(12-13-2021 10:36 AM)Tribal Wrote:  I believe we have too many programs and that doesn’t move the needle either way for me in terms of my support. I’m all in. I’d probably look at cutting golf, tennis and track & field for both sexes. Even slice. I’d do that in hope of getting our bottom line closer to black. No ifs ands or buts, just do it.

If that didn’t do it, I’d cut baseball and lacrosse but tread lightly on that..give the programs 3 years notice (where Huge really dropped the ball). Still no joy, cut swimming. Still in the red, cut men’s soccer.

I’d not touch football, basketball, field hockey, or whatever else is required to conform with T9.

And, to be clear, it’s about money, notoriety and school experience, not how well we perform in a given sport. No one *really* cares if womens tennis wins a conference title. It sounds good for a day but really doesn’t matter.

It's a good thing that you added the caveat that it is "not how well we perform in a given sport" because otherwise basketball would be the first to go and football since 2015 would not be far behind it. Also, re "school experience" it sounds like you would remove the school experience of several hundred athletes, of both sexes, when a far easier and more financially fruitful thing to do (budget-wise) would be to drop football which affects only one team and 103 men. (and I'm a big football fan).

Football provides a gameday experience, merch, tailgating, HC, and media coverage. 6 people attend tennis matches and 14 people have a clue about the program except for the one day Tribe Athletics tweets about a CAA Championship. It’s just a fact, not personal.

(12-13-2021 09:38 AM)billymac Wrote:  Well, we lost by a combined 61 points yesterday (Men's & Women's totals), so this may be more than a Dane problem. It might come down to how truly committed the W&M community is to actually having a successful basketball program, again, both Men's & Women's.

Are we truly on a course to allow both programs to compete on, at least, a semi-equivalent level? No doubt the current financial situation does not help either, but are we also being handicapped by long standing internal requirements or long held standards, as well?

This is the issue. W&M, the athletics department, and the athletics donors have NEVER truly committed the resources necessary to build a successful mid-major basketball program. Successful to me means a program that is a consistently above .500. Of course there will be some .500 or below seasons here and there, but that would be the exception, not the norm, for a successful program. Shaver did have things trending in that direction, but I would attribute that to good (and maybe some lucky) recruiting, not because of the program having the necessary resources available.

In the current world of college athletics (especially basketball), if a school wants to remain in Division I it needs to commit a baseline level or resources. W&M does not do that. And any time the school even mentions the possibility of doing that, there seems to be a backlash because W&M is "special." There is nothing special about committing to mediocrity.

(12-13-2021 11:39 AM)Old tribe Wrote:  This is the issue. W&M, the athletics department, and the athletics donors have NEVER truly committed the resources necessary to build a successful mid-major basketball program. Successful to me means a program that is a consistently above .500. Of course there will be some .500 or below seasons here and there, but that would be the exception, not the norm, for a successful program. Shaver did have things trending in that direction, but I would attribute that to good (and maybe some lucky) recruiting, not because of the program having the necessary resources available.

In the current world of college athletics (especially basketball), if a school wants to remain in Division I it needs to commit a baseline level or resources. W&M does not do that. And any time the school even mentions the possibility of doing that, there seems to be a backlash because W&M is "special." There is nothing special about committing to mediocrity.

I think we were well-positioned for a big move forward up until the triple-whammy of the Shaver firing, the Tribe 7, and COVID.

As you say, Shaver had the program trending in a successful direction. Funding for the big Kaplan upgrade was nearing reality. A whole lot of good things seemed ready to happen.

Whoever first suggested the term "nuclear winter" for what's happened since -- you're right on the money.

(12-13-2021 11:01 AM)Tribal Wrote:  Football provides a gameday experience, merch, tailgating, HC, and media coverage. 6 people attend tennis matches and 14 people have a clue about the program except for the one day Tribe Athletics tweets about a CAA Championship. It’s just a fact, not personal.

Okay, but just as long as you note that the following are true:

-- The gameday experience is becoming smaller and smaller as far as butts in the seats is concerned, especially as concerns the student butts in the seats.

