(08-29-2017 10:54 PM)JhanJo Wrote:  What is the timeline on Bill Laurie getting involved with the basketball program? I know he liked Josh personally and that may have been a reason but who was the AD, RC or Bowen? Whoever it was deserves credit. At least 10 million worth.

Mainly Brad Martin. December of '13. Brad Martin was interim President, and Martin was the main contact with Laurie, they are longtime friends. Martin and Laurie were students at the Memphis State at the same time in the early 70s. .

(08-29-2017 10:54 PM)JhanJo Wrote:  What is the timeline on Bill Laurie getting involved with the basketball program? I know he liked Josh personally and that may have been a reason but who was the AD, RC or Bowen? Whoever it was deserves credit. At least 10 million worth.

As I understand it, Laurie's involvement was more a function of RC leaving than any other single factor.

(08-30-2017 11:21 AM)mphsfan Wrote:  

(08-29-2017 10:54 PM)JhanJo Wrote:  What is the timeline on Bill Laurie getting involved with the basketball program? I know he liked Josh personally and that may have been a reason but who was the AD, RC or Bowen? Whoever it was deserves credit. At least 10 million worth.

As I understand it, Laurie's involvement was more a function of RC leaving than any other single factor.

Also true. But someone still had to reach out and re-build the relationship with the school, and that person was Brad Martin.

My only real disappointment has been women's basketball.

I think we missed an opportunity there with UCONN in the league and Pat Summit gone.

Maybe it's not too late.

(08-30-2017 08:36 AM)TigerFan38134 Wrote:  

(08-29-2017 03:16 PM)Hernando Hills Tiger Wrote:  https://www.bubbleroomrestaurant.com/home

can I send you the bill or should I just bring it in December when we come?

Bring some of that bubble bread but they only have it at dinner not lunch. I ate at the Rendezvous last night and it reminds me of the Bubble Room in that there is so much to see in every room.

(08-29-2017 09:21 AM)fsquid Wrote:  well, at the end of the day, everyone was snubbed by the Big 12.

details details --just a minor detail in the minds of those on a mission

(08-29-2017 01:26 PM)tmoneyinmphs Wrote:  Congrats, stammers for backing up an opinion with something other than insults. It's not that hard to remain civil and disagree, and i can now list the reasons i don't like bowen and a few things i did like.

Things i liked:

He brought a new energy.
Norvell was a good hire.


Things i don't like:
I don't see him being a leader and accepting responsibility. It's really hard to tell who is in charge at the u of m especially when **** hits the fan.

I don't like bowen blowing sunshine up the fans azz like saying there is no ceiling on tiger football when there is a ceiling. Or saying he isn't interested in other jobs.

Extending josh pastner's contract when it was obvious that there was a large group of tiger fans hating on pastner by 2013. I don't know if it made a difference if bowen and pastner had the same agent, but it makes you wonder.

Staying on the pastner point, in the last year, the tigers basically told fans that pastner was done and to please come back and help fill the attendance numbers. As soon as the season ended, they released a statement to the press saying pastner was staying before making it official a week or so later. At this point, the tigers had stayed with josh at least one or two years too long. This was the main cause of the fall of tiger basketball, imo.

If the tigers had a family like the lawsons coming on board, a new coach should have came with them. When tubby was hired, there seemed to be a miscommunication about keelon lawson's role, etc. There's no way someone couldn't say that the lawsons sabotaged the end of last year's bball season. It's just been a big mess.

It's safe to say that the bball program that was nearly on the top of the world is now nothing more than an average nobody college basketball program and can't even make the NIT tourney.

The big 12 failure has to go on his record, fair or not.

Failing to keep fuente less than one year after negotiating a contract extension. Imo, we lowballed fuente. The proof is we offered to make fuente the best paid coach in our conference not even a year later ONCE we realized he was probably going to leave. We were very lucky to get another good coach, but that luck could run out, and with some losses, things could return back to normal.

Granted the football program has been on the rise, but i credit fuente more than anyone else. He started all of it by changing the culture from losing to winning. I get that football can help us get into big conference, but it hasn't yet. Imo, there are several teams moving up before we do and everyone feels eventually there will be only 4 conferences that matter.

