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it's like Jane and Smiterin have the greatest one two punch in history of ruining a great program and legacy.
Jame threw the first punch, and now Smitherin comes in and will delliver the knock out blow. And we have Jane to thank for Smitherin, and her bailing out of SoCal with the wreckage in her rear view mirror. not her problem!!
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Slytherin (as some of the coaches refer to him), is clearly sacrificing all the other sports at the altar of Men's Basketball. Hilt-Costello, Knipe, Snowden, Sykes have all left because of this.
The idea that hiring inexperienced, lower salaried head coaches for all of our most successful sports, in order to support inexperienced, proven unsuccessful coaches in Basketball, is insane, but that is exactly what is happening. The things that have been expressed to these coaches are breathtakingly ignorant and stupid.
Men's volleyball is probably close to our highest revenue generating sport, but this AD's chief of staff has been reported as saying that it doesn't deserve to be sponsored. Again, complete insanity.
We all better hope that the new President cares more than one iota about Athletics.
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History also tells us that if we let a successful program die it is hard to impossible to bring it back. Lets not let the winning programs go down that path. Previous Message
Smitherin has been here long enough to face this hard decision.
1) If he is reducing schollies on successful programs to prop up MBB & WBB funding, it WILL kill Long Beach Olympic Sports
2) He should publish what his pet project 'Anchor Fund' is actually doing. the way I read it it's a general fund, so if money intended to support Olympic sport NIL is actually going to fund a one and done demand for salary, it's fool's gold, and good maney chasing bad
3) Keep MBB and WBB alive as long as possible, just to stay in D1 until some systematic change is needed. MBB is a professional sport now.
lol.
4) Bobby Knigt one year years ago tried a whole season with walk-ons. Frankly at this point I do not care if we fieled for two years MBB & WBB as walk-ons, and have coaches willing to to train as interns. Seriously, the statement of doing that alone would be great press, and yes derision, just those that deride it I would not give a $ht aboutl
5) I MBB is the most visible. It's also right now not providing any benefit overall nor will it, nor will there be continuity. I feel bad for Acker, even he could not have envisioned it would be this difficult.
6) MVB, WVB, and Beach VB compete well and DRAW support. WVB draws better than MBB. MVB is yes a niche but also at least is something the Student Body has supported and an IDENTITY that is not possible with MBB. They do have continuity, that will be tested as well. However if Smitherin tries to find some silver bullet in a MBB fairy tale, he risks being left with NOTHING
6) Baseball is a smaller version of MBB, the increased schollie cost and NIL is damaging it. The Baseball team does ahve a lot of good will historically and community support, so hopefully it can recover somewhat.
these are tough decisions, the Big West Commissioner hinted to throw more resources at MBB, yes with ZERO plan of doing that and he is smart enough to know that. I'm sure he wants to avoid a revolving door of teams leaving and entering.
Jane killed any chance over the last 10 years to build a sustainable model, and I do credit her for the fee increase, but her void of leadership and putting down boosters and lecturing put Long Beach in this position.
Yeah, if there's a $1 mil fully supported MBB fund that does not siphon from the other sports, go for it, if not. Have doubts there is some new booster base to support that.
If VB is allowed to wither, there will be nothing left, unless one likes Golf, and kudos to those boosters and Virginia Country Club for a viable model and pipeline.
reading these boards is fascinating. 95% of the posts are about a sport that is not viable to compete nationally and following former players aside from a couple, who are going nowheere anyway.
and 5% are aabout sports that do compete well and have coaches proving they can compete nationally with far less resources.
rant over Previous Message
With Sykes supposedly getting 1.5 mil really shows LBSU cannot compete in basketball in this environment. There is no way LBSU can pay a good player of theirs that type of money.
With LBSU completely turning over their entire roster every year how many good players can the school find in a single recruiting class. No way LBSU has the juice to fill a roster every year with good players. A couple maybe but then those will be gone and it starts all over again. In the old days a mid major could build a roster over time and field good teams every couple of years but that just will not take place today.
I surely hope the AD does not put at risk all other athletic programs in a failed attempt to build a winning basketball team. If something changes and LBSU finds a consistent steam of significant funds then yes go for it but if that is not the case build programs that can succeed at LBSU.
I know we want men's basketball to be the flag ship program of the university but maybe olympic sports is the only path given the current landscape. Run a mbb program but lets no kill everything else to do so. Previous Message
We shall see if he starts at TCU
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