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Post by uptempo on Sept 25, 2014 19:21:36 GMT -5
On average I attended 10 or more home games per year for the first 20 years of the Nutter Center. I have gone to fewer and fewer games over the last 4 years. The style of play, the competition, half-time entertainment, concessions, the entire fan experience is not comparable to the 1990's. The electricity and hope surrounding this program is gone, in my opinion. In the past, even when the team was bad, I think the master plan was for Wright State Basketball to keep reaching for the stars and to one day be a consistent top 50 team and go to the tournament every two or three years. It seems like the current administration is content with the status quo, the team has been a contender during the Donlon era, but it seems like everyones expectations for the future have been lowered. I follow every game on the radio, TV, or HLN on my computer.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2014 19:37:23 GMT -5
My statement wasn't just about those 2 games. The majority of people that are bitching about the schedule are people that don't attend ANY home games. That is sad too because we have 13 home games this year and 11 of them are games against HL teams and 3 good mid-majors: Miami, George Mason, and Belmont. I don't care if people don't want to attend the 2 D2 games, but anyone complaining about the rest of the schedule is just bitching for the sake of bitching. Point well taken, Raider Country. Belmont, George Mason, and Miami (OH) are great games for the home non-conference schedule and I will be there for those. When I was a season ticket holder, it seemed to me that scheduling two non-DI opponents at home was just the athletic department's way of sucking more money out of my pocket. I'd like to support the program, but by the time that I paid for the seat license fee, two non-DI games, and a couple of other customary clunkers, I decided that the ticket package was over-priced and walked away. In regards to Uptempo's comments ... Those have been my feelings exactly for the past five or so years. I couldn't have said it better. It's another reason why I dropped my season tickets a few years ago. I nominate your message for the "Post with the Most" award.
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Post by Big D on Sept 25, 2014 19:52:44 GMT -5
On average I attended 10 or more home games per year for the first 20 years of the Nutter Center. I have gone to fewer and fewer games over the last 4 years. The style of play, the competition, half-time entertainment, concessions, the entire fan experience is not comparable to the 1990's. The electricity and hope surrounding this program is gone, in my opinion. In the past, even when the team was bad, I think the master plan was for Wright State Basketball to keep reaching for the stars and to one day be a consistent top 50 team and go to the tournament every two or three years. It seems like the current administration is content with the status quo, the team has been a contender during the Donlon era, but it seems like everyones expectations for the future have been lowered. I follow every game on the radio, TV, or HLN on my computer. It drives me nuts when fans want to bitch and moan about where WSU should be as a program but do not attend games or donate to the program. Our administration isn't content with the status quo, but they live in the real world. You can only stretch resources so thin. If you really want to see the program improve put your money where your mouth is. Attend some games. Write a check to the athletic department. You don't have to attend every game. Even if you cherry pick the best games and only attend 4-5 games a year you are contributing. You also send a message to our coaches and AD that you are willing to spend your money to see Wright State play good competition, but won't waste your time or money of D2/D3 games or low majors. That is a productive way to get your message heard.
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Post by Class of '83 on Sept 25, 2014 21:47:11 GMT -5
I suspect we'll end up with the weakest schedule in the HL and hope that we get 20 wins, what some perceive as a mark of a good season. Here are the SOS ranks for all HL schedules with average opponents' RPI from last year: 1. Oakland 84.9 2. Green Bay 130.4 3. Detroit 145.8 4. Cleveland State 160.5 5. Wright State 168.8 6. Milwaukee 169.9 7. Valparaiso 170.9 8. UIC 190.8 9. Youngstown State 231.6 Every team also has two non-DI opponents, except for YSU and Valpo, which have 3.
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Post by wsutommygun on Sept 25, 2014 22:39:04 GMT -5
I was holding out hopes for the possibility of seeing no non-D1 teams on the schedule. The fact is it starts with LeCrone. I'm not sure how much you want to hear "it doesn't hurt the RPI" rhetoric but, the non-D1 isn't a new concept for Billy or the league. I applaud Big D's response on the subject. You all have a legit complaint but, we are just spinning our wheels. Class of '83, I'd like a SOS in the 125 area. Just win the games and the RPI will be okay. Every year a couple of hundred teams are done by Selection Sunday, although my goal is NCAA first anything is better than nothing and by my definition is worth something. If you don't want to count the non-D1 games that is like saying Aaron is baseball's home run king ( whatever makes you feel better ).
