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Post by sader87 on Feb 3, 2019 10:20:49 GMT -5
sader87, I do not agree it is "fully on Father Brooks." I am also sick of losing, but what Father Brooks did he did for what he believed was action in the best interests of Holy Cross. He quite correctly pointed out how so much of modern college athletics was becoming a swamp. However, his attempt at a solution did not have the desired effect on HC sports or on the overall college program. Plus, I feel you need to give him a pass on not doing much since he ended his time at Holy Cross log ago and he has done nothing one way or the other since his death. The "Devil Theory" of history is an interesting theory which does provide easy scape goats for anything that is wrong. But, if you really believe that today's problems at HC are the fault of Father Brooks, why stop there? Perhaps it is Bishop Fenwick's fault since he did so little in setting up an athletic program on the Hill. No? Well perhaps it is time to give this mantra about the "fault" of Father Brooks a rest. Unlike others in this forum, I won’t start screaming at you and question your judgment. You are not wrong - you just have your opinion and I can only say I respectuly disagree. I saw a small but vibrant little school that could play with the big boys and girls in the 1980’s. Father Brooks led us away from that identify intentionally and we’ve never recovered. We’ve spent decades being the “participation trophy” Division I school. You are right that he’s gone and we should have fixed this long ago but a lot of people high up waited too long out of deference to him. If Bucknell and Colgate can recruit, we can. And somebody needs to prove to me how BC, Georgetown, Villanova, Butler and others have had their academics hurt by being far better than us. Worcester is no Boston in terms of attractiveness, but neither is Lewisburg or Hamilton. Yes, as Father Brooks said, technically we are not in the entertainment business but Father Brooks seems to have lost sight of what made us attractive as a school. Like it or not, he should have realized your academics are only as good as the kids you attract. To me, we were “The “Little Train that Could” school that had good academics and a small school atmosphere with just enough “rah rah” spirit to feel like a Division I school. That’s why I came there. Sadly, I would not likely make that choice now and a lot of kids today are voting with their feet and picking elsewhere.
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Post by trimster on Feb 3, 2019 10:25:17 GMT -5
I watched the game closely yesterday and came away with a few observations... The players need to shoot the ball with much more confidence..Too many drives to the hoop and missed layups..They need to go strong and finish, too many shots seemed to be tossed up trying to avoid a block... On offense, the first 3 or 4 passes don't seem to do anything, they don't move the zone. Teams are defending the offense very well. Very few back-cuts for hoops in league play, and teams are doubling JF and taking away his drive..There were quite a few instances of players driving the baseline and then stopping under the hoop..not good individual play.. The defense, players are always running at the ball, rather than getting to the ball on the pass..And nobody stepped in to stop penetration.. I believe the team as a whole needs to get more aggressive..Both ends of the floor..Commit a few more fouls and shoot more free throws..Become more physical in all aspects of the game...They need to get their swagger back.. I think you hit the nail on the head. Our lack of physicality really hurts and several important stats really show that as in rebounding and and free throw attempts. We are tied with Incarnate Word as the worst rebounding team in the country per ESPN stats, (353 D-1 teams), and in the bottom 10 in free throws attempted per game. We only win when shots are falling. We don’t win with defense, rebounding and getting to the foul line. Not a recipe for success. We need a few Jared Currys, Michael Vicens and Joe Carballeiras in the program.
