MuchMany

6,709 for the 84-73 victory over Bowling Green on 3/8/19 was better than this. Totally crazy with three deep around the track. But yeah ASU had an excellent atmosphere tonight. They play some crazy Oats ball, almost exclusively threes, dunks, and layups, and frenzied highs and lows. Only a 13-14 record coming into the game though, so the on-court product isn't some massive draw yet. Marketing, fun, self-awareness, and energy can go a long way it seems.

On ESPNU right now Arkansas State is having a party beating top of conference Troy with the Barstool jesters in attendance. It's not quite the atmosphere we had in the best Oats years, but click it on if you want to see what a mid-major school having fun looks like. Oh and they sell the devil's brew too. Not gonna lie, I'm jealous and so are the UB STHs I'm texting with.

It's a strange teetotaling misnomer that an adult "needs" to have a beer if they'd simply like to have one at a game. Plus food and drink offerings are obviously a key consideration in modern sports entertainment. So yes, I'm hypothesizing that some would have chosen not to attend, evidenced by the already meager crowds for the awful on-court product. "With this team, I need glasses to watch. Specifically two glasses, of scotch." (Shout out to the goat Norm Macdonald.) If a couple buddies in their 20s-30s are considering going to a UB game vs grabbing food and drinks somewhere on a winter evening, it's likely that the option to have a few beers at the game (like hundreds of millions have at sporting events since the Roman Empire) would influence their decision. UB poobahs would be wise to listen to any advice that breaks up the staid, septuagenarian vibes at basketball and football games. New voices are needed to revamp the deathly boring game presentation and arena experience. We already have quite a few libraries on campus, we don't need Alumni to be one.

Spot on with your post. But regarding this last point, give it a couple years - there are some things cooking, at least for hoops. Hopefully they keep things in the rails until then.

This absolutely untrue fyi from personal and anecdotal experience. The number of people I've seen socializing and enjoying a drink in the concourse this year during 20 point losses alone shows it's been appreciated. Not to mention it's just civilized to offer adults beverages should they choose to partake.

Annabellllllleeeee x10 😅

Thanks for making it all the way to the end of my post 😅 I appreciate @Bullsboys perspective and understand that over an up and down four years, certain things stick with different people. JW's second year was really good, 20-21. Graves, Jeenathan, Rondo, and Mballa is one of the better big fours in recent MAC memory. That MAC finals loss was a really big letdown. Who knows if the recruiting would have picked up if we'd have won, maybe things could have gone differently. But them's the breaks. I wish you hadn't reminded me of that Army game. One of the most infuriating home games in my history of attending. 13-point favorites against a bad Army team and lost by 13.

I don't think Kansas fans are pissed at all about what Self has accomplished for their investment. This one hits home for me too since they paid my cousin seven figures to nab him from Michigan. But I agree we should set our sights on catching up with places like Dayton before even mentioning national tiles.

You misquoted be a bit. I said that PPG was high because of tempo and leftover talent, not that leftover talent was the reason for PPG and tempo. Whitesell rolled the ball out and said play "Nate Ball," and it became less successful the further we got from Nate's brain and his players. And of course Segu and Williams didn't play much in their one year under Oats, as freshmen on The Best Team Ever. Then, to be expected, they became three year mainstays under Whitesell when CJ and Co departed. They were the two best recruits in UB history and we never sniffed talent like that again. I'm not sure JW had much to do with their recruitment either, as I was under the impression that BH and JQ were the recruiters in that order. The staff deserves varying credit for developing Jeenathan and Rondo while here. Jeenathan absolutely improved, esp his outside shooting, handle, and decision making. Rondo on the other hand kind of stalled out and never reached the ceiling I thought possible. Mballa as well stalled and then regressed. I don't know who deserves what credit and blame for those developments, but I grant that JW had a hand in it all. Retention is important yes, but it was also the key reason JW got the job in the first place, so it was expected and required of him. Not sure I can agree to disagree, as the results speak for themselves. The outcome of his tenure was a failure to maintain the lofty national profile and success that Oats established. Further, a failure to even maintain our standing within the MAC as a perennial title contender that lasted for six years between Oats and Hurley. The roster was increasingly pieced together by bad fits, short-term JUCO and transfer fixes (the opposite of what built our best rosters in the past), and our overall recruiting had fallen off a cliff. Fan support was drying up as on-court results worsened. Granted Covid and the new transfer landscape were new wrenches thrown into JW's tenure, but every coach in the nation had to deal with the same and I felt he showed a lack of agility responding to the emergent new reality of CBB. It's easy to look at the shocking results this year and reminisce on the previous regime with rose-colored glasses, but the truth is the program had already fallen under JW. Recruiting was dead, we were playing challenging schedules that players nor coaches were up for leading to discouraging results, and overall energy around the program was low. Everyone I know who knew JW and staff have the highest praise for their character and passion, that's never been in doubt. But the point remains, it was reasonable to call for change once it was clear that the lofty goals that we all have for the program had become out of reach. And I grant that this year has been a reality check regarding what our expectations should be. The resulting search, hire, and status of the current staff can absolutely be scrutinized, but I'm at least trying to keep an open mind by acknowledging where we're starting over from.

