M. Basketball. Bulldogs Dominant in 83-61 Win over ULM

[longdawgview]

Interesting first post, but I think you missed the entire point of the discussion. Nobody WAS belittling ULM's "effort" in fact until after tip off yesterday. Re-read the comments made prior to game time. You'll see your fellow brother and sister Bulldogs being complimentary of their marketing effort, AND saying things like..."TECH I HOPE YOU'RE WATCHING" --- only to have folks attempt to go to the game, literally get turned away, and then the game's played in front of a half full arena. it was disingenuous at the least...irresponsible...and because of the way it was done, says loudly that ULM needs the money more than they need fans.

Just curious, brother...how many posts have you contributed on Warhawknation or RaginPagin to defend your alma mater when they blast Tech for being the reason the paper mill stinks? Yeah, that's what I thought...NONE.

I'm always a little suspicious of anyone whose FIRST POST on the BB&B is to discipline those of us who've been posting here since 1998.

Pathetic on ULM part if fans were turn away

[DONW]

ULM needs to take the approach that Grambling did when I went to a playoff game between them and NSU in the late 60's. There was about 5 of us that went to the game together. We arrived at the game late and the Grambling president, Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, greeted us at the door and thanked us for coming. As we looked inside the gym, there did not look to be one empty seat in there. It appeared that the biggest football players were serving as ushers as one of them came up to us and said follow him. We followed him down the court and he stopped and told some of them to move closer together so we could sit down. We were packed like sardines in that gym. The only other place I saw a crowd packed that tight was when I went to see Tech play Ark. State in the old national guard armory in Jonesboro in the early 80's when Karl Malone and Willie Simmons put on a dunking exhibition.

[Russdawg]

After this kind of treatment of Tech fans, why would we want to ever play them again in anything.

Agreed x 1000.

We know a number of Tech fans didn't even try to go because of the announced "sellout." And if Tech fans were turned away when there were maybe nearly 4,000 EMPTY SEATS that is deplorable and inexcusable and unforgivable. Seems like either their event management was totally incompetent or this was intentional guile and treachery. Having ANYTHING to do with their current administration ever again is like "fool me once, shame on you, FOOL ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME."

It ought to be OVER based on what saw in this event. I'm emailing Tommy and I hope others do too. And I suggest we start referring to them as LeMon rather than LaMon because this event was a LEMON.

[chathamdawgfan]

I could not believe ulm pulled out those terrible 80s stale pea yellow jerseys with NLU and Northeast Louisiana written ALL over them for this game. That was worse than their performance on the court.

Those are their lucky uniforms. Their school was probably called NLU the last time they beat Tech.

[Champ967]

I loved em - to me that was the smartest thing they did...

If I were them I would introduce legislation next session to go back to NLU - think about it

If they were smart ...

[TechAlum05]

Those are their lucky uniforms. Their school was probably called NLU the last time they beat Tech.

You are correct. The last time ULM beat Tech was during the 1990-91 season. The university was still Northeast Louisiana University until 1999.

[TYLERTECHSAS]

agreed x 1000.

We know a number of tech fans didn't even try to go because of the announced "sellout." and if tech fans were turned away when there were maybe nearly 4,000 empty seats that is deplorable and inexcusable and unforgivable. Seems like either their event management was totally incompetent or this was intentional guile and treachery. Having anything to do with their current administration ever again is like "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

it ought to be over based on what saw in this event. I'm emailing tommy and i hope others do too. and i suggest we start referring to them as lemon rather than lamon because this event was a lemon.

good one!!

[stodgdog]

I'm sure I'll get blasted but here's my take:

I grew up in Ruston, am a Tech graduate, hold season tickets in football, parents have box seats, am a member of LTAC, etc. etc. Also...I live in Monroe, my wife is a ULM grad, and I've got friends that are hardcore ULM fans. I pull for them if they're not playing Tech. That acknowledged...this thread is 19 pages long in just over 12 hours time. This doesn't do much to suggest that we, as Tech's fan base, don't care about ULM.

The ULM AD pumped the game up by calling it a potential sell out. Interest in the game was heightened by doing this and he successfully sold blocks of tickets to businesses. I'd say that the 4100 reported attendance was about accurate as there were many fans seated in the top of the facility. Since he had the attention of the community and successfully brought back plenty of fans that probably haven't been to a game since the name change he tried to give a nod to NLU and its graduates. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to sell jerseys and put kids in NLU tops when you're trying to sell your new brand, but as a nod to these kids' parents it was a risk he was willing to take. He probably realizes that where ULM is as a program...they've got to be risk takers or else they'll just stay right where they are (perhaps we could learn something from this?). Should they have sold tickets at the gate and called them "standing room" tickets? Probably so.

To suggest that this is the first time tickets sold vs. actual attendance differs is a pretty big stretch. I've been to some sparsely attended cold, wet, hunting season Tech football games where "22,000" fans where there when it seemed more like 12,000. To think that we're that far ahead of ULM in athletics is to have our noses turned up so much that we can see what's in front of us. We've got a basketball team that's been good for exactly 1 year and a football team that WAS good exactly 1 year ago. I believe in Tech and my goal is to see us as an 8-9 win/season FB team and a tournament BB team every year. I don't necessarily know that I care to play ULM in football but it does, to me, seem like we realize that we're not SO far ahead of them that we KNOW we'll win every time. We just KNOW that winning doesn't do enough for us to risk losing (Who wants our team playing ULL right now? NOT ME.)

Last night we proved that we are a good team that can play with anyone when we're on. How good is ULM? Who knows...they've played some good teams well but last night were clearly outmatched. This is where I'm sure Wickstrom is upset. He sold the game to their "fan base", built up excitement, managed to bring in over 4000 fans (1500 of which were probably Tech fans), and the team totally laid an egg. Why WE care about this is beyond me though. If we're more concerned with his actions rather than the fact that our basketball team just beat a team, that has been billed as a solid team, by 22 points then our focus is in the wrong place. AND we're not helping our "no rivalry" case.

I'm hoping this team can be a tournament team that maybe wins a game or 2. Get to round of 32 and maybe be a sweet 16 team and we'll really charge up the fan base and earn some national recognition.

I just feel like we do more self inflicted harm by turning our noses up to other programs. While doing so we've watched ULL improve, we've made poor administrative decisions from the bowl fiasco to the HC hire. We've watched our own SEZ project stall, and we've watched as other programs humbly built a fan base, passed us in the facilities arms race, the win columns, and bowl selections. Why don't we concentrate on what we need to do rather than belittle others for what they're trying to do. There are plenty of programs that could do the same to us. Instead they concentrate on building their programs and on WINNING. Again, that's the story here...last night we went to Monroe and we WON. That's it, on to OU to try to do the same thing.

Go to the ULM board and see how they talk about YOUR alma mater and worse the people who graduated from and are rightfully loyal to Louisiana Tech University. There's a dude who wants to fight me for no reason other than I am a Tech grad. Actually, I'm willing to do that because either way he loses. If he lost the fight, he lost it to an old, fat, out of shape guy. If he wins the fight, he beat an old, fat, out of shape guy. The logic apparently escapes the LaMons. I'm just kidding as I am not, nor have I ever been, a brawler. In any event, the LaMons blame Tech for everything from causing LaMon problems to global warming. You actually can't be nice to many of those folks, but there are some who genuinely good folks when met in person. But they really dislike Tech and seemingly would sacrifice their own success for our failure.

[trenteverett]

And you saw that last year when they spent more time talking about Tech not getting a bowl game than they did celebrating their first bowl game appearance in school history. ULM is so obsessed with Tech that it is pathetic.