|
Post by davedome on Mar 22, 2021 8:50:10 GMT -6
I hope none of you guys are homicide detectives. “Sir, the victim, John Doe, was shot five times in a room locked from the outside. We arrested a woman in the same locked room holding a smoking revolver with one bullet left in it. She was wearing a sign saying ‘Doe must die!’ There was no one else in the room.” “Wow, what a coincidence. Well, get her name and phone number and give her a ride home. I’m sure the whole thing was very traumatic for her, but maybe she saw something that will help our investigation at some point. Now round up the usual suspects! I have a hunch you should start in Madison!” I couldn’t agree more. We ALWAYS blame Madison for where we are, our shortcomings and crappy decisions. We have a inferiority complex with UW and they’re the regular scapegoat to everything that’s wrong with the Milwaukee Athletic department. Butler, Valpo and Loyola are all in a better place than we are now even though we all started in the same crappy conference. How can we think the only reason they’ve succeeded and we haven’t is because they’re private schools and don’t have to deal with Madison??? Come on, stop giving out hall passes for crappy growth.
|
|
|
Post by Cactus Panther on Mar 22, 2021 8:55:56 GMT -6
For those of us who lived through the ups and downs of the program prior to Jeter's arrival, many of us saw the balloon pop when Jeter took over. To this day, I have lasting images of Rob Jeter entering the post-game party at Miller Time Pub after his first home game. A large contingent of Panther fans greeted him with cheers in anticipation of high-energy social interaction. We thrived on that in the previous regime. However, he immediately walked through the crowd to a private booth in the corner where he sat with his coaches to have a salad. Pop, pfffffffffft. The momentum was gone and a gradual decline of the program began. Subsequent history, fueled by an apathetic administration and a series of bumbled AD hirings, speaks for itself.
Jimmy, I believe you first came on the Panther scene about the same time the Jeter era started. If this is correct, you did not experience the stark difference. Haidet's hiring mistake had as much to do with off-the-court as on.
How many times do "we" have to point it out?
|
|
|
Post by BBFran on Mar 22, 2021 10:08:58 GMT -6
John, I was a regular at Panther games in Baker Fieldhouse. Before our AD was born, I suspect. So don’t try to use that “been here longer than you” stuff on me. All I can say about your bizarre and insensible fixation on Jeter somehow being the problem is what I have noted previously: except for a withering bunch of Pearl deadenders here who didn’t care what Bruce was doing behind the scenes, the fans have disagreed. And the record has disagreed.
So we are where we are now. The fans are gone. The boosters are gone. The wins are gone. The media is gone. The interest is gone. And that all happened after March 2016.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
Pearl is never coming back. Jeter is never coming back. Unfortunately, it seems that the second coming of Ray Swetalla and Ric Cobb has come back. And I think that’s just the way the admin likes it.
|
|
|
Post by steveisback on Mar 22, 2021 11:04:51 GMT -6
If I had to choose between 4 years of Pearl or a like type or 11 of Jeter definitely choose the former. Jeter not to blame for it all but he was part of it. The rot set in when we hired him. He was a PR buzz killer. We needed someone with pizzaz and panache as UWM has a big time identify crisis. Then Braun tanked the whole darn thing. She is the most to blame though not the total culprit. A lot of factors. She needs (needed) to go for some time. The Path to Prominence is looking like a one way ticket to Palookaville.
|
|
|
Post by milwsport on Mar 22, 2021 13:07:08 GMT -6
Amanda Braun is not the only cause of this but she is the person in charge of the AD and therefore shoulders the most responsibility. It all started with firing Jeter. It's not that he was fired, it was HOW it was done. Saying things like "They don't deserve to play in the post season," when the team won over 20 games including two road wins against Big 10 teams, refusing to let the team take a pre-season trip to Europe that a sponsor offered to pay for and other missteps, made it look (perhaps rightfully so) like Braun set up Jeter for failure so she could fire him. That ticked off a number of major supporters who left and haven't come back. I watched Loyola, a school we used to destroy on the Court, upset a Number 1 seed and get a ticket to its second Sweet 16 (and possibly second Final Four) in three years. Meanwhile we can't even finish with a winning record in a Horizon League that's a shadow of its former self. You can bet Loyola's fundraisers are working the phones hard right now, raising millions, not just for the Ramblers but for the University as a whole. Why did Loyola succeed when even with our huge head start on them, we didn't? Add to that Marquette's decline and you have a huge wasted opportunity to make Panther Basketball, THE college ticket in town. It's a shame. The University, the fans, our City and our athletes deserve better.
