I come in the back way there is a Nutter Center employee directing people that have tickets to the left line and people that don't have tickets to the right line. I didn't know that there was a box office down there and I think that is part of the problem for the casual basketball fan coming to the Nutter Center. We should have large signs telling people where the box offices are located. We should also have signs at the ticket office that tell all of the different ticket prices available: regular price, faculty/staff, alumni, kid, fun zone etc to keep the lines moving faster.
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Post by Raiderdog on Mar 5, 2011 12:37:38 GMT -5
Agree with WSF. The parking sucks. During the Valpo game, my wife was in front of the mall area at 6:15 and she didn't get to her seats until 7:10 or so. Those parking guys below the pond let three cars go in from one lane, then stop and let three cars go from the other lane. Just stupid. Let the left lane stream into that left parking lot and the right lane stream into the right lot. She sat moving in that slow ass parking line for almost an hour. No excuse for that BS. She said she'd never go to another game. I either get there way early or wait until like 7:00 or so. Casual fans don't want to deal with that crap. Also that night, the lines for the concessions were miles long. Stuff like that will run away first timers.
Yes, there is now a ticket office at the bottom entrance and do have the lanes for that. It's about time on that one too.
Agree with the above on the players getting healthy and in the weight room. I thought the coaches did an amazing job considering the circumstances. Very pleased. Our players give it their all man.
I haven't posted in a while, but I had to weigh in on the poor parking.
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Post by Rush the Court on Mar 5, 2011 12:47:42 GMT -5
Without a doubt, the number one thing we need to do this off season is get into the weight room. We will have good height at every position next year and we should have good depth at every position. We need those players to be strong.
Number 2 for me is using our players in a way that utilizes their strengths better. Cole and Armond are not power forwards and should not have to bang with the big boys. I want them to put on weight and get stronger, but I want to see them at small forward next year where they will be able to dominate smaller players with their size. I hope to see a rotation of Mpondo/Pritchett at center and Pacher/Sledge at power forward. AJ isn't a true back to the basket center. I want one post player in their at all times that wants to play with his back to the basket (Mpondo/Pritchett) to go along with one that can spread defenses with their outside shooting and be a secondary rebounder (Sledge/Pacher).
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Post by hhgreen on Mar 5, 2011 12:50:23 GMT -5
Donlon does need to have a better rotation of players next year and I think he will have it since he don't have but one senior next year to lean on. Over the summer we got some players that need to work out in the gym and eat plenty of steak and have a few milk shakes as well to add some much needed pounds. You can't tell me Pogue for CSU is on a diet.
The new scoreboard will be a welcome sight. Hopefully we can see some cheaper ticket prices next year as well. Gets expensive with 2 and 3 games a week to watch.
Donlon done very well this year considering the adversity he had to overcome and the lack of quality D1 Players. We will be a much better team in the future for sure.
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Post by Sixth Man on Mar 5, 2011 13:34:04 GMT -5
Agree with WSF. The parking sucks. During the Valpo game, my wife was in front of the mall area at 6:15 and she didn't get to her seats until 7:10 or so. Those parking guys below the pond let three cars go in from one lane, then stop and let three cars go from the other lane. Just stupid. Let the left lane stream into that left parking lot and the right lane stream into the right lot. She sat moving in that slow ass parking line for almost an hour. No excuse for that BS. She said she'd never go to another game. I either get there way early or wait until like 7:00 or so. Casual fans don't want to deal with that crap. Also that night, the lines for the concessions were miles long. Stuff like that will run away first timers. I think this is probably the biggest problem for NC staff. They just don't know how to deal with big crowds. I am amazed with all of the effort we put into trying to increase attendance and then are not ready to deal with that bigger turnout. We need to have parking staff that knows what they are doing. We need to have all ticket lines open and moving fast. We need all concession stands open and moving fast. If you don't make coming to the NC enjoyable for people they aren't going to return.
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Post by raiderryan on Mar 5, 2011 16:24:30 GMT -5
The athletic department does plan to fill in part of the pond sometime in the next 3-5 years. They are also replacing the center videoboard this summer and yes it will have a real scoreboard on it. Any updates on what the new features will be besides the score? WIll it be bigger? Wider? HD? etc.... I think if we are going to do this it needs to be as big and technologically advanced as possible! Not just because we all want something sweet, but so we dont need to replace it again anytime soon. I hope we put some serious thought into this and dont just slap a new one up there!
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Post by thatbaldraiderfan on Mar 5, 2011 16:27:20 GMT -5
Weights, weights, & more weights.
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Post by wsuairstrike on Mar 5, 2011 17:53:33 GMT -5
Nutt C just needs some new employees all around. Can anyone here put in a word with Grant that we need better service? not much that hasnt been said, the parking is awful, lines to enter are too long, line for concessions are too long and the price of tickets are too high. all things that scare away casual fans
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