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Post by Big D on Mar 29, 2014 16:53:49 GMT -5
I think they were a little more offensive minded team with rebounding than we are currently. Not really. We are just as offensive minded as Butler was back then. The difference is they had guys that could make shots. For the last couple of years we haven't had guys at the 2/3 for us that could make shots consistently. Go back and look at the HL tournament games again from this year. Our offense looked great the first 2 games. The reason is we were knocking down open shots. We looked like crap in the finals because we couldn't. Nothing changed with the system between those games. We simply couldn't make open shots and that has been our biggest problem the last few years. Donlon's system is a lot like OSU football under Jim Tressel. It's grind em out ball. At the end of the day we are trying to create more good possessions for us than our opponent. You need to do 3 things to achieve that. 1. You have to play good defense. You try to get in the passing lanes and create TOs. If you don't get TOs you force the offense to take a low percentage shot. 2. You have to get defensive rebounds. You cannot give your opponent extra possessions. 3. You run your offense until you get high percentage shots and take them. The problem we have had the last few years is that we have only really been consistent with playing good defense. Our rebounding has been bad and our offense has been very inconsistent. I for one am cautiously optimistic about next season (depending on what our roster looks like a month from now). We all know we will play good defense next year. It might not be at the beginning of the year because of all of the new faces, but it will be before the year is over. I think our rebounding will improve if Donlon finishes up recruiting the direction he is going. We will already have better size in the paint next year with what we know about our roster. We played this season with AJ and Sledge (for 1/2 the year) at center and Cole/JT/Young/Davis at PF. This year we will have Sledge and Meyers at center the entire year. We have JT and Stephan Davis returning at PF. We also have Roderick Davis coming in at PF. That alone gives us more size and more importantly more bulk next year. You also have to remember all of those guys will have another year in the weight room by then too. We have 6-9 Parker Ernsthausen committed for next year. I believe the hope is that we can red-shirt him and get him in the weight room for a year. We are also still going after a JUCO post player. I think Michael Karena is our #1 target. He is a 6-9, 240# post that can play the 4 or 5 for us. If we land him or another JUCO inside player we will actually have some real height/bulk at the 4 and 5 for the first time in recent memory. Offensively, I think we will be much better next year. We are bringing in several guards that can shoot and that is going to make our motion offense look light years better next year than this year.
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Post by uptempo on Mar 30, 2014 0:45:44 GMT -5
I hope we can avoid the injury bug for a few seasons. Darling, Gardner, Grote, Griffin, Pacher, Tabler, Land, Duggins, Miles and others either missed lots of games or had to play dinged up all the time. Does WSU just have bad luck or does the team practice to hard under BB and BD causing the players to wear down.
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Post by hhgreen on Mar 30, 2014 8:27:53 GMT -5
I don't know if the answer is more teams for WSU. There are only a couple positives I see for WSU. We don't have to have as many OOC games plus we could have an infusion of new blood. If we get 4 or 5 new teams, are they going to be quality teams with quality schedules?
We can't add teams just to add teams. If the Horizon League is not wanting to upgrade maybe it is time for us to upgrade. Maybe fans are tired of watching the same teams every year at the Nutter Center. Maybe attendance might go up if we went to a different or higher ranked conference.
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Post by raiderratt on Mar 30, 2014 8:52:46 GMT -5
I don't know if the answer is more teams for WSU. There are only a couple positives I see for WSU. We don't have to have as many OOC games plus we could have an infusion of new blood. If we get 4 or 5 new teams, are they going to be quality teams with quality schedules? We can't add teams just to add teams. If the Horizon League is not wanting to upgrade maybe it is time for us to upgrade. Maybe fans are tired of watching the same teams every year at the Nutter Center. Maybe attendance might go up if we went to a different or higher ranked conference. I am all for a better conference, who wants us?
