vs South Dakota, vs Oral Roberts

[leatherneckcountry]

What’s the answer? Recruiting, Coaching, Facility’s , Conference?
Something needs fixing, basketball won’t be around long with a gate of 500 people.

Coaching Coaching Coaching Billy is a good assistant because he can recruit guards but he really has recruit one decent big. The top teams in the summit seem to have a big who can stretch the floor it's been this way for a while when Wolters was at SDSU they had a big who could shoot. Good teams pretty much have set rotation players should always be ready to play but when you play 3 minutes one game and 25 the next it's hard to be ready. It amazes me how many times the top teams in the league have one of there key players from Il. Joining a different conference is going to do anything. Facility's are the most overrated part of college athletics.

[wiu712]

There was just a few hundred people in the stands when the game started. The crowd size at the Men's games is becoming reminiscent of the latter Derek Thomas years.

When Brandon got those two quick fouls, you knew that we were not going to have a good outcome.

[ST_Lawson]

What’s the answer? Recruiting, Coaching, Facility’s , Conference?
Something needs fixing, basketball won’t be around long with a gate of 500 people.

Coaching Coaching Coaching Billy is a good assistant because he can recruit guards but he really has recruit one decent big. The top teams in the summit seem to have a big who can stretch the floor it's been this way for a while when Wolters was at SDSU they had a big who could shoot. Good teams pretty much have set rotation players should always be ready to play but when you play 3 minutes one game and 25 the next it's hard to be ready. It amazes me how many times the top teams in the league have one of there key players from Il. Joining a different conference is going to do anything. Facility's are the most overrated part of college athletics.

I agree...it's coaching and to a lesser extent, recruiting (which is really part of coaching anyway).

Conference-wise, this is our best option at this point...Ohio Valley, Missouri Valley, and Horizon League are all tougher.

Facilities really don't matter that much, especially in basketball. How many great teams play in old, small gyms? If the fans can pack the place and get loud, it's going to be a fun and exciting atmosphere regardless of the facilities. I'm not saying we'll ever have a place this historic, but Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse (9,100 seats, 90 years old), Penn's Palestra (8,725 seats, 91 years old), or Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium (9,318 seats, 78 years old...all not huge in the grand scheme of DI college basketball...all absolutely amazing places for a basketball game and constantly packed and loud. When the "product" on the court is entertaining, any arena can be exciting. As mentioned before, we've had upwards of 5k for games in fairly recent history...that South Dakota game in 2013...final home game of the season, against one of the top teams in the conference, and we were 20-7 going into it (we won the game by 2 points)...we had TP and CC3, so we were doing really well and playing some really exciting basketball, so people would turn out to see it.

We have some talent, but something just isn't working. That 2012/2013 season was the last time we had a winning season (and it looks likely that this one won't be a .500+ season either). Personally, I have nothing against Coach Wright, but I feel like it's probably time to move on with someone else at the helm.

EDIT - here's a bit more info...a chart showing average season attendance (in blue) as compared with overall winning % for the season (in red): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... nteractive
There's a very strong correlation between winning and higher attendance...even more so than you find in football. In football, it seems like it takes a couple of years of doing really well for it to translate to better attendance, but with basketball, you start doing well in the beginning of the season, and you'll have really good attendance by the end if you keep things up.

Someone want to get Matt Margenthaler on the phone?

[leatherneckcountry]

What’s the answer? Recruiting, Coaching, Facility’s , Conference?
Something needs fixing, basketball won’t be around long with a gate of 500 people.

Coaching Coaching Coaching Billy is a good assistant because he can recruit guards but he really has recruit one decent big. The top teams in the summit seem to have a big who can stretch the floor it's been this way for a while when Wolters was at SDSU they had a big who could shoot. Good teams pretty much have set rotation players should always be ready to play but when you play 3 minutes one game and 25 the next it's hard to be ready. It amazes me how many times the top teams in the league have one of there key players from Il. Joining a different conference is going to do anything. Facility's are the most overrated part of college athletics.

I agree...it's coaching and to a lesser extent, recruiting (which is really part of coaching anyway).

Conference-wise, this is our best option at this point...Ohio Valley, Missouri Valley, and Horizon League are all tougher.