-- The football game is not the draw for homecoming. Homecoming is the draw for homecoming and there just happens to also be a football game that day. Sure, that game draws more than other games but those people did not come to the burg specifically to go to the game, they came for the other festivities.

(12-12-2021 03:03 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  

(12-12-2021 02:59 PM)FauqDawg10 Wrote:  It's starting to feel like the staff has given up on Yuri, and I wouldn't exactly blame them.

And Carrol

IMO the staff made Covington sit out a half for some type of infraction or discipline. While Dane is not animated on the sidelines, he does seem to take action thru playing time.

You are correct about Carroll as he seems to lack a grasp of the offensive flow.

I think there are three types of alumni. 1) come back every year, 2) come back on big reunion years, 3) never come back. Your categorization probably fits 2 better than 1. From my experience the homecoming tailgate and game is the only thing a lot of people do outside of the delis. I'm personally a big fan of the parade, but that's fallen off too. It was very different 40 years ago with real floats, etc. Plus my fraternity got kicked off campus so there's no house to go to after the game.

(12-13-2021 09:03 AM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  He had 5 years left on his contract in perpetuity, as long as we were .500 or better, right? IIRC, every time we finished .500 or better a year got added on. It was a bad contract for W&M.

This is partially true but the automatic extension was capped. When Huge fired him that cap had just been meet by the 10-8 finishing 2018-19.

While many miss Tony and he is wonderful guy, the need to continue revisit his dismissal and hold it over the head of Dane is not going to help this team or our fan base.

WMMII-

One cannot look at the product on the court, and blame the coach (some of the first 43 posts on this thread), without remembering how we got to this place … the purpose of my post #44.

Given the history of how we got here, it is completely unrealistic and unfair to hold over Dane’s head some type of short leash, as suggested in some of the first 43 posts on this thread.

Where we are is not on Dane, nor the team … where we are is on the folks noted in my post #44, and if any of those folks are turning up the heat on Dane … here or elsewhere … that just reaks of cowardly duplicity … they broke it, they own it.

It is possible to be both a Tony guy, and a Dane guy, and that’s my perspective.

Dane is OUR guy, and this is OUR team, and Dane, the staff, and the team have a leash from W’burg to Taiwan to get this straightened out, IMHO, … the naysayers notwithstanding.

(12-13-2021 12:59 PM)wmmii Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 09:03 AM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  He had 5 years left on his contract in perpetuity, as long as we were .500 or better, right? IIRC, every time we finished .500 or better a year got added on. It was a bad contract for W&M.

This is partially true but the automatic extension was capped. When Huge fired him that cap had just been meet by the 10-8 finishing 2018-19.

While many miss Tony and he is wonderful guy, the need to continue revisit his dismissal and hold it over the head of Dane is not going to help this team or our fan base.

That’s what message boards are for. I’m not yelling it and screaming it at games. I just want better insight on the reasons people think Shaver was let go. I still have season tickets for basketball but I’m really concerned at the current state of affairs. Are you not concerned?

(12-13-2021 01:43 PM)nj alum Wrote:  WMMII-

One cannot look at the product on the court, and blame the coach (some of the first 43 posts on this thread), without remembering how we got to this place … the purpose of my post #44.

Given the history of how we got here, it is completely unrealistic and unfair to hold over Dane’s head some type of short leash, as suggested in some of the first 43 posts on this thread.

Where we are is not on Dane, nor the team … where we are is on the folks noted in my post #44, and if any of those folks are turning up the heat on Dane … here or elsewhere … that just reaks of cowardly duplicity … they broke it, they own it.

It is possible to be both a Tony guy, and a Dane guy, and that’s my perspective.

Dane is OUR guy, and this is OUR team, and Dane, the staff, and the team have a leash from W’burg to Taiwan to get this straightened out, IMHO, … the naysayers notwithstanding.

His leash has an end date March 2024 if he doesn’t get this turned around.

