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Post by heftyexpl on Feb 4, 2018 15:02:12 GMT -5
You can change coaches all you want but any discussion of the long term future of La Salle basketball that doesn't begin with what, if anything, can/should be done about the gym is just kicking the can down the road. Any consultant they hire that doesn't confront them with that is just stealing money. Within 3 years of hiring a new coach (maybe before) you can cut and paste this thread and just update the dates. Sorry but you're WRONG. See, St Mary's College of California.
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Post by explorer88 on Feb 4, 2018 16:10:03 GMT -5
You can change coaches all you want but any discussion of the long term future of La Salle basketball that doesn't begin with what, if anything, can/should be done about the gym is just kicking the can down the road. Any consultant they hire that doesn't confront them with that is just stealing money. Within 3 years of hiring a new coach (maybe before) you can cut and paste this thread and just update the dates. Sorry but you're WRONG. See, St Mary's College of California. St. Mary’s is not a good example IMO. Much more competition for La Salle. I agree that La Salle will never consistently win without a facility upgrade. I said it 10 years ago and we have had 2 good seasons in those years. We will look back 10 years from now and if still stuck with Gola lucky to have one good season.
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Feb 4, 2018 16:45:43 GMT -5
Love to use exceptions to prove rules. Why isn’t every skinny shooter we recruit the next Steph Curry?
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Post by heftyexpl on Feb 4, 2018 21:17:54 GMT -5
Much more competition? Youre kidding, right?
I've mentioned them a million times. Look at how many similarities we have. Plus they play in the same type of gym as us. They go to the Dance almost every year. Currently, ranked #13 in the country.
You can have your fancy arena. Give me a team with a strong head coach that wins and watch build a rapid fanbase. I'd take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
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Post by talkinbball on Feb 5, 2018 10:19:15 GMT -5
Much more competition? Youre kidding, right? I've mentioned them a million times. Look at how many similarities we have. Plus they play in the same type of gym as us. They go to the Dance almost every year. Currently, ranked #13 in the country. You can have your fancy arena. Give me a team with a strong head coach that wins and watch build a rapid fanbase. I'd take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Let's all close our eyes and wish real hard for this. Hard to believe so many schools have not gone with this approach and wasted money on actual arenas.
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Post by explorer88 on Feb 5, 2018 10:26:48 GMT -5
Much more competition? Youre kidding, right? I've mentioned them a million times. Look at how many similarities we have. Plus they play in the same type of gym as us. They go to the Dance almost every year. Currently, ranked #13 in the country. You can have your fancy arena. Give me a team with a strong head coach that wins and watch build a rapid fanbase. I'd take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday. No, I am not. If you thinking recruiting kids to La Salle again the competition in this part of the country is the same as St. Mary's you are delusional. I agree a top coach is the part of the formula to stay consistent but we are in a far different place than St. Mary's.
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Post by gymrat67 on Feb 5, 2018 13:14:47 GMT -5
Much more competition? Youre kidding, right? I've mentioned them a million times. Look at how many similarities we have. Plus they play in the same type of gym as us. They go to the Dance almost every year. Currently, ranked #13 in the country. You can have your fancy arena. Give me a team with a strong head coach that wins and watch build a rapid fanbase. I'd take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday. No, I am not. If you thinking recruiting kids to La Salle again the competition in this part of the country is the same as St. Mary's you are delusional. I agree a top coach is the part of the formula to stay consistent but we are in a far different place than St. Mary's. heftyexpl and explorer88 : Case in point :
6'-11", 255 lbs, ( Christian Brothers' ) St. Mary's College of California star senior Center Jock Landale from Victoria ( Melbourne ), Australia :
Attachment Deleted Attachment Deleted
[ Note : Recruiting distance - wise, Melbourne, Australia is 10,291 air miles from Philadelphia, versus being 7,867 air miles from San Francisco, ie., ( relatively speaking ) A NON - FACTOR ! ] ... just sayin'.
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Post by explorer88 on Feb 5, 2018 13:39:54 GMT -5
St. Mary's has 7 players outside the country playing for them. If you think La Salle can do that and be successful that way God Bless you and have at it. They obviously have a pipeline to the best players in Australia. You can bank on finding that coach for the long-term that might find kids that will be willing to come to the inner city of Philadelphia or invest in the facility and program to recruit local and eastern kids that actually may pick La Salle over some of the schools we are competing with and currently losing them to right now.
