(03-17-2015 09:11 AM)untgeorge Wrote:  

(03-17-2015 08:34 AM)Herdmeister Wrote:  I have gone to most of the CUSA tournaments in the past 10 years since Marshall has been in the league. I go for one thing:: BASKETBALL. I enjoy watching 11 games in 4 days. I can eat a hot dog at the arena and drive or in some cases walk back to my hotel to sleep. The site of the tournament means nothing to me except to determine if I need to fly or drive.

My style exactly. My group goes to a tournament to watch games. And the games were great, very competitive. Most were in doubt in the last few possessions. If you didn't go to all the games, you missed the half-court buzzer beater that won a game; the half court buzzer beater at the end of the 1st half in the next game.

Less attendance from the eastern and central teams than I expected. Didn't we move from Hot Springs to make the tournament more accessible to the fans of those schools? Didn't work.

Hot Springs? Wrong conference.

(03-17-2015 08:43 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  I think it's funny how people don't want anyone to have a home court advantage. Here's the deal. We aren't the SEC. We aren't the ACC. We aren't the Big East. We can't draw thousands of fans to a neutral site. If we barely fill up a home court arena for games, why would we fill up a neutral site place?

"But it's more fair."

You may be right, but no one at the conference office cares about that. They care about one thing. Money. And a neutral site it an easy way to lose money.


And to anyone complaining about UAB's home court advantage, just stop. Seriously, stop. We dealt with going to Memphis for I don't know how many years. They never lost there. That's a home court advantage. Your team not showing up in Birmingham against and average UAB squad is their fault, not UAB's. And I'm not a fan of having the tournament in Birmingham. I'd rather have it somewhere else. But UAB isn't some impossible place to play/win at. No offense UAB fans, that's not meant as smack.

I agree with most of this, but in point of fact, UAB was undefeated in CUSA play inside the Birmingham city limits.

I only attended the Men's Conference Championship game. Birmingham isn't a bad city, but it does remind me of Memphis. Everything is just so run down and old. There really isn't much to do and downtown isn't really a "fun" atmosphere that draws people in. The game on Saturday seemed very unorganized. They sat MT fans in 2 different sections (across from each other) and scattered UAB people all throughout the MT sections and the rest of the arena (nobody sat on 2nd level). This automatically screamed "favoritism" to me. Put MT fans together and UAB fans together. It's not that hard. I've heard several MT fans (that spent several days) say that is was just OK. I think we need a destination city as well. If I want to take vacation time to travel to a conference tournament, then it better be somewhere with lots to do and see. I, honestly, think Nashville would be an awesome place to host. It just hosted the SEC Tourney so obviously it has something going for it. I also LOVED Fort Worth, Texas when we went to the Armed Forces Bowl. And though it would be far, anywhere on the Gulf Coast works well too.

Wow. I think most UAB fans agree to rotate it as long as we are always in that rotation. There are only a select few places that can hold it in a "central" location. That said El Paso does a wonderful job and should stay in the mix. Would love to see it in Boiser city, Nashville, El Paso, Charlotte. Would love to see it in Biloxi but that area last I saw was a dung heap. Maybe it's been renovated IDK? Would not object to Pensacola.

I don't agree with it being on the regular season champs home court no matter who it is or keeping it in one place every year. We need to run this like a big time league if we want to be one.

Birmingham is a fun place. A few of my friends sent their kids to Birmingham-Southern and Samfham.ord. Excellent schools.

Ace...

(03-17-2015 11:00 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  Wow. I think most UAB fans agree to rotate it as long as we are always in that rotation. There are only a select few places that can hold it in a "central" location. That said El Paso does a wonderful job and should stay in the mix. Would love to see it in Boiser city, Nashville, El Paso, Charlotte. Would love to see it in Biloxi but that area last I saw was a dung heap. Maybe it's been renovated IDK? Would not object to Pensacola.

