Confused about the better product comment... we played for a conference title today. Kermit kicked ass the last 4 years and battled the same. I blame the administration and the city for not supporting or figuring out the issue.
While I think I conveyed the message in the earlier post, I will try again. For starters, I touched on the point and agree that Murfreesboro and alumni in Nashville need to do a lot better about supporting MT.
Blaming the people and town of Murfreesboro striked me as more of an angry response and blaming whatever target popped up instead of the ongoing overall lack of real success in football. The trend of MT football lacking real success that has included numerous near misses at the end of the season over the last 13 or 14 years is not exactly helping in building energy and buzz to win over casual sports fans. My point, some things need to be done over in The Murphy Center to build a little energy and buzz around MT football to help with the cause of better support and attendance. That includes perhaps setting sights a little higher than granting lifetime contracts based upon mediocre football records year after year.
Basketball is a different situation. I do blame the people of M'boro and the alumni in Nashville for not better supporting basketball better than they have. Overall, I like Murfreesboro. I think it is a good suburban area in a good part of the country. While there is a problem with the people of Murfreesboro lacking in support of MT particularly with attendance, let's not forget 75,000+ MT alumni just up the road in Nashville. Again, my point, how about some balance in assigning blame instead of just throwing Murfreesboro under the bus. It's a multifaceted problem.
Back to basketball, the people of Murfreesboro and alumni in Nashville area do share a huge amount of the blame for lack of attendance and support of MT bball. It's still a proportional problem. While I would like for The Murphy Center and Floyd Stadium to be full for each game, at least MT bball did see steady improvement in attendance over the 6-7 years of good success under Kermit. Again, I remember watching way too many games in The Murph with only about 1,200 - 1,500 in attendance for regular season games. That Kermit had gotten to about 6,500 in attendance for most home games was still a pretty darn good improvement. Again, I want to see 11,500 at each home game. There were a lot more than 6,500 at big games over the recent years. I recall that first big NIT run under Kermit when around 9,000 or 10,000 turned out on short notice vs Minnesota. My point here is that there were definitely some big gains and improvements in attendance for MT bball when MT started to enjoy sustained good success. Those last regular season home games for Kermit had legit great crowds for bigtime college bball environment. I know I was finally glad to see around 10,000 showing up for conference games still in the regular season. All of this at a time when most programs are struggling with declining attendance. MT bball was in a pretty decent position in reference to our conference mates.