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Post by PantherU on Dec 13, 2015 18:57:21 GMT -6
JJ with a career high 22 pts. Most Panthers points since 2004. Ever Sent from my SCH-R970 using proboards |
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Post by Pounce Needs Pals on Dec 13, 2015 20:43:26 GMT -6
JJ with a career high 22 pts. Most Panthers points since 2004. Ever Sent from my SCH-R970 using proboards Ya, that too. Most ever in a 1st half. |
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Post by icelandreliant on Dec 13, 2015 20:55:41 GMT -6
Wish they could play Drake regularly, the UWM women did not too long ago. I have lots of family in Des Moines and made it to one of the women's games down there. Northern Illinois was another recent opponent that has left the schedule.
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Post by mrpantherfan on Dec 14, 2015 17:56:50 GMT -6
And!!! Drake just competed in the Missouri Valley - Mountain West challenge. Why can't the horizon league do something for EVERY team like this?? It's better than playing NAIA teams. It should have been a Missouri Valley Horizon league challenge. Less travel and more sense. Of course that would make TOO much sense.
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Post by PantherU on Dec 14, 2015 18:07:14 GMT -6
And!!! Drake just competed in the Missouri Valley - Mountain West challenge. Why can't the horizon league do something for EVERY team like this?? It's better than playing NAIA teams. It should have been a Missouri Valley Horizon league challenge. Less travel and more sense. Of course that would make TOO much sense. Milwaukee is 100% involved. Send that suggestion to the Director of Athletics. It would be nice if Amanda leaned on the Horizon League to get some of these challenges going. It will help scheduling. Of course... |
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Post by jhart05 on Dec 14, 2015 18:46:22 GMT -6
I thought a Horizon-MVC was talked about a few years ago, but the MVC didn't think the Horizon was on their level.
Or was that just guys on this board talking about it.
Can't remember.
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Post by ghostofdylan on Dec 14, 2015 20:25:38 GMT -6
It's not arrogance, Jeff. It's fear.
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Post by xtownfan on Dec 15, 2015 17:26:53 GMT -6
And no better demonstration of the Catch 22. D1 schools won't play us at our place unless they are either so terrible they want to be paid to come and lose (see every single Marquette non-con opponent that they voluntarily scheduled) or are good enough that they are worried what possibly losing to us might do to their tournament hopes (see Wisconsin or Marquette). Then we go out and beat the Badgers and prove the point. So after one of the best non-con wins in our history -- a win so big the Milw-Sentinel/journal actually gave us a secondary article on page 6! -- we all get to celebrate together at home in our next game. Against "Judson." In the Klotsche. Yay. Again Fran, it is not about fear of losing. In some years, UWM has had some teams every bit as bad as any on the schedule, so it can be a drag on the RPI. But there are always going to be teams like that on the schedule and the chance of losing to them is slight. If your team is good enough to beat us, it is likely to wind up with at least a respectable record, and may well win your conference, so it is not going to negatively affect the RPI much. If you get to the point where you consistently win your conference, it could wind up being a textbook trap game, but you have not done that yet. And the "play us when we're good" argument is silly. Any deal is likely to be multi-year, so there is no telling how good a team is going to be in a given season. Moreover, why would any sane AD schedule a game in such a way as to give an opponent the best chance of winning? Especially when the loss is going to look bad? The real issue as always is money. No major conference team or highly ranked team or significantly profitable team is going to play at your place unless it makes economic sense to do so, and that means a three for one or four for one or the like. If UWM does not take a deal like that, somebody else will, and sometimes they can be pretty good teams. And often those road games are scheduled to give players a chance to play before their hometown fans. So you can gripe all you want about Catch-22's or the code of the playground, or your personal favorite, what's good for basketball in the state. All of that is nonsense. There are factors that go into scheduling non-conference games, but the biggest one is money. |
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Post by PantherU on Dec 15, 2015 19:25:55 GMT -6