|
|
|
Post by steveisback on Mar 22, 2021 13:14:23 GMT -6
Great post Milwsport. Opportunity squandered after Pearl and slow drift and rot but then she tanked the program by horrible handling of the Jeter dismissal.
|
|
|
Post by Cactus Panther on Mar 22, 2021 13:53:08 GMT -6
John, I was a regular at Panther games in Baker Fieldhouse. Before our AD was born, I suspect. So don’t try to use that “been here longer than you” stuff on me. All I can say about your bizarre and insensible fixation on Jeter somehow being the problem is what I have noted previously: except for a withering bunch of Pearl deadenders here who didn’t care what Bruce was doing behind the scenes, the fans have disagreed. And the record has disagreed. So we are where we are now. The fans are gone. The boosters are gone. The wins are gone. The media is gone. The interest is gone. And that all happened after March 2016. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. Pearl is never coming back. Jeter is never coming back. Unfortunately, it seems that the second coming of Ray Swetalla and Ric Cobb has come back. And I think that’s just the way the admin likes it. Whoa! Feeling a little touchy today with the realization that B1G men's basketball is merely ordinary ("...report that IU got Brad Stevens. Which means the B1G just got even better." EVEN Fran? Simply just better would have done)? Your oft self-reported longetivity and generousity toward the program is well known on here. Thank you for that. No way would I use the "been here longer than you" card against you. My post targeted one specific poster. Is my "bizarre and insensible fixation on Jeter" any different than the phenomena that generates your repeated comments stating the program's troubles started in March of 2016? You seem to be oblivious to the considerable decline in the program during his 11 years. Can you think of any coach of an existing pro or collegiate team in Wisconsin sports history under which the program declined as much as UWM men's basketball during Jeter's tenure? I have nothing against Jeter. I do think Haidet made a horrible hire when Pearl left. It just was not the right fit for this program. Many of us, but not everyone, agree history proved that. You and a few others have your opinions too, and that is fine. There were many reasons for the program's decline outside of Jeter's control. Fair or not, the buck stops with the coach, especially when compensated so generously. Jeter is not the sole reason for the program's status today. His hiring is what started the slide. If I were him, I would have taken the job and hung on as long as I could as well. I totally agree that the administration likes that the program has been and continues to be irrelevant. I will take it a step further by stating shortly after Zimpher left, the administration was probably a little uncomfortable with the program's success and relevance in the early post-Zimpher days. It did not fit the administration's vision. <style>.tb_button {padding:1px;cursor:pointer;border-right: 1px solid #8b8b8b;border-left: 1px solid #FFF;border-bottom: 1px solid #fff;}.tb_button.hover {borer:2px outset #def; background-color: #f8f8f8 !important;}.ws_toolbar {z-index:100000} .ws_toolbar .ws_tb_btn {cursor:pointer;border:1px solid #555;padding:3px} .tb_highlight{background-color:yellow} .tb_hide {visibility:hidden} .ws_toolbar img {padding:2px;margin:0px}</style>
|
|
|
Post by buppie05 on Mar 22, 2021 14:15:42 GMT -6
It seems most on here agree. Jeter was the wrong hire. We gave him plenty of time to figure it out, but he wasn’t able to reach the levels of his predecessors, despite being put in a great position. His firing was handled very poorly, and the turmoil that resulted from that (and the embarrassing AD musical chairs) has plummeted the program to its lowest depth in decades.
That is one of the reasons I give PBS a lot more leeway than Jeter, PBS didn’t take over the same program. Far from it. PBS needs to do better, and I believe he will. Next season will be a measuring stick for his future efficacy , and rightfully so.