All of the current struggles are fairly forseeable. We have currently no upperclassman(juniors and seniors that contribute). Blair and Harvey may contribute some this season, but Blair has been hurt and Harvey will be back soon. Remember the significant progression that Pierce and Knight made from their freshman to second seasons? It seems reasonable that some progress will occur. Hatton, Rice and Lewis look like they are going to be solid players. The Tribe just needs a few more good players. Hopefully, two more are on the way for next season. It would be great to get a third. This season is going to be painful to watch.

(12-13-2021 01:48 PM)Touchdown Green and Gold Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 01:43 PM)nj alum Wrote:  WMMII-

One cannot look at the product on the court, and blame the coach (some of the first 43 posts on this thread), without remembering how we got to this place … the purpose of my post #44.

Given the history of how we got here, it is completely unrealistic and unfair to hold over Dane’s head some type of short leash, as suggested in some of the first 43 posts on this thread.

Where we are is not on Dane, nor the team … where we are is on the folks noted in my post #44, and if any of those folks are turning up the heat on Dane … here or elsewhere … that just reaks of cowardly duplicity … they broke it, they own it.

It is possible to be both a Tony guy, and a Dane guy, and that’s my perspective.

Dane is OUR guy, and this is OUR team, and Dane, the staff, and the team have a leash from W’burg to Taiwan to get this straightened out, IMHO, … the naysayers notwithstanding.

His leash has an end date March 2024 if he doesn’t get this turned around.

This presents Mann with a dilemma. Dane will have recruiting difficulties if recruits know that his contract is up before they graduate …. and college athletics is all about recruiting. It’s a chicken and egg scenario. I suspect that that is one reason why Tony had a “rolling” five year contract.

Some how this thread has gotten off track, the track dealing with the abysmal performance that I witnessed first hand yesterday against Fairfield and the consistently bad performances which I have watched throughout the entire season. I have fought like Hell not to come on here and post on this subject because it really does not in the least relieve the sadness and hopelessness that I feel at the moment about a program that has been, and will continue to be, a very important part of my life for the 47 years that I have held season tickets since I graduated in 1975.

Let me start by stating several things up front. First, I loved Tony Shaver as a coach because for the last decade of his coaching tenure he always gave me hope that one day before I died I might actually get a chance to see my beloved Tribe play in the NCAA tournament. The 4 days in Richmond in 2008 were about as much joy as I had felt as a Tribe fan. 2010 was also wonderful, and the trips to Baltimore were as much fun, followed by as much despair, as I have ever felt. I still replay the Daniel Dixon shot on occasion when I need a pick me up and still remember that I almost had a heart attack when the shot went in. I hate Huge for firing Tony when she did because, if everyone had stayed, the next year's team was quite possibly going to be the most talented Tribe team that I had ever watched.

Second, the program has always been woefully underfunded, and during all of those Swenson years, Boyages years, and even the early Shaver years, I always felt that if the administration could take a real chance on the program, embrace the program, and do everything they could to get butts in the seats, we could be THE program on campus and bring the school positive notoriety that it could not get from ANY other sport that we have. Huge actually had that one right.

Third, I love our student athletes, and no matter how much sadness that I am feeling at the moment, I will never come here and say anything hurtful about any player on our current roster even if I might get upset about a turnover, a missed free throw, etc. I am sure that every kid on our roster is feeling a lot worse than I am at the moment.

The failure of this year's season certainly, to some degree, is connected to Tony's firing. And this year's team, and this year's coaching staff, is certainly impacted by the funding issues that we have, but these are the same issues that we have faced for decades and in my mind have only a minimal impact on why this year's team has won only one game while most of the teams in the past decade have been good and fun to watch.

The stark reality is this was most probably always going to be a tough season, even if Tony were still coaching the team, although we will never know what his recruiting class that would be sophomores this year and his recruiting class that would have been freshmen this year would have looked like. What we do know is that of his five man recruiting class of players who would have formed this year's senior class, two are still with us (Blair and Harvey), one would have probably left regardless of who the coach was (Scott) and two would have been starters (Owens and Audige), with, I think, only Audidge being a real difference. Secondly, his Junior class was made up of only one player, Cameron Brown, and nothing about his St Joe's career has been particularly newsworthy. What would still have been missing on this year's team, even if it were Tony's team, would be veteran point guards who could lead a young team. I really truly did not realize how much of an impact that Luke had on last year's team until he has now left and even last year I knew that his impact was tremendous.

