Western Michigan 12/22/17

[DunneDeal]

I also think playing a Friday night game, the weekend before Christmas was a bad idea. People are gone, out of town, and people that come into town, dont want to go out they want to be with family.

Bad timing is all when it comes to this games attendance as compared to others.

[grizz]

Oakland played the same Friday night and had 3600 people. Almost a sell out. In the Detroit area thats a good night to play. I believe we usually have a great crowd right before Christmas. A lot of kid groups

[ghostofdylan]

Dec 27, 2017 8:45:16 GMT -6 steveisback said:

I think the biggest issue goes back to hiring Rob in the first place. MIssed a golden opportunity to strike when the iron was hot and think out of the box rather than the safe pick. It has been a slow mediocre low frequency since that almost once in a lifetime opportunity to capitalize on the momentum and buzz Pearl developed. Then add all the AD turnover, move to Klotsche, way the firing of Rob was handled although still glad he is gone...anyway... we could have been Butler at that time but settled for mediocrity. Conflicted regarding Haidet frankly. Nice man, made great hires with Bo and Bruce, poor hires with Ric and Rob...now it has slowly floundered for years gone, stale and then Amanda Braun has totally tanked the program

I feel like we're having two separate discussions, Steve. Maybe Rob wasn't charismatic enough to spike attendance, but he most assuredly wasn't responsible for cratering it. After all, we averaged exactly 4,154 per game in 2010-11 and '11-12, the years immediately before the ill-fated move back to our Division 3 dump.

And has been previously noted elsewhere, Rob is National Coach of the Year next to Ric. He won nearly 10 times as many games. I feel uncomfortable even putting the two of them in the same sentence.

[FTA1982]

I am curious how much of 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 were buoyed by Wisconsin and Marquette fans buying the 2 for 1 or multiple game packs to get tickets for WI and MU games those years at the Cell? I've had season tickets since 2006 and I don't remember seasons where almost half the building was full for an entire season.

[BBFran]

Well after this year you'll get to remember a season where 90-95% of the arena was empty EVERY game. I sure don't remember anything remotely approaching that from '06' through '16.

And that's the point. Our AD's idiotic assumption that everything would be better if she just fired Jeter turned out to be -- wait for it -- an idiotic assumption! In fact, by EVERY important measure, things are much worse than at any point during his tenure. So I ask again: even putting aside that the "fire Jeter!' plan proved calamitous -- it's done! He's gone! He's never coming back! You won't have to suffer through his allegedly ill-timed timeouts any more, or be appalled by when he stood up or sat down during a game.

Moreover, he's been gone for two seasons. The program crisis we are seeing now has NOTHING to do with Rob Jeter. On the contrary, thank God for his recruiting or we'd be frickin' Youngstown State this year -- the worst team in a terrible league.

So what the hell is the plan NOW? Our program is dying before our eyes. The fans have quite literally deserted it. Somebody articulate for me what our administration is doing to fix it, or just improve it. My ears are pretty good, and all I've heard from the Pavilion is the sound of silence.

[BBFran]

Dec 27, 2017 10:32:27 GMT -6 grizz said:

Oakland played the same Friday night and had 3600 people. Almost a sell out. In the Detroit area thats a good night to play. I believe we usually have a great crowd right before Christmas. A lot of kid groups

Yep. Watched some of that game. Great crowd in the O-rena.

[Pounce Needs Pals]

Dec 27, 2017 10:01:16 GMT -6 DunneDeal said:

I also think playing a Friday night game, the weekend before Christmas was a bad idea. People are gone, out of town, and people that come into town, dont want to go out they want to be with family.

Bad timing is all when it comes to this games attendance as compared to others.

That could be all true. That being said, many are home looking for things to do. The Bucks played that same night and had a big crowd. Plus, they sold out last night.

[steveisback]

Paul and Fran, respect the heck out of both you guys but have to once again agree to disagree....

