UB vs. Liberty Cabana Boys CBS Sports Network Noon EDT 9-16-23

[UBinMD]

22 minutes ago, clodney said:

Over the past few years there have been people calling for Mark Alnutt's head (myself included) for focusing too much attention on football and letting the basketball program fall off a cliff. What are we thinking of Alnutt now that the football is also failing? 

IMO Alnutt is the one who needs to go and it's long overdue. He inherited a department that had Lance Leipold, Felisha Legette-Jack, and Nate Oats, and he replaced them with Maurice Linguist, Becky Burke, and Jim Whitesell. The jury is still out on Becky but the other 2 struggled mightily trying to maintain relevance. Fan support has dropped off and I'd imagine donor money has as well. We're back on par with the lowest teams in the MAC, we're losing to FCS schools, and overall it feels like 2003 again. Am I wrong here? Do others still have hope that ADMA can actually right this thing?

Of less importance to some, our Volleyball and Soccer teams are doing very well and have solid coaching under his view. Coach Burke just got extended 1-year. I think GH3 is a good basketball hire, but time will tell. Football I just don't know at this point.

[DaBulls99]

Coach Shawn Burke signed a multi year extension. He’s the first non revenue sport coach to get a multi year deal. He continues to produce. Volleyball looks like a good hire as well. 

Edited September 18, 2023 by DaBulls99

[zigo230]

13 minutes ago, DaBulls99 said:

Coach Burke signed a multi year extension. He’s the first non revenue sport coach to get a multi year deal. He continues to produce. Volleyball looks like a good hire as well. 

 

I'm thinking of women's hoops, Becky Burke since she just got extended.  In any event, good thing she got locked in to a new deal.  I'm sure some Big10 or ACC program was about to poach her away 🙄

Edited September 18, 2023 by zigo230

[rma]

2 hours ago, clodney said:

 I'd imagine donor money has as well.

There’s a lot of ways you can juice the numbers but we had a record year for donations last year

[promotherobot]

3 hours ago, clodney said:

Over the past few years there have been people calling for Mark Alnutt's head (myself included) for focusing too much attention on football and letting the basketball program fall off a cliff. What are we thinking of Alnutt now that the football is also failing? 

IMO Alnutt is the one who needs to go and it's long overdue. He inherited a department that had Lance Leipold, Felisha Legette-Jack, and Nate Oats, and he replaced them with Maurice Linguist, Becky Burke, and Jim Whitesell. The jury is still out on Becky but the other 2 struggled mightily trying to maintain relevance. Fan support has dropped off and I'd imagine donor money has as well. We're back on par with the lowest teams in the MAC, we're losing to FCS schools, and overall it feels like 2003 again. Am I wrong here? Do others still have hope that ADMA can actually right this thing?

Donor money actually hit a new high. Go figure.

[clodney]

23 minutes ago, rma said:

There’s a lot of ways you can juice the numbers but we had a record year for donations last year

That is shocking. Was it for athletics? Or do you mean UB in general? And what drove it?

[UBinMD]

3 minutes ago, clodney said:

That is shocking. Was it for athletics? Or do you mean UB in general? And what drove it?

From what I read it was Athletics donor money. I think overall was up too. There has been more of a push I think and reaching out to Alumni, 1958 society, etc. Maybe there are people with money that want success and are putting money forward to try and influence that. It has to start somewhere.

[Sportsfan]

5 hours ago, clodney said:

Over the past few years there have been people calling for Mark Alnutt's head (myself included) for focusing too much attention on football and letting the basketball program fall off a cliff. What are we thinking of Alnutt now that the football is also failing? 

IMO Alnutt is the one who needs to go and it's long overdue. He inherited a department that had Lance Leipold, Felisha Legette-Jack, and Nate Oats, and he replaced them with Maurice Linguist, Becky Burke, and Jim Whitesell. The jury is still out on Becky but the other 2 struggled mightily trying to maintain relevance. Fan support has dropped off and I'd imagine donor money has as well. We're back on par with the lowest teams in the MAC, we're losing to FCS schools, and overall it feels like 2003 again. Am I wrong here? Do others still have hope that ADMA can actually right this thing?

100% agree, he has made really bad hires and that is the AD #1 role.  Not sure how he works his way out of football, as this was his "big hire". 

Also, not clear on the need to extend Becky Burke contract after 1 bummy year.  Losing your entire coaching staff isn't a great start, but she does have experience as a HC, unlike Linguist (or even a coordinator).

[UBinMD]

3 minutes ago, Sportsfan said:

100% agree, he has made really bad hires and that is the AD #1 role.  Not sure how he works his way out of football, as this was his "big hire". 

Also, not clear on the need to extend Becky Burke contract after 1 bummy year.  Losing your entire coaching staff isn't a great start, but she does have experience as a HC, unlike Linguist (or even a coordinator).

I think it was for recruiting stability and this coaching staff has significantly more experience than the last one. Hopefully all the players make it to the end of the season and no feeling are hurt or “toxic” things happen 

[BrooklynBull]

7 hours ago, clodney said:

imagine donor money has as well.

Actually they just had one of their best years ever for donations.

