jfort88 Wrote:There is no doubt that the money and conference is a better fit for Christian. He will be paid much better than he was at Kent State as well as deal with better facilities. He will also be able to make it to the NCAA Tournament much easier as the MAC is a on-bid conference and the MWC can get two, three and sometimes even four bids.
Where the lateral move talk comes in is TCU is not exactly a team the Christian can step in and win with. Sure Christian has done a great job at Kent State having twenty win season in all six seasons, but he has never won a tournament game and never built a program. Christian stepped into a MAC program at its pinnacle (the year after the 2002 run) and simply maintained it. Regardless of what TCU thinks.
Christian's teams are are usually always win now teams that are loaded with JUCOS that are inserted and not developed. outside of JUCOS, his recruiting is spotty at best.
It is the opinion of many around Kent State that it would have been much smarter for him to step into a program that can promote itself and Christian could once again maintain instead of build on his own.
It will be interesting to see if he can actually build a program, especially in an area that is sifted through by Kansas, Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A &M, Baylor and any other school fomr that area who has a better reputation first.
While you are correct, financially the MWC is a nice fit, but Christian doesn't seem like a good fit for TCU.
I think Christian looks at this like an oportunity to get into the NCAA tourney quicker to repair his tournament record. He will then jump to a better university. TCU just seems like an odd choice to get a quick Tourney win.
First off thanks for posting... I have been trying to make at least 2 good posts a day and sure is easier when you can respond to another poster....
IMO, TCU is looking at him to take them to the NCAA right away, they currently would just like to finish a couple years in a row with a winning record, since Neil Dougherty brought them 1 in the last 6 years as their Head Coach and then followed that season up by going 6-25 the following season.
Neil Dougherty has slowly killed TCU's attendance;
Couldn't find TCU attendance numbers for his 1st season of 2002-03
2003-04; Record 12-17, 7-9... 17 games, 78,599, average of 4,623
2004-05; Record 21-14, 8-8... 17 games, 73,849, average of 4,344
2005-06; Record 6-25, 2-14... 16 games, 60,745, average of 3,797
2006-07; Record 13-17, 4-12... 17 games, 63,448, average of 3,732
2007-08; Record 14-16, 6-10... 17 games, 60,000, average of 3,529
That starts adding up really fast, TCU's basketball tickets average over $30 a seat... So if you take 18,599 x $30 = $557,970 in a difference in revenue between the 2003-04 season and the 2007-08 season. That's not taking into account parking fees or food sold and ect... NCAA and NIT bids would be a bonus at this point for TCU...
Coach Christian should had a good core to start his tenure with since TCU returns their top 2 scorers, 3 starters, and 2 other players that were part-time starters:
Returning player for TCU
Kevin Langford 6’8” 245, F; Started 30 of 30 games, 13.3 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 40 A
Henry Salter 6’4” 215, G; Started 24 of 24 games, 13.3 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 14 A
John Ortiz 6’8” 225, F; Started 24 of 24 games, 5.2 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 8 A
Keion Mitchem 6’ 159, G; Started 1 of 29 games, 4.7 PPG, 1.3 RPG, 15 A
Jason Ebie 6’1” 175, G; Started 14 of 30 games, 4.7 PPG, 2.4 RPG, 84 A
Mike Scott 6’ 175, G; Started 15 of 29 games, 3.3 PPG, 1.0 RPG, 62 A
Luke Tauscher 6’11” 220, F/C; Started 0 of 26 games, 1.8 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 7 A
Martiese Morones 6’ 165, G; Started 0 of 24 games, 1.3 PPG, 0.9 RPG, 19 A