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Post by BBFran on Jan 22, 2022 12:20:07 GMT -6
It astounds me that people so readily whitewash our administrators’ responsibility here. Let’s be clear. We are now the orphaned outpost in a bad league because our administration didn’t have the foresight or resolve or plan or ingenuity to prevent it. Imagine what other leagues must see looking at us over the last ten years. Chaos and incompetence!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2022 12:40:07 GMT -6
It’s hard to blame the Milwaukee administration for Chicago being a much larger market and a better fit in the MVC footprint than Milwaukee. If they wanted success, they could have picked NKU or Wright State from the Horizon. They want long-standing success (something Milwaukee hasn’t had since Bruce Pearl’s last three years and Rob Jeter’s first) or mega markets (Chicago is the 3rd largest city in the US). Yeah, Milwaukee hasn’t had long standing success, but neither has any team in this league, at least to the extent Murray State and Belmont have. But shame on Amanda Braun for not snapping her fingers and tripling Milwaukee’s market size. Seriously, hearing illogical arguments like this makes the anti-Amanda Braun argument seem so much weaker, at least to logical people. Agree on mostly all points, but imo a true leader of MKE Athletics would successfully make the case for, and garner the appropriate resources and support for, our men's basketball program being the public face of the university outside of academia. AB hasn't done that. I see the complete opposite happening in men's hoops being subverted* to raise the profile of other programs that, if we are honest with ourselves, we know are not going to change the enrollment numbers or prestige (which is invaluable) of the University of (W) Milwaukee. There is a great opportunity for this Uni to become a UCLA or UW or at least Big 12 (has been for a looooooong time). And the current AD has not struck while the iron was hot (Spring and Summer of 2014, '16-'17 season torpedo) nor struck out on realistic endevours while the iron has long since gone cold*. *since 2013- people forget there used to be a LOT of attention paid to men's hoops in the 7 years following 2006 and 2005. We frittered away all of that. The 2014 NCAAs came out of nowhere (we lost 4/5 to close out that crazy season before going 4-0 in the HLT). The environment surrounding 2014 was very different than '05 and '06 when there was a buzz all season long surrounding the Panthers. Even in the worst seasons like '06-'07 people on this discussion board helped design and raise awareness for the need for a new court logo. An incredible (and viable someday) "Cambridge Gardens" plan was envisioned and rendered in AutoCAD that presented the possibility of what Milwaukee U would look like as a true basketball school (football was always difficult to squeeze in but that too isn't out of the realm of future possibilities). Andy Geiger and the other temporary and failed ADs never ever tried to peer into the future and ignorantly trashed their own employer as "a pullout bleacher school". I was in a meeting with him once (and a couple other Panther fans who sometimes frequent this board) and it was clear that he was milking an easy job on the East Side and not 1 iota interested in understanding fan perspectives or ideas. Not 1 iota of passion.  If you see what Jim Phillips did at Northwestern or Pat Richter (former Badger himself) did at Wisconsin, you can see the enormous chasm between those 2 leaders- for whom their job was a passion pursuit and not a "job"- and whatever we having leading this rudderless ship currently. I won't argue but to paraphrase a lot of BBFran's posts, if you think what is happening now in the AD (outside of Adam Schemm, Scott Warras and maybe Chris Roche) is "good" or in any way on a "Path to Prominance"- you are only kidding yourself. Not only are the leaders not trying to advance the program, they are actively working to relegate it to obscurity. It's a simple matter of hiring someone who has Bruce Pearl-like enthusiasm and true passion for job and understands what it takes to hire a good (character and experienced) coach and support a program to be equipped for both short-term and long-term success. It takes an entuisiastic village and I only see a few enthusiastic actors in this story... -er tragedy. Shorter version: "You're telling me that rich alumni write 6 and 7 figure checks, to improve the results of teams playing.... a 'game'??" "That is exactly what I am saying". |
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Post by Cactus Panther on Jan 22, 2022 12:47:35 GMT -6
Who is whitewashing our administrators' responsibility here? I thought we are all in agreement with that being the root problem, and have been for a long time.
Merely pointing out various other dynamics that contribute to the challenges even the best AD and upper level administration would face does not absolve them.