Again Fran, it is not about fear of losing. In some years, UWM has had some teams every bit as bad as any on the schedule, so it can be a drag on the RPI. But there are always going to be teams like that on the schedule and the chance of losing to them is slight. If your team is good enough to beat us, it is likely to wind up with at least a respectable record, and may well win your conference, so it is not going to negatively affect the RPI much. If you get to the point where you consistently win your conference, it could wind up being a textbook trap game, but you have not done that yet. Well we were doing it, but Marquette dipped Milwaukee on the schedule in those early-to-mid-2000's despite calls from the media and their own fans. I have plenty of Marquette fan friends, as well as basketball boosters in my family. They were never happy when Bruce Pearl would go on the radio and call them out. What Fran is referencing is those years, when we made four straight postseason appearances, won a Horizon League title each year, and still couldn't get Bill Cords and Tom Crean to offer a deal until the cupboard was bare and we finished 9-22, making it safe to schedule us. And the "play us when we're good" argument is silly. Any deal is likely to be multi-year, so there is no telling how good a team is going to be in a given season. Moreover, why would any sane AD schedule a game in such a way as to give an opponent the best chance of winning? Especially when the loss is going to look bad? I don't disagree with this, to an extent. I think that most people here have problems with your constant condescension and they're unwilling to parse through the several paragraphs of that to find that, at the end of the day, you're just trying to defend your program's best interest. As are we. The problem I have with this is that you may not know what a team is going to look like in the fifth year, but you know what they are in the first and likely second. So in 2007, Tan Tommy knew he wasn't risking much. Those deals also have buyouts, so if we got too good, you could cancel on us and blame it on something else. There are safeguards. The real issue as always is money. No major conference team or highly ranked team or significantly profitable team is going to play at your place unless it makes economic sense to do so, and that means a three for one or four for one or the like. If UWM does not take a deal like that, somebody else will, and sometimes they can be pretty good teams. And often those road games are scheduled to give players a chance to play before their hometown fans. I think I'd start by campaigning for a home-and-home, argue for a 2-for-1 and accept a 3-for-1 if I were negotiating. That would give Marquette enough coverage. The problem, however, is that it's hard to swallow this idea that Marquette (and UW) can't afford this when Iowa and Iowa State played home-and-home with both UNI and Drake for decades before moving it to a neutral arena in Des Moines where each school can sell equal tickets to the games. We wouldn't have the neutral arena with you guys, but we would with UW - we could sell one of our "home" games in a rolling home-and-home as a split-Bucks-Arena game. Year one at UW, year two at MKE, year three at UW, year four in Bucks arena with split gate. We could even make it so the game in Milwaukee every year is opposite the MU/UW game in Milwaukee, so the Badgers get a game in MKE every year. Then they can give something to their Milwaukee fans every season without having to put their head between our teeth every other season. For the split game, you do it on the Bucks floor in the Bucks arena. You split the arena 50/50, and if each school doesn't sell their allotment the other side gets the opportunity or it goes to the general public. That plays into their hands if we can't sell 10,000 seats (or whatever half of the Bucks arena is, very possible). Marquette would need a different plan, but we can always massage things to make it work as best as possible for everyone. Obviously no one would be forced into such a situation. It's just hard sometimes to hear family and friends complain about MU's non-conference schedule and know that often we're better than most of the teams. So you can gripe all you want about Catch-22's or the code of the playground, or your personal favorite, what's good for basketball in the state. All of that is nonsense. There are factors that go into scheduling non-conference games, but the biggest one is money. At the end of the day, xtown is just looking out for his program - as we are looking out for ours. If in the end that means we don't play again, that's unfortunate but it's the nature of the beast. I expect there will eventually be some pressure on an AD here to sign a deal that is advantageous to Marquette. Perhaps there will be an adventurous AD at Marquette who really wants to own that undefeated record and will be willing to take a lesser deal to put it on the line. Until then, let's just enjoy the fact that we both walked into the Kohl Center last week and made Bucky cry. |
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Post by xtownfan on Dec 16, 2015 9:01:52 GMT -6
Yeah, but let's take a look at that history. UWM fans love to talk about your first really big year, the year you had the best winning percentage in the NCAA, beat Wisconsin, got Utah to play at your place, and would have easily won the conference you joined the next year and made the NCAA tournament. Uh, not quite. Granted, the former coach had done a pretty good job building something out of nothing, but UWM won lots of games against the absolute dregs of D-1. The team's second loss of the year came to the mighty Kangaroos of Missouri-Kansas City, who were also transitioning into D-1. Late in the season, the team went into double overtime to beat Chicago State. Marquette beat them by 50. Yes, that team beat Wisconsin at Wisconsin, in an early season game with a new coach. And you did get Utah to play a game in Milwaukee, but because Utah coach Rick Majerus had recruited a local player and wanted to give him a home game. Utah won by about 40. So maybe UWM would have won its conference. More likely it would have finished about .500 or somewhere below. Not bad for a brand new D-1 team.
