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Empty XL

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Mr. Conehead said:
...so basically Brad Stevens pulled a Randy Edsall on Butler's basketball program and left the cupboards empty.
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What I am saying is that Stevens was the single most important member of the Butler Basketball program. Simple as that.

I think its a combination of things and I really would not classify Stevens' departure as Edsall-eque. Like football, pro basketball is completely different from the college game. Edsall made what many believe to be a lateral move and left his inept Athletic Director in the lurch five weeks before NLI day. Stevens is making $3.6Mil a year for one of the most storied franchises in NBA History with resources to rebuild in the near term (potentially 9 1st round picks in the next 5 years; perhaps more if they trade Rondo).

Butler did lose their two top scorers in '13 to graduation and their second best rebounder in '13 (Roosevelt Jones) to an injury, but they also changed conferences for the 3rd time in 3 years. Also, unlike football, each player is 20% of the team on the floor. Though if a player contributes more than that, it can change a teams' fortunes overnight, for better or for worse. One player on a football field does not typically approach those ratios. So to say that the cupboard is bare is sort of an exaggeration. Butler still has 2/3 of their league schedule remaining. Doubtful they make The Tournament, but Brandon Miller can certainly turn in a respectable finish.
 
coachcap said:
CBS Sports crew reported that the cheerleaders & students couldn't make it from Storrs because the school shut down the busses from running. Don't know if I believe them, but it's plausible.
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My son was going to go, but they cancelled the student buses.
 
Well then you know better than anyone: he's not a true fan. A real fan would find a way. Do you want to tell him or does he have an account to the Boneyard?;)
hthusky74 said:
My son was going to go, but they cancelled the student buses.
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Fishy said:
This was a dumb thread.

We've had some dumb threads, but now that I've seen this one, I'm not so sure those threads truly qualify as a dumb threads. It's like a bar has been raised and the previous dumb threads look like a discussion on a Mensa forum.

Anyone who read this thread should get a free tee shirt or something for their suffering.
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I read through the whole stupid thread. I have plenty of something so I'm choosing the T-shirt. XL please (just like the civic center).

funny_tshirt.jpg
 
Butler has some talent but I think the new coach is in over his head. He is losing a lot of close games, and the close wins shouldn't have been close.

The Temple game attendance is a train wreck. This game was supposed to be one of the draws on the schedule. I know Temple sucks this year, but they at least should have enough cache to get people in the building. I went to the game. There was about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground when I left. That is not a "shut down the state" storm, and Hartford wasn't shut down, just the street parking was. There are plenty of garages to park in.

I have already expressed my opinion about what a terrible league this is for UConn, and pretty much everything I said is turning out to be true. Fans still show up for the good games (Louisville, Florida), but the middle of the pack games in the AAC are not like they were in the Big East. Casual fans do not care about the schools in our league, and they aren't buying tickets. It is that simple. Which means we better start schedule some home and homes with UMass, Providence, and St. Johns, or someone that UConn fans care about, or the Temple game will be the norm instead of the exception.

The problem for UConn is that casual fans used to have to by tickets to the cupcake games if they wanted to see UConn, because there were so many good games that were guaranteed to sell out. This year, there are essentially 4 Marquee games - Florida, Memphis, Cincinnati and Louisville. There there are Stanford, Harvard and SMU, and then the rest of the games suck. Which means that no one is buying the packages and absolutely no one is buying the cupcakes, because they don't have to.

We need a non-conference schedule that can draw fans, because the conference schedule is not going to help us going forward.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Butler has some talent but I think the new coach is in over his head. He is losing a lot of close games, and the close wins shouldn't have been close.

The Temple game attendance is a train wreck. This game was supposed to be one of the draws on the schedule. I know Temple sucks this year, but they at least should have enough cache to get people in the building. I went to the game. There was about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground when I left. That is not a "shut down the state" storm, and Hartford wasn't shut down, just the street parking was. There are plenty of garages to park in.