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Post by timholycross on Feb 3, 2019 10:28:52 GMT -5
Basketball Confessional: I am truly heart broken about this team. I expected so much more from them. I had high hopes for this team.The players are good and fine young men, too. The coach is good with a fine reputation. They started out doing very well with success in the OOC sked. I do not understand why they have regressed during this season. I do not know what happened with this team. In my ignorance I hesitate to criticize the players too harshly. After all they are fellow Crusaders, part of a brotherhood/sisterhood soon to join us in the ranks of fellow alums. Coach Carmody? The bottom line is that this team is playing terrible basketball. They have regressed during the season.They look confused on the court. Defense and rebounding (which are the hallmarks of determination and heart as much as anything else) have been terrible and getting worse. Is it x's and o's? Is it merely a failure to game plan and make adjustments? Is it a failure to execute? Is it lack of talent? What is it? I feel terrible and very disappointed for the players, the students, the coaches, the fans and yes, the loving alumni who tirelessly post on this board.All of us share in the terrible pain of this lost season. LoveHC I couldn’t agree more, but I honestly believe the team started to fall apart and no longer play as a team when it focused on featuring Floyd on offense and protecting him on defense. The offense isn’t designed for one player to go 1-1 and leave the rest of the team standing and watching. It makes us look totally lost on offense, with the exception of a momentary surge. Sure the other teams knew how to attack ourdefefense and slow our cuts, but execution beats strategy every day. With no disrespect directed to anybody, there is no leadership on the floor. This should be Green’s team, even as a sophomore. Benzan and Butler try and take that role, but I think the level of play would improve significantly if this becomes Green’s team. This will help make Butler, Grandison and Green that much more productive Defensively we need to play whatever zone or man that uses the talent on the roster. While I defer to the coaches, but really don’t like the 1-3-1 with this current group unless it is used to change a look for a 2-3 minute stretch. ‘And they need to find a way to use Copeland and Hargis, with Faw hurting and Niego out. If you are going to play the 1-3-1 right, you need a lot of energy. The team has serious depth issues due to injuries, dismissals, slow development and just plain recruiting misses. A major contradiction.
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Post by efg72 on Feb 3, 2019 10:36:31 GMT -5
You need length as much as energy and unless you have Faw, Niego, Copeland and Hargis as available options on the roster it makes it near impossible to play it successfully for more than a few minutes in a game
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Post by timholycross on Feb 3, 2019 10:41:37 GMT -5
Could not agree more. Unless you’re Harvard, you can’t be taken seriously with a gym like this. Look at Bucknell and Navy. If we took basketball seriously we’d be in a serious league and we’d use the DCU as our home court, like Seton Hall, St. John’s, and others. Joe, Actually my expectation was that the school would have built a true college arena with arena style permanent seating of 4-5 thousand and center court score board to compete within the PL. The DCU could have been used for "big-time" OOC games as needed but only if HC had a successful, winning program. Well you can hang that one on Brooks for approving a building that was smaller than what could have been built for same or comparable cost to HC (that's a fact that many have pointed out) and had no possibility of being expanded at any point. Fixing it would have cost a lot more than what they got out of the Luth, 200-300 million I would think. Consider this: Villanova just spent 65 million on renovating its place and didn't add a single seat. I'll remain optimistic, however: I they figure out how to attract anyone from the community to go to the games and get the students out of the library so that the Hart is continually overflowing, let's see what can be done about it.
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Post by timholycross on Feb 3, 2019 10:42:41 GMT -5
You need length as much as energy and unless you have Faw, Niego, Copeland and Hargis as available options on the roster it makes it near impossible to play it successfully for more than a few minutes in a game OK, then make that 3 reasons why playing the 1-3-1 is a bad choice. We agree on that for sure.
