LA Tech Faring Poorly in CUSA
Total Conference USA championships won since 2014-15
Western Kentucky – 24
Middle Tennessee – 12
Rice – 11
North Texas – 9
UTEP – 8
FIU – 8
Southern Miss – 6
Florida Atlantic – 6
Charlotte – 6
Louisiana Tech – 5
Marshall – 4
http://www.bgdailynews.com/sports/wk...effa0ef97.html
From the looks of the number of conference championships won by LA Tech since 2014, it's pretty clear that our AD is failing. 10th in the league? Really? Hell, we're not even doing as well as Charlotte, UTEP and FIU. This is a truly pathetic athletic performance. Our fans deserve better. And all of this happened on T-Mac's watch.
If WKU can win 24 conference championships, surely LA Tech can win more than 5 in the last 4 years. Good lord.....UNT doesn't even play baseball, and yet UNT has won almost twice as many CUSA championships as Tech has.
Tommy McClelland needs to seriously FOCUS on winning more CUSA championships at LA Tech. Because right now, he's failing.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
You're preaching to the choir. Outside of a few, most here are in agreement that Tommy at the very least has fallen short, even if they don't agree that he's an abject failure.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
It's what you get when you're happy / satisfied to "be competitive" and field competitive teams versus wanting to win. Or maybe really hating to lose.
It's past time we win the CUSA football championship. It's time we win some championship tournaments...name the sport. It's time Tech wins. To hell with this competitive, also ran crap!
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
To be fair, we neither compete nor attempt to compete in a lot of those sports WKU is winning championships in. We put a bowling team in the Southland because it's the cheapest Title IX sport we can sponsor.
WKU also hasn't won a C-USA MBB championship. (We've won two.) Also not mentioned is that WKU has never qualified for a single C-USA baseball tournament. WKU finishes at the bottom of the baseball standings every year. WKU basically sacrifices their baseball program in order to win championships in women's sports like WBB, I&O T&F, volleyball, and swimming and diving. Not worth it IMO.
Until we build adequate facilities for our minor sports, we shouldn't expect championships in those sports (softball, soccer, tennis, T&F/CC). It's amazing our softball and soccer programs have done as well as they have. That's all great coaching. It's a shame we are giving volleyball partial COA instead of softball/soccer IMO. They earned it, not VB. Giving that money to VB is throwing it away.
Now it's about time WBB starts competing for championships again, but I'm afraid our WBB recruiting is not championship caliber.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawg06
It's a shame we are giving volleyball partial COA instead of softball/soccer IMO. They earned it, not VB. Giving that money to VB is throwing it away.
Merit-based rewards? You must be some kind of sexist.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawg06
To be fair, we neither compete nor attempt to compete in a lot of those sports WKU is winning championships in.
WKU also hasn't won a C-USA MBB championship. (We've won two.) Also not mentioned is that WKU has never qualified for a single C-USA baseball tournament. WKU finishes at the bottom of the baseball standings every year. WKU basically sacrifices their baseball program in order to win championships in women's sports like WBB, I&O T&F, volleyball, and swimming and diving. Not worth it IMO.
Until we build adequate facilities for our minor sports, we shouldn't expect championships in those sports (softball, soccer, tennis, T&F/CC). It's amazing our softball and soccer programs have done as well as they have. That's all great coaching. It's a shame we are giving volleyball partial COA instead of softball/soccer IMO. They earned it, not VB. Giving that money to VB is throwing it away.
Now it's about time WBB starts competing for championships again, but I'm afraid our WBB recruiting is not championship caliber.
So, you defend Tech's poor performance by attempting to bad-mouth WKU's CUSA championships? Do I need to remind you that they've won 24!!
The fact is, LA Tech had a athletic head start on most of the schools now residing in CUSA. For instance, LA Tech was playing FBS/Division I football long before Charlotte, UAB, FIU, FAU, UTSA, ODU, WKU, MTSU, UNT and Marshall. That's 10 of CUSA's 14 schools. Two of the remaining 3 schools in CUSA are traditional doormats, Rice and UTEP.
