Leaderboard

Given the major regression in Buffalo's three major money sports, I wonder if it's time for UB to start looking into Mark Alnutt's future with the athletic department. I'm not one to call for people's jobs but the regression in football and basketball is apparent right now. I never expected football and basketball to continue dominating after Lance Leipold, Nate Oats and Felisha Legette-Jack departed but I did expect them to be more competitive and have more opportunities to win MAC Championships. Now, we're seeing football and men's basketball near the bottom of the D1 ranks with WBB still to be determined. I understand that Alnutt has a very difficult job with little support from SUNY or UB's president but it's his job to raise money and look over successful teams, especially in the money sports. I give him credit for raising money for the Murchie Family Fieldhouse but can't overlook his recent botched hires, declining performance of football/basketball and diminished community support. Where do you all stand on this?

I agree with your take. It's unbelievable that there is not a coach from the Nate Oats tree coaching the Bulls. Three of Oats assistants were hired as Head Coaches this off season and none are at UB. ADMA completely cut ties to the greatest era in UB athletics history.

I vote yes taking note of the term “consider”. Yes our teams suck, complete and total regression, but why is that? Football, MBB, and WBB all had our great coaches leave, and the results left with them. So we find ourselves in a hole that’s not exactly Alnutt’s fault, but now it’s on him to fix it. And you can’t say he’s done the worst job trying to do so. We’ve seen record recruiting classes and admit it, at some point you’ve found yourself at least a little bit excited about each of his major coaching hires. We get mad at Alnutt when the coaching appointment doesn’t work out, but at the beginning it doesn’t look like a bad hire. We could beg him to hire a coach, and if the appointment we ask for doesn’t win championships we’d still be blaming him for it. Some things you just can’t know until it plays out, even though the coaches seem like they’ll be a good fit. All in all he’s done his job, he’s made Buffalo and enticing place for recruits and brought it quality coaches. Are there things he needs to be better at? Absolutely, need to improve attendance and support. Is he the right one for the job? Probably not, that’s why I think we should consider replacing him. But it’s worth at least seeing the things he’s done right.

If the Buffalo Bills moved to San Antonio, would the population in Buffalo decline? The answer is no to both questions, but people like football so that's why us taxpayers are paying $850 million (UB's annual operating budget) to a billionaire to build a new Bills stadium. And the same reason why UB students pay $265 a semester to subsidize athletics.

Just because I saw it repeated there, the old TBN narrative of "drop UB football [entirely/to FCS], become a national power in basketball" does not work and never will work. Canisius dropped football (and 5 other sports) in 2002. Since then Canisius has made 0 men's basketball NCAA tournament appearances, 0 NIT appearances, 1 NCAA women's basketball appearance, 0 WNIT appearances, 2 NCAA men's hockey tournament appearances. Okay but Canisius was FCS, let's look at FBS: Last program to drop from FBS to FCS was Idaho in 2017. The decision to drop to FCS was prompted in part by the football team being conferenceless, but putting that aside. Idaho has made 0 men's basketball NCAA tournament appearances, 0 NIT appearances, 0 NCAA women's basketball appearances, 0 WNIT appearances since the drop to FCS. Worth noting their longtime men's basketball coach was fired around the transition to FCS for NCAA violations. Even so, their men's basketball team last made the NCAA/NIT in 1990. Next drop from FBS to FCS was FAMU in 2004. Much different school profile (HBCU vs Flagship) but since the drop to FCS they made the men's NCAA one time (lost to Niagara in a play in), 0 NIT appearances. Women's basketball has not made it to the NCAA tournament or WNIT either. The next most recent team to drop from FBS was University of the Pacific after the 1995 season. Different profile as well (private vs Flagship). Their basketball team has gone to the NCAA tournament 5 times in the 27 possible seasons since the announcement, making it past the first round twice. They also made the NIT once. Their women's basketball team has made the WNIT a few times recently but hasn't made the big dance (ever). Prior to that, Cal State Fullerton dropped football entirely in 1992. 3 men's tournament appearances, 1 NIT. 0 women's NCAA appearances, 0 WNIT. Worth noting Cal State Fullerton has a widely successful baseball team that had success prior to and after the discontinuation of football. Next up, Long Beach State dropped football entirely in 1991. Similar situation. 4 men's NCAA appearances, 6 NIT one-and-dones. 2 women's basketball tournament appearances, 4 WNIT appearances. Coincidentally, football was dropped immediately after a stretch of women's basketball that included 2 final 4's. Long Beach also has a successful baseball team similar to Fullerton, with 2 CWS appearances in the 90's and a bunch of NCAA tournament appearances after 1991. The best example that I can find of even a remote chance the "drop football become gud at basketball" argument works is Wichita State. After the 1986 season, the football program was discontinued because of financials. Since then 11 men's tournament appearances, 7 R32, 3 S16, 1 F4. Won the NIT in 2011. Women have 3 NCAA appearances, 4 WNIT. However Wichita State did not become a powerhouse basketball program until Gregg Marshall got to campus, which was a full 20 years after football was dropped. Between football being dropped and Marshall being hired there were 3 NCAA tournament appearances and 1 S16. There was a stretch of 7 years without a winning season. Dropping football (to FCS) does not make an athletics program magically turn things around. It is the investment of the school that determines this. James Madison University had a stadium that looked like this 20 years ago. This is their stadium now: We had a stadium that looked like theirs 20 years ago. And we still do. It's the level of commitment from the university that is going to determine where resources go. When that photo was taken JMU had two conference championships: 1975 and 1999. Since then, they've added 8 conference and 2 national championships. JMU has an endowment of $155 million and a budget of $628 million. We have an endowment of $1 billion and a budget of $850 million. Axing football isn't going to magically give those millions to basketball.

This is what I don't get, I can handle the ok development and miss reads and other breakdowns that come with freshman and an entire new team This team has zero structure. Zero. No offensive structure and no defensive structure. Looks like a bad intermural game at the triple gym We went from a team that had talent/athletes with no structure to a team that looks devoid of both