[Tee4three]

I would expect donor money to continue to rise, UB came back to division 1 in the mid to late 90's. It's still a young program 

With a push and concentration on athletics starting then that would  put those students going on 50ish. Which I would guess is the main donor base

Add in the fact UB is starting to put out more and more professional athletes in both big money sports football and basketball 

[UBinMD]

1 hour ago, Tee4three said:

I would expect donor money to continue to rise, UB came back to division 1 in the mid to late 90's. It's still a young program 

With a push and concentration on athletics starting then that would  put those students going on 50ish. Which I would guess is the main donor base

Add in the fact UB is starting to put out more and more professional athletes in both big money sports football and basketball 

I’m the demographic. We went D1 while I was at UB and the stadium was built. It was an exciting time and where we are compared to where we were is light years. Yes it’s rough and things aren’t where we want it yet, but we are moving the right way. 

[Tee4three]

13 hours ago, UBinMD said:

I’m the demographic. We went D1 while I was at UB and the stadium was built. It was an exciting time and where we are compared to where we were is light years. Yes it’s rough and things aren’t where we want it yet, but we are moving the right way. 

Everything takes time, hasn't been perfect but generally the program continues to move in the right direction 

[promotherobot]

15 hours ago, Tee4three said:

I would expect donor money to continue to rise, UB came back to division 1 in the mid to late 90's. It's still a young program 

With a push and concentration on athletics starting then that would  put those students going on 50ish. Which I would guess is the main donor base

Add in the fact UB is starting to put out more and more professional athletes in both big money sports football and basketball 

It's a weird metric but I see more people complaining about UB athletics on Twitter. That's a sign more people are caring, right?

[UBinMD]

16 minutes ago, promotherobot said:

It's a weird metric but I see more people complaining about UB athletics on Twitter. That's a sign more people are caring, right?

100%, if they don't care they don't speak up. It's all positive (even though it's negative) 😂

[Tee4three]

3 hours ago, promotherobot said:

It's a weird metric but I see more people complaining about UB athletics on Twitter. That's a sign more people are caring, right?

You could use this board as an example as well, it gets more active each year I've been apart of it 

[MuchMany]

1 hour ago, Tee4three said:

You could use this board as an example as well, it gets more active each year I've been apart of it 

Activity feels about as low as I've seen it in my 4 years here, no?

[121Merrimac]

The original (archived) site was much (easily 5x, maybe 10x) more active 15+ years ago.  This has been a shell of it’s former self. 

[clodney]

24 minutes ago, 121Merrimac said:

The original (archived) site was much (easily 5x, maybe 10x) more active 15+ years ago.  This has been a shell of it’s former self. 

Some of that is likely due to message boards becoming outdated but it's true nonetheless. Ubfan is dead compared to when I was at UB. 

[121Merrimac]

16 minutes ago, clodney said:

Some of that is likely due to message boards becoming outdated but it's true nonetheless. Ubfan is dead compared to when I was at UB. 

No doubt, you’re absolutely right.  I just thought the younger generation of UBfans should be aware of this fact.   Before video streams, when Bulls’ events were lucky to have an audio stream, this was the place to be. 
 

Your friend Hokie200Proof probably wouldn’t remember me personally, but tell him that on behalf of the community, we miss him.  
 

If that handle doesn’t mean anything to you, do yourself a favor an search for any of his “hate” threads. 

[Blue03]

12 hours ago, 121Merrimac said:

No doubt, you’re absolutely right.  I just thought the younger generation of UBfans should be aware of this fact.   Before video streams, when Bulls’ events were lucky to have an audio stream, this was the place to be. 
 

Your friend Hokie200Proof probably wouldn’t remember me personally, but tell him that on behalf of the community, we miss him.  
 

If that handle doesn’t mean anything to you, do yourself a favor a search for any of his “hate” threads. 

Students both don’t know and don’t care about this place. Never heard of it from anywhere, only found it when trying to find the basketball schedule before it was released. And most students don’t care about our sports, even if they show up they don’t care to get involved outside of the game

[Bluebird96]

9 hours ago, Blue03 said:

And most students don’t care about our sports, even if they show up they don’t care to get involved outside of the game

This has been a thing since I was a student in the 90s. Students in general seemed to only show up when teams were doing well, and I can only speak to football, MBB & WBB but I doubt there were many fans watching the other sports either in those days (or these days, for that matter).

Sure, there are fanatics like those of us on this board but my general sense even 30 years after the move to D-1 is that UB students are apathetic to UB sports unless one of our teams is attracting national attention (i.e. MBB in 2018-19).  In general the level of school spirit at UB is nowhere near what I’ve seen at UCONN where they drew 4700 fans for the opening game of the men’s soccer season.  Of course, that probably wasn’t the case there 30 years ago before they started winning NCAA b-ball championships on a regular basis. 

Maybe someday we’ll rise to that level of school spirit and consistent attendance at games, but it’s going to take a lot of winning to do it. 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Bluebird96

[rma]

48 minutes ago, Bluebird96 said:

Maybe someday we’ll rise to that level of school spirit and consistent attendance at games, but it’s going to take a lot of winning to do it. 

The home opener had a full 100 section on the visitor sideline - all students. Student support for football, at least for a 6PM kickoff on a Saturday, is pretty good. Of course a loss to an FCS team and a noon kickoff next game killed that momentum.

[Bluebird96]

I’ve noticed what seemed like a decent student turnout watching on TV, so that’s good to see.  No doubt there would be better attendance if the team turns things around and plays up to expectations in a season where they were expected to compete for the MAC East title. Hard to build that momentum and keep the fanbase excited when you don’t meet or exceed the high expectations that were set the last couple years of the LL era.