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wh
Mail Room
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Post by wh on Sept 25, 2014 22:41:33 GMT -5
Over on the Valpo board we have been expressing the same level of frustration about the quality of our OOC home schedule . Apparently, our Athletic Director Mark LaBarbera has been following our schedule thread and just posted a reply. Thought you might like to see it, because his message would apply to WSU as well as Valpo:
Understand everyone's frustrations with this year's home schedule. We also would have preferred a different home schedule. Scheduling requires two teams that want to play. We received many "not interested"s this year. We eventually reached a point in time where we needed to finish the schedule and we needed it to have more than 11 home games.
Scheduling basketball games has changed significantly over the past 5 years. The BCS schools play each other more, play each other more on neutral courts, and have become more selective in what mid-majors they play. Mid-majors and low-majors have become more selective as the pressure to win sooner moves to the lower RPI conferences. Guarantees have gotten to the point where paying schools is financially unfeasible for schools outside the BCS. ESPN controls many of the early season tournaments. Many of their tournaments are already scheduled out two or more years. Outside promoters now require the payment of high guarantees to participate in their early season tournaments.
We are working now on ideas for developing a better schedule for next season. This has been a topic of conversation with the Horizon League staff and with all of the Horizon League coaches as a group.
Valpo fans and alumni have a lot of respect for our AD. Personally, this helped me understand a little better the challenges we all face in putting together an appealing, competitive OOC schedules. I was especially encouraged that this is a current topic of conversation with the HL office and coaching staffs.
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Post by mudman on Sept 25, 2014 23:13:53 GMT -5
This whole argument highlights why we should expand the number of teams in our league to reduce the number of OOC games we have to schedule.
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Post by uptempo on Sept 26, 2014 1:04:18 GMT -5
I agree with mudman, make the Horizon league larger and stronger and the OOC scheduling is not even a factor. We only have 9.5 teams, we are somewhere between 10 and 13 in the RPI, we are a strong league, rather than sitting back and playing it safe we should be charging ahead. Even though I dislike the A-10 they could of faded over the last few years, but they keep reloading and are probably the top non-big conference out there. The Horizon League is at a cross-roads, strong leadership can lead the conference to top 8 standing, playing it safe will lead us to mediocrity. I spent 35 years in the government before retiring. I know how LeCrone thinks. He is looking towards maintaining the status quo. All he is doing is treading water until retirement. He needs to be replaced with someone young and hungry who can facilitate change.
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Post by Big D on Sept 26, 2014 7:30:53 GMT -5
Adding additional members to the HL could help with scheduling, but the real problem is that the HL encourages it's members to play multiple non D1 teams. We had 10 HL members and played an 18 game conference schedule up until 2 years ago. We also had the benefit of playing in the bracket buster tournament where we had 2 more games given to us each year (the current BB game and the return game from the previous year's BB game). Almost everyone in the HL was still scheduling 2 non D1 teams back then even though they had 4 more D1 games built into the schedule every year for them. The conference as a whole needs to come up with a scheduling mandate to eliminate non D1 games.
Having 9 members made it harder to schedule this year. The HL could have made it easier by putting together 1-2 conference challenge weekends like the ACC/Big 10 challenge. I know we all would want to play the MVC or A-10 in such a challenge, but they wouldn't be interested. We could still make it happen vs. the CAA, OVC, MAC, or even the Summit league. Anything is better than non D1 games. Worse case scenario, we could have just played more HL games this year to eliminate the non D1 teams. We play everyone else in the conference home and away. Many conferences play an unbalanced schedule like the A-10. They do it by playing everyone at least once and some twice but everyone isn't home and away. We could have simply had every team in the conference play 2 more league games: one home and one on the road selected randomly. It would have solved everyone's scheduling problem. The HL just needs to sit down and figure out a scheduling policy that makes the most sense for the future growth of this conference. We are never going to attract the type of new member we want by encouraging teams to play non D1 teams.
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Post by mudman on Sept 26, 2014 7:50:06 GMT -5
A home and home with Northern Ky. is better than what we have. It all circles in some way back to Lecrone and getting a 20 win season.
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Post by wolf41 on Sept 26, 2014 11:09:49 GMT -5
"The people that bitch want it all for free!" What does this mean?
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