RICK HART: Where in the HELL are our FANS --- STUDENTS????

[edwa]

Ontop of the mob, which RGV explained, any student can come to the game and sit behind the baskets without a ticket.

[PonyKai]

Poor little privileged, entitittled SMU fans and students.

Area man upset non-billionaire donors express displeasure with leadership and direction of program the only way they can.

[smupony94]

Poor little privileged, entitittled SMU fans and students.

Area man upset non-billionaire donors express displeasure with leadership and direction of program the only way they can.

Local fans unable to pay market rate for tickets

[used to be 2]

Many 1500 were able to pay market rates but not willing to go blind and not see where their seats would be.

[ponydawg]

Poor little privileged, entitittled SMU fans and students.

Area man upset non-billionaire donors express displeasure with leadership and direction of program the only way they can.

Local fans unable to pay market rate for tickets

Not sure I'd call it market rate either. The "big donors" aren't using their tickets. They paid above market rate to store the tickets in secretaries desk and wait for Memphis, cincy, UCONN to come to town. They can afford to do that, thats fine. But the University shouldn't wonder why the loyal fans don't show after being shown loyalty doesn't matter.

[tristatecoog]

For the love of all that is holy, people need to stop believing that reported attendance figure.
Last night was the 1,500. We've come full circle.
And how did it not look terrible to have about 25 students in the prime Mob section? Some serious rationalizing going on here.

I get it. The section behind the SMU bench would have MOBsters if there was demand but it had a sparse group of general fans. Are those season tickets? There was a decent group in the first row floor seats. Looked about 75% full. A neighbor and son were there.

Relative to the Erwin Center, Moody is darker and more broken up into sections -- MOB in prime view, band half fills a baseline and cheerleaders/pom makes the other baseline look decent. ESPN is also adept at hiding the empties.

Houston's "crowd" at TSU is similar to SMU's Garland days.

Without LB and a national ranking, and even without the reseat, how full would Moody be? Last February, the Wichita State and UH games had plenty of empty seats.

[Fresno Mustang]

Blaming students for being too rich or too entitled as the reason for not going to games this season is pathetic. The student body proved over a multiple year period that the Mob and student section would be filled to max capacity with a good product. Jank and co. scheduling the AAU schedule that essentially killed the opportunity for an at large bid before the year started and then limping out of the gates of said schedule is why students aren't there. I feel bad that Jarrey has to grind through this year in front of these crowds after experiencing Moody Magic in the early parts of his time at SMU.

[SoCal_Pony]

“If we attend consistently regardless of situation we will differentiate our program. This impacts recruiting, record, etc” - Rick Hart

Really?????????????

How’d that work out for Jank? He had the sellout Moody’s and he still recruited like [deleted].

We are now witnessing first hand the results of said crappy recruiting.

[SoCal_Pony]

Poor little privileged, entitittled SMU fans and students.

C'mon Stallion

Your focus and expertise on athletics is certainly recruiting based. You can't be looking at what is going on with the bball program and for one second think it is acceptable

ObeyMyDog is tearing it up on the BB board.

Stallion, you are never one to shy away from expressing your opinion. Jank’s recruiting is now at tiki-doh levels. Just curious, at what point would you terminate him?

Me personally????, I don’t care what he does now. He needs to go, period.

[SoCal_Pony]

For the record, I think that was a completely inappropriate tweet by Hart.

It also makes me question at what point Hart really will fire Jank. Maybe he gives him another year because lack of fan support is hurting Jank’s efforts?

Crazy, but I truly want SMU to fall flat on their face this year. Hart’s tweet only confirms my suspicions.

[DiamondM]

Look, I'm not happy about the crowd, the team's performance, the schedule, or the reseat either, but I don't get the problem with the tweet. It's true that fans of most programs, like us, show up based on the situation --- a high profile opponent, the current winning streak, day of the week, what's on tv, etc. If you watch most mid-week, early season games on tv that aren't against "name" programs, and there are tons of empty seats (many other schools have the same issue). Rick's point is that what differentiates next level programs is that many more -- not necessarily all -- of their fans (especially students) show up on Tuesday nights against the nearby directional school or low major.

So there is absolutely nothing wrong about Rick's tweet. It's correct, but incomplete because it's the same chicken and egg issue. Does commitment by the fans to show up no matter what make recruiting and performance better? Yes. Does better recruiting and performance on the court, and loyalty by the program to the committed fans, engender that commitment to show up? Also yes. It's not one or the other. Both are necessary. So personally, I don't have a problem with Rick calling folks out to show up and act like a next level fan base. I also don't have a problem with fans (particularly the ones who are still showing up) calling SMU out for not meeting its part of the bargain.

[Rebel10]

Didn’t Rick run off a good amount of loyal fans by reseating?

[SoCal_Pony]

Look, I'm not happy about the crowd, the team's performance, the schedule, or the reseat either, but I don't get the problem with the tweet.

I’ll tell you my problem with his tweet.

It’s called deflecting.

HE, RICK HART, is the reason a rather substantial amount of die-hard SMU supporters are now turned off by the BB program. HE, RICK HART, orchestrated a re-seat at the worst possible time IF one was looking out for the best long-term interests of this school.

Now is tweet is placing blame on the fans, saying their lack of support will impact Jank’s recruiting. Are you serious????????? That might to true for tiki, or Chad or Sonny or Doh or Dement or any other HC SMU has rolled out here for the past 30+ years.

But definitely NOT for Jank.

[smupony94]

https://twitter.com/notBobSharp/status/ ... 09984?s=20

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

https://twitter.com/notBobSharp/status/1067859365418409984?s=20

Nice!