Quote:Things i don't like:
I don't see him being a leader and accepting responsibility. It's really hard to tell who is in charge at the u of m especially when **** hits the fan.

I don't like bowen blowing sunshine up the fans azz like saying there is no ceiling on tiger football when there is a ceiling. Or saying he isn't interested in other jobs.

Our corporate deals with airlines, rental car companies and hotel chains were criminal under RC. We were paying top dollar for all 3 when anyone hooking up on their websites could have landed better deals than RC did. RC DID get the corporate rates in all cases, but this rate wasn't passed on to the school...draw your own conclusion about why.

Kevin Grothe goes to jail, miraculously is able to pay off all of the money he stole, and then even more miraculously is able to land a plumb job with Memphis In May. Again, draw your own conclusion. Bowen kept his mouth shut and took blame for a lot of illegal and unethical stuff during the Shirley - RC reign, which is the hallmark of a leader.

Quote:I don't like bowen blowing sunshine up the fans azz like saying there is no ceiling on tiger football when there is a ceiling. Or saying he isn't interested in other jobs.

IF Boise, in the middle of nowhere with no recruiting base and a crappy little field can go to a NY6 bowl, why would anyone say that there is a ceiling on what we can do? IF Houston can be a threat to go to the playoff with their pathetic fan support, why can't we?

As far as interest in any other jobs, the best thing to do is to deny it. That is much better than having speculation which leads to it making it much more difficult to do the job and is a major distraction. He was at San Jose State for 8 years and has been here for 5 years. Regardless of what he says or does in the future, he is obviously not a job hopper.

Quote:Imo, there are several teams moving up before we do and everyone feels eventually there will be only 4 conferences that matter.

It is baffling why some Memphis fans think this. There really aren't any programs that offer ALL of our combination of fan support, location, fertile recruiting ground, corporate backing, bowl game affiliation, inroads and inclusion within the Big12 and $EC footprint; lack of competition from other pro/college teams, etc. Not Houston, not Cincinnati, not BYU, not Boise, not anyone. The reason why Rudd didn't issue a statement when we were supposedly eliminated is because we weren't eliminated.

I agree that it was a horrible move to not re up Fuente right away and it was very strange how we lowballed him. The only reason I can think of is because Fuente was up front with us, telling us that he expected to be at Memphis for 2 seasons. Obviously, the Tubby hire was also a disaster.

In the end, there is a reason why AD's like RC have crappy football programs wherever they end up and why AD's like Bowen have turned around two programs.

(08-30-2017 12:20 PM)Claw Wrote:  My only real disappointment has been women's basketball.

I think we missed an opportunity there with UCONN in the league and Pat Summit gone.

Maybe it's not too late.

What does this even mean?

Stammers, some good points, some not so good, IMO.

First, why do some persist with the myth that Memphis wasn't eliminated from the Big 12 chase last September 2nd? We were. End of story. To claim otherwise lessens your credibility on all other points.

No doubt Bowen is a strong administrator, and has cleaned up RC's messes. I would give him an A in this area. Football scheduling, if you have followed the home-and-home thread, is I think very poor.

But also interesting how Bowen seems to get much of the credit for the rise of the football program, and no doubt he deserves a great deal of credit despite not hiring Fuente, yet seemingly receives no blame for the decline of the basketball program.

Re our P5 desirability, you leave out major drawbacks that our school has. Presidents at P5 conferences ultimately vote new members in. Memphis is not ranked in the Top 600 schools in the USN&WR rankings. And our endowment is 1/6 the size of a school like Cincinnati. Presidents care deeply about things like rankings and endowments. The ACC was criticized for inviting Louisville in 2012 because of Louisville's comparatively "low" ranking, and Louisville was ranked around 170 at the time. These are very, very high hurdles for Memphis to overcome.

(08-30-2017 12:43 PM)AlonsoWDC Wrote:  

(08-30-2017 12:20 PM)Claw Wrote:  My only real disappointment has been women's basketball.

I think we missed an opportunity there with UCONN in the league and Pat Summit gone.

Maybe it's not too late.

What does this even mean?

SEC women's bball is down. Only three teams finished in the top 20 last year.

UTK was not one of them. The Lady Voles has an embattled coach and suffer from instability in the AD's office. Fans are split over their coach like we were over Pastner.

