(04-09-2017 05:51 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 02:28 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  During the 2011-12 season Miami played at D2 Saginaw Valley State, allowing coach Charlie Coles to provide perhaps his last great post-game press conferences.

Quote:But I think Saginaw Valley was spirited. And I was glad that we gave them this opportunity to play a Division 1 school. Very seldom does a team that's supposed to be higher than you comes to your court. And I don't like that about college basketball, that a Michigan won't go to Western Michigan. They'll sign a 5-year deal and say "we'll never come." I never did get that...Gene Keady and Bobby Knight used to come to Miami, but they don't make 'em like that no more.

The big boys want more than an advantage. They're like deer hunters. I have nothing against deer hunters, but you know when you hunt deer, there's not even a remote chance that the deer is going to get you. I want to see a guy go against lions and elephants and bears."

And he's right about that. Millett Hall has hosted teams from Kentucky to IU to Purdue to Notre Dame to bunch of others I'm missing, not to mention local rivals like Dayton, Xavier, and UC regularly. That'll never happen now, even though not being able to get home-and-homes with any teams of that caliber nowadays is basically our fault with how bad we are. But even solid MAC programs like Akron and Ohio can't ever convince a power conference team to visit them.

I think in Miami's case, they used to be able to draw bigger schools because they had a better program. Miami won something like half of the regular season MAC championships before 2005, but has won zero since then.

It's a darn shame what's happened to Miami athletics over the past decade.

I agree, but like I said even good MAC programs can't get anyone to play there anymore. Kentucky and IU, or even power conference bottom feeders like Penn State or Rutgers, will never play at a MAC school again. Big East and the better AAC programs won't either, it'll be a decade before UC or Xavier will ever come back to Oxford even if we start playing better ball. At least in football you see it slightly more often since playing FCS games can negatively affect your schedule a lot more than low-majors in basketball, but it's still a rare occurrence.

Fortunately for us, it looks like football is about to break out after a decade of misfortune. Basketball will take a while to rebuild, but our new coach has a strong background and rumors of a new arena on the horizon keep popping up. Hockey was young this past season and will hopefully bounce back. Some non-revenue sports like soccer and volleyball have stayed strong even through bad seasons for the athletic department. But we're still reaping the 'rewards' of our previous AD, who left for BC in 2012, he should be arrested for athletic malpractice.