a Top 20 team, seemingly each year now? What happened to transform a school like this into national prominence? We think of Gonzaga when we think of mid majors who have made a significant move to national prominence, but Butler has done sort of the same thing. Which gives hope to me that UALR could possibly make the same type of quantum leap at some point.

(02-01-2010 04:53 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  a Top 20 team, seemingly each year now? What happened to transform a school like this into national prominence? We think of Gonzaga when we think of mid majors who have made a significant move to national prominence, but Butler has done sort of the same thing. Which gives hope to me that UALR could possibly make the same type of quantum leap at some point.

Maybe they hired a John Brady.

(02-01-2010 04:59 PM)Seminole Indian Wrote:  

(02-01-2010 04:53 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  a Top 20 team, seemingly each year now? What happened to transform a school like this into national prominence? We think of Gonzaga when we think of mid majors who have made a significant move to national prominence, but Butler has done sort of the same thing. Which gives hope to me that UALR could possibly make the same type of quantum leap at some point.

Maybe they hired a John Brady.

Maybe they hired Shields.

(02-01-2010 05:01 PM)LRTrojan Wrote:  

(02-01-2010 04:59 PM)Seminole Indian Wrote:  

(02-01-2010 04:53 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  a Top 20 team, seemingly each year now? What happened to transform a school like this into national prominence? We think of Gonzaga when we think of mid majors who have made a significant move to national prominence, but Butler has done sort of the same thing. Which gives hope to me that UALR could possibly make the same type of quantum leap at some point.

Maybe they hired a John Brady.

Maybe they hired Shields.

Incredible. This is a school with 4,000 students, which includes undergraduates and graduate students. They have a renovated arena which seats 10,000 (formerly seated 15,000, and was the largest arena in the country when it was built in 1928). They are in Indiana, which has a rich basketball tradition. They obviously receive tremendous community support, even though Indiana University is the state school.
Unlike Little Rock, I'm pretty sure their newspaper gives great coverage to their basketball program.

(02-01-2010 04:53 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  a Top 20 team, seemingly each year now? What happened to transform a school like this into national prominence? We think of Gonzaga when we think of mid majors who have made a significant move to national prominence, but Butler has done sort of the same thing. Which gives hope to me that UALR could possibly make the same type of quantum leap at some point.

The only surprising thing is why they weren't Top 20 sooner. What kind of a genius does it take to recruit basketball talent in Indy?

(02-01-2010 08:10 PM)Ynocpirt Wrote:  

(02-01-2010 04:53 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  a Top 20 team, seemingly each year now? What happened to transform a school like this into national prominence? We think of Gonzaga when we think of mid majors who have made a significant move to national prominence, but Butler has done sort of the same thing. Which gives hope to me that UALR could possibly make the same type of quantum leap at some point.

The only surprising thing is why they weren't Top 20 sooner. What kind of a genius does it take to recruit basketball talent in Indy?

Jim wins the prize.


SIU and Gonzaga both starting the current wave of mid-majors winning. SIU did it with defense and Few did it with red shirting (just about every player red shirted).

The Valley as a whole then picked up as SIU started to fade due to the coaches moving up. Butler started turning the corner of the last 5 years, so they are not new. The A-10 had a few schools during that period also. WKU started their upswing in that period of time.

There are a few other flashs in the pan due to good players or a coach staying a few years but fading after that.

(02-01-2010 04:53 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  a Top 20 team, seemingly each year now? What happened to transform a school like this into national prominence? We think of Gonzaga when we think of mid majors who have made a significant move to national prominence, but Butler has done sort of the same thing. Which gives hope to me that UALR could possibly make the same type of quantum leap at some point.

In searching both Butler and Gonzaga, they had one thing in common. They are both very old institutions and have a lot of history, although they're not very large in terms of enrollment. Butler around 4000 and Gonzaga around 6500. We think of Gonzaga in fairly recent terms, but John Stockton played there way back in 1983. Of course their national prominence is thought of a little later than that. I guess we forget that our school is still rather a new kid on the block when compared to some that are high on the national scene. Even Western Kentucky in our league. So hopefully as we grow as a university, our basketball program will grow accordingly. Some of you younger fans might still be around when we reach some level of national prominence, if that is ever to happen, but it's doubtful that old timers like me will still be posting on this board at that time.