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Post by sader1970 on Feb 3, 2019 11:02:01 GMT -5
87, I agree with all of what you said, but I am with RGS when it comes to continuing to blame Brooks for all our athletic ills. Not only is he dead, the decisions he made were many decades ago. I agree that Reedy wasn't about to reverse any of Brooks' decisions - he didn't have the gravitas and self-confidence. As I posted years ago, Fr. Brooks told me that his successor, Reedy "is a nice young man but doesn't want to engage the alums just yet [and ask for money]." This was at an alumni reception in Columbus, OH after Reedy officially was president but the agreement was Brooks would hang in and do all the alumni receptions for a year or more. Reedy left and McFarland wasn't ready yet to take over as president, so Frank Vellaccio became the acting president during the interregnum. He wasn't about to reverse things because he was "acting" and because he probably agreed with Brooks. But then Fr. McFarland came in. He made his own decisions and, frankly, he was someone who thought sports was a solitary figure running alone at the crack of dawn. The only team sport he seemed to like (and told me was his favorite) was ice hockey. He could have reversed things if he wanted. He had both the distance of time and the gumption to put Holy Cross in a different direction than Brooks. He didn't. He talked at President's Council meetings about an improved athletics center (think LAC) at least 5 years before and at one such event implied it was ready for the trucks to come up the hill. Then he decided that the greater need was dorms and we got Williams and then Figge. Boroughs comes in and his focus was on the Joyce Contemplative Center but unlike McFarland, he said (believed?) that athletics was an excellent way to get the Holy Cross "brand" out there especially in the west and south where he thought we were invisible. However, Boroughs decided that the Crusader "brand" did not need to include an actual mascot - go figure, because the BoT did NOT make him get rid of the mascot, only to re-figure it. The loss of the mascot is on Boroughs and Dan Kim, no one else. He hires Nate Pine because Dick Regan was obviously not the guy to be the fundraiser-in-chief for an LAC. After years of looking for a hockey upgrade, he gets the ladies into Hockey East with at least a shot at getting the men there soon. Milan Brown was failing in basketball but we've seen the hiring of a coach who, in the past, was a winning coach. Carmody did in his first year what Brown could not do in 5 years, a PL championship. We don't know what commitments were made on either side but Carmody was old enough when he started that he probably wasn't going to be around 10 years. I suspect he was an interim (i.e. 5+/- years) pick. Gibbons has been failing after many, many years of success. Don't ask me to figure out or explain how he suddenly became dumb. But it looks like this is also resolving itself. Tom Gilmore, like it or not, was indeed an excellent coach with many winning records, a PL championship and 2nd place contender multiple years. There were "back office" challenges he encountered and after losing his mojo, was fired and a new, young, enthusiastic coach has taken his place. Recall, though, when TG came to HC he was the young, enthusiastic coach being almost the same age as Chesney was when they came to HC as head coaches.
Any of the successors to Brooks could have reduced the number of varsity teams to focus on a few more highly visible sports. Think the Providence model or other schools. There has been a continuous commitment to remain as is. What I call the "participation model." The Turnpike Trophy, for example, is so skewed against Holy Cross that there is literally no chance we will ever come close to winning in any year. If the thought was it was a way to artificially create a rivalry, it has been an abject failure.
So, yeah, some of this is on Brooks, but you can hang that on someone, dead or alive just so long. The argument doesn't hold water.
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Post by sader87 on Feb 3, 2019 11:02:04 GMT -5
sader, Your post confused me. Competing with BC, etc. is far different from competing with Colgate, Bucknell. Yet, you seemed to conflate the two. I would have expected to be able to successfully compete with the other PL schools, period. For what it is worth, I knew Father Brooks and he was a true fan of HC teams and I'm sure that he expected that HC would have successfully competed within the PL. LoveHC Sorry if I confused you. No reason why we couldn’t compete against Colgate and Bucknell AND BC AND Butler in basketball. Football, a different story with BC and others, I get that. We made the choice to walk away. I am sorry if you were a fan and/or friend of Father Brooks as I don’t mean to offend, but he made big mistakes. That’s just my opinion. Playing Iona and others while I was there was boring - no spirit. While he may have thought he was heading us the right way, it would have been nice if years later he said he was wrong. Nothing has changed academically for us - actually it’s hurt us. We didn’t have to give up on football AND basketball. We are not in the entertainment business but we are in the marketing business to attract kids. Right now our branding is a mess.