Definitely some useful information in your post re: NIL at other schools. But the above is just hyperbole. Even the blue bloods find it challenging to stay in the national championship discussion each year. I think keeping expectations reasonable and focusing on baby steps is wise.

Some recent highlights https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3ltW0CvGDx/?igsh=bTU5dGZ1NWVuc2l4

Felt that 5-10 point win coming. Fun game and loudest the crowd has been all year after long of Sy's dunks. EMU really stinks though. We were the much better team. Sy is a freaky talent at this level. High amplitude dunks and blocks. It's a shame we won't see him with a better surrounding cast and more experienced coaching. I'm more hopeful for next year than I've been at any point this season. The freshmen are growing up, Zaakir is a decent role player. The team as a whole looks more organized and comfortable. Give me a two man freshman class of SG/SF and a two man transfer class of PG/C.

Their PPG was due to having leftover talent from Oats and leftover tempo from Oats. As we got further from Oats, the talent and coaching that made his system go fell off. The PPGs you cited aren't impressive once you consider we were playing a top 10-20 tempo in those seasons. We do remember things differently, because I remember sitting in the crowd wondering why everyone was standing around the perimeter instead of moving through the D. Then we'd jack a late three and pray for the offensive board. Our assist rate fell off once JW became HC, even with a very good MAC PG in Rondo. Can anyone tell me what type of offense JW ran here? Coach Jacob, here's your chance. As the Doc pointed out, the struggles of his iso ball almost always spelled doom against the top of the MAC. As good as Jeenathan, Graves, and Rondo were at iso ball, good teams knew how to shut it down when it mattered. Also, "iso ball players" aren't only good in iso situations, so mixing in running an actual offense that gets them in advantageous situations is what the best teams do. Kobe Bryant was an excellent iso player, but he also benefitted from offensive design that got him in pindowns, post ups, downhill off screens, etc. The offense was sustained by elite offensive rebounding led by Mballa and Jeenathan, which good teams were able to snuff out. His rosters never had enough shooting, quality or quantity. He basically tried to run Oats' run and gun dunks and 3's system, but completely forgot the most important part, outside shooting. It doesn't work without it. His recruiting let him down in the end. I always pissed and moaned about it and they never corrected it. Quality players make everything go, or not go, in the end.

His assist rate wouldn't be nearly as impressive if he were actually hitting shots. The formula is 100 * AST / (((MP / (Tm MP / 5)) * Tm FG) - FG). He's not contributing nearly enough of his own FGs, which would push the divisor higher and his AST% down. He has done better at distributing than I expected when it became apparent that he'd be forced to be the team's primary ball handler as a point forward. However, his overall offensive game has suffered greatly as a result of being miscast in that role. He has an 87.4 ORTG on 25.9 usage - that's really really bad. If any deeper stat heads want to pull it up, I'd love to know how many guys in D1 have a higher usage rate with a worse ORTG. So many of this team's struggles can be traced back to the failure of the staff to add a veteran PG to the roster. Armoni Foster was nothing special, but I think this team would have 5 more wins if he were still here.

Lol. I take full responsibility for that one.

Making my triumphant return to a live game tonight! Expecting a 5-10 point win to be honest.

Doty and Fulton play their Section 3 Class AA quarters at home Friday evening. In a 70-58 loss to likely opponent Fayetteville-Manlius on 2/9, his line was 24p/8r/7a/5s. Here's his game log

?? Not sure if you're incorrectly implying that's me, but I've met plenty of people on this board in person. I was just pointing out how ridiculous your suggested unqualified, arm's reach hires were in light of you complaining about Lembo hiring people he's familiar with.

cough NEPOTISM HIRES cough cough

People I know didn't like Jim because his teams ran terrible iso offense with no movement and he brought in increasingly shitty mercenary players. But you're right, his teams were also very low energy and fell miles short of the "blue collar" ideal. That doesn't mean what we're seeing now isn't orders of magnitude worse, but the revisionist history doesn't help matters.

No game thread. New low here.

Unfortunately agreed, but if he goes on to have a long NBA career I think he'd be deserving. Local kid too. We're staring down a serious drought in honor-worthy numbers post glory years if things don't change.

Between him, Doty, and Cooper it seems like the staff is definitely targeting shooting and guard scoring. I am a bit surprised there aren't more offers for him among West Coast mid majors.

Uptown Hibachi is an excellent nickname with potential for NIL opportunities with the many Asian restaurants around North Campus.