Time for Marquette to move to the Atlantic 10.....

[Pakuni]

[AirPunches]

duanewade seems to be a pro-shaka, anti-wojo troll. It used to be a Marquette fan. I really think this may be a case of an old user's account getting hacked and used for trolling purposes.

Got it. So Duanewade=dick strong ?

[tower912]

So few ways that you could be a bigger loser. 

[chapman]

before he was banned.

Can it be done again?

Speaking of the A10, has MU achieved the previous regime's goal of becoming just like St. Louis? Such a thin fabric with Big Rick passing on.  Would have been a bad choice for the BE.

Smart move to not be hasty with all the instability there.  We'll see what becomes of them now that they have a President, permanent coach, and only three upperclassmen on the team.  

[4everwarriors]

Don't take this in the wrong way, but, respect the process aina?

[GGGG]

The only piece of history that Heisenberg is missing, is that duanewade trolled as "The Sultan of Silly" for about a year before he was banned.

Should I be honored?

[The Process]

Should I be honored?

If I was cool enough to be parodied, I'd be honored.

Out of curiosity, how many posters around here have been parodied via user name, besides Sultan?

[jt92]

The crowds have sucked.  Fact.  People were praised this board for being excited about creighton, butler and possibly St. Louis and Dayton.  Now that we stink and many of us who predicted exactly what is happening are getting killed even though its exactly what was predicted.  So go ahead ban people but god forbid some of us are frustrated.  Come here and vent?  No not here.   So here you go... Wow what a crowd what a game yesterday!   We lost but our guys played their hearts out!  Even though it wasn't a sell out the crowd was amazing.  That's all I ask from my team.  Be competitive and Ill be happy.  I can't go to the seton hall game because I don't watch on the week nights but hopefully we can get a game on a Saturday in the nit so maybe I can watch!

[GGGG]

The crowds have sucked.  Fact.  People were praised this board for being excited about creighton, butler and possibly St. Louis and Dayton.  Now that we stink and many of us who predicted exactly what is happening are getting killed even though its exactly what was predicted.  So go ahead ban people but god forbid some of us are frustrated.  Come here and vent?  No not here.   So here you go... Wow what a crowd what a game yesterday!   We lost but our guys played their hearts out!  Even though it wasn't a sell out the crowd was amazing.  That's all I ask from my team.  Be competitive and Ill be happy.  I can't go to the seton hall game because I don't watch on the week nights but hopefully we can get a game on a Saturday in the nit so maybe I can watch!

Tell mom its a 6:00 tip so you'll still make your 9:00 bedtime.  I'm sure she'll understand.

[duanewade]

The crowds have sucked.  Fact.  People were praised this board for being excited about creighton, butler and possibly St. Louis and Dayton.  Now that we stink and many of us who predicted exactly what is happening are getting killed even though its exactly what was predicted.  So go ahead ban people but god forbid some of us are frustrated.  Come here and vent?  No not here.   So here you go... Wow what a crowd what a game yesterday!   We lost but our guys played their hearts out!  Even though it wasn't a sell out the crowd was amazing.  That's all I ask from my team.  Be competitive and Ill be happy.  I can't go to the seton hall game because I don't watch on the week nights but hopefully we can get a game on a Saturday in the nit so maybe I can watch!

Quiet JT92 or they might threaten to ban you too! 

The good news is the board of trustees is already putting in large orders for mannequins dressed in gold to fill up all the empty seats as getting actual live bodies in those seats is too much to ask for at this point based on the product Wojo is putting on the floor.

No one challenges the specific points I make as they know they are valid so they instead try to discredit me and/or call to ban me for being ahead of the curve in predicting what has already happened and what will continue to happen.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Duanewade, were you ever a Marquette fan? Or did you take over an old user profile that hasn't been used in years?

[wadesworld]

Quiet JT92 or they might threaten to ban you too! 