Maybe it isn't a new facility. Maybe an upgrade to Gola with some other amenities will do the trick. You cannot compete with a gym that looks worse than many high school gyms these kids will play in.
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Post by gymrat67 on Feb 5, 2018 14:11:04 GMT -5
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Feb 5, 2018 14:18:17 GMT -5
Wouldn't work. That court is red.
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Post by explorer88 on Feb 5, 2018 14:20:59 GMT -5
Suggested / proposed approx. 5000 seat TGA Retrofit for $20 Million or less ( based upon the structural steel new interior bowl concept of the Loyola of Chicago 2014 Retrofit of the Gentile Arena ) : View AttachmentView Attachment View AttachmentWatched Loyola of Chicago on TV this weekend. Their court looks fabulous on TV. They are also like 20-5 and lead the Missouri Valley conference where they were a yearly bottom feeder.
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Post by heftyexpl on Feb 5, 2018 15:02:34 GMT -5
St. Mary's has 7 players outside the country playing for them. If you think La Salle can do that and be successful that way God Bless you and have at it. They obviously have a pipeline to the best players in Australia. You can bank on finding that coach for the long-term that might find kids that will be willing to come to the inner city of Philadelphia or invest in the facility and program to recruit local and eastern kids that actually may pick La Salle over some of the schools we are competing with and currently losing them to right now. Maybe it isn't a new facility. Maybe an upgrade to Gola with some other amenities will do the trick. You cannot compete with a gym that looks worse than many high school gyms these kids will play in. Im not saying La Salle needs to start recruiting outside the country to be like St Mary's. That's their niche. It works for them. But we need to find what works for us. That separates us from our competition. I highlighted St. Mary's because before their success, I'm sure most of their fans complained about the "high school" gym they play in. I'm sure they asked, how can we compete with a school like Gonzaga? Their school's enrollment is less than 3k. Im sure their fans suggested building a new arena to attract better recruits, as the only way to be competitive. And now look at Them? In the last 5yrs they've slowly chipped away at Gonzaga. Their competing with the Bulldogs in every aspect of college basketball. They are ranked #13 in the country. Go to the dance almost every year. If they can turn their program around with less students and a similar gym, what is our excuse?
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Feb 5, 2018 15:28:14 GMT -5
But you understand you're citing the exception, right? You don't tell every college kid to dropout because look at Bill Gates.
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Post by heftyexpl on Feb 5, 2018 15:54:20 GMT -5
But you understand you're citing the exception, right? You don't tell every college kid to dropout because look at Bill Gates. No, but im also not throwing my hands up and waving the white flag until a new arena is built.
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Post by MisterD on Feb 5, 2018 15:58:39 GMT -5
I don't know that anyone is, but "just be like St. Mary's" isn't really a solution.
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Post by luhoopsfan on Feb 5, 2018 16:17:04 GMT -5
Not sure a big fancy arena is truly the answer more than having adequate practice and training facilities not just for basketball but all sports. A bigger payoff is probably putting $20 Mil into those facilities before an arena.
Disclaimer: I’m not suggesting $20 million is the right number for this kind of project or that the funds are just sitting around looking for a use.
