BASKETBALL Rock The Glass House

[dukewayne]

The Blue Raiders did a great job to come back from Texas with two wins. As the season goes on, I suspect that win at Rice will get bigger and bigger for the Blue Raiders.

It sort of pained me to hear Coach Kermit pleading for fans to come out and pack The Murphy Center for next week's huge home games. Pained me in that Coach Kermit and the team shouldn't have to say anything to have great crowds in attendance. They have earned it!

On boards like this, I know I'm preaching to the choir. The people on here are the folks at the games when no one else comes out to the games. This team's success combined with the upcoming rivalry games definitely warrants us fans to get the word out to anybody and everybody to come out to the games. Marshall and the 100 Miles of Hate rivalry are deserving of some big buzz.

 

[Stonesraider]

I tell people all the time they have a chance to see a high caliber college basketball team right here. Especially the younger people I'm around.

It will be ashame if we get anything less than 7k for each game. That should be easy with the population around us. Unfortunately much of our growth is made up of people who come here from somewhere else with loyalty to other teams.

You've got to wonder if we can't get the attendance now; will we ever? Winning records, long list of "big wins," charasmatic coach who is good with the media, great arena that doesn't have a bad seat, so forth.

A top 25 rating would have helped a lot. I just hope Kermit doesn't give up on building a "national program" here.

 

[MTOleBlue]

If you have Facebook join the event page for the Marshall game and invite your Murfreesboro and MT friends (mouse over "Share" then click "Invite Friends" -- you can select groups of friends based on location [Murfreesboro, Nashville], education [MTSU], etc.). Social media is under utilized especially by our official athletic department folks. Let's hit, like the event says, 10000 for Marshall. We can definitely do it, the fans are there, just gotta get them out there and get them excited. We're winning, Coach Davis is preaching to everybody, now just gotta connect people and get everybody there.

 

[Blueraider_Mike]

We are not gonna have 10k for anyone just yet. Let's compare it to the last few years and measure improvements incrementally.

 

[MTOleBlue]

We had just under 10,000 for Vanderbilt... against WKU a few years back we had 10,200. It's there but we have to tap into it.

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

7 PM TIPOFF!!!!

 

[dukewayne]

And now as fate would have it early in the conference race, Thursday vs Marshall will now be for 1st place in C-USA. After today's games, MT and Marshall are the only two teams left undefeated in conference. There is a whole mess of teams with 1 loss. After Thursday night, only one team will remain undefeated in C-USA.

 

[dukewayne]

I tell people all the time they have a chance to see a high caliber college basketball team right here. Especially the younger people I'm around.

It will be ashame if we get anything less than 7k for each game. That should be easy with the population around us. Unfortunately much of our growth is made up of people who come here from somewhere else with loyalty to other teams.

You've got to wonder if we can't get the attendance now; will we ever? Winning records, long list of "big wins," charasmatic coach who is good with the media, great arena that doesn't have a bad seat, so forth.

A top 25 rating would have helped a lot. I just hope Kermit doesn't give up on building a "national program" here.

In the postgame interview, Kermit seemed to assert that the program is now a national level program. Of course I'm going from memory, so don't quote me, but he seemed to be saying that the attendance has to be there for this level of success. He went on to describe some national level programs that the crowds have come out to support their success these last few years i.e. VCU, Butler, Dayton.

For the first time since all of Kermit's success these last 5 or 6 years, a deep concern hit me about possibly losing Kermit if the university community isn't supporting the program with outstanding attendance. Kermit mentioned something about the players talking about over 9,000 for the Vandy game, but no crowd that size since then. The question then became, did the fans just come out for Vandy when MT is the top performing program? Rightly so, this team deserves some excellent crowds.

I do hope Kermit continues to remain dedicated and loyal with MT and is just rightly trying to light a fire underneath the fanbase. 15 years here and constant comments from Kermit about how his family loves this community does speak volumes.

