And I know good and well that our administration is completely satisfied with us being mediocre to terrible. Bennett doesn't care about athletics and demands no accountability for decisions made in the athletic department. While Gilbert won't come out and say it, I've heard him tell people in a roundabout way that he knows our situation is terrible, but he can't do anything about it because the President is the one who makes the most important decisions on athletic matters, i.e. conference affiliation.


With that said, while Gilbert may not be able to determine our conference, he can sure decide who leads our teams. And he has made some awful decisions so far, like extending Hopson four year with no notable wins under his belt and average results to follow. Now we've got Sadler, who's shown no ability to develop any talent, an inability to recruit good enough talent to be WILLIAM CAREY, has lost to multiple non-D1 schools over the years. At one point, a decision must be made to change directions. And I have very little faith that our administration on either end, top or athletic, will make that choice.


You wanna see success? You can't keep doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result. An absolute embarrassment of an athletic program, top to bottom.

(11-25-2018 04:53 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  And I know good and well that our administration is completely satisfied with us being mediocre to terrible. Bennett doesn't care about athletics and demands no accountability for decisions made in the athletic department. While Gilbert won't come out and say it, I've heard him tell people in a roundabout way that he knows our situation is terrible, but he can't do anything about it because the President is the one who makes the most important decisions on athletic matters, i.e. conference affiliation.


With that said, while Gilbert may not be able to determine our conference, he can sure decide who leads our teams. And he has made some awful decisions so far, like extending Hopson four year with no notable wins under his belt and average results to follow. Now we've got Sadler, who's shown no ability to develop any talent, an inability to recruit good enough talent to be WILLIAM CAREY, has lost to multiple non-D1 schools over the years. At one point, a decision must be made to change directions. And I have very little faith that our administration on either end, top or athletic, will make that choice.


You wanna see success? You can't keep doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result. An absolute embarrassment of an athletic program, top to bottom.

Almost agree whole-heartedly, but where do you get this "Bennett doesn't care about sports" stuff? Because it IS untrue, sorry..

(11-25-2018 04:58 PM)eaglebeaver Wrote:  

(11-25-2018 04:53 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  And I know good and well that our administration is completely satisfied with us being mediocre to terrible. Bennett doesn't care about athletics and demands no accountability for decisions made in the athletic department. While Gilbert won't come out and say it, I've heard him tell people in a roundabout way that he knows our situation is terrible, but he can't do anything about it because the President is the one who makes the most important decisions on athletic matters, i.e. conference affiliation.


With that said, while Gilbert may not be able to determine our conference, he can sure decide who leads our teams. And he has made some awful decisions so far, like extending Hopson four year with no notable wins under his belt and average results to follow. Now we've got Sadler, who's shown no ability to develop any talent, an inability to recruit good enough talent to be WILLIAM CAREY, has lost to multiple non-D1 schools over the years. At one point, a decision must be made to change directions. And I have very little faith that our administration on either end, top or athletic, will make that choice.


You wanna see success? You can't keep doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result. An absolute embarrassment of an athletic program, top to bottom.

Almost agree whole-heartedly, but where do you get this "Bennett doesn't care about sports" stuff? Because it IS untrue, sorry..

Besides hearing him say that Southern Miss fans have an unrealistic expectation for what our program is and should be (dominating this awful conference being the perception most fans think we should have). Besides knowing he is the one that could make things happen in conference change, yet he sits on his hands and accepts the current CUSA lineup and believes it's great for us and is exactly where we need to be? Besides the fact that every AD he's hired is just a yes man to him that brings no cultural change to fix our glaring problems? Or should I list how he's pretty much said he doesn't care about sports? Because any one of those should be a red flag. Put them altogether, it's no wonder we are where we are. We have zero leadership that cares about our athletic program. Period. And you can disagree, but I can only go off of what I know from people that deal with the administration all the time.

(11-25-2018 04:53 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  At one point, a decision must be made to change directions.

https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/stor...570924002/

(11-25-2018 05:03 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  

(11-25-2018 04:58 PM)eaglebeaver Wrote:  

(11-25-2018 04:53 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  And I know good and well that our administration is completely satisfied with us being mediocre to terrible. Bennett doesn't care about athletics and demands no accountability for decisions made in the athletic department. While Gilbert won't come out and say it, I've heard him tell people in a roundabout way that he knows our situation is terrible, but he can't do anything about it because the President is the one who makes the most important decisions on athletic matters, i.e. conference affiliation.


