(07-22-2020 09:00 PM)NJDuke97 Wrote:  

(07-22-2020 06:55 PM)BleedingPurple Wrote:  

(07-22-2020 06:06 PM)NJDuke97 Wrote:  Some folks may take this the wrong way and I mean no disrespect to players who have worn the uniform even during the last 20+ years when the MBB program has been by in large a failure. I certainly have respect for the teams in the 70s and 80s and early 90s and want things to return to that but it is so far removed that while I get someone saying they want to engage alumni and bring back tradition I think in reality JMU basketball has to chart its own course and start its own traditions and own winning culture.

Even when Rowe would talk about the good old days aside from a few wins and the shot by Culuko those teams while solid kind of underperformed. They weren’t power houses or model teams by any measure. We can do better than that and we should.

Under Lefty, I definitely agree, though they were far from disappointing, they seem to come up just short of expectations. Whole different story under Campanelli. His teams were always overachieving, with the exception of his final two seasons when he'd lost to graduation a whole slew of starters. I have no doubt he'd have brought JMU back to the top of the conference had the Golden Bears not grabbed him up. Out there he took perennial bottom dwellers to the dance and became a nightmare for the Bruins.

Not disagreeing with you and those were the glory years and I know the early Lefty years were great too in terms of the excitement around the program the crowds etc but we are talking about 30-35 years ago. It’s always important to honor and pay tribute to the past but my point is in a new arena in particular JMU MBB under Coach B is a complete blank canvas and I’m excited about that- I don’t need to reminisce about the Convo or Godwin- new arena, new coach, completely new era. Win and you will get alumni who played hoops or followed it to follow this team. If some more recent alum are in the basketball family and can help the program in any way great but there isn’t enough of a recent legacy or culture to point back to- needs to be all new and fresh IMO because it’s been bad or mediocre for so long- long enough that even some of the parents of recruits weren’t old enough for it to register.

Totally understand and agree. We've been down so long there's few who remember over 5k fans every time we played a home game. This is going to be much more difficult and different than Campanelli had to accomplish. We weren't bad, we weren't good, we were non-existent prior to his arrival.Then Lefty was able to keep it going. MB has got to make the team as well as the fans believe we can win when we've done nothing but lose for two decades.