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Post by sader87 on Feb 3, 2019 11:17:00 GMT -5
87, I agree with all of what you said, but I am with RGS when it comes to continuing to blame Brooks for all our athletic ills. Not only is he dead, the decisions he made were many decades ago. I agree that Reedy wasn't about to reverse any of Brooks' decisions - he didn't have the gravitas and self-confidence. As I posted years ago, Fr. Brooks told me that his successor, Reedy "is a nice young man but doesn't want to engage the alums just yet [and ask for money]." This was at an alumni reception in Columbus, OH after Reedy officially was president but the agreement was Brooks would hang in and do all the alumni receptions for a year or more. Reedy left and McFarland wasn't ready yet to take over as president, so Frank Vellaccio became the acting president during the interregnum. He wasn't about to reverse things because he was "acting" and because he probably agreed with Brooks. But then Fr. McFarland came in. He made his own decisions and, frankly, he was someone who thought sports was a solitary figure running alone at the crack of dawn. The only team sport he seemed to like (and told me was his favorite) was ice hockey. He could have reversed things if he wanted. He had both the distance of time and the gumption to put Holy Cross in a different direction than Brooks. He didn't. He talked at President's Council meetings about an improved athletics center (think LAC) at least 5 years before and at one such event implied it was ready for the trucks to come up the hill. Then he decided that the greater need was dorms and we got Williams and then Figge. Boroughs comes in and his focus was on the Joyce Contemplative Center but unlike McFarland, he said (believed?) that athletics was an excellent way to get the Holy Cross "brand" out there especially in the west and south where he thought we were invisible. However, Boroughs decided that the Crusader "brand" did not need to include an actual mascot - go figure, because the BoT did NOT make him get rid of the mascot, only to re-figure it. The loss of the mascot is on Boroughs and Dan Kim, no one else. He hires Nate Pine because Dick Regan was obviously not the guy to be the fundraiser-in-chief for an LAC. After years of looking for a hockey upgrade, he gets the ladies into Hockey East with at least a shot at getting the men there soon. Milan Brown was failing in basketball but we've seen the hiring of a coach who, in the past, was a winning coach. Carmody did in his first year what Brown could not do in 5 years, a PL championship. We don't know what commitments were made on either side but Carmody was old enough when he started that he probably wasn't going to be around 10 years. I suspect he was an interim (i.e. 5+/- years) pick. Gibbons has been failing after many, many years of success. Don't ask me to figure out or explain how he suddenly became dumb. But it looks like this is also resolving itself. Tom Gilmore, like it or not, was indeed an excellent coach with many winning records, a PL championship and 2nd place contender multiple years. There were "back office" challenges he encountered and after losing his mojo, was fired and a new, young, enthusiastic coach has taken his place. Recall, though, when TG came to HC he was the young, enthusiastic coach being almost the same age as Chesney was when they came to HC as head coaches. Any of the successors to Brooks could have reduced the number of varsity teams to focus on a few more highly visible sports. Think the Providence model or other schools. There has been a continuous commitment to remain as is. What I call the "participation model." The Turnpike Trophy, for example, is so skewed against Holy Cross that there is literally no chance we will ever come close to winning in any year. If the thought was it was a way to artificially create a rivalry, it has been an abject failure. So, yeah, some of this is on Brooks, but you can hang that on someone, dead or alive just so long. The argument doesn't hold water. In all seriousness, you are all correct. I will stop whining about Father Brooks, though I still think he stubbornly encouraged the school to stick to a failed plan and started the problem. I am just so angry after the initial hope I had during the Michigan game I went to this year. I brought my 12 year old and said, “see, they CAN play.” He had previously been down on them and said he wants to go to - Lord help me - Duke! These kids can play - I saw it at Michigan and other games. There is some bigger problem. I do NOT like hearing about the coach’s age since there are great leaders in the sport at his age or older. But I now admit there needs to be some Chesney type “can do” spirit brought to basketball. No excuses any more!