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Post by jumbojimbo on Mar 30, 2014 10:10:52 GMT -5
I would stick with Donlon for one more year and see how these new recruits pan out. After watching the NCAA survivors move into the elite 8 I have to wonder if Donlon's team is playing the same sport. Those other teams are so big, strong, fast, athletic, talented…they drive to the hoop, they press, they crash the boards, they make monster jams and 30 foot three pointers, they make WSU look like a NCAA golf team. I know Donlon has a game plan, just don't see how it can get this team very far. Yes you are correct, based on the E8 teams it's clear we need: 1. Four 6'10" forwards who can drive, post up and shoot threes 2. Three 6'-7" shooting guards who can shoot 60% from NBA range and drive and dish for easy layups and monster dunks. 3. Two centers, one 7' 260# shot blocker and another 6'-11" 280 post up beast 4. A point guard who can average a triple double and another on the bench just as good. 5. A couple of walk-ons good enough to start but are happy just practicing. We should be pressing on defense, running on offense, getting 4-5 uncontested ally oops a game. We should be shooting 80% from the free throw line as a team with 2-3 guys shooting 90%. Or, we could be realistic and work with what is available to us at our level in our league. I agree, your way is easier.
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Post by Doliboabros on Mar 30, 2014 10:24:12 GMT -5
Wright State doesn't have any other options unless we want to move to a lower ranked league. We aren't getting an invite to the A-10 with UD there. We tried to get into the MVC last year and they weren't interested. All other conferences that we would fit into geographically are either football conferences or lower rated conferences than the HL.
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Post by Doliboabros on Mar 30, 2014 10:29:25 GMT -5
I hope we can avoid the injury bug for a few seasons. Darling, Gardner, Grote, Griffin, Pacher, Tabler, Land, Duggins, Miles and others either missed lots of games or had to play dinged up all the time. Does WSU just have bad luck or does the team practice to hard under BB and BD causing the players to wear down. Grote and Gardner transferred to Wright State with their chronic injuries. Darling and Land were bean poles when the arrived at WSU. They should have red-shirted to put on enough bulk to play PF in the HL. Most of the other players you listed were injured during games so that doesn't support your theory that we practice too hard. One other note--take a look at any other team in the HL. They all had players miss time due to injuries. Basketball is a tough sport. Players get hurt.
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Post by hhgreen on Mar 30, 2014 11:06:15 GMT -5
I would settle for just the number 3 item Jim.
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Post by hhgreen on Mar 30, 2014 11:20:49 GMT -5
Even the MAC is rated above us this year.
Let's go this direction, if we got picked up by a lower ranked conference they possibly could move up just by having WSU come aboard. I'm all for getting into the NCAA Big Dance but if that is all we are wanting from basketball aren't there easier paths to go. Drop down a few conferences and dominate instead of beating the team ragged and getting a 16 seed anyways by winning a conference tourney. If we are just a single bid conference why stay? Would recruiting take a hit? No TV games? Possibly.
Most of the Dayton area don't even know who is in our conference or what conference we are in.. They only knew Butler. They still did not know the name of the conference they were in.
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Post by Raider Country on Mar 30, 2014 12:00:29 GMT -5
Even the MAC is rated above us this year. Let's go this direction, if we got picked up by a lower ranked conference they possibly could move up just by having WSU come aboard. I'm all for getting into the NCAA Big Dance but if that is all we are wanting from basketball aren't there easier paths to go. Drop down a few conferences and dominate instead of beating the team ragged and getting a 16 seed anyways by winning a conference tourney. If we are just a single bid conference why stay? Would recruiting take a hit? No TV games? Possibly. ecb123 already pointed out that if WSU would have taken care of business vs. the teams we should have beaten than we would have finished the year ranked in the top 100. We wouldn't have been a 16 seed in the NCAAs if we would have gotten the automatic bid. We would have been a 13 seed with that RPI and record. We need to improve our nonconference schedule so that we don't need to worry about the auto bid and give ourselves a shot at an at large bid. We need to take the next step up, not think about going down a level.