What has led to today is largely the fault most of all to a tone deaf administration save Nancy Zimpher, ridiculous poor judgement in AD hiring decisions, thought it could not get worse with Geiger but then we got She Wolf of the SS!!! If Rob was still here I do agree it would have been better than the horrible way the whole transition was handled and the total lack of class and sensitivity. The thing is though I do believe if we would have capitzlized on Pearl momentum rather than the hiccups of early Jeter era which lost a lot of that buzz and put us back on a low frequency ride, then the dull and up and down nature of his regime, all the other stuff like going back to Klotsche, and other things would not have happened because we would have risen to a Butler status. Rob was not the main cause but played a significant role in "lost opportunity costs". Braun is the worst though. Paul, did not mean to compare or bunch Rob with Ric...as much as I like Ric personally and very lukewarm at best on Rob which seemed to be the problem with him as head of the program...lukewarm and dull....Rob at least could coach to some degree.

[SRT4driver]

Dec 26, 2017 13:11:11 GMT -6 ghostofdylan said:

I couldn't make it Friday because of a work conflict. How many people were in attendance, guys?

The gold colored MKE santa hat giveaway was supposedly for the first 500 fans, and Cassie and I got the last two left at the entire main entrance at about 6:45, if that means anything. I'd guess there were 100-200 people who came in after us.

Also for anyone interested, this result dropped MKE's RPI approximately 60 spots. The added RPI penalty for losing at home made this a much bigger hit than the WIU road loss.

[Spirit of Bruce]

Quite frankly, the opportunity that was missed back at that time that has hurt us the most was not jumping to take Marquette's place in Conference USA when they jumped to the Big East. All the narratives change drastically if that move is made. We obviously wouldn't be in that conference now, probably the A-10 because no football, but we'd be out of the prison that the Horizon League has become!

[SRT4driver]

Dec 27, 2017 18:22:52 GMT -6 Spirit of Bruce said:

Quite frankly, the opportunity that was missed back at that time that has hurt us the most was not jumping to take Marquette's place in Conference USA when they jumped to the Big East. All the narratives change drastically if that move is made. We obviously wouldn't be in that conference now, probably the A-10 because no football, but we'd be out of the prison that the Horizon League has become!

I don't have any memory of MKE ever being offered membership in C-USA. And I can't imagine that ever happened, as I believe C-USA immediately became a football-only conference when the Big East took Marquette and 4 other C-USA members in 2005. The six replacement schools all had football... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_USA#History

[Pantherholic]

There's zero chance Milwaukee was going to be offered a spot in C-USA.

[Pantherholic]

Dec 27, 2017 13:52:01 GMT -6 Pounce Needs Pals said:

That could be all true. That being said, many are home looking for things to do. The Bucks played that same night and had a big crowd. Plus, they sold out last night.

I would argue there's no correlation between Bucks attendance and Panthers attendance. No one is flipping a coin between the two.

[Pounce Needs Pals]

Dec 28, 2017 13:17:32 GMT -6 Pantherholic said:

Dec 27, 2017 13:52:01 GMT -6 Pounce Needs Pals said:

That could be all true. That being said, many are home looking for things to do. The Bucks played that same night and had a big crowd. Plus, they sold out last night.

I would argue there's no correlation between Bucks attendance and Panthers attendance. No one is flipping a coin between the two.

I never said their might be or might not be a correlation. What I did say, is a Friday night that was the 22nd can't be used as well the crowd was bad because it was right before the Holiday, when at the same time the Bucks had a huge crowd versus a non-marquee NBA team.

[Spirit of Bruce]

Dec 27, 2017 21:26:57 GMT -6 SRT4driver said:

Dec 27, 2017 18:22:52 GMT -6 Spirit of Bruce said:

Quite frankly, the opportunity that was missed back at that time that has hurt us the most was not jumping to take Marquette's place in Conference USA when they jumped to the Big East. All the narratives change drastically if that move is made. We obviously wouldn't be in that conference now, probably the A-10 because no football, but we'd be out of the prison that the Horizon League has become!

I don't have any memory of MKE ever being offered membership in C-USA. And I can't imagine that ever happened, as I believe C-USA immediately became a football-only conference when the Big East took Marquette and 4 other C-USA members in 2005. The six replacement schools all had football... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_USA#History

I wasn't around back then, so I have no idea what opportunities may have been available. What I do know is that it would at the very least have been a phone call that Bud Haidet should have made, or taken, whatever the case may be. If football became mandatory at that point in time, my argument is moot, and we still sit here with Andy Geiger to thank for laughing off our invitation to the Valley in 2013.