We can offer a chance to play UCONN. We will have some excellent new training facilities.

Now is the time to bring in an upcoming coach from the Pat Summit tree.

Stuff a little money in there.

The opportunity is there now. It may never come again.

(08-30-2017 12:54 PM)Tigx Wrote:  Stammers, some good points, some not so good, IMO.

First, why do some persist with the myth that Memphis wasn't eliminated from the Big 12 chase last September 2nd? We were. End of story. To claim otherwise lessens your credibility on all other points.

No doubt Bowen is a strong administrator, and has cleaned up RC's messes. I would give him an A in this area. Football scheduling, if you have followed the home-and-home thread, is I think very poor.

But also interesting how Bowen seems to get much of the credit for the rise of the football program, and no doubt he deserves a great deal of credit despite not hiring Fuente, yet seemingly receives no blame for the decline of the basketball program.

Re our P5 desirability, you leave out major drawbacks that our school has. Presidents at P5 conferences ultimately vote new members in. Memphis is not ranked in the Top 600 schools in the USN&WR rankings. And our endowment is 1/6 the size of a school like Cincinnati. Presidents care deeply about things like rankings and endowments. The ACC was criticized for inviting Louisville in 2012 because of Louisville's comparatively "low" ranking, and Louisville was ranked around 170 at the time. These are very, very high hurdles for Memphis to overcome.

Quote:First, why do some persist with the myth that Memphis wasn't eliminated from the Big 12 chase last September 2nd? We were.

We weren't. This is from people I trust and from Rudd's statement. I agree with your statement about the challenges faced, but in the end, everyone agrees that Louisville has been great for the ACC and the Big 12 made a huge mistake by not inviting them.

Our endowment has risen $50 million since 2014. Louisville's endowment has risen $1 million since 2006. We had a pledge to spend $500 million with $140 million of it earmarked through private donations. Even though Louisville's endowment is more than 3 times the size of ours, Big 12 presidents have a great relationship with Rudd and recognize that Rudd was doing the things needed for us to be on track to be deserving of membership. Rudd got his PHD from the University of Texas and also was employed by Texas Tech and Baylor between 2004-2009.

In any event, like I said, everyone I trust told me that we were not eliminated and Rudd himself issued a statement saying that we shouldn't believe everything that is said in the press.

We were eliminated. 100%. What Rudd's statement are you talking about? Are you really saying that because Rudd issued a non-committal PR statement that somehow proves what literally every local, Big 12 and national writer reported? When Calkins and Vernon and Stats and even Woloshin are saying we were eliminated, it's because the Memphis admin. is telling them that is what happened.

Who, besides the guy who posts in Smack, has told you we weren't eliminated? I'm really curious.

Louisville's endowment no longer matters, the are in the club. Ours is still very low. And the school rank is hard to get around.

We need to make the AAC as strong as possible, and be poised to add good football members when appropriate.

(08-30-2017 08:36 AM)TigerFan38134 Wrote:  

(08-29-2017 03:16 PM)Hernando Hills Tiger Wrote:  https://www.bubbleroomrestaurant.com/home

can I send you the bill or should I just bring it in December when we come?

Tender a letter.

(08-28-2017 11:28 AM)snowtiger Wrote:  Shout out to Bowen! He's come a long way from San Jose State.
I saw a snippet interview with him in the Football tailgate video. He was talking about the kinds of fans that were in Memphis. He gets it.

Change of heart?

(08-28-2017 12:37 PM)snowtiger Wrote:  It's no secret that Tom Bowen has been applying for almost every P5 AD job that comes along.

I kind of like him now, though, now that I am more of a FB fan.

Yea, I like him too. I hope we can hang on to him for a little while longer. He's done well for the University.

(08-30-2017 01:52 PM)Tigx Wrote:  We were eliminated. 100%. What Rudd's statement are you talking about? Are you really saying that because Rudd issued a non-committal PR statement that somehow proves what literally every local, Big 12 and national writer reported? When Calkins and Vernon and Stats and even Woloshin are saying we were eliminated, it's because the Memphis admin. is telling them that is what happened.

Who, besides the guy who posts in Smack, has told you we weren't eliminated? I'm really curious.