As for the remaining sports, there's no excuse for LA Tech not winning a CUSA championship in women's basketball, softball, women's soccer, volleyball, track & field, or some of the other sports. This isn't the SEC. The competition is not that formidable.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
HogDawg
So, you defend Tech's poor performance by attempting to bad-mouth WKU's CUSA championships? Do I need to remind you that they've won 24!!
The fact is, LA Tech had a athletic head start on most of the schools now residing in CUSA. For instance, LA Tech was playing FBS/Division I football long before Charlotte, UAB, FIU, FAU, UTSA, ODU, WKU, MTSU, UNT and Marshall. That's 10 of CUSA's 14 schools. Two of the remaining 3 schools in CUSA are traditional doormats, Rice and UTEP.
As for the remaining sports, there's no excuse for LA Tech not winning a CUSA championship in women's basketball, softball, women's soccer, volleyball, track & field, or some of the other sports. This isn't the SEC. The competition is not that formidable.
I'm not attempting to bad-mouth WKU. I'm just giving a different perspective from the spin that keeps getting put out by the WKU athletic department and their lapdog beat writer.
I don't think we are "fairly poorly in CUSA" as you put it. Since we joined C-USA, we've won more football games than anyone else in the conference including the four straight bowl wins. We also won the first 2 MBB championships (won more games in 5 year stretch than any in Louisiana MBB history until last season), and we were the only MBB team to earn a first round bye every year by finishing Top 4 each season up until last. We've done the same earning Top 4 byes in WBB the last couple years. With 35+ wins each of the last 3 seasons, our baseball program is in the top tier of C-USA and the best it's been in a quarter century. Our softball program is competing for championships, and our soccer program is overachieving. And golf finally won a championship. I don't call that poor. I honestly don't think you'll find another school in C-USA that's been as consistently good as Tech has in all the major sports over these last 5 years.
As for the minor sports, it's hard for me to expect much out of them when Tech doesn't really care about them. With the smallest budget in C-USA, it's the minor sports that get sacrificed so we can compete in the major sports. If we don't have a real locker room or facility for a particular sport, I don't expect a championship for that sport. If we don't offer COA for a sport that our peers do, I don't expect a championship in that sport. If our region doesn't really participate in a sport at the high school level, I don't expect to win a championship in that sport. If we don't sponsor a team in C-USA, I don't expect a championship.
With 14 members, I also think it's important to understand C-USA is twice the size of some of our past conferences so everyone's odds of winning championships are much less. That's one negative of conference expansion that never gets mentioned.
It's also important to note Tech is the only school in C-USA who has not hosted a single C-USA championship event, and Louisiana is the only state in the footprint that has not hosted a single C-USA championship event. We've never had home field/court advantage in any championship event unlike every other team in our conference. Most of that has to do with not having adequate facilities for our minor sports, and the rest has to do with our AD.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
When did we win a CUSA basketball tourney championship? That’s the one that matters.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
techman05
When did we win a CUSA basketball tourney championship? That’s the one that matters.
So we are "fairing poorly" because we won the more rigorous regular season basketball championships that determined the best team after 18 games instead of the fluky tournament that rewards the luckiest team after 3 games? Got it.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
LTAC fund-raising may be up slightly in the last year or two looking at the member list currently posted on the LTAC site. But it is nowhere near where it needs to be since it is now only slightly above where it was 7 or 8 years ago.
Tech needs to get its athletic revenue to near the $30 million level in the next couple of years, and I don't have confidence that it can get there under the current leadership.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawg06
So we are "fairing poorly" because we won the more rigorous regular season basketball championships that determined the best team after 18 games instead of the fluky tournament that rewards the luckiest team after 3 games? Got it.