So Tony would have had no senior point guards on his roster and neither does Dane. but Tony would have had two senior guards that Dane is missing and that certainly would have made this year better and the team more competitive. The second thing that has torpedoed this year and lies squarely at Huge's feet is the timing of Tony's firing that has left us with the lost Junior class, and that is certainly not Dane's fault. Tony would have had only Brown, baring a transfer coming in. Because of Tony's firing and the resulting avalanche of departures, Dane had to scramble and load up on freshmen (4) in April just so he could have a team to put on the floor. The best of the bunch, Wight, redshirted and is a pretty good player, Of the other three, one transferred out and the other two cannot get minutes even on a 1-11 team.

So all that I have said so far is that even Tony may have probably struggled with the team that he put on the floor this year and Dane is having to deal with a very young roster that is not entirely his fault. But having said that, there is no excuse for the consistent lack of competitiveness with this year's team and I sincerely believe that we are better than the team that I have watched all year. Where is the energy? Where is the passion? Where is the emotion? You can be undermanned, be inexperienced, and still go out and try to play a brand of ball that is fun to watch and fun for the players. We cry for senior leadership yet the most athletic senior scorer that we have now sits for the whole game. We beg for scoring and yet one of our best scorers does not start yesterday and only enters the game in the second half after we already trail by 15. And yes I can figure out on my own that their must have been a disciplinary reason for the benching. We beg for guard play but there are moments when neither Yuri or Tyler are on the floor. The coaches apparently love Jake but he maybe sees 5 minutes in the game.

Have we given up on the season and are preparing for next season already? If not, why does our senior transfer sit. We STRUGGLE in our half court offense, yet we probably have more athletic players on this team than were on many teams that I have followed over the years. Can we take advantage of this athleticism in a way that makes it easier for us to score. Color me crazy, but I would like to see more energy spent on a pressing defense that might lead to some points in transition.

Bottom line for me is that we have the roster that we have for the rest of the year and it is the coaching staff's responsibility to give them a better chance to succeed. As I watched the game yesterday I thought back to my favorite movie when Norman Dale played most of the second half with only four players when he had a fifth player on the bench that he could have put in. The high school principal, who was sitting next to him looked at Coach Dale and said "I sure hope that you know what you are doing". I surely felt that way yesterday.

75-

Forget yesterday. Pretend it never happened!

The ODU and Hampton games need to be in the memory banks. There was progress there.

We can’t shoot. That’s it in a nutshell.

If the game is in the 50’s, we have a shot … diminishing odds at 60 and above.

Looking for a silver lining …. we’re holding back so that nothing is on tape entering CAA play. That’s all I’ve got. :-)

(12-13-2021 12:59 PM)wmmii Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 09:03 AM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  He had 5 years left on his contract in perpetuity, as long as we were .500 or better, right? IIRC, every time we finished .500 or better a year got added on. It was a bad contract for W&M.

This is partially true but the automatic extension was capped. When Huge fired him that cap had just been meet by the 10-8 finishing 2018-19.

While many miss Tony and he is wonderful guy, the need to continue revisit his dismissal and hold it over the head of Dane is not going to help this team or our fan base.

IMO what's relevant now is that I don't think we're in a financial position to get another head coach, whether you argue for more patience with Coach Fischer or not. A big part of who we hired last time (again, in my opinion) was based on not having money to pay two head coaches, and we certainly can't pay 3.

(12-13-2021 03:20 PM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 12:59 PM)wmmii Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 09:03 AM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  He had 5 years left on his contract in perpetuity, as long as we were .500 or better, right? IIRC, every time we finished .500 or better a year got added on. It was a bad contract for W&M.

This is partially true but the automatic extension was capped. When Huge fired him that cap had just been meet by the 10-8 finishing 2018-19.

While many miss Tony and he is wonderful guy, the need to continue revisit his dismissal and hold it over the head of Dane is not going to help this team or our fan base.