But that got UWM a deal with Marquette. During the years of that agreement, Marquette won all of them and none of them were remotely close. And as predicted, the first game, which was the opening game of the Blue and Gold Classic, drew really well. Very well for a tournament game lots of people stayed home from. The next three were no better than any other guarantee game. Marquette offered to continue the series for four years, with two of them including games in Marquette's tournament. That was a deal that actually made sense. Marquette was trying way too hard to keep the tournament alive after tournaments like that had pretty much died out. It was harder and harder to get opponents, and usually it was one respectable team and a couple of terrible ones that Marquette and its destined opponent would kill in the first round. So UWM would get to play Marquette for four years and in two of them would essentially get a home game in the consolation game. And if it suddenly got good, it would have a chance to not only knock off Marquette but play someone pretty good in the final.
But at that point, Bo Ryan took over as coach at UWM and started demanding a deal that included a home game. Note: When Bo took over the UWM program, it was literally among the worst in D-1. It had consistently won no more than a couple games a year in its conference, typically battling Loyola and UIC before Jimmy Collins to see who was worst. Average attendance was about 900. That is, less than 1000. I.e. there were more c***roaches in the arena watching UWM lose than there were fans. But Bo wanted a home game. Marquette was about as likely to give a home game to Cardinal Stritch. Then Bruce Pearl came in, and as you note, started winning some games and campaigning for a deal. Here is the ironic part. If Bo had taken the deal he was offered, you would have gotten your game against Marquette when your program was at its height. Marquette did not refuse to play UWM when you were good. Bo turned down a series when you were terrible.
Now let's talk about your friend Bruce. I think history has demonstrated Bruce Pearl's character, and I could make a lot of money taking bets on how long it takes him to get his current school put on probation. Bruce showed up on the radio all right. He also called the Marquette athletic department regularly and insisted on talking to either the coach or the AD. In one notable instance, he sat in his car on his cell phone and refused to hang up until Tom Crean would talk to him. He refused to believe Crean was not there. After all, he could see the light in his office from his car. What he did not know was that Crean had left for the day, but left his office lights on. Now seriously, how do you expect Marquette to react? Pearl took over a team that was hardly drawing flies started demanding a favorable deal from Marquette and trashing Marquette every chance he got. He had tried the same trick at Southern Indiana, insisting that Evansville add them to their schedule. And he was kind of funny with those radio interviews. He shouted that he would play Marquette any time, anywhere! Just bring 'em on! When asked if that meant he would play Marquette the following year without a return home game, Bruce said, "Well, that would have to be negotiated." Right. Except that UWM offered Marquette exactly nothing. The major proponent in the press at the time was the legendary Mike Hunt. Hunt was a reasonably talented but ridiculously lazy reporter who loved to throw dumb stuff out there for people to talk about. Before he retired, Hunt was last seen covering Marquette games by sitting in the press room, watching them on TV, and playing Scrabble on his computer. No joke. In one article, he suggested getting all the teams in the state together for a tournament and split the proceeds. He handled the obvious objections from Marquette and UW about revenue by saying, "For two days a year, let's just forget that." Great, if those two days are in July. When you are talking about two teams giving up two home games and hundreds of thousands of dollars, you are talking about something else.