I don't agree with it being on the regular season champs home court no matter who it is or keeping it in one place every year. We need to run this like a big time league if we want to be one.

I was thinking of suggesting Pensacola but I couldn't come up with a secondary facility.

(03-17-2015 11:00 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  Wow. I think most UAB fans agree to rotate it as long as we are always in that rotation. There are only a select few places that can hold it in a "central" location. That said El Paso does a wonderful job and should stay in the mix. Would love to see it in Boiser city, Nashville, El Paso, Charlotte. Would love to see it in Biloxi but that area last I saw was a dung heap. Maybe it's been renovated IDK? Would not object to Pensacola.

I don't agree with it being on the regular season champs home court no matter who it is or keeping it in one place every year. We need to run this like a big time league if we want to be one.

Biloxi had forced renovation. It was called Katrina.
Lots of new development around the casinos. Biloxi is getting a minor league baseball team and we plan to host future cusa baseball tourneys there.

I just hope UAB stays in the conference so we can have this discussion again.

(03-17-2015 10:30 AM)Smaug Wrote:  

(03-17-2015 08:43 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  I think it's funny how people don't want anyone to have a home court advantage. Here's the deal. We aren't the SEC. We aren't the ACC. We aren't the Big East. We can't draw thousands of fans to a neutral site. If we barely fill up a home court arena for games, why would we fill up a neutral site place?

"But it's more fair."

You may be right, but no one at the conference office cares about that. They care about one thing. Money. And a neutral site it an easy way to lose money.


And to anyone complaining about UAB's home court advantage, just stop. Seriously, stop. We dealt with going to Memphis for I don't know how many years. They never lost there. That's a home court advantage. Your team not showing up in Birmingham against and average UAB squad is their fault, not UAB's. And I'm not a fan of having the tournament in Birmingham. I'd rather have it somewhere else. But UAB isn't some impossible place to play/win at. No offense UAB fans, that's not meant as smack.

I agree with most of this, but in point of fact, UAB was undefeated in CUSA play inside the Birmingham city limits.

Yes but that doesn't happen EVERY year

(03-17-2015 08:43 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  I think it's funny how people don't want anyone to have a home court advantage. Here's the deal. We aren't the SEC. We aren't the ACC. We aren't the Big East. We can't draw thousands of fans to a neutral site. If we barely fill up a home court arena for games, why would we fill up a neutral site place?

"But it's more fair."

You may be right, but no one at the conference office cares about that. They care about one thing. Money. And a neutral site it an easy way to lose money.


And to anyone complaining about UAB's home court advantage, just stop. Seriously, stop. We dealt with going to Memphis for I don't know how many years. They never lost there. That's a home court advantage. Your team not showing up in Birmingham against and average UAB squad is their fault, not UAB's. And I'm not a fan of having the tournament in Birmingham. I'd rather have it somewhere else. But UAB isn't some impossible place to play/win at. No offense UAB fans, that's not meant as smack.

No, I tend to agree. All the neutral site stuff is nonsense. All the conference cares about is butts in seats, and that simply happens better if the games are in a team's home town. I have no problem with rotating the tournament, I'm not advocating putting it in Birmingham forever. The other side is that we have not hosted since 1999, we're done many road games, we were due. You don't want another team having home court? Press your administration and the local politicians to make a good enough bid to hold it on your floor. If you don't have the backing to host it, go on the road like all but one other team in the conference has to and quit whining about it.

This conference does not have a Kentucky or Duke that is going to travel huge and fill the place. The teams are not of such reputation that locals are going to come out in numbers just to see a game when they have no stake in it. It's really that simple.

As to destination cities, eh. I go for the games. I'll eat out, maybe tourist a little if I have time, but I"m not taking a week's vacation for the tournament to do the local sights. I'm there for my team's game.