Facilities really don't matter that much, especially in basketball. How many great teams play in old, small gyms? If the fans can pack the place and get loud, it's going to be a fun and exciting atmosphere regardless of the facilities. I'm not saying we'll ever have a place this historic, but Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse (9,100 seats, 90 years old), Penn's Palestra (8,725 seats, 91 years old), or Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium (9,318 seats, 78 years old...all not huge in the grand scheme of DI college basketball...all absolutely amazing places for a basketball game and constantly packed and loud. When the "product" on the court is entertaining, any arena can be exciting. As mentioned before, we've had upwards of 5k for games in fairly recent history...that South Dakota game in 2013...final home game of the season, against one of the top teams in the conference, and we were 20-7 going into it (we won the game by 2 points)...we had TP and CC3, so we were doing really well and playing some really exciting basketball, so people would turn out to see it.

We have some talent, but something just isn't working. That 2012/2013 season was the last time we had a winning season (and it looks likely that this one won't be a .500+ season either). Personally, I have nothing against Coach Wright, but I feel like it's probably time to move on with someone else at the helm.

EDIT - here's a bit more info...a chart showing average season attendance (in blue) as compared with overall winning % for the season (in red): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... nteractive
There's a very strong correlation between winning and higher attendance...even more so than you find in football. In football, it seems like it takes a couple of years of doing really well for it to translate to better attendance, but with basketball, you start doing well in the beginning of the season, and you'll have really good attendance by the end if you keep things up.

Someone want to get Matt Margenthaler on the phone?

The last 2 DII coaches we hired were Coach Gravina and I think we would all go nuts if we could get get a Gravina for the mens side and as much as I hate to admit it Nielsen did a good job of winning games. I know it's different at the Juco level but my Freshman year at Lincoln we got 3rd in the country and there are grade school gym that were nicer than that place and they were one of the top teams in the league for many years before that they build a new building that we started using my sophmore year and we won the title that year. There were many nicer gyms in our conference than the old place including Danville who host the national tournament every year. Fort Waynes facilities aren't really any better and they find away to be competitive every year.

[sealhall74]

Coaching Coaching Coaching Billy is a good assistant because he can recruit guards but he really has recruit one decent big. The top teams in the summit seem to have a big who can stretch the floor it's been this way for a while when Wolters was at SDSU they had a big who could shoot. Good teams pretty much have set rotation players should always be ready to play but when you play 3 minutes one game and 25 the next it's hard to be ready. It amazes me how many times the top teams in the league have one of there key players from Il. Joining a different conference is going to do anything. Facility's are the most overrated part of college athletics.

I agree...it's coaching and to a lesser extent, recruiting (which is really part of coaching anyway).

Conference-wise, this is our best option at this point...Ohio Valley, Missouri Valley, and Horizon League are all tougher.

Facilities really don't matter that much, especially in basketball. How many great teams play in old, small gyms? If the fans can pack the place and get loud, it's going to be a fun and exciting atmosphere regardless of the facilities. I'm not saying we'll ever have a place this historic, but Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse (9,100 seats, 90 years old), Penn's Palestra (8,725 seats, 91 years old), or Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium (9,318 seats, 78 years old...all not huge in the grand scheme of DI college basketball...all absolutely amazing places for a basketball game and constantly packed and loud. When the "product" on the court is entertaining, any arena can be exciting. As mentioned before, we've had upwards of 5k for games in fairly recent history...that South Dakota game in 2013...final home game of the season, against one of the top teams in the conference, and we were 20-7 going into it (we won the game by 2 points)...we had TP and CC3, so we were doing really well and playing some really exciting basketball, so people would turn out to see it.

We have some talent, but something just isn't working. That 2012/2013 season was the last time we had a winning season (and it looks likely that this one won't be a .500+ season either). Personally, I have nothing against Coach Wright, but I feel like it's probably time to move on with someone else at the helm.

EDIT - here's a bit more info...a chart showing average season attendance (in blue) as compared with overall winning % for the season (in red): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... nteractive
There's a very strong correlation between winning and higher attendance...even more so than you find in football. In football, it seems like it takes a couple of years of doing really well for it to translate to better attendance, but with basketball, you start doing well in the beginning of the season, and you'll have really good attendance by the end if you keep things up.