IMO what's relevant now is that I don't think we're in a financial position to get another head coach, whether you argue for more patience with Coach Fischer or not. A big part of who we hired last time (again, in my opinion) was based on not having money to pay two head coaches, and we certainly can't pay 3.

Unless we moved down a level and found a Division III or Division II rock star with a burning desire to coach Division 1. Certainly did not hurt Wisconsin / Wisconsin Green Bay.

(12-13-2021 03:26 PM)ttgwm02 Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 03:20 PM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 12:59 PM)wmmii Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 09:03 AM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  He had 5 years left on his contract in perpetuity, as long as we were .500 or better, right? IIRC, every time we finished .500 or better a year got added on. It was a bad contract for W&M.

This is partially true but the automatic extension was capped. When Huge fired him that cap had just been meet by the 10-8 finishing 2018-19.

While many miss Tony and he is wonderful guy, the need to continue revisit his dismissal and hold it over the head of Dane is not going to help this team or our fan base.

IMO what's relevant now is that I don't think we're in a financial position to get another head coach, whether you argue for more patience with Coach Fischer or not. A big part of who we hired last time (again, in my opinion) was based on not having money to pay two head coaches, and we certainly can't pay 3.

Unless we moved down a level and found a Division III or Division II rock star with a burning desire to coach Division 1. Certainly did not hurt Wisconsin / Wisconsin Green Bay.

It can be done. Don't forget that Tony was an ultra-successful coach himself at Div III Hampden-Sydney. He had even applied for the Tribe job previously when Boyages was selected.

(12-13-2021 03:43 PM)Zorch Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 03:26 PM)ttgwm02 Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 03:20 PM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 12:59 PM)wmmii Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 09:03 AM)WMInTheBurg Wrote:  He had 5 years left on his contract in perpetuity, as long as we were .500 or better, right? IIRC, every time we finished .500 or better a year got added on. It was a bad contract for W&M.

This is partially true but the automatic extension was capped. When Huge fired him that cap had just been meet by the 10-8 finishing 2018-19.

While many miss Tony and he is wonderful guy, the need to continue revisit his dismissal and hold it over the head of Dane is not going to help this team or our fan base.

IMO what's relevant now is that I don't think we're in a financial position to get another head coach, whether you argue for more patience with Coach Fischer or not. A big part of who we hired last time (again, in my opinion) was based on not having money to pay two head coaches, and we certainly can't pay 3.

Unless we moved down a level and found a Division III or Division II rock star with a burning desire to coach Division 1. Certainly did not hurt Wisconsin / Wisconsin Green Bay.

It can be done. Don't forget that Tony was an ultra-successful coach himself at Div III Hampden-Sydney. He had even applied for the Tribe job previously when Boyages was selected.

He was awesome at HSC. Candidly I think that is what we are going to have to do to be successful if our current staff cannot turn things around. No credible assistant coach from the Division One ranks is going to be interested in our job. No NCAA tournament births, no CAA tournament titles, and we fired the only coach to (1) get us within a hair of both, (2) consistently win, and (3) develop at least twelve players into credible professional prospects (McDowell, Kitts, Sumner, Tarpey, Cohn, Thornton, Dixon, Prewitt, Knight, Rusthoven, Van Vliet, Pierce).

(12-13-2021 03:43 PM)Zorch Wrote:  It can be done. Don't forget that Tony was an ultra-successful coach himself at Div III Hampden-Sydney. He had even applied for the Tribe job previously when Boyages was selected.

When you talk about AD mistakes, that one is right up there with any of them. That mistake cost us, at least, 3-4 years of development as a program.


As for this team, I am looking, almost purely, at this point, at player development. If I don't see a degree of growth in the young players, then I have concern about the talent of the people instructing them.

I'm in Richmond, so I have watched VCU start a very young team, as well. They started like we did, with tons of TO's and poor shooting, even losing to Wagner, but their young guys are showing improvement, especially in cutting down on turnovers. We need to see the same type improvement, especially in turnovers. As someone mentioned, it might also be good to use more pressure defense to see if we can manufacture some easy buckets.

Young players, thrown into the fire, either harden or melt. I'm still believing that our guys with get tough.