So between Bruce Pearl trying to jam the game down Marquette's throat and Hunt writing ridiculous articles, there was no way in hell UWM was getting a game from Marquette ever. The Marquette AD and coach would rather have forfeited a game than played UWM. You might recall that when Rob Jeter took over, he immediately quit calling for a series and dodged any questions about one. Having spent a year on the Marquette staff, he knew how Marquette felt about it.
And you guys still have an unrealistic idea of what your program is worth. You would start out campaigning for a one-and-one? Great idea, if you want to get laughed out of the office and put a torpedo into any chance of getting a game ever. One and one? What are you smoking? Granted, Marquette's schedule this year is pretty weak. But look at the teams we have had one and one series with in the recent past. Arizona. Last year, Arizona State. Vanderbilt. LSU. NC State. Wake Forest. Ohio State. Big name teams from big name conferences that drew crowds, were nationally ranked, and regularly made the NCAA tournament. Now look at your non-conference home games this year. South Dakota, SIU-Edwardsville, and two D-2 teams. And you want Marquette to give you a home-and-home? Did you expect to get the same deal from Notre Dame or Minnesota? Your idea of a tournament is delusional. It might work in Iowa, where three of the four D-1 teams are state teams, the one private one actually benefits from playing the two major state universities, and all of them are way above the level of UWM. Marquette and Wisconsin are not going to split anything with you, and why would they? You guys draw 3000 a game and make noise every fifth year or so. You bring next to nothing to the table and expect to be treated as equals. Plus, this tournament you suggest is a great deal for UWM and Green Bay. Even in an off year, Marquette and UW would likely be the biggest games of your season. In exchange for playing two games in a tournament, Marquette and UW would be giving up two home games worth conservatively $500,000 or so and take two games off the schedule that could be played against nationally ranked teams on TV. Why would they do that? They already play each other every year and people pack the stadiums and watch the games on TV. Why do they need you?
I give you guys credit for trying to up your schedule this year. You played a tournament on the road against some pretty forgettable opponents, but at least it was on the road. And you played a tournament in Florida against teams people have at least heard of. Not great ones, but at least noticeable ones. But look at the results. You lost two out of three and were probably the lowest profile team in the tournament with the shortest history and the smallest fan base.
I get it that it is hard for you guys to schedule games. I get it that you would really like to see games played on a more favorable basis than you are currently getting. I get it that life is unfair. But nobody else is going to bail you out of your situation. If you want what you are asking for, the way to do it would be to play anyone anywhere and knock off some big names. If you dominated the conference like Butler did, you might put yourself in a position to be Butler in twenty years or so. In order to do that, you would have to spend lots of money on your program, build new facilities, and recruit at a higher level. You are not in a position to do that, so it is not going to happen. Sorry.
