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MENS BASKETBALL - DUKES DUKES DUKES - 03-01-2017 12:59 PM
Everyone complains about our team not winning. It sure would help if the stands were filled with fans cheering them on. Even the football team will tell you how much it helps them by our cheering. I hope this weekend and especially next year that instead of complaining, you will buy a ticket and cheer them on.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - JMUSteeler - 03-01-2017 01:00 PM
(03-01-2017 12:59 PM)DUKES DUKES DUKES Wrote: Everyone complains about our team not winning. It sure would help if the stands were filled with fans cheering them on. Even the football team will tell you how much it helps them by our cheering. I hope this weekend and especially next year that instead of complaining, you will buy a ticket and cheer them on.
There are a lot of entertainment options available, it's crucial for a team that wants support to put a competitive product out for public consumption. I live 2 hours away and have season tickets for basketball, didn't make a game. Oddly enough, I didn't miss a football game......
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Potomac - 03-01-2017 01:12 PM
Win and they will come. Look at every other program at JMU for proof of that.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - LovethoseDukes - 03-01-2017 01:23 PM
(03-01-2017 01:12 PM)Potomac Wrote: Win and they will come. Look at every other program at JMU for proof of that.
I have been a WBB fan for longer than many of you have been alive. I clearly remember the days when there might be 500 folks in the stands when the team was just not very good (sort of like some of what we see when we go to an away game). As the team got better the crowds got larger, Marketing did more promotions, JMU actually got on television and the product that is WBB at JMU was born.
It is not an overnight process but it can happen. I also remember the days of Midnight Madness and the Electric Zoo.
Given the current state of the JMU administration though, I am not sure they are willing to bring back some of those fun events and do things that draw interest. Too bad.....those were some fun times.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Deez Nuts - 03-01-2017 01:44 PM
I don't think it's fair to lump this in with football. At all. It's easy to say "Yeah, show up, support the Dukes". But there's no reward in it right now, and there hasn't been for 20 years. Football has had a rough season here and there, but overall we fans stuck with them. Basketball has been a consistent hot mess. I became a JMU basketball/sports fan in 2002. I've seen some bad JMU Basketball. I've questioned why I get season tickets nearly every year since I graduated. I got them again this year to give Rowe a chance. I have been beating the drum that it's gonna take next year, and maybe a year beyond next for Rowe to get his system in place, so under that same theory I should expect to renew my tickets for next year at least, however I'm not exactly gaining confidence at this point. I am one straw away from being done with the program; a program whose support base looks more like a Delaware or Richmond-age fan base because there is almost NO support from any graduate of the last two decades following this program anymore because they were not hooked on it while they were a student here. Nobody wants to come to town for this sport right now. I know I'm not alone.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Wear Purple - 03-01-2017 01:45 PM
FWIW, some attendance statistics to gnaw on...
Average home attendance for Lady Dukes this season = 3,009
Average home attendance for Dukes MBB this season = 2,867
2015-2016
LD's = 2,904
MBB = 3,001
2014-2015
LD's = 2,904
MBB = 3,416
2013-2014
LD's = 3,072
MBB = 3,612
2012-2013
LD's = 2,157
MBB = 3,334
*pulled from jmusports.com
*don't know whether these are "tickets sold" or "bodies through gates"
*this season is first time average home attendance for WBB > MBB
*additional note, attendance at Lady Dukes' 14 games away from the Convo = 1,347
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Deez Nuts - 03-01-2017 01:49 PM
in my mini rant i was going to say that the Men's program is a sport that is out drawn by the Women's program, but I didn't have the numbers to back it up. By the eye test, there are absolutely more bodies at WBB games. Wear Purple has the numbers, and the numbers back up what I see on a game to game basis.
Can you imagine what it's going to look like next year? I do not envy Louis Rowe. He has such a huge job to do. I want him to succeed so bad.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Wear Purple - 03-01-2017 02:10 PM
(03-01-2017 01:44 PM)Deez Nuts Wrote: I don't think it's fair to lump this in with football. At all. It's easy to say "Yeah, show up, support the Dukes". But there's no reward in it right now, and there hasn't been for 20 years. Football has had a rough season here and there, but overall we fans stuck with them. Basketball has been a consistent hot mess. I became a JMU basketball/sports fan in 2002. I've seen some bad JMU Basketball. I've questioned why I get season tickets nearly every year since I graduated. I got them again this year to give Rowe a chance. I have been beating the drum that it's gonna take next year, and maybe a year beyond next for Rowe to get his system in place, so under that same theory I should expect to renew my tickets for next year at least, however I'm not exactly gaining confidence at this point. I am one straw away from being done with the program; a program whose support base looks more like a Delaware or Richmond-age fan base because there is almost NO support from any graduate of the last two decades following this program anymore because they were not hooked on it while they were a student here. Nobody wants to come to town for this sport right now. I know I'm not alone.