(03-17-2015 10:38 AM)MTalum09 Wrote:  I only attended the Men's Conference Championship game. Birmingham isn't a bad city, but it does remind me of Memphis. Everything is just so run down and old. There really isn't much to do and downtown isn't really a "fun" atmosphere that draws people in. The game on Saturday seemed very unorganized. They sat MT fans in 2 different sections (across from each other) and scattered UAB people all throughout the MT sections and the rest of the arena (nobody sat on 2nd level). This automatically screamed "favoritism" to me. Put MT fans together and UAB fans together. It's not that hard. I've heard several MT fans (that spent several days) say that is was just OK. I think we need a destination city as well. If I want to take vacation time to travel to a conference tournament, then it better be somewhere with lots to do and see. I, honestly, think Nashville would be an awesome place to host. It just hosted the SEC Tourney so obviously it has something going for it. I also LOVED Fort Worth, Texas when we went to the Armed Forces Bowl. And though it would be far, anywhere on the Gulf Coast works well too.

You do understand that a lot of people just buy tickets at Ticketmaster or something and have no idea that they will be sitting with the MT fans, right? Do you also understand that the arena has no idea who the person buying a ticket roots for and really does not much care? All you can do is buy tickets from your athletic department and figure that most of your fans will be together then, but others who come later, unless they take the trouble to ask what section the others are in are going to buy the best available seats.

That's not favoritism, that's just how it works.

How many of you, before you went, stopped at Blazertalk and looked at the pinned thread on places to go, things to do, where to eat? Actually I think it got pinned on this board as well. How many of you griping read it and noted a few places that sounded interesting?

(03-17-2015 03:41 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  

(03-17-2015 08:43 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  I think it's funny how people don't want anyone to have a home court advantage. Here's the deal. We aren't the SEC. We aren't the ACC. We aren't the Big East. We can't draw thousands of fans to a neutral site. If we barely fill up a home court arena for games, why would we fill up a neutral site place?

"But it's more fair."

You may be right, but no one at the conference office cares about that. They care about one thing. Money. And a neutral site it an easy way to lose money.


And to anyone complaining about UAB's home court advantage, just stop. Seriously, stop. We dealt with going to Memphis for I don't know how many years. They never lost there. That's a home court advantage. Your team not showing up in Birmingham against and average UAB squad is their fault, not UAB's. And I'm not a fan of having the tournament in Birmingham. I'd rather have it somewhere else. But UAB isn't some impossible place to play/win at. No offense UAB fans, that's not meant as smack.

No, I tend to agree. All the neutral site stuff is nonsense. All the conference cares about is butts in seats, and that simply happens better if the games are in a team's home town. I have no problem with rotating the tournament, I'm not advocating putting it in Birmingham forever. The other side is that we have not hosted since 1999, we're done many road games, we were due. You don't want another team having home court? Press your administration and the local politicians to make a good enough bid to hold it on your floor. If you don't have the backing to host it, go on the road like all but one other team in the conference has to and quit whining about it.

This conference does not have a Kentucky or Duke that is going to travel huge and fill the place. The teams are not of such reputation that locals are going to come out in numbers just to see a game when they have no stake in it. It's really that simple.

As to destination cities, eh. I go for the games. I'll eat out, maybe tourist a little if I have time, but I"m not taking a week's vacation for the tournament to do the local sights. I'm there for my team's game.

Our mens team wasnt there so very few of us attended. BUT Ive discovered over the last week that we had an advantage of knowing Birmingham better.
For many of us summer trips included seeing the Braves. Well we have to go thru birmingham to get there. I spent some time there with work in the past. Plus we have been to legion many times to watch our eagles play bammer before uab had football. I know how run down that area is (better than it used to be).
We know Hoover is the place to stay. The growth over the last 20 years has been to the south so its newer and nicer. Our block of rooms were at the holiday inn hoover.
I was pleasantly shocked at the area around the arena. Didnt know it was such a convention destination with the restraunts there. Even have a Mugshots. Thats owned by some huge Southern Miss supporters and is based here in Hattiesburg.
If it comes back to birmingham Stay in Hoover or an area south. Its easy to get around and Birmingham is really a pretty town driving thru the midtown area.