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Post by efg72 on Feb 3, 2019 11:20:14 GMT -5
You need length as much as energy and unless you have Faw, Niego, Copeland and Hargis as available options on the roster it makes it near impossible to play it successfully for more than a few minutes in a game OK, then make that 3 reasons why playing the 1-3-1 is a bad choice. We agree on that for sure. Indeed but if we stay stuck to it you might need to move Butler up top to create havoc, move green to the wing, trap the wings and create a couple of tweaks that bend it to a 1-2-2 or 2-1-2 once the pass hits the wing or high post so the back person can actually get to the corner and reasonably make a play. Otherwise energy is tough to generate
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Post by lou on Feb 3, 2019 11:43:01 GMT -5
As 'hoops has pointed out many times, a small guard in the back of the 131 is problematic. Yesterday the passes to the corner were just over the reach of Benzan resulting in several made 3s. A bigger player back there maybe makes a difference
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Post by WorcesterGray on Feb 3, 2019 11:45:35 GMT -5
The players need to shoot the ball with much more confidence..Too many drives to the hoop and missed layups..They need to go strong and finish, too many shots seemed to be tossed up trying to avoid a block... With all due respect, you say this after every game we lose, and after most wins - every single time. Every team misses layups, and if it's your observation that our players are missing bunnies almost every time out, then maybe it's time to consider the possibility that they're not nearly as good as you and others claim they are, and not as good as the players on other teams. Fact is, however, this may be the best shooting team in program history, and most of these missed layups you claim to see all the time are contested shots. I watch the games, too. Offense is not the most serious problem this team faces.The defense, players are always running at the ball, rather than getting to the ball on the pass..And nobody stepped in to stop penetration.. This has been going on for four years. If the staff had a plan for utilizing something other than this over-extended, high-risk match-up, with occasional sprinkling of a 1-3-1 that has been utterly ineffective except for five games in March 2016, I think we would have seen it by now. Likely, there is no Plan B here. I believe the team as a whole needs to get more aggressive..Both ends of the floor..Commit a few more fouls and shoot more free throws..Become more physical in all aspects of the game... Carmody's team rank among the teams least likely to commit fouls, and the least likely to get to the line - this year, last year, the year before that, and virtually every year for the last twenty. You can look it up if you want. . . . www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/stat/fta-per-fga , www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/stat/personal-fouls-per-game . . . These tendencies are built into his system. It's not going to change.You didn't mention rebounding, so perhaps you don't think this is a problem. It is. While getting back on defense instead of crashing the O-boards is a legitimate strategy, poor rebounding at the defensive end is just bad basketball. And again, this is largely baked into the cake. Carmody's teams have almost always been poor rebounding teams - AT BOTH ENDS. It's reasonable to assume that this is at least in part as a result of a defense that is often out of position when shots go up.
Imho, the overall strategy of the staff is to "pass/dribble/shoot" better than anybody else in the conference, and not worry unduly about the other stuff. And that may be the biggest problem of all.
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Post by joe on Feb 3, 2019 11:47:04 GMT -5
Could not agree more. Unless you’re Harvard, you can’t be taken seriously with a gym like this. Look at Bucknell and Navy. If we took basketball seriously we’d be in a serious league and we’d use the DCU as our home court, like Seton Hall, St. John’s, and others. Joe, Actually my expectation was that the school would have built a true college arena with arena style permanent seating of 4-5 thousand and center court score board to compete within the PL. The DCU could have been used for "big-time" OOC games as needed but only if HC had a successful, winning program. Yup and now it’s too late. That gym is too small to do anything with. With the DCU we have a second chance. The infrastructure is there to move up to a higher level but as an institution we have neither that know-how nor ambition to make that happen, at least it would seem.
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Post by Sons of Vaval on Feb 3, 2019 12:38:58 GMT -5
Spot on analysis, Woo Gray.
Hope this isn’t construed as “bashing.”