I hear ya. I went to 4 home MBB games this season. Mostly had a really good time. The pep band and dinner afterwards was worth the trip/money. :>)
I am considering buying season tickets next season. I know full well - and have been stating since back in November - Rowe's Year 2 will be a struggle due to (likely) reliance on so many freshmen, but that Year 3 should be the time to truly gauge whether Rowe is going to build a nice foundation for future success or we start all over again with a new staff. Around that time, I hope we have some improved basketball to watch and the excitement of a new arena to watch it in. And even if Rowe isn't retained after 3 years, hopefully he has recruited well enough that the talent base is solid for whoever might take over.
I'd love to see us land a couple of these guys we are still targeting in the April signing period (see MBB recruiting thread up above). Would love to get a shot blocking threat at some point. There is no big dog standing in the lane that opposing players fear when driving to the basket. Yohanny was our best threat at that and we lost him. Maybe Scissum or incomer Wilson will develop into that threat???
I believe next year we will start to see the type of approach Rowe wants to deploy. More pressure D, perhaps more pressing, running more often off defensive rebounds, etc. It may not parlay into a 20-win season in Year 2 (though certainly 16-14/9-9 type regular season may be achievable), but it should lay the foundation for that kind of year in Year 3. For me (and only me perhaps), the season really starts up when the CAA schedule gets going and what happens at the CAAT is of course very important.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - JMUska - 03-01-2017 02:44 PM
Basketball is difficult to attend. Games are on weeknights and most of us don't live in Harrisonburg. I'm not going to drive eight hours round trip and take time off work to go watch us play basketball; I wouldn't do that more than once a season even if we were an ACC team.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - JMUETC - 03-01-2017 02:49 PM
I used to attend about 4 games a year. Usually against the big 3 (ODU, VCU, GMU) conference opponents or the occasionally good OOC opponent.
Lack of interest in current conference mates and lack of success this year has me teetering. Watch 2 games this year and observed some questionable coaching. Only occasionally check in now. Hoping Lou Rowe can turn things around.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - JMUNation - 03-01-2017 07:13 PM
I saw one game live this season while in Charlotte on business. It is the first season in 31 years I did not see one game in the Convo nor will I attend the CAAT.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - hburg - 03-01-2017 07:21 PM
(03-01-2017 01:12 PM)Potomac Wrote: Win and they will come. Look at every other program at JMU for proof of that.
Agree and disagree, we still had issues when our team was winning 20+ games. Perhaps part of it was the schedule. JMU is clearly a football school now. May Coach Lou can bring excitement to the program.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Dukes1825 - 03-01-2017 08:12 PM
Worth nothing that WBB attendance at 3,009 is double the next closest conference member
MBB is still 3rd in home attendance in CAA despite being terrible
Summary: JMU roots
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Hart Foundation - 03-01-2017 08:26 PM
Gotta win and Rowe did the opposite of that.
One of the planks in Bourne's press conference "reasoning" for hiring Rowe was a desire to increase attendance.
FAIL.
We all know JMU didn't get their 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice for head coach which makes you wonder what the heck Bourne was planning the whole time he knew he was going to fire Brady. Where was his refined short list in the desk drawer? Did he not vet properly with Fogler's search firm to determine who was a good target in JMU's lowball price range?
Is he that disconnected with the college basketball coaching fraternity that he could make an egregious hiring error Akin to an incompetent boob?
You can't expect support when the leadership has lost credibility and I think the loss of fan support by fair weather and longtime diehard fans is evidence that the original post is backwards in logic. Have a winning team, then get support. Not the other way around.
Honestly, I'm not sure JMU could have possibly lost any more games with an AAU coach who just rolled the ball out and told the guys to have fun. There wasn't a single game I watched all year where I felt Rowe coached the team up and it looked like the Whole was greater than the sum of the parts.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - olddawg - 03-01-2017 08:35 PM
(03-01-2017 08:26 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote: Gotta win and Rowe did the opposite of that.
One of the planks in Bourne's press conference "reasoning" for hiring Rowe was a desire to increase attendance.
FAIL.
We all know JMU didn't get their 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice for head coach which makes you wonder what the heck Bourne was planning the whole time he knew he was going to fire Brady. Where was his refined short list in the desk drawer? Did he not vet properly with Fogler's search firm to determine who was a good target in JMU's lowball price range?