With that said, while Gilbert may not be able to determine our conference, he can sure decide who leads our teams. And he has made some awful decisions so far, like extending Hopson four year with no notable wins under his belt and average results to follow. Now we've got Sadler, who's shown no ability to develop any talent, an inability to recruit good enough talent to be WILLIAM CAREY, has lost to multiple non-D1 schools over the years. At one point, a decision must be made to change directions. And I have very little faith that our administration on either end, top or athletic, will make that choice.


You wanna see success? You can't keep doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result. An absolute embarrassment of an athletic program, top to bottom.

Almost agree whole-heartedly, but where do you get this "Bennett doesn't care about sports" stuff? Because it IS untrue, sorry..

Besides hearing him say that Southern Miss fans have an unrealistic expectation for what our program is and should be (dominating this awful conference being the perception most fans think we should have). Besides knowing he is the one that could make things happen in conference change, yet he sits on his hands and accepts the current CUSA lineup and believes it's great for us and is exactly where we need to be? Besides the fact that every AD he's hired is just a yes man to him that brings no cultural change to fix our glaring problems? Or should I list how he's pretty much said he doesn't care about sports? Because any one of those should be a red flag. Put them altogether, it's no wonder we are where we are. We have zero leadership that cares about our athletic program. Period. And you can disagree, but I can only go off of what I know from people that deal with the administration all the time.

Listen, I've never been one to side with the USM administration on anything (hence I ain't exactly their best friend over there)....and I agree we've screwed the pooch on pretty much EVERYTHING....BUT (there is always a "BUT" )....from my few talks with the current Prez and associates I know who surround him, the "hating" sports thingee is NOT true.

We do need to have a big pow wow between administration, students, faculty, staff, alumni and supporters and figure out how we can come up with a friggin' PLAN to end our athletic sh!tshow.

(11-25-2018 05:09 PM)eaglebeaver Wrote:  We need a PLAN.

Where do you get these paraphrases of what Bennett said? Your info contradicts nearly everything that I have heard first hand out of the man's mouth, both in private and public communication.

Well maybe he speaks differently around different people. I just know I have no reason to not trust what I hear from my sources, as they've been spot on every time in the past.

(11-25-2018 10:00 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  Well maybe he speaks differently around different people. I just know I have no reason to not trust what I hear from my sources, as they've been spot on every time in the past.

Well your “sources” don’t mean much vs what I see and hear first hand. I’ve heard Bennett talk about athletics from events open to the public all the way down to conversations with foundation board of directors members. None of it had anything to do with not caring about athletics and all to do with recognizing the tradition at USM and wanting to model that.

I don’t typically defend Bennett because I have my own issues but you’re just plain wrong on this one.

I’ve straight heard him say that USM fans have an over-the-top view of what our program is and should be. The fact of the matter is that our athletics are as competitive as the administration believes they should be. We’re competing at the level of their expectations.

(11-25-2018 04:53 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  Now we've got Sadler, who's shown no ability to develop any talent, an inability to recruit good enough talent to be WILLIAM CAREY, has lost to multiple non-D1 schools over the years.

I agree that the Hopson extension was horrible decision. We had no reason to do that and he had no leverage to negotiate that.

Basketball, on the other hand, is a completely different situation. It's kind of hard to expect a return when you've made no investment. We've essentially ignored basketball for the past 20 years or so. The only time we were decent was when Tyndall and his staff were cheating left and right. Our basketball facilities are not up to D1 standards. Reed Green is in need of a major overhaul and we have no dedicated practice facility.

Remember the proposed renovations: http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story.../22560403/

That was unveiled nearly 4 years ago. I haven't heard a peep about it since the spring of '15. No fund raising campaign. No bond initiative. Nothing.

We are vested in football and baseball, therefore I expect a return on those investments. But basketball has largely been ignored and thus I have no expectations of results.

And the longer we ignore it, the more money we're going to lose. It's a cash cow. We can pretend 'people don't come', but they don't come because we're awful. It's proven that a successful basketball team brings in a lot of money. It's time we invest in the program. Hire a new, young coach with an exciting brand of basketball and big dreams to be the next guy at Duke. Begin a campaign to renovate Reed Green completely and make it D1 standards. And let's get serious. It needed to be done ten years ago.