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Post by lou on Feb 3, 2019 13:01:44 GMT -5
I have great seats at the Hart Ct, and had a lousy experience at the DCU this year. I may not go back there. And no thanks for playing our home games there
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Feb 3, 2019 14:03:20 GMT -5
I have great seats at the Hart Ct, and had a lousy experience at the DCU this year. I may not go back there. And no thanks for playing our home games there lou, Yours is a very interesting and illuminating post. The DCU is after my time as a student at HC. We had no on - campus facility. We contented ourselves with walking into Worcester (some half tanked on 'Gansett) and watching the games at the fabled Worcester Memorial Auditorium. It was a small and almost always overcrowded snake pit for opposing teams. If memory serves me correctly at one time our record in the WMA was 100+ wins and only 10 losses. Oh, and HC did not play Iona, Sacred Heart et. al. at that time. And, HC was considered among the top 2-3 Catholic colleges and many considered it the best Catholic undergraduate college in the nation. Loved it. LoveHC You do recall playing such storied programs as St Michael's, St Anselm, American International, Springfield, Amherst and Assumption during your years at HC, right? Yes we played some fine Eastern rivals (UConn, St John's, Syracuse, PC, bc, URI) but we had plenty of cupcakes to snack on as well.
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Post by sader1970 on Feb 3, 2019 14:19:49 GMT -5
Having had the pleasure of watching Holy Cross basketball games at the Worcester Auditorium (yes, KY, they weren't all nationally ranked opponents ), the Hart Center and the DCU, the best venue despite the reputation it has among some here as a "glorified high school gym" is the Hart Center - when it is capacity or near capacity with enthusiastic and supportive students/fans. The DCU is kind of a sterile environment. No "soul" if that makes sense.
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Post by realism on Feb 3, 2019 14:27:35 GMT -5
We keep talking like we are too good for this conference. We are not.
I suspect the rest of the Patriot League laughs at us when we say this league holds us back. We are barely consistent enough to be in this league. As a PL-non-HC alum, I don't think it's a fair characterization that "the PL laughs at HC." As a reader of this board over the past few years, I think the outlandish statements here reflect the pain of an institutional identity crisis. Despite constantly talking about the damage done to HC's idealized past, I don't think posters have truly reckoned with how much damage has been done--how the world has moved on. Looking squarely at how out of sync HC's athletic program is relative to the rest of the PL, when it's supposedly in rehab, is painful . Posters rightfully speculate about what it will take to feel like it has recovered to a level that is acceptable. Most of the PL brands are flourishing as institutions that have geographically diversified their student bodies nationally and internationally. And have found athletic balance compatible with their brands within the PL-- and nationally when desired. If a niche within the PL continues to elude HC, perhaps it's not the right fit. But, it's surely not the source of HC's problems. It's only the place where these problems are put on display for all to see. If it's time to move on, the PL will be among HC's strongest well-wishers.
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Post by joe on Feb 3, 2019 16:04:07 GMT -5
Was Byrne arena at the Meadowlands “sterile” in the late 80s and 90s when The Hall was in their prime, playing BE games against G’town, ‘Nova, etc? I can assure you there were few more exciting venues to watch a college game. Until we see a packed DCU for HC games you really can’t compare it against the Hart at capacity. Of course the DCU seems sterile when the arena is 2/3 empty. I’m sure The Hall’s faithful did not rue the day they stopped playing games at Walsh Gym in West Orange. My high school gym in NJ was fairly fun to play in when 950 people packed in, I get that. But we have to start thinking bigger. It’s analogous to Fitton Field. Yes, it would be more intense if we had 12,000 fans crammed into 12,000 seats but let’s try get 25,000 into 25,000. Go big (sort of big) or go the F home and play D3 as would be expected of a school of HC’s size. Start hiring the right people and pay them the right money to get it done, or hang it up and quit dragging this out any longer. Enough is enough.
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Post by sader87 on Feb 3, 2019 16:14:30 GMT -5
We keep talking like we are too good for this conference. We are not.