The good news is the board of trustees is already putting in large orders for mannequins dressed in gold to fill up all the empty seats as getting actual live bodies in those seats is too much to ask for at this point based on the product Wojo is putting on the floor.

No one challenges the specific points I make as they know they are valid so they instead try to discredit me and/or call to ban me for being ahead of the curve in predicting what has already happened and what will continue to happen.

   

I hope you don't get banned! Ners is flat out annoying. You? You're hilarious! This is the best comedy I've seen in a while!

[brewcity77]

Okay...you want your points addressed? Let's do it

*Attendance has been a joke with empty seats all over the lower bowl and huge gaps in the upper deck even for Saturday conference games.  Couldn't even sell out the building against Wisconsin with 25% of the sold seats wearing red.

We aren't winning right now. That will always lower attendance. Last year lowered expectations and this year's team is too thin to win enough games to draw the casual fan. Two things will give us an attendance boost. First, winning. That always brings fans. Second, the new arena. People will come out for the experience, they always do. As long as we are winning once it is built, they will keep coming. And we drew over 15,000 yesterday. Most college programs don't even have a gym that seats that many. Only 3 A-10 teams have arenas that seat even 10,000 people, and the largest arena (Dayton - 13,455) could not hold the capacity we had yesterday.

*New Big East is a shell of the old Big East and yet we can't compete.

The new Big East is the second best conference in the country top to bottom. Whether you use Pomeroy, RPI, whatever, this is a very tough conference. Unlike the ACC, Big 10, and A-10, we don't have a handful of crap teams at the bottom. Even DePaul is competitive. So while we don't have as many top-10 teams as the old Big East, the league is actually better on average. And you say we can't compete, that's just stupid. Every loss in conference was a 1 or 2 possession loss and in every loss we were within a single point at some point of the final 2 minutes of the game and a single possession in the final minute of the game. We haven't closed the games the way we've liked, but we've been competitive in every single one.

*Our personal is sub-par and won't get any better next year either.  We have the most overrated top 5 recruiting class of all time with only Henry as an impact player.  The other three have an upside ceiling that Rob Logterman did in his junior and senior seasons at Marquette.

Our personnel simply doesn't have enough bodies. Luke, Sandy, and Duane can all clearly play at this level and will be back and likely better next year. As far as next year's class, every outlet has us as a top-5 class. Maybe they won't pan out, but saying no one outside of Henry has upside is simply inane and ignorant. You cannot know that. If you are right, feel free to check back in 5 years once their careers are over and serve me a dish of crow. Until then, this is just blind speculation with no basis in reality.

*Our only freshman has some nice moments but shoots a set-shot and has shown no "wow" moments.

We have two freshmen. Duane has definitely shown some wow moments, and if you haven't been impressed by Sandy's play and improvement, you're not watching. He's a solid player that has already improved his zone defense, shown he can hit a shot from outside, and developed the ability to drive to the hoop. He will be a very good player for us.

*Wojo has as much in common with Coach K as Charlie Weis did to Belichick.  He claims he wants to play up-tempo yet recruits kids who can only be effective when hiding their lack of foot speed in a 2-3 zone.  It's been painful to watch this year how clear it is that he doesn't have a plan and keeps trying to fit square pegs into a round hole.  Marquette has always done well when they brought in coaches that kept Marquette an inner city up-tempo program.....Shaka Smart was the perfect choice to keep Marquette in this successful niche.

Thus far, what Wojo has shown is the ability to adapt to his personnel. It's only one year, so we won't know what comes in the future or whether he can adapt as well as Buzz did in his first five years to different players, but he's added a zone defense on the fly despite being a staunch man-to-man advocate (and maybe even influenced K and Duke to do the same of late). Cheatham is known for defense. Cohen, his first actual recruit, played man exclusively in high school. I'm pretty sure Henry will be able to keep up with whatever defense we try to play. And he is looking at a number of guys that have the foot speed to play more than just a zone. We are playing zone because of our short roster and the number of guys we have that simply aren't well suited for man.