(03-17-2015 03:47 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  

(03-17-2015 10:38 AM)MTalum09 Wrote:  I only attended the Men's Conference Championship game. Birmingham isn't a bad city, but it does remind me of Memphis. Everything is just so run down and old. There really isn't much to do and downtown isn't really a "fun" atmosphere that draws people in. The game on Saturday seemed very unorganized. They sat MT fans in 2 different sections (across from each other) and scattered UAB people all throughout the MT sections and the rest of the arena (nobody sat on 2nd level). This automatically screamed "favoritism" to me. Put MT fans together and UAB fans together. It's not that hard. I've heard several MT fans (that spent several days) say that is was just OK. I think we need a destination city as well. If I want to take vacation time to travel to a conference tournament, then it better be somewhere with lots to do and see. I, honestly, think Nashville would be an awesome place to host. It just hosted the SEC Tourney so obviously it has something going for it. I also LOVED Fort Worth, Texas when we went to the Armed Forces Bowl. And though it would be far, anywhere on the Gulf Coast works well too.

You do understand that a lot of people just buy tickets at Ticketmaster or something and have no idea that they will be sitting with the MT fans, right? Do you also understand that the arena has no idea who the person buying a ticket roots for and really does not much care? All you can do is buy tickets from your athletic department and figure that most of your fans will be together then, but others who come later, unless they take the trouble to ask what section the others are in are going to buy the best available seats.

That's not favoritism, that's just how it works.

How many of you, before you went, stopped at Blazertalk and looked at the pinned thread on places to go, things to do, where to eat? Actually I think it got pinned on this board as well. How many of you griping read it and noted a few places that sounded interesting?

At the very least the ticket office should know what section your team is going to be seated in. That was not the case with this tourney. If you bought the full session you turned in the voucher to your will call table and got a ticket...all of those were in the same section.

Now if a Western fan walks up to the ticket office window as says.. "I want a ticket in the WKU section" there is no reason in the world they shouldn't be able to buy that ticket. Well that was not the case at all and my biggest gripe about the way the tourney was ran.

The person at the ticket office would have told the fan ..."we don't know where your section is" "buy a ticket and it's hit or miss". That's what I was told on day one and two. The kind lady did tell me to go by the ticket office at UAB and they should be able to tell me. I called and the only thing UAB knew was that Western was the home team for that game. Could not tell me which bench so I could have made a educated guess. So I just bought mid court seats.

After Western wins I go to the ticket office to buy game 2 tickets again no clue. So like a fool I buy the same tickets thinking Western fans will be seating behind the team bench like at every tourney sitting that I've attended. It was a bad move on my part because like a fool instead of asking people putting on the tourney...

I should have called a few people that would have known..Western people. I didn't want to bother anyone with something so simple...buy my mid court seats and move over a section.

Boy was I wrong...Western fans was sitting across the court from the section I had and across from our team. NEVER in my life have I been to a tourney and the teams fan section was across the court.

It's totally stupid for the ticket office and UAB not to know the section and have it posted at the ticket office,. If you are going to a tourney...spending 100s of dollars and $37 on a ticket you want to sit with your teams fans.

Why didn't you ask your athletic department which section the WKU section was? They sold the tickets initially. I dare say that ticket office in the country could tell you what section a specific team was sitting in. I not defending the BJCC staff. I just think your request was unrealistic.

Last place team gets to host the next tournament. Infuses some life in the struggling programs and is as neutral as can be if we have to host at a members place.

I could handle a trip to Boca Raton.