I am only saying that we have to compare apples to apples. Those 24 that WKU has aren’t for regular season.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawg06
I'm not attempting to bad-mouth WKU. I'm just giving a different perspective from the spin that keeps getting put out by the WKU athletic department and their lapdog beat writer.I don't think we are "fairly poorly in CUSA" as you put it. Since we joined C-USA, we've won more football games than anyone else in the conference including the four straight bowl wins. We also won the first 2 MBB championships (won more games in 5 year stretch than any in Louisiana MBB history until last season), and we were the only MBB team to earn a first round bye every year by finishing Top 4 each season up until last. We've done the same earning Top 4 byes in WBB the last couple years. With 35+ wins each of the last 3 seasons, our baseball program is in the top tier of C-USA and the best it's been in a quarter century. Our softball program is competing for championships, and our soccer program is overachieving. And golf finally won a championship. I don't call that poor. I honestly don't think you'll find another school in C-USA that's been as consistently good as Tech has in all the major sports over these last 5 years.As for the minor sports, it's hard for me to expect much out of them when Tech doesn't really care about them. With the smallest budget in C-USA, it's the minor sports that get sacrificed so we can compete in the major sports. If we don't have a real locker room or facility for a particular sport, I don't expect a championship for that sport. If we don't offer COA for a sport that our peers do, I don't expect a championship in that sport. If our region doesn't really participate in a sport at the high school level, I don't expect to win a championship in that sport. If we don't sponsor a team in C-USA, I don't expect a championship.With 14 members, I also think it's important to understand C-USA is twice the size of some of our past conferences so everyone's odds of winning championships are much less. That's one negative of conference expansion that never gets mentioned.It's also important to note Tech is the only school in C-USA who has not hosted a single C-USA championship event, and Louisiana is the only state in the footprint that has not hosted a single C-USA championship event. We've never had home field/court advantage in any championship event unlike every other team in our conference. Most of that has to do with not having adequate facilities for our minor sports, and the rest has to do with our AD.
Very accurate post. And I don't see anything changing. Our budgetary issues have been discussed at length on this board over the decades.
The real self-inflicted wound has come with facilities. And we can leave Tommy and Les out of this - for the most part. Many of the upgrades we've seen over the past 10 years would have been completed by the early 90s had FJ remained President through that period. And then the upgrades that began with Dooley as AD were rolled out without any real long-term plan.
Then the long-term plan we rolled out several years ago was highly inadequate. Almost laughable. Our past and present leadership has been ultra-conservative in its approach, and that might cost us dearly down the road. We've also been hampered by politics at every level - state politics, university system politics, and even campus politics.
The off-the-record belief within our coaching staffs is that we're probably $75 to $100 million behind from a facilities standpoint from where we should be.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
HogDawg
The fact is, LA Tech had a athletic head start on most of the schools now residing in CUSA. For instance, LA Tech was playing FBS/Division I football long before Charlotte, UAB, FIU, FAU, UTSA, ODU, WKU, MTSU, UNT and Marshall. That's 10 of CUSA's 14 schools. Two of the remaining 3 schools in CUSA are traditional doormats, Rice and UTEP.
As for the remaining sports, there's no excuse for LA Tech not winning a CUSA championship in women's basketball, softball, women's soccer, volleyball, track & field, or some of the other sports.
The Los Angeles Tech Beavers didn't start their athletic program until the late 1950s. They dont sponsor football and have never been CUSA members.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawg06
So we are "fairing poorly" because we won the more rigorous regular season basketball championships that determined the best team after 18 games instead of the fluky tournament that rewards the luckiest team after 3 games? Got it.
That's the way the NCAA works. In college basketball, you have to "stand up" at tournament time. Wins in March are more important than wins in December and January.
Re: LA Tech Fairing Poorly in CUSA
Quote:
Originally Posted by
HogDawg
That's the way the NCAA works. In college basketball, you have to "stand up" at tournament time. Wins in March are more important than wins in December and January.
And that's why I am not a fan of college basketball.