Can I ask why? I understand being pissed off about last night, I certainly still am. But we theoretically return 100% of this team. Of our 8 man rotation we have 4 Juniors (two it was their first year in Div 1 basketball), 3 Sophomores, and 1 True Freshman (that I personally think needed to RS). Wouldn't we want them to get more practices and more actual game experience? The years with McCree and Hamilton as seniors would qualify as years that I don't think we should have gone to a lower tier tournament. Marhsall is going to the CIT, IMO that makes significantly less sense. Elmore and Burks were a majority of their production, and both of these players will be gone. I think they are just trying to let Elmore get more game(s) to try and break the Marshall all time point record.
What's the difference between Wednesday and Thursday? The one who was directing play as the clock was counting down. I don't mind DayDay taking that last shot, but Archibald should be the one doing the ball handling in these critical situations. He usually makes those FT's, and he is less likely to make a reckless drive down the lane that is stuffed by good interior defensive teams like ODU. DayDay makes absolutely insane drives every game, and I don't want him to stop either. There are times, however, when Archibald's vision and play makes more sense.
If we had a 1st year coach and almost all sophomores and freshmen, I'd be all in for going to "any" postseason tournament. I don't know if more practice and more games would help unless there was a concerted effort to get more playing time for Thomas and Langston. I'm not sure McKinley is equipped to play at the pace required for Division I. Walters is a walk-on freshman so it is hard to tell what he might be capable of. Some sessions with a sports psychologist might be helpful for the issues the team has been having with making free throws. That's just my thoughts, but I'm no expert in these things. I'd certainly cheer them on if they go to a tournament.
I would rather see Tech start a dedicated fund with proceeds used to schedule better home non-conference basketball games and take the the revenue above what we would get from the typical November/December non-conference game over the past couple of years and reinvest it back into the fund to continuously upgrade our non-conference home schedule. There’s no way we are going to improve attendance until we start 1) scheduling smarter (dates and times) 2) with opponents the casual fans care to see, 3) improve marketing, and 4) improve the game day experience.
Attendance felt* better this year, to me. Or maybe they were just louder.
Yes, I realize it would take more than $50k, but have we considered starting a fund and asking for funds from our corporate base? If we can figure out how to get a true 5,000 crowd as opposed to 1,200, maybe we have a product that businesses would feel like investing in from a pure marketing opportunity as opposed to loyalty.
A new article has been posted on www.latechsports.com:
Louisiana Tech had its heart broken again by Old Dominion, falling 57-56 in the C-USA Tournament Quarterfinals on Thursday night inside The Star.
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