 

[dukewayne]

We are not gonna have 10k for anyone just yet. Let's compare it to the last few years and measure improvements incrementally.

It's somewhat of a tall order right now as I'm not even sure if the students are back. Regardless, I think 10K is a really good goal that could be obtained particularly with some good buzz.

I submit that the last 5 years MT has had solid incremental improvements in attendance. At this point, I think 10K is a reasonable and achievable goal for big rivalry conference games in light of the years of great success.

A brief online review turned up attendance numbers for last year and so far this season. Anything before that will require more research or just trying to remember. So far this season, MT is slightly above the season avg of last year's attendance. Currently, MT is close to 5400 a game at home so far this season. It will be interesting to see where attendance goes this season once students get back on campus.

Last season, home games vs VCU and UAB had good home crowds in the 8 thousands. Interestingly, MT was beat for the 2nd time by UAB in front of that good home sized crowd. The following game was WKU. Attendance dropped off to 4-5000 for that WKU game. This seems relevant when one considers a similar setup this week with Marshall up first for the top of the conf followed a couple of days later by WKU. A good showing i.e. win vs Marshall should help return a good crowd for WKU. If MT doesn't make goal of say 10K, I don't see too many complaining if the Marshall game brings in 8-9000. Same for WKU.

A continued good run could result in 6000 or more average this season. Room for much improvement? Yes. pretty good progress that MT has seen these last 5 years. Big games with MT success can easily bring 8000-9000 for those big rivalry games. We're talking numbers here that are MT fans; not half the arena filled with opponents fans.

I remember plenty of seasons where 1500 sadly seemed pretty normal. Big games in some of those seasons might have been around 4000 once or twice. At that time, 4000 was a great crowd. MT has definitely improved these last 5 years, there is certainly room for more improvement. 8000-9000 would be pretty good crowds for big rivalry games this season. Of course trying to get to 10K would be even better.

Lastly, I'd venture to guess that most of the teams we play would love to get 5000+ a game average.

 

[SpaceRaider]

Spring Semester doesn't start until January 17

 

[Blueraider_Mike]

You can't compare us to VCU, Butler or Dayton. Heck, we have lost to VCU everytime we have played them, didn't Butler beat the #1 team in the nation. We haven't been beyond the round of 32. We haven't been to the NCAA tourney multiple times in a row. We are better but not in that class yet.

Attendance is a bit better and I anticipate it growing this year with the students.

 

[RandallThomason]

You can't compare us to VCU, Butler or Dayton. Heck, we have lost to VCU everytime we have played them, didn't Butler beat the #1 team in the nation. We haven't been beyond the round of 32. We haven't been to the NCAA tourney multiple times in a row. We are better but not in that class yet.

Attendance is a bit better and I anticipate it growing this year with the students.

Not to nitpick but we did beat VCU in the 2004-05 season. CKD is 1-3 in 4 games against VCU, but I know that doesn't negate your overall point.

The uphill fight that CKD is trying to win is the battle to build a basketball culture at a university that is attempting (ostensibly) to compete at the national level in both football and basketball. VCU is a school of 31,000 enrollment where basketball is THE focus of the university's athletic pursuits. VCU coach Will Wade, in his pregame press conference prior to this season's game against us, basically came right out and said that he believes CKD is at a disadvantage because he is operating at a university trying to play FBS football.

I think this question comes down to the university needing to establish what exactly is our athletics mission statement (and by "mission statement" I mean on the field athletic performance, as it goes without saying that we want to graduate our players and help them become productive citizens), and then communicating that to our fan base and university community.

In my view, I want us to be one of the premier Group of Five universities for success in both football and basketball. I want to reach a point where we are one of the top 10-15% of programs among the Group of Five in both football and basketball. No school in that group has really figured out how to have consistent two-front success in the modern war of college athletics. You can see the struggle in a school like UConn, who won the national championship in basketball as recently as 2014, but with the realignment of the AAC and them losing their old Big East basketball conference-mates, UConn is now struggling to continue the magic (5-9 this season and just one NCAA Tournament berth in the three years since their 2014 NCAA title, assuming they miss again this year). WKU went from one of the most nationally well known mid-major basketball brands 15 years ago to currently wallowing in mediocrity after their push to FBS football.