Someone want to get Matt Margenthaler on the phone?

The last 2 DII coaches we hired were Coach Gravina and I think we would all go nuts if we could get get a Gravina for the mens side and as much as I hate to admit it Nielsen did a good job of winning games. I know it's different at the Juco level but my Freshman year at Lincoln we got 3rd in the country and there are grade school gym that were nicer than that place and they were one of the top teams in the league for many years before that they build a new building that we started using my sophmore year and we won the title that year. There were many nicer gyms in our conference than the old place including Danville who host the national tournament every year. Fort Waynes facilities aren't really any better and they find away to be competitive every year.

I wonder what former Leatherneck basketball student manager (under Jack Margenthaler), Quincy U men's head coach, Tulsa/Arkansas assistant (under Nolan Richardson) Brad Dunn (cowboy hat and all) is doing these days.

[sealhall74]

I agree...it's coaching and to a lesser extent, recruiting (which is really part of coaching anyway).

Conference-wise, this is our best option at this point...Ohio Valley, Missouri Valley, and Horizon League are all tougher.

Facilities really don't matter that much, especially in basketball. How many great teams play in old, small gyms? If the fans can pack the place and get loud, it's going to be a fun and exciting atmosphere regardless of the facilities. I'm not saying we'll ever have a place this historic, but Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse (9,100 seats, 90 years old), Penn's Palestra (8,725 seats, 91 years old), or Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium (9,318 seats, 78 years old...all not huge in the grand scheme of DI college basketball...all absolutely amazing places for a basketball game and constantly packed and loud. When the "product" on the court is entertaining, any arena can be exciting. As mentioned before, we've had upwards of 5k for games in fairly recent history...that South Dakota game in 2013...final home game of the season, against one of the top teams in the conference, and we were 20-7 going into it (we won the game by 2 points)...we had TP and CC3, so we were doing really well and playing some really exciting basketball, so people would turn out to see it.

We have some talent, but something just isn't working. That 2012/2013 season was the last time we had a winning season (and it looks likely that this one won't be a .500+ season either). Personally, I have nothing against Coach Wright, but I feel like it's probably time to move on with someone else at the helm.

EDIT - here's a bit more info...a chart showing average season attendance (in blue) as compared with overall winning % for the season (in red): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... nteractive
There's a very strong correlation between winning and higher attendance...even more so than you find in football. In football, it seems like it takes a couple of years of doing really well for it to translate to better attendance, but with basketball, you start doing well in the beginning of the season, and you'll have really good attendance by the end if you keep things up.

Someone want to get Matt Margenthaler on the phone?

The last 2 DII coaches we hired were Coach Gravina and I think we would all go nuts if we could get get a Gravina for the mens side and as much as I hate to admit it Nielsen did a good job of winning games. I know it's different at the Juco level but my Freshman year at Lincoln we got 3rd in the country and there are grade school gym that were nicer than that place and they were one of the top teams in the league for many years before that they build a new building that we started using my sophmore year and we won the title that year. There were many nicer gyms in our conference than the old place including Danville who host the national tournament every year. Fort Waynes facilities aren't really any better and they find away to be competitive every year.

I wonder what former Leatherneck basketball student manager (under Jack Margenthaler), Quincy U men's head coach, Tulsa/Arkansas assistant (under Nolan Richardson) Brad Dunn (cowboy hat and all) is doing these days.

I will answer my own question. He appears to still be in the business (sort of). I had one class with Brad. Like Mary Matalin, he was one of those "unknowns but unforgettables" that you encounter in academic life if you keep your eyes open.

[wiu712]

Saturday's game vs Oral Roberts: 2PM.

Summit League Food Fight: Support the Western Illinois Regional Council today! Bring 5 cans of food + 1 Adult General Admission Ticket = Free Admission for kids 12 and under.

[vatusay]

Didn’t this used to be free for any age if bringing canned good. This is too funny.

[sealhall74]

Gilbeck with a nice dish to Morgan. A "big to big" slam. Have not seen that in a while.

[sealhall74]

Necks up big 38-19 at the half. Fun group of kids to watch when they play like this. Everyone sharing the ball and hitting shots. That said, the ORU defense is the worst I have seen all season. No urgency whatsoever.