Cdizzle wrote:uniftw wrote:I'm not sold on UWM, HOWEVER, if we are going to add a 12th immediately and they can promise that they get their administrative crap in order I would take them over any other potential options.
Didn't the league just do this with LUC? Why not tell them there is a spot open as soon as they get their crap in order instead of letting them in and then hoping for the best?
If you're worried about our administrative problems, know this: I'm the reason you know about it. I'm the one who put a lot of that stuff out there. And I can tell you it's not going to be an issue.
The administrator who caused the 2014-15 APR ban entirely on his own has been gone for 3 1/2 years. They have put in all kinds of safe guards to make sure that never happens again. They've hired another person in compliance and the administrator overseeing men's basketball is not in that office. Before they were fired, the Jeter staff had rounded up most of the guys who hadn't graduated and got them there; we had a couple players who didn't even finish their eligibility with us come back and get their degrees here, to help the APR. For 2013-14, the last tournament year and before the ban was announced but after they found the problem, they finished with a perfect 1,000 APR score and unless I'm mistaken have done the same every year since.
The AD, while not my favorite person in the world and someone I'd rather see gone, got her reputation and the ire of a great many of our fans by how she handled the firing of Rob Jeter. The team won 20 games last year and had invites to all three postseason tournaments; she gave a poor reason for why she turned down the invitations, because she couldn't go public with the fact that she was lining things up to fire the coach. She also canceled the team's summer trip before the 2015-16 season for the same reason.
She's not a great person, but it doesn't take a genius to see she was doing it so she could fire the coaching staff after the season and replace them with someone she wanted. Does that help our case? No, but what it does show you is that the stuff that Amanda Braun did to get her reputation is entirely connected to firing a coach who is now gone. Her job is tied to the success of LaVall Jordan - she's going to do everything in her power to make sure he succeeds.
And even if you don't believe that, you should realize that picking the next member schools of the MVC based on one or two employees is foolhardy at best; AD's and coaches are stewards. What matters is the entire university, the fan base and the overall history compared to potential. You're not picking a school for the next five years, you're picking one for the next 25 years.
Some of you think the low attendance numbers this year have to do with a poor fan base. I think it's the opposite. Those fans spoke with their wallets in 2012-13 when the geriatric Andy Geiger moved the team to campus, and they're speaking now to how they feel about how the university handled the firing of Rob Jeter and his supporters in the athletic department. The university responded in 2013 by getting its ass back downtown; they learned their lesson with the Jeter firing as well.
This is a program that always sold out the Horizon League Tournament title game when it hosted, and always put 8k+ in for the semifinals. They have gotten 6k+ for conference opponents like GB, Valpo, Butler...they'll be able to sell fans on UNI and Bradley and Illinois State.
It should be noted that this season featured only four non-conference home games, with one of them being a non-D-I school. I've spoken with our current coaching staff; they are planning on highly elevating the non-conference schedule, and they told me that before Wichita State even left for the AAC so it's not something they're tying to a potential move to the MVC.
It looks like 4k is about where most of the conference is averaging. Milwaukee will get back to that in the MVC. I'm not worried about that. A winning Milwaukee will average 5k+, as it has in the past. I think a consistent 20-win MVC Milwaukee team's attendance floor will be about 4,500, and that's if I'm being conservative with my estimate. Once the Bradley Center is torn down and there's an entire athletic village in the block between the Panther Arena and the new Bucks stadium, I'm sure that floor is going to get higher.
As far as Loyola, I wouldn't expect us to need to do "administrative" clean-up because I would argue it already happened. If the MVC wishes it, I'd have no problem doing that so long as it's not ridiculous, which I have no reason to expect it to be. I don't know how the deal was with Loyola, but I know it would be nice to be in a conference with them again.
I wanna play Jesuit trivia. I wanna argue with Big Joe Rambler. I miss Sister Jean - which reminds me, I gotta get another Sister Jean bobble head because I seemed to have misplaced mine. She'd probably tell me I have to pray to Saint Anthony! I miss getting beers and burgers at Hamilton's before games (and I hear it's redesign as Bar63 is great).
I'm not familiar with the MVC's deal with Loyola. I just know they were our closest conference opponent (About an hour drive compared to 1 1/2 for UIC, 2 for GB and 2 1/2 to Valpo). I know that we won about 2/3 of the time after I got to school in 2005. I know we were a great fit for each other, just like we're a great fit with Valpo. And we will be a great fit for the MVC.