I have not heard the athletic department state the kind of goal I outlined above with any specificity, and frankly that bothers me. I would love to see a campaign around campus where we state some specific goals, outline some steps to map our progress, and then try to get specific buy-in from as many people as possible to complete those steps and pursue the goals.

All of this has been said before by many people on here, so no need to go on (although everyone on this board I think could write a doctoral thesis on issues related to this general topic.)

 

[Stonesraider]

I came to MTSU a football fan only. As a student, my wife and I went to Operation Full House against WKU and got hooked. I still love football but the whole system is so predetermined. No matter how well you do they'll match you with a school "like you" or a struggling power 5 school. People are so in the bag for their SEC football it will be hard to ever get any of that crowd. Even some of the SEC's own basketball teams struggle for attendance.

To me basketball is more authentic and sustainable. I'm not saying quit football but we have a better chance to succeed in basketball.

I don't think any of our conference teams could keep a coach with Kermit's record the last 5 years. We need to prove to him we can sustain a crowd. He wouldn't be talking about it if he didn't know our potential. Our crowd can be as good as any college basketball when everything come together.

 

[Matt Dossett]

Most crowded game I've ever been to was Minnesota in NIT. No excuse for not having 7 K minimum for each game this week

 

[Stonesraider]

I think their radio guys remarked about how loud it was that game. If I remember correctly it was a Sunday afternoon or some time we don't normally get good crowds

 

[RandallThomason]

I think their radio guys remarked about how loud it was that game. If I remember correctly it was a Sunday afternoon or some time we don't normally get good crowds

That game was on a Wednesday night, I think with a 6 pm start time.

 

[MTFNBY5]

I would like to think that The Murph could return to it's glory years which occurred in the first dozen of so years after it was built but I'm afraid those days have passed. OVC BkB was high on the list of sports interests in the mid-state at the time during the winter months, just behind VU BkB and possibly what was happening at Stokley in Knoxville. Now MT BkB is so far from the casual mid-state sports' awareness as to be practically nonexistent, even in the Boro.

MT BkB was relevant before the NFL in Nashville (whose season extends into BkB); the NHL; the rise of women's BkB including state-wide interest in the Lady Urenge; and when TSU, Belmont, and Lipscomb were playing at either the DII or NAIA level. Both Nashville papers had a beat writer assigned to the OVC and all 3 (at the time) Nashville TV stations would be at games to get footage (which wasn't available if they weren't there). There were only two Nashville sports talks shows and OVC coaches were frequent guests on one of them (I never listened to the other which was very UT-K oriented IIRC). This was long before the ESPN revolution and there were only a handful of games live anywhere on TV.

Times have changed to the point that this old-time fan who would have hoped when it was built that The Murph would have to be replaced by a larger venue is now conceding that we may only occasionally have the need for an 11,000 seat facility. The athletic teams from my university have such a limited sphere of influence I see little hope we can become a VCU or Butler in BkB or a Boise in FB. Wrong place, wrong time. Dreams die.

 

[Stonesraider]

I think our arena is on the large side but maybe not. The arenas built today seat a lot less people. Ole Miss and Auburn's are both around 9.5k.

Replace the wooden bleachers with small permanent seating on the sides and boxes in the endzones or the other way around. It would reduce capacity and appear full.