Is he that disconnected with the college basketball coaching fraternity that he could make an egregious hiring error Akin to an incompetent boob?
You can't expect support when the leadership has lost credibility and I think the loss of fan support by fair weather and longtime diehard fans is evidence that the original post is backwards in logic. Have a winning team, then get support. Not the other way around.
Honestly, I'm not sure JMU could have possibly lost any more games with an AAU coach who just rolled the ball out and told the guys to have fun. There wasn't a single game I watched all year where I felt Rowe coached the team up and it looked like the Whole was greater than the sum of the parts.
I'm pretty certain we couldn't get our primary targets because we were offering lower salaries than what the top choices wanted/expected.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - purplesanman - 03-01-2017 10:25 PM
(03-01-2017 08:26 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote: Gotta win and Rowe did the opposite of that.
One of the planks in Bourne's press conference "reasoning" for hiring Rowe was a desire to increase attendance.
FAIL.
We all know JMU didn't get their 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice for head coach which makes you wonder what the heck Bourne was planning the whole time he knew he was going to fire Brady. Where was his refined short list in the desk drawer? Did he not vet properly with Fogler's search firm to determine who was a good target in JMU's lowball price range?
Is he that disconnected with the college basketball coaching fraternity that he could make an egregious hiring error Akin to an incompetent boob?
You can't expect support when the leadership has lost credibility and I think the loss of fan support by fair weather and longtime diehard fans is evidence that the original post is backwards in logic. Have a winning team, then get support. Not the other way around.
Honestly, I'm not sure JMU could have possibly lost any more games with an AAU coach who just rolled the ball out and told the guys to have fun. There wasn't a single game I watched all year where I felt Rowe coached the team up and it looked like the Whole was greater than the sum of the parts.
Hart, this obsession is getting unhealthy. Let's just look at Brady's tenure again:
2008-2009- Team turns the corner, but looking back, it was actually incredibly talented and loses because it does not play defense. Getting a team to buy in and play defense is the first thing a good coach does. Brady certainly gets credit for legitimizing the program again, but don't fool yourself into thinking that was a well coached team.
2009-2010- Devon gets hurt,team is terrible. Brady has major issues with Darren White. At the time, I blamed White, but he also had similar problems with Bowles and AJ in later years, so now I'm not sure. In any case, even without Devon, Brady loses 20 games with:
a legitimate NBA prospect at center,
a D-Leaguer at SG,
an All-Conference small forward
and a point guard who graduated as the all time assists leader in school history (until Devon broke it a few years later)
2010-2011- All the studs are back, All five starters from that team will be named all-conference at some point in their careers and there is a 1000 point scorer coming off the bench. The team gets some top 25 votes, has a couple heartbreaking losses and then basically quits on Brady.
2011-2012- So many injuries, nobody could have won. BUT, Brady ends up in a public feud with AJ and there seems to be a struggle for team control between Devon and Humpty (admittedly, this is speculative and it could have just been that Humpty was trying too hard to make up for some of the lost offense from Devon's injury, but in either case, Brady did not instill any identity).
2012-2013- Major credit for making the NCAA tournament and for being able to adapt to his talent halfway through the season, BUT the team featured the following:
a 2 time Cousy Award Nominee/ 2nd Round D-League draft choice at PG,
a 1st Round D-League draft choice at SG,
a future runner up CAA player of the year at backup PG,
a likely NBA draft pick as the back up SF
an all conference center
And none of them were actually the best prospect on the team!
He "coaches them up" to average 65 points per game or a full point less than Rowe's team averages! Sure that team played outstanding defense, but that was basically due to Brady realizing what he had and turning them loose, not some brilliant teaching.
2013-2014- He can't be blamed for Nation's issues, but the team does not mesh. We hear more instances of kids not being happy.
2014-2015, 2015-2016- This is where the team does actually play above their heads. You could point to it and say he learned how to reach his kids, but I see it differently. Throughout his tenure, whenever he had one true alpha (Devon for parts of the three years he wasn't hurt and Curry for the last 2), the record was good. Even when the team was talented, if there was any debate as to who the leader was, they vastly underperformed. That seems like something a good coach would fix pretty quickly. Coaches need to be able to get talented kids to play together, not hope that their best player outshines everyone by such a large margin that things naturally fall into place.
My favorite thing that Rowe does differently than Brady is that he plays the kids who "get it." Brady would spend entire postgame interviews publicly calling kids out, but then start them the next day. Meanwhile, Semenov would come off the bench and Ben Louis or Chad Jackson or (later) Satkus would barely see the game at all. That's why he lost people.