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Post by explorer88 on Feb 5, 2018 16:18:47 GMT -5
St. Mary's has 7 players outside the country playing for them. If you think La Salle can do that and be successful that way God Bless you and have at it. They obviously have a pipeline to the best players in Australia. You can bank on finding that coach for the long-term that might find kids that will be willing to come to the inner city of Philadelphia or invest in the facility and program to recruit local and eastern kids that actually may pick La Salle over some of the schools we are competing with and currently losing them to right now. Maybe it isn't a new facility. Maybe an upgrade to Gola with some other amenities will do the trick. You cannot compete with a gym that looks worse than many high school gyms these kids will play in. Im not saying La Salle needs to start recruiting outside the country to be like St Mary's. That's their niche. It works for them. But we need to find what works for us. That separates us from our competition. I highlighted St. Mary's because before their success, I'm sure most of their fans complained about the "high school" gym they play in. I'm sure they asked, how can we compete with a school like Gonzaga? Their school's enrollment is less than 3k. Im sure their fans suggested building a new arena to attract better recruits, as the only way to be competitive. And now look at Them? In the last 5yrs they've slowly chipped away at Gonzaga. Their competing with the Bulldogs in every aspect of college basketball. They are ranked #13 in the country. Go to the dance almost every year. If they can turn their program around with less students and a similar gym, what is our excuse? You need to move down to the MAAC to do much of what you say. You cannot compete in the A-10 without facilities. Not one of the top dogs in the conference play in a high school gym like us or ever have since Temple in the late 80's. Since then the landscape has changed. You can move down to the MAAC and compete if you want and get better success most likely. La Salle would be competitive every year and probably would be the favorite to win every other year. If La Salle would tell me as a fan that we will not sink a dime into our facilities I would recommend going down to play at the MAAC level. Some are okay with that and others would have no part of it. I don't want to follow La Salle playing that competition every night. I would tune the program out at that point. To your point can we be like St. Mary's, do you think we could get good enough players with a superior coach in the MAAC environment? We were there for 15 years or so and had 4 great years with one of the all-time best players in basketball. We couldn't sustain it and over that time made less impact than St. Mary's has had in the WCC outside the L-Train years. I don't think La Salle could sustain it in the MAAC without additional commitment. Are they willing to invest funds in the program year in and year out and strive to be the best even against against MAAC schools? Most of those schools still have more money than La Salle has although more schools are in line with what La Salle has. Saint Mary's has more money than La Salle. They approaching $150M in endowment. I don't think the comparison is apples to apples. As I mentioned earlier La Salle plays in a different part of the country where it is much more saturation for players. Without an advantage or at least similar playing field I am not sure how they can overcome everything to be a Saint Mary's. For me you build a new facility or upgrade Gola to be relevant at the highest level possible for the school (it can compete in the A-10 with facility upgrade and a good coach) or you have to move down to the MAAC and hope for better odds competing in a very uninspiring conference that could at time place you in the NCAA from time to time. Right now we are stuck in no man's land as fans.
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Feb 5, 2018 16:24:44 GMT -5
Not sure a big fancy arena is truly the answer more than having adequate practice and training facilities not just for basketball but all sports. A bigger payoff is probably putting $20 Mil into those facilities before an arena. Hmmm ... I want to think about this one a bit more. Totally get what you're saying, but if the intent is building interest, I wonder if the fan experience independent of results is still the area to target.
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Post by durenduren on Feb 5, 2018 16:29:52 GMT -5
Not sure a big fancy arena is truly the answer more than having adequate practice and training facilities not just for basketball but all sports. A bigger payoff is probably putting $20 Mil into those facilities before an arena. Hmmm ... I want to think about this one a bit more. Totally get what you're saying, but if the intent is building interest, I wonder if the fan experience independent of results is still the area to target. I get what you are saying, but don't we always preach that the fan experience is so heavily dependent upon the results?
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Post by luhoopsfan on Feb 5, 2018 16:30:34 GMT -5
Logic being, kids spend more time practicing than playing games. Having a great environment to practice, get the strength and conditioning program, video work, etc can help improve game day results and make the recruiting a little easier as well. Which would lead to better game day results and ultimately experience.
I guarantee a Top-35 La Salle team sells out most weekend games at home in the current TGA. Teams don’t win or lose because of who is there watching, they win because they have good coaching and resources to succeed on game day. Basketball is the premier sport and the public face of the university in many ways. Eventually the team needs to compete in a division 1 facility - but something that would pay bigger dividends is improving the day-to-day experience of student-athletes.
New practice and training facilities help all the sports succeed.
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Feb 5, 2018 17:57:09 GMT -5
Yeah, I get all that, but I wonder if one can exist with such a bad other and, if that's the choice, which first one might better lay the (donating) grounds for the other?
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Feb 5, 2018 17:57:40 GMT -5
And while winning is definitely a huge part of the experience, you can still give an experience with winning not guaranteed. Gola does the opposite.