 

[Raiderclyde]

In arena size there's two schools of thought. Each has pluses and minuses with cost/benefit:

(1) The idea of MT hosting a first/second round NCAA game like we did in 1979 for national exposure--for example, University of Utah frequently hosts that round (there now in Pac 12). To do that, MC is slightly too small. Sometime during the 1990's a 12,000 seat capacity was announced as minimum size for first round cities. Sweet 16 and Regional Finals had capacity of even more (thinking 15K?). Nowadays, with Bridgestone and other glitz and glamor arenas throughout the country, its a difficult process to win a bid with the highly competitive process. We're talking at least $100 million+ in renovations to MC to really make that happen (we spent about $14 million in our last update, and that was really mostly deferred maintenance and mandatory items). A larger arena would attract the concert venue performers and larger trade shows. MC was famous in its first twenty years in this community investment.

(2) Is the more intimate business model: Reduce capacity somewhere between 8,800 and 10,000 but upgrade everything. No bleacher seats. Skyboxes. Better working press area. A restaurant in the arena. A full line fan shop. Cupholders in the current chairbacks. Things that make going to the game more desirable. Something to improve engagement and program revenue. This is less costly than #1 and would not require a ton of new student fees or tax dollar appropriations from somewhere else.

Think we still have some of that "OVC era mindset" on doing things on a shoestring budget. That may not be all bad; however, if MT wants that next level--where we are in the AP Top 25 and winning NCAA games more than once or twice a generation, then we have to increase our investment and be very selective to marketing. The question then becomes, is there enough fan interest to maintain and excel FB and BB at the highest level all at the same time? It was brought up elsewhere that WKU has sacrificed some of its basketball "cachet" to focus on football and its recent records in basketball has generally reflected that. Can we be that elite G5 program that has both? I'm not sure on a sustained basis without having something to suffer...that is the "holy grail", as I see in G5 athletics with a school of a $30-40 million dollar budget for the entire athletic department with all sports. It's hard, but that is the AD and University President's vision to sell to alumni and the Murfreesboro community.

How do we build our entire athletic program to the next level is the operative question as we rapidly approach the third decade of the 21st century? Our next full graduating class (incoming freshmen of 2017) will be seniors at the start of that third decade. MC will be right at a half century old by then! That's what our leaders need to be thinking twice about in accomplishing goals and vision for our University to gain national prominence.

 

[T2Tool]

I think our arena is on the large side but maybe not. The arenas built today seat a lot less people. Ole Miss and Auburn's are both around 9.5k.

Replace the wooden bleachers with small permanent seating on the sides and boxes in the endzones or the other way around. It would reduce capacity and appear full.

I agree with this in theory, but until Middle gets another indoor track facility I don't believe anything permanent can be done.

 

[Stonesraider]

In football, we'll be held to a lower class no matter what we do. We have to schedule our games around Tennessee and Vanderbilt so maybe we can get a couple hundred of our alumni who would rather root for Alabama or Florida. We have to set up inflatables and magicians in the concourse just to make people have fun. It shouldn't be like this but it is.

In basketball we can make a run in the NCAA any given year. We shouldn't have to convince "the community" to come to games. We should have enough dedicated alumni to even come once every couple games to get 9k a game.

 

[SpaceRaider]

In football, we'll be held to a lower class no matter what we do. We have to schedule our games around Tennessee and Vanderbilt so maybe we can get a couple hundred of our alumni who would rather root for Alabama or Florida. We have to set up inflatables and magicians in the concourse just to make people have fun. It shouldn't be like this but it is.

In basketball we can make a run in the NCAA any given year. We shouldn't have to convince "the community" to come to games. We should have enough dedicated alumni to even come once every couple games to get 9k a game.

To have "dedicated alumni" you have to have "dedicated students" before that and boy are we failing there. I know Kermit does reach out to various student groups, but it never seems to stick. I have been hoping to see some growth there. I thought the blow out win over Vandy might help there, but the ga state loss may have hurt. The fact that the three biggest conference games at home are during the break between semesters do not help at all.

Seems like when you have five or six weeks break between semesters you are killing the ability to build and keep attention of a generation that has the perceived attention span of a hamster. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but as student many decades ago we never had such a long break between semesters.