I agree that early on, Wojo was trying to fit square pegs into round holes, but what's impressed me about him is how he's managed to redrill those holes into squares so guys like Carlino, Jajuan, and Duane can play and not be completely embarrassed on defense while also protecting our only true big man from getting into foul trouble. Yesterday was the first time Luke fouled out and it didn't happen until the final minute of regulation.

I think Smart would have been a very good hire, but things went awry. Apparently there is someone more influential than either Dick Strong or Shaka Smart. But now it's water under the bridge. We went with the best guy we could get. So far he's taken a short roster, competed in every game we've played (save maybe Ohio State), and recruited at a higher level than any coach since Al. All that in his first 10 months on the job. Will it work out in the end? None of us know, but there is plenty of reason for optimism.

In summary the common fan has shown their dis-interest with the drop in attendance in spite of the radicalized board members who will fool themselves into believing everything is great no matter what the numbers constantly show.

We lost some common fans, but as I said, winning and a new arena will bring them back. Continuing to win will keep them.

Let's move to the Mecca and join the Atlantic 10 now.  With a smaller venue to fill we'll have less empty seats to hide on TV and hopefully a louder venue to keep the noise in.

There is no Mecca anymore, and I'm pretty sure UWM doesn't want to share the Panther Dungeon with us.

When playing St. Bonaventure instead of Georgetown we'll obtain more wins and have a better chance of getting NCAA bids and at least keep the Marquette name on office pools throughout the country.

Maybe if you give the coach more than 19 games before consigning him to a career of mediocrity, he will prove that we can win in this league and keep our name in office pools while also playing in a league that can get us a seed higher than a 4. In the past decade, only one A-10 team has earned better than a 4-seed, and Xavier is now in our league.

[Hubert Davis]

I must say that this is the dumbest post I have ever read on scoop. Wow. DuaneWade really looking for attention.

Marquette will be back.

[Johnny B]

The reason attendance is down is cuz we suck, you slow?

[dgies9156]

Okay...you want your points addressed? Let's do it

We aren't winning right now. That will always lower attendance. Last year lowered expectations and this year's team is too thin to win enough games to draw the casual fan. Two things will give us an attendance boost. First, winning. That always brings fans. Second, the new arena. People will come out for the experience, they always do. As long as we are winning once it is built, they will keep coming. And we drew over 15,000 yesterday. Most college programs don't even have a gym that seats that many. Only 3 A-10 teams have arenas that seat even 10,000 people, and the largest arena (Dayton - 13,455) could not hold the capacity we had yesterday.

If there were 15,000 actual butts in seats yesterday, I would be shocked. No doubt there were 15,000 seats sold, but I would have guessed the attendance closer to between 12,000 and 12,500. There was a LOT of the crowd masquerading as empty seats, especially on the upper deck, in the corners and behind the baskets. There also was a surprisingly large number of empty lower bowl seats.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

If there were 15,000 actual butts in seats yesterday, I would be shocked. No doubt there were 15,000 seats sold, but I would have guessed the attendance closer to between 12,000 and 12,500. There was a LOT of the crowd masquerading as empty seats, especially on the upper deck, in the corners and behind the baskets. There also was a surprisingly large number of empty lower bowl seats.

That's probably true but there's no way to accurately measure. Other schools have the exact same phenomenon, a significant difference between actual attendance and tickets sold. I think it's fair to compare the tickets sold.

[Dawson Rental]

The only piece of history that Heisenberg is missing, is that duanewade trolled as "The Sultan of Silly" for about a year before he was banned.

Rocky,

I don't get it. Does he get a full year's worth of trolling for every user name?  Why would you allow him back under a new user name when he's been banned?

