(01-26-2010 08:21 AM)Bruin2002 Wrote: Dad, what do you think is the reason DLU can't get over the hump and win like they did in the NAIA?
"Win like they did in the NAIA" is a bit of a reach. Kansas doesn't win like DLU used to.
For "over the hump," I'll take the ability to finish off a game late. Take last year: 0-5 in close games in conference. Go 3-2, and we're in the NIT at worst. 2-3 makes us a 2-seed playing the conference tournament at home. Is that coaching, conditioning, or both?
I'd also like to see Lipscomb TURN ON THE FREAKING LIGHTS! I was sitting in the seventh row behind the media table Saturday and couldn't see the band in the end zone seats 75 feet away. I mean, come on. This is the school that invented the phrase "Battle of the Boulevard." Surely they should know that purple seats against a black background are going to be a little . . . uh, what's the word . . . , oh yeah. DARK!
But that's just a symptom. I don't think DLU quite appreciates what goes into being a legit, D-1 school. If you want to recruit nice guys who don't get in trouble and by the way can also happen to play a bit, all the while entertaining high-school-sized crowds of family, friends, and curious on-lookers, just admit that and drop to D-2 or (better yet) D-3. Maybe then we could field 17 NCAA sports and have more than 10 winning seasons COMBINED per decade.
But from the top down, DLU is trying to have it both ways. They're trying to cash in on as many perks of D-1 membership as they can without doing what it takes to provide a real D-1 experience: to their fans, their players, their coaches, or even their opponents. And the fans aren't buying it. Players aren't, either; there's a reason that despite our coach's contacts all over the southeast half of DLU's recruits come from either Nashville or Sarajevo.
And the building. Ugh. Allen Arena doesn't have a door so much as it has an event horizon. A brightly-lit, energetic mass at the center surrounded by swirls of silent darkness. (Yeah, yeah, Goldfinger, "And everything inside it sucks." We all saw that coming. Very original.)
Lipscomb has been caught in what Kyle Whelliston calls the "Sports Bubble." The problem is, the only people who don't see it and think Lipscomb can pull off this D-1 charade are the people making the decisions in the President's and AD's offices. And until there is change there, it's not going to happen anywhere else.