 

[Raiderclyde]

To have "dedicated alumni" you have to have "dedicated students" before that and boy are we failing there. I know Kermit does reach out to various student groups, but it never seems to stick. I have been hoping to see some growth there. I thought the blow out win over Vandy might help there, but the ga state loss may have hurt. The fact that the three biggest conference games at home are during the break between semesters do not help at all.

Seems like when you have five or six weeks break between semesters you are killing the ability to build and keep attention of a generation that has the perceived attention span of a hamster. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but as student many decades ago we never had such a long break between semesters.

Yes! My graduation day was December 19, 1992 and I had my first graduate school class on Tuesday, January 12, 1993. Basically a 3.5 weeks break---little longer than elementary and high school schedule. My last final was 16th December 1992. Never forget the three block walk from KOM to home that day when I was done that late afternoon, earning an "A" on my very last final! This fall is reunion year---25th year as alum, halfway to Golden Raider! Time really flies!!

 

[dukewayne]

Wasn't like 10 years or so ago that they shortened the semesters in a budget cutting move? School starts about a week later in Aug than it traditionally has. Fall semester ends a little earlier earlier in Dec. Then Spring semester starts a week later than it has in the past. The semester would start more like Jan 7 instead of Jan 17th. MT bball is definitely suffering from the move.

I'm not sure how much money is actually being saved. I think they extended classes like 5 or 10 mins to make up for the shorter semester. A shame in my opinion. A university education is about being in that academic environment for a significant amount of time of the year. The interactions with others, studying, researching in the library, class projects, time with professors contribute to an academic environment that enhances learning beyond just the classroom.

In my opinion, those changes just further reinforced MT as a commuter college. Makes it more difficult to build that relationship and loyalty in students which shows up in lack of alumni participation.

 

[dukewayne]

Not to nitpick but we did beat VCU in the 2004-05 season. CKD is 1-3 in 4 games against VCU, but I know that doesn't negate your overall point.

The uphill fight that CKD is trying to win is the battle to build a basketball culture at a university that is attempting (ostensibly) to compete at the national level in both football and basketball. VCU is a school of 31,000 enrollment where basketball is THE focus of the university's athletic pursuits. VCU coach Will Wade, in his pregame press conference prior to this season's game against us, basically came right out and said that he believes CKD is at a disadvantage because he is operating at a university trying to play FBS football.

I think this question comes down to the university needing to establish what exactly is our athletics mission statement (and by "mission statement" I mean on the field athletic performance, as it goes without saying that we want to graduate our players and help them become productive citizens), and then communicating that to our fan base and university community.

In my view, I want us to be one of the premier Group of Five universities for success in both football and basketball. I want to reach a point where we are one of the top 10-15% of programs among the Group of Five in both football and basketball. No school in that group has really figured out how to have consistent two-front success in the modern war of college athletics. You can see the struggle in a school like UConn, who won the national championship in basketball as recently as 2014, but with the realignment of the AAC and them losing their old Big East basketball conference-mates, UConn is now struggling to continue the magic (5-9 this season and just one NCAA Tournament berth in the three years since their 2014 NCAA title, assuming they miss again this year). WKU went from one of the most nationally well known mid-major basketball brands 15 years ago to currently wallowing in mediocrity after their push to FBS football.

I have not heard the athletic department state the kind of goal I outlined above with any specificity, and frankly that bothers me. I would love to see a campaign around campus where we state some specific goals, outline some steps to map our progress, and then try to get specific buy-in from as many people as possible to complete those steps and pursue the goals.

All of this has been said before by many people on here, so no need to go on (although everyone on this board I think could write a doctoral thesis on issues related to this general topic.)

It's been a year or two, but I used to constantly beat on that drum of lack of university leadership. This lack of leadership is especially noticeable as you mentioned in a vision and conveying said vision to the university community about aspirations and goals of the sports teams.

Football is almost directionless right now. As for bball, it's a shame that Kermit is having to plead for attendance with all of the success he has been having. I get on some level, Kermit advocating for a big turnout is being a good D1 Head Coach. I do hope upwards of 9000 come out for the upcoming huge games for the sake of the players. More energy and noise just might help give the players a little edge in the games.