I suspect the rest of the Patriot League laughs at us when we say this league holds us back. We are barely consistent enough to be in this league. As a PL-non-HC alum, I don't think it's a fair characterization that "the PL laughs at HC." As a reader of this board over the past few years, I think the outlandish statements here reflect the pain of an institutional identity crisis. Despite constantly talking about the damage done to HC's idealized past, I don't think posters have truly reckoned with how much damage has been done--how the world has moved on. Looking squarely at how out of sync HC's athletic program is relative to the rest of the PL, when it's supposedly in rehab, is painful . Posters rightfully speculate about what it will take to feel like it has recovered to a level that is acceptable. Most of the PL brands are flourishing as institutions that have geographically diversified their student bodies nationally and internationally. And have found athletic balance compatible with their brands within the PL-- and nationally when desired. If a niche within the PL continues to elude HC, perhaps it's not the right fit. But, it's surely not the source of HC's problems. It's only the place where these problems are put on display for all to see. If it's time to move on, the PL will be among HC's strongest well-wishers. I know people from Bucknell, Colgate and Lehigh. That may be your view from the outside. I have heard others PL people express other views. Regardless, we shouldn’t be talking about how the league holds us back. We have a long way to go to express that view on this board. Just my opinion, which ain’t worth much.
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Post by rgs318 on Feb 3, 2019 16:28:58 GMT -5
I agree. How are we being "held back" by teams we seem lucky to beat far too often? Job #1 is to become a power in our own house, in this case the PL. Until that happens, the whole "we need a new league" argument is pretty weak IMHO.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Feb 3, 2019 19:57:45 GMT -5
We should learn from history, from precedents, among the 350 division-1 teams. I don't know that there is any "official" list, but with our composite knowledge of college basketball, let's make a list of the D-1 teams that (1) struggled for a number of years in a lower-level conference and (2) moved up to a higher profile conference. We can then sort that group into (2A) those who succeeded at the higher level and (2B) those who fell flat. Fordham has fallen flat year after year in the higher level A-10, but I don't know that it qualifies on pre-requisite #1, struggling to win at a lower level.
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Post by joe on Feb 4, 2019 7:05:33 GMT -5
It’s not about sucking and then suddenly moving into a new league and expecting to win. It’s about setting a 3-5 year plan for moving and using that as a tool to recruit and upgrade the program as a whole. Whether or no there are precedents doesn’t matter if we have the motivation and skills to work out an arrangement with a league. And if we are to study precedents, we needn’t study anything other than HC and ask ourselves why, with history as a guide, would we even rationally consider using the same failed strategy year after year. Take a leap of faith and start a conversation with the BE or A-10. You don’t know until you ask. Set that as the ambitous goal; lofty or not. Isn’t that the motto of HC; didn’t Father K quote this at some point? Yes we may have to abandon the PL autobid as we transition, and this would also require a campus and community wide buy-in. At some point you have to throw down the gauntlet. Or we can just wait to dominate the PL which seems to be a day that may never come again. The PL experiment may work for Bucknell but it doesn’t work for HC. As a league, we have good coaches but what? 2 or 3 real NCAA wins in decades of play? C’mon, what’s the point? We should have had at least one team who made some real noise by now, if not multiple teams.
Congrats to Women's Hockey for being the most courageous of the HC sports programs and JUST DOING IT! And for holding their heads up while they take some lumps. They play every game hard and to win, and have been competitive in many games against the nation's toughest programs. They'll only get better and more competitive through the years.
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Post by thecrossisback on Feb 4, 2019 10:59:46 GMT -5
Maybe have Worcester build a nice new basketball arena to play in. Keep DCU as a hockey rink, it is much to big for that anyway. A new arena would really make the team be downtown Worcester.
Or go back to the Worcester Auditorium 226-64 in the building all time. To really make the team be downtown Worcester.
Watched UIC play a game over the weekend, They play in a 6,000 seat arena and they barely draw over 2,000. But what is nice about it is that it is all seats. Bleachers are such a high school thing. They have some money use it for chairs.
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Post by joe on Feb 4, 2019 11:23:35 GMT -5
Isn't the auditorium defunct? That would be very, very cool.
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