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Post by A Statement By SHAUN on Dec 16, 2015 9:36:41 GMT -6
Yeah, but let's take a look at that history. UWM fans love to talk about your first really big year, the year you had the best winning percentage in the NCAA, beat Wisconsin, got Utah to play at your place, and would have easily won the conference you joined the next year and made the NCAA tournament. Uh, not quite. Granted, the former coach had done a pretty good job building something out of nothing, but UWM won lots of games against the absolute dregs of D-1. The team's second loss of the year came to the mighty Kangaroos of Missouri-Kansas City, who were also transitioning into D-1. Late in the season, the team went into double overtime to beat Chicago State. Marquette beat them by 50. Yes, that team beat Wisconsin at Wisconsin, in an early season game with a new coach. And you did get Utah to play a game in Milwaukee, but because Utah coach Rick Majerus had recruited a local player and wanted to give him a home game. Utah won by about 40. So maybe UWM would have won its conference. More likely it would have finished about .500 or somewhere below. Not bad for a brand new D-1 team. But that got UWM a deal with Marquette. During the years of that agreement, Marquette won all of them and none of them were remotely close. And as predicted, the first game, which was the opening game of the Blue and Gold Classic, drew really well. Very well for a tournament game lots of people stayed home from. The next three were no better than any other guarantee game. Marquette offered to continue the series for four years, with two of them including games in Marquette's tournament. That was a deal that actually made sense. Marquette was trying way too hard to keep the tournament alive after tournaments like that had pretty much died out. It was harder and harder to get opponents, and usually it was one respectable team and a couple of terrible ones that Marquette and its destined opponent would kill in the first round. So UWM would get to play Marquette for four years and in two of them would essentially get a home game in the consolation game. And if it suddenly got good, it would have a chance to not only knock off Marquette but play someone pretty good in the final. But at that point, Bo Ryan took over as coach at UWM and started demanding a deal that included a home game. Note: When Bo took over the UWM program, it was literally among the worst in D-1. It had consistently won no more than a couple games a year in its conference, typically battling Loyola and UIC before Jimmy Collins to see who was worst. Average attendance was about 900. That is, less than 1000. I.e. there were more c***roaches in the arena watching UWM lose than there were fans. But Bo wanted a home game. Marquette was about as likely to give a home game to Cardinal Stritch. Then Bruce Pearl came in, and as you note, started winning some games and campaigning for a deal. Here is the ironic part. If Bo had taken the deal he was offered, you would have gotten your game against Marquette when your program was at its height. Marquette did not refuse to play UWM when you were good. Bo turned down a series when you were terrible. Now let's talk about your friend Bruce. I think history has demonstrated Bruce Pearl's character, and I could make a lot of money taking bets on how long it takes him to get his current school put on probation. Bruce showed up on the radio all right. He also called the Marquette athletic department regularly and insisted on talking to either the coach or the AD. In one notable instance, he sat in his car on his cell phone and refused to hang up until Tom Crean would talk to him. He refused to believe Crean was not there. After all, he could see the light in his office from his car. What he did not know was that Crean had left for the day, but left his office lights on. Now seriously, how do you expect Marquette to react? Pearl took over a team that was hardly drawing flies started demanding a favorable deal from Marquette and trashing Marquette every chance he got. He had tried the same trick at Southern Indiana, insisting that Evansville add them to their schedule. And he was kind of funny with those radio interviews. He shouted that he would play Marquette any time, anywhere! Just bring 'em on! When asked if that meant he would play Marquette the following year without a return home game, Bruce said, "Well, that would have to be negotiated." Right. Except that UWM offered Marquette exactly nothing. The major proponent in the press at the time was the legendary Mike Hunt. Hunt was a reasonably talented but ridiculously lazy reporter who loved to throw dumb stuff out there for people to talk about. Before he retired, Hunt was last seen covering Marquette games by sitting in the press room, watching them on TV, and playing Scrabble on his computer. No joke. In one article, he suggested getting all the teams in the state together for a tournament and split the proceeds. He handled the obvious objections from Marquette and UW about revenue by saying, "For two days a year, let's just forget that." Great, if those two days are in July. When you are talking about two teams giving up two home games and hundreds of thousands of dollars, you are talking about something else. So between Bruce Pearl trying to jam the game down