This year, as Shak started seeing the whole floor, his playing time increased, but not until then. I believe that setting expectations and following through will pay dividends for Rowe later on.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Rock House Duke - 03-01-2017 10:35 PM
^^^ Good post!
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - NJDuke97 - 03-02-2017 06:50 AM
The problem is that even when JMU was winning it was never consistent enough and never had the post season or regular season success to bring people back, make people take notice, and cause any buzz or momentum on campus or within the community.
Women's hoops as a brand has done all of those things for many years now.
Just when folks may have taken notice that the team was pretty good to good there was always another shoe to drop or a qualifier. A good first season by Brady followed by a bad second season, repeat that cycle the next 2 seasons. No real signature conference wins vs. the best in the conference. Certainly no domination within the conference at any point. Even the NCAA run- skeptics could point to a depleted CAA (teams had left, another 2 were ineligible) and then any excitement over the future of the program was gone when Nation had his issues and Cooke transferred out. I'm sure this season hasn't helped so it will take a couple of more (successful seasons) to get any embers of excitement burning again.
I really do think a new convo would obviously help and it should coincide with a young, exciting team with some area kids as the stars.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Potomac - 03-02-2017 09:22 AM
(03-01-2017 07:21 PM)hburg Wrote:(03-01-2017 01:12 PM)Potomac Wrote: Win and they will come. Look at every other program at JMU for proof of that.
Agree and disagree, we still had issues when our team was winning 20+ games. Perhaps part of it was the schedule. JMU is clearly a football school now. May Coach Lou can bring excitement to the program.
Yes, we're a football school and fans prioritize their time for that first. The MBB program's issue is a lack of consistency. If we did get to 20 wins, it was 20, 21, 22 wins, still approximately 10 losses. We are still only winning at best 2/3 of the time.
Then its against a very unimpressive OOC schedule, some of whom we have no business losing to but still do. The following season, we're a 10 win team.
Success in D1 MBB is measured by NCAA tournament appearances, and more specifically, winning in it.
You'll have trouble building fan confidence when you spend a decade alternating between 20, 10, 15, back to 20 then another 10 win season. One NCAA appearance as a 16 seed and you're out quick. It's better than just constantly winning 5 or 10 games every single year, but barely.
RE: MENS BASKETBALL - Wear Purple - 03-02-2017 10:10 AM
(03-02-2017 09:22 AM)Potomac Wrote:(03-01-2017 07:21 PM)hburg Wrote:(03-01-2017 01:12 PM)Potomac Wrote: Win and they will come. Look at every other program at JMU for proof of that.
Agree and disagree, we still had issues when our team was winning 20+ games. Perhaps part of it was the schedule. JMU is clearly a football school now. May Coach Lou can bring excitement to the program.
Yes, we're a football school and fans prioritize their time for that first. The MBB program's issue is a lack of consistency. If we did get to 20 wins, it was 20, 21, 22 wins, still approximately 10 losses. We are still only winning at best 2/3 of the time.
Then its against a very unimpressive OOC schedule, some of whom we have no business losing to but still do. The following season, we're a 10 win team.
Success in D1 MBB is measured by NCAA tournament appearances, and more specifically, winning in it.
You'll have trouble building fan confidence when you spend a decade alternating between 20, 10, 15, back to 20 then another 10 win season. One NCAA appearance as a 16 seed and you're out quick. It's better than just constantly winning 5 or 10 games every single year, but barely.
As usual, I agree with your commentary.
The students are vital in terms of helping fill the home arena and create the atmosphere to help the team win as well as in turn helping recruiting (this goes for FB as well as often FB recruits on visits in winter will want to take in a hoops game...maybe this isn't the case, but could be like at most other schools...come to think of it, I guess taking FB recruits to a home MBB game to see so many empty seats and dull atmosphere might not be the best idea...sad to say).
Looking back at this season's schedule, I count 7 of our 15 home games (almost half!) were played when students were out of session. 2 during T'giving week and 5 during winter break. That doesn't help at all. The season before was also 7 home games when almost all students were away from campus, but there were an unusually large number of home games (18) that season.
Maybe the new arena will help. I hope so. Winning certainly cures a lot of ills. Definitely playing a more exciting (fast-paced) brand of ball should help as well. Hopefully Coach Rowe will upgrade the athleticism and skill level. Having said all that, they can play a faster brand of ball and still lose...which won't do anything.
Rowe's recruiting is vital at the moment. Hopefully, the new arena will help those efforts. We'll see...