|
|
|
Post by PantherU on Mar 22, 2021 14:29:22 GMT -6
For those of us who lived through the ups and downs of the program prior to Jeter's arrival, many of us saw the balloon pop when Jeter took over. To this day, I have lasting images of Rob Jeter entering the post-game party at Miller Time Pub after his first home game. A large contingent of Panther fans greeted him with cheers in anticipation of high-energy social interaction. We thrived on that in the previous regime. However, he immediately walked through the crowd to a private booth in the corner where he sat with his coaches to have a salad. Pop, pfffffffffft. The momentum was gone and a gradual decline of the program began. Subsequent history, fueled by an apathetic administration and a series of bumbled AD hirings, speaks for itself. Jimmy, I believe you first came on the Panther scene about the same time the Jeter era started. If this is correct, you did not experience the stark difference. Haidet's hiring mistake had as much to do with off-the-court as on. How many times do "we" have to point it out? Say Brandon Cotton makes a floater, or Ryvon Covile isn't called for a foul, and UDM beats UWM in the 2005 title game. For the 2nd year in a row, we go to the NIT instead of the NCAA. Pearl uses it as a springboard to a better (albeit not Tennessee-level) job. Rob Jeter comes in and his tenure is exactly the same. How does Jeter's tenure look with three NCAA Tournament appearances (2003, 2006, 2014) and three NIT appearances (2004, 2005, 2011) in school history? We hold everyone up to the Sweet 16 standard when even that accomplishment would have been nullified by the slightest change from Lady Luck. You want me to take Pearl's program into account? Absolutely. You gimme an administration that was willing to do for Rob Jeter what they did for Bruce Pearl, I'll call it a fair fight. Everyone here loves to talk up how Nancy Zimpher really did a good job for the program as a chancellor, but none of you ever put any context behind that. WHY was Nancy Zimpher a great chancellor for hoops? WHY was Bud Haidet a great AD for Bruce? You think a chancellor is a good chancellor for athletics because they wear school color suits and cheer at games? I have no qualms about Rob Jeter's tenure here. Even I'm willing to admit 2016-17 was likely his last season if Amanda didn't sh*tcan him. But everyone wants to look at this program through the most simple lens possible (Win-loss, postseason record, standing) and if anyone adds any kind of context, we can only look at certain context instead of the whole picture. Rob Jeter's tenure was only slightly better than average not because of his coaching or recruiting ability, but because of what the rest of the village was willing to do when Bruce Pearl left - or should I say, what the village WASN'T willing to do when Pearl left. I'm not putting this all out here to make you guys fall in love with Rob Jeter. I'm putting this all out there to remind you that it takes more than one man to make a program successful. Pearl was able to do what he did in recruiting and coaching because of what the people above him were willing to help him out with or, in other cases, let him do without micromanaging. You think Pearl would have been as successful with Amanda Braun breathing down his neck for community service events, demanding he make X amount of dollars in buy games and barring his redshirt players from going on road trips to practice with the team? Bruce Pearl fought HARD to get games moved downtown to the Cell - would he have been as successful if Andy Geiger had walked in and moved his team back to the Klotsche Center? What if Bruce Pearl was banned from having any oversight of his student-athletes' academic progress? Do you really want to talk about what kind of grade situation this program would have been in if Rick Costello had come in and stopped Bruce Pearl from having any role in the academics of his players? How would Pearl have done if George Koonce had come in here and tried to fire Shay, Tony Jones and Silk and forced his own hand-picked assistant onto Pearl to force him to quit? That last thing didn't happen to Jeter because the people who actually give a damn about the program and have clout swung a big stick at Carlos Santiago's front door. And that's my point. We can say "this coach sucks" or "this coach is great" but the fact of the matter is WE are the constituency of the program, and WE need to be willing to put in more effort towards making the program better. Being engaged on the message board is the bare minimum. We need to be willing to roll up our sleeves and help out where we can. For people who have less time but more money, maybe that's about donating. And if it's too much to donate to the hoops program while Amanda's around or Mone's in charge, then maybe it's a donation to the general student scholarship fund with a note "I'd also have money for basketball but AB and MM haven't earned it." For the people who don't have the money but have time, maybe it's about calling in to local sports talk shows to force them to talk Panthers. Maybe it's about getting an extra season ticket and bringing a coworker or a family member or family friend along for a game. I'm going to take a little time and figure out if there's still a role to be played by the Black and Gold Club, and if there is that could be our center for organizing the way political organizations do it - except instead of arguing over politics, we're all putting a little effort into helping out our program. Call the chancellor's office, write him a letter, shoot him an email, embarrass his Twitter account if you have to, we can organize pushes for different things to support the program. If anyone is interested in that, I'm happy to talk shop, here or on Twitter DM's or wherever you like. It seems Twitter DM's are where most people feel willing to have deeper conversations. But this program is never going to get sustainably better if you're always expecting a do-everything guy like Bruce Pearl to walk through the door.
|
|
|
Post by Cactus Panther on Mar 22, 2021 15:24:03 GMT -6
Well said Jimmy. Culture change is not easy. It takes a long time. A positive, proactive, grass-root approach to turning things around is ideal. Past mistakes and successes should be understood to use when making decisions going forward. The Black & Gold Club was a great idea but unfortunately seems to be on hiatus right now. That would be great if you could revive it and then keep it going. It is easy for us to "talk," but taking action takes sticktoitiveness, courage and stamina.