Marquette's throat and Hunt writing ridiculous articles, there was no way in hell UWM was getting a game from Marquette ever. The Marquette AD and coach would rather have forfeited a game than played UWM. You might recall that when Rob Jeter took over, he immediately quit calling for a series and dodged any questions about one. Having spent a year on the Marquette staff, he knew how Marquette felt about it. And you guys still have an unrealistic idea of what your program is worth. You would start out campaigning for a one-and-one? Great idea, if you want to get laughed out of the office and put a torpedo into any chance of getting a game ever. One and one? What are you smoking? Granted, Marquette's schedule this year is pretty weak. But look at the teams we have had one and one series with in the recent past. Arizona. Last year, Arizona State. Vanderbilt. LSU. NC State. Wake Forest. Ohio State. Big name teams from big name conferences that drew crowds, were nationally ranked, and regularly made the NCAA tournament. Now look at your non-conference home games this year. South Dakota, SIU-Edwardsville, and two D-2 teams. And you want Marquette to give you a home-and-home? Did you expect to get the same deal from Notre Dame or Minnesota? Your idea of a tournament is delusional. It might work in Iowa, where three of the four D-1 teams are state teams, the one private one actually benefits from playing the two major state universities, and all of them are way above the level of UWM. Marquette and Wisconsin are not going to split anything with you, and why would they? You guys draw 3000 a game and make noise every fifth year or so. You bring next to nothing to the table and expect to be treated as equals. Plus, this tournament you suggest is a great deal for UWM and Green Bay. Even in an off year, Marquette and UW would likely be the biggest games of your season. In exchange for playing two games in a tournament, Marquette and UW would be giving up two home games worth conservatively $500,000 or so and take two games off the schedule that could be played against nationally ranked teams on TV. Why would they do that? They already play each other every year and people pack the stadiums and watch the games on TV. Why do they need you? I give you guys credit for trying to up your schedule this year. You played a tournament on the road against some pretty forgettable opponents, but at least it was on the road. And you played a tournament in Florida against teams people have at least heard of. Not great ones, but at least noticeable ones. But look at the results. You lost two out of three and were probably the lowest profile team in the tournament with the shortest history and the smallest fan base. I get it that it is hard for you guys to schedule games. I get it that you would really like to see games played on a more favorable basis than you are currently getting. I get it that life is unfair. But nobody else is going to bail you out of your situation. If you want what you are asking for, the way to do it would be to play anyone anywhere and knock off some big names. If you dominated the conference like Butler did, you might put yourself in a position to be Butler in twenty years or so. In order to do that, you would have to spend lots of money on your program, build new facilities, and recruit at a higher level. You are not in a position to do that, so it is not going to happen. Sorry. TLDR |
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Post by PantherU on Dec 16, 2015 12:49:50 GMT -6
I'm done. Stopped reading halfway through. I was trying to defend you, trying to build a bridge for these people to see your point, but you're just a troll.
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Post by icelandreliant on Dec 16, 2015 17:05:53 GMT -6
I moved to Milwaukee about four years ago. I quickly came to enjoy following UWM and most of the pro teams and area colleges. I have even enjoyed following teams almost no one pays attention to like MATC and the Mt Mary and Alverno women's teams. I very discovered that Marquette fans are often arrogant and entitled with an inflated sense of their school's influence and importance. Little has happened to change my mind about that.
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Post by jhart05 on Dec 16, 2015 18:11:18 GMT -6
I'm done. Stopped reading halfway through. I was trying to defend you, trying to build a bridge for these people to see your point, but you're just a troll. Love that "block member" feature. |
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Post by jhart05 on Dec 16, 2015 18:14:19 GMT -6
I moved to Milwaukee about four years ago. I quickly came to enjoy following UWM and most of the pro teams and area colleges. I have even enjoyed following teams almost no one pays attention to like MATC and the Mt Mary and Alverno women's teams. I very discovered that Marquette fans are often arrogant and entitled with an inflated sense of their school's influence and importance. Little has happened to change my mind about that. And this coming from someone, who it sounds like, didn't attend either university. So, yeah, it's not just Milwaukee grads who notice this. I know I've said it before many times, but I could not care less if our men's basketball team ever plays that other school again. |
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