 

[dukewayne]

It would be nice to get just a small fraction of all those people boasting about "their" team back in March to come out for this week's games.

 

[MTFNBY5]

I did notice several vehicles heading east on I 24 last week that were obviously UT-C students heading back to school. And MT doesn't start for two weeks later? Only six games left during the spring semester to build student interest once conference games start. Not good.

 

[TheBigBluePeach]

I will be at the game on Thursday and possibly Saturday.

 

[AustinLewis]

IMO, delaying the start of school is just setting up the school to create a two week winter term to "help students graduate quicker" (by graduate quicker, we mean increase our revenues).

 

[Raiderclyde]

Wasn't like 10 years or so ago that they shortened the semesters in a budget cutting move? School starts about a week later in Aug than it traditionally has. Fall semester ends a little earlier earlier in Dec. Then Spring semester starts a week later than it has in the past. The semester would start more like Jan 7 instead of Jan 17th. MT bball is definitely suffering from the move.

I'm not sure how much money is actually being saved. I think they extended classes like 5 or 10 mins to make up for the shorter semester. A shame in my opinion. A university education is about being in that academic environment for a significant amount of time of the year. The interactions with others, studying, researching in the library, class projects, time with professors contribute to an academic environment that enhances learning beyond just the classroom.

In my opinion, those changes just further reinforced MT as a commuter college. Makes it more difficult to build that relationship and loyalty in students which shows up in lack of alumni participation.

Yes. Also, what happened then was most 132 hour bachelor degree programs got sliced to 120 hours, per TBR approval. That was done to require fewer "general studies"/"liberal arts" classes that everyone must take regardless if one was an Accounting or Theater major for cost savings on a degree program. In the 2000's decade, tuition costs were climbing 8.5-11 percent per year, while inflation and paychecks raises were running at 1.5-3 percent--even sometimes no raises. State funding increases were meager, in general.

Was a little saddened to see some general disciplines being carved away, as one can learn useful principles in some of those courses. Learning makes one for a well rounded scholar. Different delivery options really take away that traditional affinity that was enjoyed for our first 75-80 years as a institution of higher education. Now thanks to the Internet, one may get a bachelors degree just about anywhere and "town and gown" loyalties are not quite as fervent, because it is possible to get a degree without establishing residence or even setting foot physically on campus through the RODP or other adult study programs.

This was also well received move by students. This move helping them get a degree in four much easier! Those 12-16 hours was really a semester's worth of classes, and many did not necessarily want to take extra classes unrelated or marginally related to their field.

MT now has a satellite campus in Shelbyville at the backside of the old Bedford Co General Hospital for the convenience of Southern Middle Tennessee. It's possible to earn a bachelors at this facility. It's made possible partnership with Motlow State Community College and Bedford County Government:

http://www.mteducationcenter.com/about.php

 

[RaiderDawg78]

To have "dedicated alumni" you have to have "dedicated students" before that and boy are we failing there. I know Kermit does reach out to various student groups, but it never seems to stick. I have been hoping to see some growth there. I thought the blow out win over Vandy might help there, but the ga state loss may have hurt. The fact that the three biggest conference games at home are during the break between semesters do not help at all.

Seems like when you have five or six weeks break between semesters you are killing the ability to build and keep attention of a generation that has the perceived attention span of a hamster. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but as student many decades ago we never had such a long break between semesters.

Has anyone seen the master plan for MT lately? One of my biggest pet peeves while at MT was that it was a suitcase college. It was a ghost town around campus from Friday afternoon until late Sunday night. I always thought schools that have policies like freshman must live on campus unless they live with parents or are married, or freshman cannot have cars on campus have an advantage. The campus is a fully functioning town. Even smaller schools like North Alabama require it now. If you are on campus and you don't have a car, you are going to look for things to do.