Author	Topic:   building up duquesne
xubrew	posted 12/21/02 1:41 AM       i am posting this here to avoid being banned from the other board. this is not a dig at duquesne, simply criticism, but other people have been banned for posting criticism. this is copied from another board i like to post on. here it is: the so called bottom feeders of the a-10 (fordham, duquesne, la salle) seem to be stuck in a limbo to where their programs aren't going in a different direction than what they have been in the past ten years. i feel there are things that these schools could do to improve their situations that aren't being done. i'm going to use duquesne as an example, but you could pretty much interchange any one of the schools mentioned in the place of duquesne and get the same results. (i'll also take this opportunity to say that i realize la salle is trying to improve, so don't jump on me for not recognizing it.) first, for a team to have a successful program and take its basketball team seriously, i honestly think that they have to take themselves as a university seriously. some big universities like southwest kentucky state (not a real school but you know the kinds of places i'm talking about) that are funded by the state and just go through the motions when it comes to operating as a university, can't have high levels of athletics if they don't take anything else seriously. at a university that consists of students, faculty, and alums that feel that the institution was a positive experience in their life, they are more likely to back its athletic programs, which are afterall, part of the university. duquesne DOES take themselves seriously as a university, so they qualify for this format. i'll also say that this is a process that has to be done in stages. one of the most obvious areas duquesne is lacking in is being able to win games. they haven't had a winning season in ten years, haven't won twenty games in even longer than that, and have only been able to win ten games once or twice in the past ten seasons. as obvious as it sounds, to improve, one of the things you have to do is start winning games. they do have a winning record at home over the last ten seasons as all a-10 teams do. i would say that they have to schedule week teams. anybody. rack up the home games against week teams from the patriot league, nec, meac, etc, and schedule teams that you can beat. JUST START WINNING GAMES, even if it is against a bunch of nobodies. with the post season nit taking forty teams now, if they could put together a winning record by playing horrible teams, then they could suddenly find themselves eligible for an nit bid. this would be a huge improvement. it is something that hasn't happened in over ten years and it would get the players, coaches and staff some post season tournament experience. if the dukes could put themselves in a situation that many teams are in and that is having people say, "well, they win a lot of games, but they only play cupcakes," i think that this would be an accomplishment. they will have completed the first tier, are now in a position to where they are winning games, and can then look to beef up the schedule after they get used to winning. once they get to this point, which is where teams like dayton are at now, then they can take the next step and start to look at scheduling games that would generate national interest and get them on national tv. another obvious place where duquesne has struggled is in support, ratings, and attendence. this is another obvious solution to an obvious problem. they need to do things to make themselves attractive to the duquesne community. get a local tv deal. who cares if its with public access channel 23 for very little money. its tv and its a two hour commercial for your team every time they play. show the home and away games live. it won't hurt attendance because no one is going to the games anyway, and it should certainly draw higher ratings than whatever else that channel would be showing. campaign to the students. ADVERTISE!!! they could take a page out of the pat hill book (head fresno state football coach). if i worked for the athletic dept. i'd be out there on campus myself with a staple gun hanging up posters, passing out fliers, and doing anything to draw attention to the team. also, contact the alums, send them applications for tickets, (especially those that live in pittsburgh), advertise your message boards, and have a link on the official basketball page where they can listen to the games on the internet. DO ANYTHING TO SELL YOURSELF. get people into the arena for the home games. serve alcohol. i'm not joking. i'm not sure if duquesne does or not, but if they don't they should. i'm not saying this for the sake of creating a drunken party atmosphere for students, but as a sports fan, i do enjoy sitting in a bar or going to a game, having a beer, and having a conversation with the person next to me. a basketball game is certainly a social atmosphere for fans and i think alcohol would enhance it for most of them. as for the drunken morons argument, they are morons to begin with and would still be morons whether there was alcohol or not, so i don't think it would create any problems that wouldn't be there in the first place. also, i'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that most people in the duquesne community only passively follow the basketball team. if the team starts winning, even if it is against crappy opponents, i think people would start to take more of an interest and either start coming to games or watching them on tv. if you really get active, pass out fliers, and pass out ticket applications to 10,000 alums, if you only get 500 to respond, than that is 500 fans that are coming to the games that probably wouldn't have had it not been for the applications. i consider this a success, and as the team continues to win, the more responses the athletic dept. will get and pretty soon, the fans will be coming to you rather than you going to them. another thing they could do for road games is this. keep in mind that their crappy tv deal still gets them on tv, and although it is crappy, it is the first step in the building process and will open other opportunities if it is successful. for road games, have something on campus for students and alums where they can come and watch the games. have free jtm burgers and dollar draft beers. believe me, i just graduated college. i KNOW the students would show up to watch the game, eat burgers, and drink dollar beers out of plastic cups. if you win the students over to support and follow the programs, they will continue to do so as alums. i am walking proof of that. i didn't care a thing about xavier basketball when i got to the campus, and now i follow their every move. it would be no differerent for students and alums at duquesne. recruiting. DUQUESNE IS IN PITTSBURGH!!!! they have a TON of high school talent at their doorstep. they have NO competition. i realize that pitt is also in pittsburgh, but the kind of program pitt runs isn't the same kind of program duquesne runs so you won't be recruiting a lot of the same players and they won't get in each others' way. if you can sell yourself as a program and an institution, show them that you take basketball seriously, and get one or two decent players to commit to the university that are above the normal skill level and talent they are used to getting, then it is a small step up in recruiting. it isn't football, its basketball. one or two players can't make a whole season's difference, but it could produce four or five more wins. for a team like duquesne that struggles to win ten games, that is a lot. i've already talked about scheduling, but as far as recruiting goes, i'll take the opportunity to say this. in the midst of a week schedule, schedule one or two ooc hotshots. that would give the team something to sell to the recruits that they will get to play against another big time team. not to mention, it will boost the rpi. all and all, i think the main thing it would take for duquesne to get better is a commitment from the university to the basketball team and a compitent athletic dept. year after year after year, when duquesne sits down, looks at the state of its program, and does nothing to improve it, they are cheating themselves. ready for a bombshell? they shouldn't be worried about the a-10. they, like all teams, should put their own programs' interests over that of the conference. its okay to be selfish and a team has to be selfish in this game in order to be successful and i think duquesne has a lot to gain from the a-10. that is NOT why i am posting this necessarily. however, year after year of sub mediocrity combined with the fact of constantly having no answers as to how you want to improve whenever the question comes up results in the team going nowhere. currently, that is exactly where duquesne is going. when a team is going nowhere, and the athletic dept is doing nothing to get it anywhere else, it obviously has a huge effect on the program's potential and starts to trickle down to the other teams in the conference. that is where a lot of the frustration is coming from as far as fans like me are concerned. duquesne benifits from the conference, contributes very little to it, and doesn't do anything to change that. here is my thought process and it seems pretty logical. i've watched a ton of basketball. i've seen teams do this. i've seen it work. i think it can work for the bottom feeders in the a-10. when they don't do these things or anything else to boost their programs, it is a sign that they simply don't care and it brings the conference down, but more importantly, it brings those individual programs down
2000	posted 2/27/03 7:09 AM       Your a faggot

Post New Topic