I have already expressed my opinion about what a terrible league this is for UConn, and pretty much everything I said is turning out to be true. Fans still show up for the good games (Louisville, Florida), but the middle of the pack games in the AAC are not like they were in the Big East. Casual fans do not care about the schools in our league, and they aren't buying tickets. It is that simple. Which means we better start schedule some home and homes with UMass, Providence, and St. Johns, or someone that UConn fans care about, or the Temple game will be the norm instead of the exception.

The problem for UConn is that casual fans used to have to by tickets to the cupcake games if they wanted to see UConn, because there were so many good games that were guaranteed to sell out. This year, there are essentially 4 Marquee games - Florida, Memphis, Cincinnati and Louisville. There there are Stanford, Harvard and SMU, and then the rest of the games suck. Which means that no one is buying the packages and absolutely no one is buying the cupcakes, because they don't have to.

We need a non-conference schedule that can draw fans, because the conference schedule is not going to help us going forward.
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A few things:

- There isn't anyone on this board who didn't think our attendance would be hurt by this basketball league, so if you want to take a bow for that prediction...but lets not ignore the fact that attendance had been declining in the old Big East too.

- Temple has no Cache this year because they are easily the wort team in the AAC, abysmal.

- the snow and cold kept a lot of people away, to say in hindsight it wasn't that bad is irrelevant. Nobody was at the Providence/Butler game either for the same reason.

- your idea that we would be better off making less money (because of exit fee money we make more in the AAC) in the Big East and going indy in football or dropping football all together is still comically stupid. Right now the AAC has 5 teams in the tourny, the Big East has 3 and our football prospects for next year are looking pretty darn good right now. Our fanbase hasn't been this excited in a long time.

- UCONN basketball is clearly better off being shown on ESPN channels than FS1.
 
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metsfan2323 said:
A few things:

- There isn't anyone on this board who didn't think our attendance would be hurt by this basketball league, so if you want to take a bow for that prediction...but lets not ignore the fact that attendance had been declining in the old Big East too.

- Temple has no Cache this year because they are easily the wort team in the AAC, abysmal.

- the snow and cold kept a lot of people away, to say in hindsight it wasn't that bad is irrelevant. Nobody was at the Providence/Butler game either for the same reason.

- your idea that we would be better off making less money (because of exit fee money we make more in the AAC) in the Big East and going indy in football or dropping football all together is still comically stupid. Right now the AAC has 5 teams in the tourny, the Big East has 3 and our football prospects for next year are looking pretty darn good right now. Our fanbase hasn't been this excited in a long time.

- UCONN basketball is clearly better off being shown on ESPN channels than FS1.
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So does The Winter Storm Chester game get added to the roster of events that delineates the true fan from the imposter? If believing that there are only 4,500 true UConn fans in this state allows you sleep better at night, then so be it.

The storm did not turn out to be bad for those in or near the Greater Hartford region. But because of the cold temperatures, the Shore got crushed in comparison. The storm was named by WFSB which means there was a declared Winter Weather Warning and an expected average state wide snow accumulation of at least 6 inches. Nelson is right it was not a shut-down-the-state storm, but it was predicted to be. I work in a shore town and schools as well as my office was officially closed yesterday. I came in anyway and thought it was very odd that schools were closed (my own town issued only a 90 minute delay), come to find that my supervisor, who lives down here had to dig out from under 8+ inches and the public works guys weren't done plowing until at least noon. Just because it didn't happen in retrospect says very little about the attendance on Tuesday.

Temple is coming off 6 straight years of making the NCAA Tournament out of the A-10 (the last 3 as an At Large bid) and only had 8 scholarship players available on Tuesday, including their only senior who is a grad transfer. Temple has been a very good team recently and they will be again.