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Post by copeinc on Mar 30, 2014 15:04:16 GMT -5
The Horizon league is on a path to dissolve in the next couple of years. Horizon teams are looking around and I think it is time for Wright State to look around as well. I still think the MAC is the best league for Wright State. Yes we need a football team that does not make money however it gives Wright State visibility. Travel cost will be low considering most games are in Ohio or Michigan. Wright State has a great product and the next level should be the MAC.
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Post by copeinc on Mar 30, 2014 15:11:53 GMT -5
1. Create plans to build a football stadium 2. Join the MAC conference 3. Marketing to create a loud/fun student section 4. Parking lots around Nutter Center need to be paved 5. Create a buzz 6. Get out of the Horizon League
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Post by Big D on Mar 30, 2014 15:24:58 GMT -5
The Horizon league is on a path to dissolve in the next couple of years. Horizon teams are looking around and I think it is time for Wright State to look around as well. I still think the MAC is the best league for Wright State. Yes we need a football team that does not make money however it gives Wright State visibility. Travel cost will be low considering most games are in Ohio or Michigan. Wright State has a great product and the next level should be the MAC. The HL isn't going anywhere and there is not a chance in hell that WSU would ever join the MAC. First it would be a step down in conference affiliation. They have finished ahead of the HL 2 times in the last 10 years. They wouldn't be interested in WSU even if we did add football because they already have too many Ohio and Michigan schools. They turned down YSU and their successful 1-AA football program multiple times for that reason. We also could never afford it. Our athletic budget is 10 million a year. We would need to come up with over 100 million to build a football stadium and practice facilities and then we would need to double to triple out yearly athletic budget to field a team and add enough women's sports to be title 9 compliant. Miami of Ohio spent 28 million last year on sports. You are delusional if you think we could come up with that kind of money regularly.
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Post by Raider Grad on Mar 30, 2014 15:26:23 GMT -5
1. Create plans to build a football stadium 2. Join the MAC conference 3. Marketing to create a loud/fun student section 4. Parking lots around Nutter Center need to be paved 5. Create a buzz 6. Get out of the Horizon League I would rather drop sports than join the MAC.
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Post by uptempo on Mar 30, 2014 16:06:13 GMT -5
Since WSU will probably never have football and all the expenses that come with it they should therefore have more capital to put into the basketball budget and expect more of their basketball team. As I said before I would give two free paper tickets to every student that wanted them (the "free tickets" would be paid from a portion of the students tuition) and if they don't want to go to the game they can give them away. I would also lower ticket prices to as low as $5 for the upper third of the Nutter and no more than $10 for most of the remaining seats. I would drastically lower concession prices. The lower prices would pack the house, have you ever been to a Reds game and seen the hundreds of people standing in line for an hour for the $1 dog line, it is ridiculous, but it works. People would see the huge crowds and want to come see what all the fuss is about. All of a sudden people are talking all over the country about how WSU is packing 9,000 to 10,000 folks into the Nutter year after year to watch mid-major basketball. WSU followers would be proud to be a part of this growing reputation that WSU fans are rabid and astute, as a result, the good pub and the following continues to build. Most of the people I know don't want to attend WSU games because they think the prices are too high for tickets and concessions. They complain about the parking. They complain about the long concession lines. They complain about the lack of quality half time entertainment. WSU needs to dream big or go home. This constant state of mediocrity and fear of failure drives me nuts. Think big. It's all about marketing, supply and demand. WSU tickets are not in demand. Lower prices to get folks to come. As perception, perceived value, of the product increases, in the future ticket prices can be slowly raised. I won't go into all the marketing strategy that can be employed here, but needless to say, the size of our crowds are pathetic, and something needs to change drastically to push the Raider basketball experience into the right direction. My discussion didn't even touch upon the quality of the basketball on the court which is pretty good, but the overall experience is lacking.
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