Louisville's endowment no longer matters, the are in the club. Ours is still very low. And the school rank is hard to get around.

We need to make the AAC as strong as possible, and be poised to add good football members when appropriate.

We weren't eliminated. If we were Rudd would have said that we were. He didn't. He said not to believe what you hear in the media.

Quote:When Calkins and Vernon and Stats and even Woloshin are saying we were eliminated, it's because the Memphis admin. is telling them that is what happened.

Just so I have a grasp on what you are saying, did Rudd talk to Stats and Bowen talk to Woloshin or was it the other way around? Which one of them told Vernon?

Seriously?

(08-30-2017 12:26 PM)Hernando Hills Tiger Wrote:  

(08-30-2017 08:36 AM)TigerFan38134 Wrote:  

(08-29-2017 03:16 PM)Hernando Hills Tiger Wrote:  https://www.bubbleroomrestaurant.com/home

can I send you the bill or should I just bring it in December when we come?

Bring some of that bubble bread but they only have it at dinner not lunch. I ate at the Rendezvous last night and it reminds me of the Bubble Room in that there is so much to see in every room.

I miss Memphis BBQ and Pancho's cheese dip!!

(08-30-2017 08:34 PM)Stammers Wrote:  

(08-30-2017 01:52 PM)Tigx Wrote:  We were eliminated. 100%.

Who, besides the guy who posts in Smack, has told you we weren't eliminated? I'm really curious.

Louisville's endowment no longer matters, the are in the club. Ours is still very low. And the school rank is hard to get around.

We need to make the AAC as strong as possible, and be poised to add good football members when appropriate.

We weren't eliminated. If we were Rudd would have said that we were. He didn't. He said not to believe what you hear in the media.

Quote:When Calkins and Vernon and Stats and even Woloshin are saying we were eliminated, it's because the Memphis admin. is telling them that is what happened.

Just so I have a grasp on what you are saying, did Rudd talk to Stats and Bowen talk to Woloshin or was it the other way around? Which one of them told Vernon?

Seriously?

I figured you had absolutely no evidence. Yes, Alnutt and Bowen and Rudd were telling the media, and big boosters. Unattributed. Rudd thought we had to follow the silly NDA, even though ECU and Boise State didn't. Privately, they confirmed it. If you don't know this, you are very, very far out of the loop.

Thank God the Big 12 didn't expand and take Cincy and Houston from the AAC. Memphis is in a good spot, we need to quit pining for a Big 12 invite that is not going to come.

You are making yourself look silly clinging to the myth that Memphis wasn't eliminated.

Why do some of these guys turn every thread into multiple paragraph pissing contests?

Good grief

(08-31-2017 08:34 AM)Tigx Wrote:  

(08-30-2017 08:34 PM)Stammers Wrote:  

(08-30-2017 01:52 PM)Tigx Wrote:  We were eliminated. 100%.

Who, besides the guy who posts in Smack, has told you we weren't eliminated? I'm really curious.

Louisville's endowment no longer matters, the are in the club. Ours is still very low. And the school rank is hard to get around.

We need to make the AAC as strong as possible, and be poised to add good football members when appropriate.

We weren't eliminated. If we were Rudd would have said that we were. He didn't. He said not to believe what you hear in the media.

Quote:When Calkins and Vernon and Stats and even Woloshin are saying we were eliminated, it's because the Memphis admin. is telling them that is what happened.

Just so I have a grasp on what you are saying, did Rudd talk to Stats and Bowen talk to Woloshin or was it the other way around? Which one of them told Vernon?

Seriously?

I figured you had absolutely no evidence. Yes, Alnutt and Bowen and Rudd were telling the media, and big boosters. Unattributed. Rudd thought we had to follow the silly NDA, even though ECU and Boise State didn't. Privately, they confirmed it. If you don't know this, you are very, very far out of the loop.

Thank God the Big 12 didn't expand and take Cincy and Houston from the AAC. Memphis is in a good spot, we need to quit pining for a Big 12 invite that is not going to come.

You are making yourself look silly clinging to the myth that Memphis wasn't eliminated.

If the Big 12 didn't take anyone, why get all upset about getting eliminated? EVERYONE was eliminated!