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Post by Duct_Tape_Pounce on Jan 22, 2022 13:46:09 GMT -6
Who is whitewashing our administrators' responsibility here? I thought we are all in agreement with that being the root problem, and have been for a long time. Merely pointing out various other dynamics that contribute to the challenges even the best AD and upper level administration would face does not absolve them. Yup, I blame Amanda Braun for the bad decisions she’s made. Firing Rob Jeter in the way she did was a mistake. Being clueless when it came to the post-firing PR was her fault. Pat Baldwin was and is her fault. Milwaukee lost out on an invite to the MVC so a subpar Chicago school before Braun and they’re losing out to a bigger subpar Chicago school now with Braun as AD. As is Wright State, Oakland, Detroit, Northern Kentucky, and every other better program in our conference. |
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Post by Cactus Panther on Jan 22, 2022 14:44:27 GMT -6
Losing the Chicago market is a blow to the HL. Other than that, losing the UIC men's basketball program is not. It could be addition by subtraction.
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Post by Duct_Tape_Pounce on Jan 22, 2022 14:50:11 GMT -6
Well, time to speculate as to who the Horizon will add as to get back to 12 (assuming they do). Based on who i think are reasonable programs for the HL to go after, id go in this order: 1. Bellarmine 2. Morehead State 3. Southern Indiana 4. UIndy 5. SIU - Edwardsville 6. St. Francis (PA) 7. Chicago State Honestly, I think the HL would have to try to sabotage itself in order for this to not end up as an upgrade for the conference. MVC fans are delusional if they think adding UIC is going to be a good move. Loyola's ascent in the MVC was a "all the stars lining up" scenario that worked out perfectly for them. There is a better chance I hit the lotto tomorrow than that happening again with UIC. All the MVC did was remove one of the anchors to our conference and I thank them for it. We are a better conference next year if we do nothing and stick with 11 conference members just by eliminating them. Bellarmine is still in their transition to D1 and they are already a higher ranked NET team than UIC (212 vs 274) so adding them would be an upgrade. I'm not a fan of adding Morehead State because I have concerns about their long term finances but they would be an immediate upgrade to UIC too (103 to 274). I have concerns about Southern Indiana's finances too but I'll take their potential vs the sh*tshow UIC has been for the last 20 years any day of the week. The only way the HL doesn't come out better from losing UIC is if we do something completely asinine like add Chicago State and that would be self sabotage. Hmm… I’m not against the idea of sticking with 11 teams and replacing the two conference games by bringing back the HL/SL challenge. Scheduling would be a lot more annoying, though. |
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Post by PantherU on Jan 23, 2022 17:12:01 GMT -6
All the MVC did was remove one of the anchors to our conference and I thank them for it. We are a better conference next year if we do nothing and stick with 11 conference members just by eliminating them. This would make me feel better if the conference didn't have 9 of the remaining 11 sub-230 in the current NET rankings. I don't know if we can really call UIC an anchor when most of the conference is anchors. At this point the outlier is the team that is among the "best" 200 teams in college basketball." We have two of those. The only way the HL doesn't come out better from losing UIC is if we do something completely asinine like add Chicago State and that would be self sabotage. It was pointed out to me recently that Jon Lecrone is still in the office. Get your pom-poms ready for Chicago State. The gut reaction to losing Valpo was to bring in historically terrible IUPUI and later IPFW. This is clearly a real possibility. |
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Post by ghostofdylan on Jan 24, 2022 8:51:00 GMT -6
The GOOD news is that if we expand to St. Francis (Loretto, Pa.), which astonishingly now makes geographical sense for three-quarters of the conference, there will be a member school only an hour, 45 minutes east of Robert Morris (Moon Township, Pa.) and only four and a half hours from the ocean!
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Post by BBFran on Jan 24, 2022 16:29:05 GMT -6
The new UW System president is a Milwaukee lawyer who is from Wausau and went to Marquette back when they were playing in the Arena. Big basketball fan.
Someone should invite him to a UWM game. I think it would be very educational for him if he got the chance to experience the unique home environment of Panther basketball in a classic Horizon League showdown.
Of course, we may want to hope that he doesn’t attend an Oshkosh or Point game in the same time frame. He may notice something.
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Post by Duct_Tape_Pounce on Jan 24, 2022 17:57:16 GMT -6
Here’s the thing that makes me feel better about the situation. IUPUI was clearly about getting a team in the home of the Horizon League. With Butler and Valpo gone, not only was there no team in Indianapolis in the league… there was no team in Indiana.
LeCrone did a good job with Oakland and Northern Kentucky. Fort Wayne isn’t looking too bad so far either, and I think even fans on here were pretty happy with RMU being added. He’s done a lot of things that have hurt the league *cough* fixed site tournament *cough* but he’s been decent with expansion when he wasn’t fully focused on bringing a team to the conference’s home offices.