|
|
|
Post by Duct_Tape_Pounce on Mar 22, 2021 17:25:15 GMT -6
I think I agree with most people on here. We have had a failure in leadership going back to at least George Koonce. Rob Jeter was cromulent in the role of head coach, and had to deal with a lot of turmoil and lack of support in the athletic department. I’m not an insider among UWM athletics supporters, but I still think the most destructive year for Milwaukee athletics was the Andy Geiger year. The average attendance for men’s basketball in 2011-2012 was over 4,000, albeit with a Wisconsin game in there. The Klotsche Center year basically split that in half in 2012-2013, and it never recovered. Amanda Braun has overseen an even less successful program than it had been before, and that’s a failure on her part, but the decrease in enthusiasm for Milwaukee basketball saw its biggest decline from 2011-2012 to 2012-2013, and that decline was never recovered.
So yeah, in my opinion, the decline in Milwaukee basketball is Amanda Braun’s fault. And Andy Geiger’s fault. And Rick Costello’s fault. And George Koonce’s fault. And Pat Baldwin’s fault. And (arguably) Rob Jeter’s fault. And (arguably) Bud Haidet’s fault (though I will say I wish we still had him as AD). And yeah, it would be good if the chancellors cared more about the program but given their accomplishments on the academic side of things at a time of deep budget cuts, I’m not going to call them failures.
As for the argument that the Panthers would have been the class of the Horizon League if it wasn’t for Butler, I will say this: they were certainly much better through most of Jeter’s tenure than they are now. They obviously had that one incredible season where they finished ahead of National runner up Butler in the conference. Besides that, and Jeter’s first year (which we can’t totally discount, but he did return 4 starters from a Sweet 16 team the year before), he finished in the top 3 in the conference zero times. That’s 1 top 3 finish over his final 9 years. It wasn’t just Butler that was finishing ahead of them. The teams were consistently mediocre, or maybe a hair better than mediocre. Again, a huge upgrade from where we are now, and I know he had little support from the university, but he wasn’t a superstar coach either. He didn’t deserve to be fired in the way he was, but after his contract was up, it was certainly reasonable to not extend him.
In general, I think I agree with most of the people here regarding this... at least on most things. I want a new AD and a new coach too, and I don’t want the administration to necessarily take the obvious candidate the way they seemed to with Pat Baldwin. But to lay all the problems with this program on the back of one person doesn’t seem right, either.
|
|
|
Post by milwsport on Mar 22, 2021 19:47:30 GMT -6
I agree Jimmy the program isn't just one person. However, it's up to the program to inspire the fans not the other way around. BP used to get up on tables in the Dorm and the Union dining halls, lead cheers and urge the students to show up for that night's game. The school spirit he engendered was contagious and just what the large alumni base in Milwaukee was looking for. I've noticed the PR campaigns over the last few years to get more butts in the seat and that's good, but in order for that to work people have to believe they'll have fun at the games. Having fun means a strong student section cheering, a decent crowd (at last 3,000 or so) and a decent team. No one wants to go to a game in an empty and/or quiet house to watch a team that can't finish above 500 in a mediocre league while teams it used to beat the hell out of are making big noise in the NCAA.
|
|
|
Post by gman2 on Mar 22, 2021 22:51:25 GMT -6
Not going to make excuses for Amanda Braun. The fact is she didn't get the coach she wanted for the program. Maybe TJ would have brought UWM back to the top of the Horizon League. if he had done that Braun would look like a genius and we might be singing her praises. But Lena Taylor would have none of that. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACWfBrCDGgwWhen Lena Taylor got involved and Mark Mone gave in, that is when the program's death spiral started.
|
|
|
Post by BBFran on Mar 23, 2021 15:20:38 GMT -6
Lena Taylor again? You sure? Sure it wasn’t Madison? Or Rob Jeter for only having, by far, the second most successful coaching tenure here in D1? Or what the hell, Bo Ryan for leaving or Bruce Pearl for leaving or Marty and Mickey for not coming?
The willful inability to recognize the obvious by so many people is why I have so little faith that anything will change for the better. We have bad leadership NOW. All the sins of the past are irrelevant compared to that. Change it or keep sinking.
|
|
|
Post by gman2 on Mar 23, 2021 15:45:43 GMT -6
Yes Lena Taylor again. Can you provide another explanation why the university change its mind in that span of time? We can speculate all we want. The program is a disaster for many reasons, not just Braun. And yes, I say Lena Taylor is one of them.
|
|