[bamamarquettefan]

The crowds have sucked.  Fact.  People were praised this board for being excited about creighton, butler and possibly St. Louis and Dayton.  Now that we stink and many of us who predicted exactly what is happening are getting killed even though its exactly what was predicted.  So go ahead ban people but god forbid some of us are frustrated.  Come here and vent?  No not here.   So here you go... Wow what a crowd what a game yesterday!   We lost but our guys played their hearts out!  Even though it wasn't a sell out the crowd was amazing.  That's all I ask from my team.  Be competitive and Ill be happy.  I can't go to the seton hall game because I don't watch on the week nights but hopefully we can get a game on a Saturday in the nit so maybe I can watch!

ok, I try to take the serious parts seriously as silly as the original was.

The "shell of the Big East" seems an outdated argument with everyone from Jay Bilas down conceding the conference is the 2nd best in the country this year - so acting like we have a bad record IN A BAD CONFERENCE is silly.

Of course the crowds are going to be bad with a 2-5 mark when everyone knows we have a top 5 class coming next year.

Any team in the A10 would take a half second to get invited to the Big East, so obviously makes no sense for anyone to go the other way.

The one grain of worthwhile discussion is whether or not a smaller arena (not the Mecca) would do wonders like it did for VCU. TV loves the packed house. A lot of logistics, but as much as I like the Bradley Center I could see that argument with UConn and Louisville et al no longer coming to town.

[brandx]

*Attendance has been a joke ......... 

We all know the joke when we see/read one.

[Benny B]

Benny's trolls are funny, there at least hidden.

One item of clarification, my intent is not to troll Scoop in general... I prefer trolling those individuals who park their van under my bridge over the river, be them Scooper or non-scooper... I don't discriminate in my hatred of everyone; ironically, the people I like and respect are truly the ones who bear the brunt of my discrimination.  So screw all of you (who I like), and if it seems that I'm trolling you, take solace in the fact that it means I must like you enough not to discriminate against you because I really hate you, but respect you enough to troll you and show that I care, because I have to hate you in order to give the impression of giving equitable consideration to those who I like who otherwise wouldn't respect me if I didn't troll you because I like you because they'll think if I like you they'll start hating you, unless they hate me too which means you should troll them before I troll you so they won't think that you hate them more than I hate you because they like me because I trolled you.

Except Myron.  He's always the worst no matter which direction the nerves are firing in my brain, and should be relegated to covering the A-10; a conference, which, by the way, I've never trolled.  Yet.  Or won't.

[brewcity77]

That's probably true but there's no way to accurately measure. Other schools have the exact same phenomenon, a significant difference between actual attendance and tickets sold. I think it's fair to compare the tickets sold.

Agreed. There may not have been 15,000 there, but it was a good, raucous environment, and in a 16,500 seat venue designed for basketball it will be even better. Maybe I should have said no one in the A-10 would have sold that many tickets. My guess is even in a down year we will sell more tickets than Dayton has the ability to sell, much less anyone else in that league.

[Benny B]

The one grain of worthwhile discussion is whether or not a smaller arena (not the Mecca) would do wonders like it did for VCU. TV loves the packed house. A lot of logistics, but as much as I like the Bradley Center I could see that argument with UConn and Louisville et al no longer coming to town.

Looks like the Benny B Memorial Thunderdome Exploratory Committee (funded in part with a grant from the MUScoop foundation; MUScoop... we troll because we care) just found its new analyst.

[GGGG]

The one grain of worthwhile discussion is whether or not a smaller arena (not the Mecca) would do wonders like it did for VCU. TV loves the packed house. A lot of logistics, but as much as I like the Bradley Center I could see that argument with UConn and Louisville et al no longer coming to town.

I really do wish that Marquette played in a 12,000 seat on-campus arena that was specifically made for basketball.  There are all sorts of reasons why that won't happen however.

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

I really do wish that Marquette played in a 12,000 seat on-campus arena that was specifically made for basketball.  There are all sorts of reasons why that won't happen however.

Would probably be a good example of fewer tickets available driving up the demand for the remaining tickets. People usually want to go to something more if it's harder to get in to.