Now let’s look at the top two teams I listed. Bellarmine is in a situation very much like NKU. It’s in a good sized market and currently in a conference that does doesn’t really fit them geographically. Furthermore, with Liberty leaving, the A-Sun is going to take a hit. Maybe not as big a hit as they would have before this round of realignment, but still a big hit. And most of the conference is still located in the Deep South. I could see the Horizon League being a step up for them, especially since NKU is also in our conference.
Morehead State is in a league that is currently on life support. After Murray State, Belmont, and Austin Peay leave the conference, who’s left? SEMO? SIUE? UT Martin? Tennessee State? The OVC seems a lot like the Southland conference right now, with teams looking for lifeboats. Morehead doesn’t have a large or even medium market like the other teams in the conference do, but otherwise, they’d be a good fit. If you’re Morehead State, would you rather be in a dying conference where they lose their auto bid if one more team leaves or would you rather go to a conference that’s down right now but is much more stable?
And I have to think that the powers that be with the conference know that Chicago State would be a much worse add than even IUPUI, and even though the Chicago market is great, has UIC (or Loyola for that matter) really done anything to improve the league greatly while they were here? The league doesn’t have their home office there like it did for IUPUI.
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Post by BBFran on Jan 24, 2022 21:02:20 GMT -6
Bellarmine is a 6 1/2 drive from Milwaukee.
Morehead is an 8 hour drive. And if you fly, unless you charter a plane, you need to fly first to Chicago, then to Lexington, and then you have an hour and 15 minute bus ride to Morehead. And it’s not like there are a lot of flights.
Stop and think about what adding more schools in Kentucky will do to our athletics budget. And remember, it’s not just mens basketball. And it’s not just money. Every time the HL adds a program in the eastern time zone it’s putting more and more time pressure on our student athletes too.
This isn’t the pros. There’s no first class travel or chartered flights. There’s a lot of long, long bus rides and so-so hotel accommodations.
For us, replacing Conference rival schools in the Chicago area with schools hundreds of miles further away is a disaster. Bellarmine and Morehead and SIUE and Southern Indiana may be great new conference rivals for Wright and NKU and IUPUI. Not for us.
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Post by Duct_Tape_Pounce on Jan 24, 2022 21:29:49 GMT -6
Bellarmine is a 6 1/2 drive from Milwaukee. Morehead is an 8 hour drive. And if you fly, unless you charter a plane, you need to fly first to Chicago, then to Lexington, and then you have an hour and 15 minute bus ride to Morehead. And it’s not like there are a lot of flights. Stop and think about what adding more schools in Kentucky will do to our athletics budget. And remember, it’s not just mens basketball. And it’s not just money. Every time the HL adds a program in the eastern time zone it’s putting more and more time pressure on our student athletes too. This isn’t the pros. There’s no first class travel or chartered flights. There’s a lot of long, long bus rides and so-so hotel accommodations. For us, replacing Conference rival schools in the Chicago area with schools hundreds of miles further away is a disaster. Bellarmine and Morehead and SIUE and Southern Indiana may be great new conference rivals for Wright and NKU and IUPUI. Not for us. Understood. The only other legitimate conference for Milwaukee right now is the Summit. The MVC wants schools with softball that have been consistently really good (better than anything Milwaukee has seen in over 15 years) or the Chicago market. The Summit would require trips to Denver, Tulsa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Missouri. That would be even worse. And even if Milwaukee got an invite to the MVC, Southern Illinois, Evansville, Missouri State, Drake, Belmont, and Murray State aren’t particularly close. SIU, Missouri State, and Belmont would all be further than even Morehead State. The Horizon League could stand pat. Of course, that would mean two more non-conference games. The Panthers had conference games at Florida, North Dakota, and Colorado this year. Their home non-conference games that may need to be returned in future years were Eastern Kentucky, Alcorn State, and Rhode Island. They are all further away from Milwaukee than even Morehead State (Eastern Kentucky is a similar distance away as Morehead State). What’s the best solution? It’s so easy to complain, but realistically, staying in the Horizon League is the best option geographically, and adding a school like Bellarmine would not be as bad geographically as joining the Summit League or even the MVC. |
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Post by chipanthers45 on Jan 25, 2022 7:32:06 GMT -6
This isn’t the pros. There’s no first class travel or chartered flights. There’s a lot of long, long bus rides and so-so hotel accommodations. At least a few years back, there were SOME chartered flights. |
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Post by Duct_Tape_Pounce on Jan 25, 2022 18:29:53 GMT -6
If Twitter rumors are true, Southern Indiana is going to the OVC, and the OVC said no to Chicago State.
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Post by PantherNation on Jan 26, 2022 11:48:29 GMT -6
Officially official.
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