Finally, it is not as simple as the casual fans' opinion about the teams in the league. In fact if that is the second most influential factor (which it isn't. See below), it's a distant second. The problem for schools is the fans' ability to have an adequate game experience outside the arena vs. the cost of going to the live game. First of all, attendance has been sagging since the Great Recession, even before then. I probably go to a handful of basketball games each year, along with my season tickets for football. But under the current circumstances (i.e. most significant channels is available in High Def.) unless I have tickets at half court, between half way up the lower bowl and the top of the lower bowl, my couch holds a better value...every single time, without question. It's not about, "supporting the team." It's about value of my disposable entertainment dollar. I suspect it's that way for a good number of people.

BTW the second most influential factor of the sagging attendance is that UConn's off-campus basketball facility is a terrible venue in which to experience a live event by modern standards.
 
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Fishy said:
This was a dumb thread.

We've had some dumb threads, but now that I've seen this one, I'm not so sure those threads truly qualify as a dumb threads. It's like a bar has been raised and the previous dumb threads look like a discussion on a Mensa forum.

Anyone who read this thread should get a free tee shirt or something for their suffering.
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BBF11BNYMTS.jpg
 
Santini35 said:
I can tell very few of you follow https://twitter.com/EmptySeatsPics/

We aren't the only ones with attendance issues
BeoupNDCQAAFDxE.jpg:large


And I don't think USC has to deal with snow all to often
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LA and Miami have to be two of the worst sports towns in the county. Only the Lakers and Heat currently draw well because of their success and star players who bring stars to see them play who then drawn fans to see the stars. Dolphins have decent support; but, have been horrible lately and I don't need to go into the state of the NFL in LA.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
The Temple game attendance is a train wreck. This game was supposed to be one of the draws on the schedule. I know Temple sucks this year, but they at least should have enough cache to get people in the building. I went to the game. There was about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground when I left.
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I don't think you get to gloat about this one. The roads were awful on 3-sides pre-game.
 
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nelsonmuntz said:
The problem for UConn is that casual fans used to have to by tickets to the cupcake games if they wanted to see UConn, because there were so many good games that were guaranteed to sell out. This year, there are essentially 4 Marquee games - Florida, Memphis, Cincinnati and Louisville. There there are Stanford, Harvard and SMU, and then the rest of the games suck. Which means that no one is buying the packages and absolutely no one is buying the cupcakes, because they don't have to.
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Deny it if you want, but weather was the chief factor in attendance. UCF game at Gampel was within 100 of a sellout.

So far, we've seen a marginal drop off in attendance in Hartford, and likely a wash in Storrs.
 
Unreal thread. There is no question that over a long term our hoops attendance has been shrinking in both Hartford and Storrs. There is also no question that the conference mess is likely to add another reason for lower attendance rather than higher attendance. To have that discussion, however, in connection with a game on a night of a predicted snowstorm is a waste of everyone's time.
 
To put an opposite spin on the OP's intention of this ridiculous thread: UCONN's 4500 looks very good compared to those images of USC and Washington St and the crowds that made it to BC and Providence during the storm. 4500 in a blizzard compared to 2000 on a 70 degree night in LA shows me that UCONN fans are diehard and should be commended for going especially considering that there was no shuttle from Storrs that night.

Please delete this thread.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
The Temple game attendance is a train wreck. This game was supposed to be one of the draws on the schedule. I know Temple sucks this year, but they at least should have enough cache to get people in the building. I went to the game. There was about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground when I left. That is not a "shut down the state" storm, and Hartford wasn't shut down, just the street parking was. There are plenty of garages to park in.
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LOL. Only you could say it wasn't a "shut the state down" storm when the Governor dismissed employees early and told people not to drive. You can call on your inner Jim Cantore all you want, but there are many people who heed those warnings. We could have had dook coming to the XL, and we maybe would have hit 10k. Tops.

I'm not going to admonish anyone for not going to see a weeknight regular season game against a last place team in a winter storm warning-level storm.
 
It looks like the bus trips were cancelled tonight. It is going to snow in 12 bours
 
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