Our experience with the VCU Invitational aka the CAA Tournament is probably what soured Dancing Monarch. The bias towards the unwashed Rams was 100 times worse than anything a UTEP or UAB home court advantage could affect a tourney. Our complaint was it was ALWAYS at the Brown Dump aka the Richmond Coliseum. The second that VCU bolted they moved it to Baltimore!

They should be rotated every 3-4 years between an Texas city, a Gulf Coast area, and maybe a Fla or mid-Atlantic or Tn or KY city. We are like UTEP as far as geographically challenged travel costs. Even Charlotte is a 5 hour drive. We love to go to the conference tournaments but ODU always goes to a good early season tourney so the conference tourney needs to be in an area that we can go to for a total cost of around $1000. Last year when we looked at El Paso it was almost the whole budget just to fly there. This year we had frequent flyer miles we could use to negate any flying costs.

Other ODU fans who attended...how many of us do you think there were? My guess is around 200???
If it was in a vacation city...FL or other beachy areas, Nashville, NOLA we'd probably have 400-500. Charlotte probably 600-800. If we made it to the FRi or Sat games probably 1000.

(03-17-2015 05:56 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Why didn't you ask your athletic department which section the WKU section was? They sold the tickets initially. I dare say that ticket office in the country could tell you what section a specific team was sitting in. I not defending the BJCC staff. I just think your request was unrealistic.

How is it unrealistic to expect that the arena where the event is held would know where the people attending would be seated?

(03-17-2015 06:09 PM)Ole Blue Wrote:  

(03-17-2015 05:56 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Why didn't you ask your athletic department which section the WKU section was? They sold the tickets initially. I dare say that ticket office in the country could tell you what section a specific team was sitting in. I not defending the BJCC staff. I just think your request was unrealistic.

How is it unrealistic to expect that the arena where the event is held would know where the people attending would be seated?

Put it to a test. Call any NCAA hosting site and ask them where one of the schools playing is going to be seated. My guess is they will tell you to contact that school since they are selling the tickets.

(03-17-2015 05:56 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Why didn't you ask your athletic department which section the WKU section was? They sold the tickets initially. I dare say that ticket office in the country could tell you what section a specific team was sitting in. I not defending the BJCC staff. I just think your request was unrealistic.

You mean to say they shouldn't know where a team's bench should be? right side, left side of the court? Nope and neither could UAB's ticket office. Western only sold packages and you did not get tickets but vouchers that you have to replace at a will call table before the game. So while I could have stopped by there a hour before the game and found out...

this is something the ticket office at the BJCC should have been made aware of for walk up fans. A easy fix to this probably would have been reserved sections instead of seats. BTW in the SBC tourney there were signed posted on which side of the court your team would be. But back to what I was saying...

reserved sections fixes this problem. You buy a $37 ticket and sit in any of the sections in that price range. First come gets the seat. Having reserved seats is stupid in a tourney setting because your team/fans will or should move depending on if they are the home or away team.

A fan shouldn't have to buy from or ask their ticket office something as simple as this. If you think this is unreasonable to expect a ticket office or a ASST ad AT uab to be able to find out on what side of the court the benches are on or what section is behind the home or visitor team...

you haven't been to very many tourneys

(03-17-2015 06:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  

(03-17-2015 06:09 PM)Ole Blue Wrote:  

(03-17-2015 05:56 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Why didn't you ask your athletic department which section the WKU section was? They sold the tickets initially. I dare say that ticket office in the country could tell you what section a specific team was sitting in. I not defending the BJCC staff. I just think your request was unrealistic.

How is it unrealistic to expect that the arena where the event is held would know where the people attending would be seated?

Put it to a test. Call any NCAA hosting site and ask them where one of the schools playing is going to be seated. My guess is they will tell you to contact that school since they are selling the tickets.

The seating will not be changing so that's not the same at all and the teams will have tickets not vouchers. One thing is for sure they would know the sections behind the teams benches and which would be home and away side....

with that its easy to figure out and one game your fans will not be sitting behind the bench and the next across the arena.