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Post by vital on Feb 5, 2018 18:31:16 GMT -5
Logic being, kids spend more time practicing than playing games. Having a great environment to practice, get the strength and conditioning program, video work, etc can help improve game day results and make the recruiting a little easier as well. Which would lead to better game day results and ultimately experience. I guarantee a Top-35 La Salle team sells out most weekend games at home in the current TGA. Teams don’t win or lose because of who is there watching, they win because they have good coaching and resources to succeed on game day. Basketball is the premier sport and the public face of the university in many ways. Eventually the team needs to compete in a division 1 facility - but something that would pay bigger dividends is improving the day-to-day experience of student-athletes. New practice and training facilities help all the sports succeed. This is so true...other schools has football that makes up for the training facilities...This program has to invest into its training and student life to attract some local and low national 100 kids..
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Post by GlitterBro #2 on Feb 10, 2018 10:04:05 GMT -5
Thinking about this further...if the outcome of this consulting arrangement is to drop 3 to 6 sports but stay in the A10 and re-prioritize that funding to basketball and facilities -OR- to keep all the currently funded sports but switch conferences to one where basketball might have more success, what would be the consensus of the alumni, and in particular, those alums who played one of the potentially cut sports but are also basketball fans and want to see the basketball program's success?
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Post by mookie on Feb 10, 2018 10:13:58 GMT -5
Thinking about this further...if the outcome of this consulting arrangement is to drop 3 to 6 sports but stay in the A10 and re-prioritize that funding to basketball and facilities -OR- to keep all the currently funded sports but switch conferences to one where basketball might have more success, what would be the consensus of the alumni, and in particular, those alums who played one of the potentially cut sports but are also basketball fans and want to see the basketball program's success? What are the sports? How do they impact enrollment? What type of support do they current have both from university and the students? Also, what is the plan and timelines for improving the program and the facilities? If immediate/aggressive and the plan is strong with a commitment to be around the top of the conference in terms of funding and facilities the it may make sense and make any arrangement to drop the number of sports to focus on basketball and facilities in my opinion could be a temporary solution. With greater success from the program comes support, funding, donation and NCAA money. With all of that, the university and the program should be able to create a new revenue stream from which they could then allocate to other sports. Use basketball to build up the overall university and then re-invest in itself. If the plan is slowly allocate the funds and build up the program over time then I don’t think you’re thinking big and you’re actually putting yourself in a worse situation because the landscape of college sports is changing and the longer you wait the larger the gap will become between midmajors and power conferences.
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MisterD
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Post by MisterD on Feb 10, 2018 10:16:23 GMT -5
If the landscape is changing and the major vs mid-major gap is going to grow, aren't we just along for the ride?
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Post by vital on Feb 10, 2018 13:16:24 GMT -5
St Louis basketball faculties are beautiful...i dont know one NBA player they produce...and its not a winning program..
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Post by GlitterBro #2 on Feb 10, 2018 13:36:29 GMT -5
St Louis basketball faculties are beautiful...i dont know one NBA player they produce...and its not a winning program.. They've been to NCAA's three times in the past 6 years and made it to the round of 32 all three times. I'd be happy with that type of "not a winning program" at La Salle. Until 4 days ago, they had Willie Reed who left the school in 2011 p[laying in the NBA. He was just waived by the Bulls after a trade. Larry Hughes, drafted by the Sixers in the first round in 1998, and retired in 2012 after a 13 year NBA career, was also a Billiken.
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postup
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Post by postup on Feb 10, 2018 13:41:08 GMT -5
I wouldn't want to see La Salle drop sports if at all possible, but some of the savings they COULD do in athletics is in the scheduling. For example, baseball has their trip down south, as a lot of schools do, and they raise their own money for that. But what the hell are they doing (flying? busing?) going to Kansas and Missouri for 6 non-league games during spring break? Traveling down to West Virginia for a SINGLE GAME? That seems like an unnecessary hemorrhaging of money to me.
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Post by vital on Feb 10, 2018 21:06:03 GMT -5
St Louis basketball faculties are beautiful...i dont know one NBA player they produce...and its not a winning program.. They've been to NCAA's three times in the past 6 years and made it to the round of 32 all three times. I'd be happy with that type of "not a winning program" at La Salle. Until 4 days ago, they had Willie Reed who left the school in 2011 p[laying in the NBA. He was just waived by the Bulls after a trade. Larry Hughes, drafted by the Sixers in the first round in 1998, and retired in 2012 after a 13 year NBA career, was also a Billiken. Great info...and i agree with you a 100%...
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