Fan Acceptance of Mediocrity & Basketball Facilities

[Otto]

I agree.
No fan accepts mediocrity. We all want to see the Ponies improve in ALL sports, even men's soccer, which made the College Cup, and women's swimming, which finished seventh at the NCAA championships.
This thread is nothing more than an effort to stir up the ire of fans.

[PonySnob]

Any idea as to what kind of facilities George Mason plays basketball in?

[Pony_Fan]

Any idea as to what kind of facilities George Mason plays basketball in?

Nope but I'm sure Stallion can tell you all the Juco's transfers and risks they have admitted.(check the other post)

[Otto]

EastStang will know. He seems pretty in touch with what's going on out there in D.C.

[Pony_Fan]

Any idea as to what kind of facilities George Mason plays basketball in?

From Eaststang:

George Mason has the Patriot Center built in the 1980's. Its a very nice facility which is impossible to get to for a 7 p.m. start. I don't know about the other schools facilities. The Washington Post has been snooping about and did an expose on the lack of academic muscle of Hobbs' recruits. George Mason is a state school that pretty much can admit any juco graduate and transfer basically any hours.

Which SMU cannot!!

[Stallion]

3 "POST GRADUATE" Prep School Players, a CC Transfer now at his 4th school including the top 2 scorers for George Mason. Another High School kid got into George Mason after telling Rivals he had a 2.0 GPA as a Junior.

[Pony4Life]

I looked at GMU's roster, and I saw three guys who I guess went to prep schools:
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2 Jordan Carter Guard SO 6-0 170 Indianapolis, Ind./Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory
3 Makan Konate Guard/Forward JR 6-7 200 Bamako, Mali/Worcester Academy [Mass.]
12 Tim Burns Guard JR 6-3 185 Greenfield, Mass./Worcester Academy
--------------------
I'm curious: how do you know if they did a post-graduate year, or simply went to the school for the regular four years? I know students who have done both -- just curious if there's a designation on the roster that I didn't see.

[Bigtime41]

You need facilities to get better recruits, you need fans to get better recruits, you need better recruits to build a better team, you need a better team to win games, you need to win games to get a higher seed in the conference tourney, you need to win the conference tourney to get into the NCAA tourney, you need to get into the NCAA tourney to get fans to show up.

So if you have to win to get fans to show up, and you need fans to get the guys you need to win, what do you do? You announce and break ground on a better facility, this gets guys who might not have otherwise been interested in you to allow you to get your foot in the door, then you offer them everything under the sun, and get them to come to your school before you finish your better facilities, promising them the chance to use them when they are finished. .

From my perspective we shall soon see. Rhonda has went out and brought in a TOP Tier recruiting class for 2006. Bar any major injury they should be minimum 8 deep next year. They should win early and often, seriously compete for Conference title and an invite to the NCAA tourney. Now as I understand it the practice facility is soon under construction because the promise of one is being used in the recruiting process now. So your scenario can be put in place specific to womens basketball this next year. You now have difference makers or play makers joining this program. You have a National Top 40 player coming in Jillian Samuels, you have 3 others that were heavily recruited nationally in Delisha Wills, Brittany Gilliam(Redshirt), and Alice Severin. These are TOP TIER recruites for girls ball. It will interesting to see if the practice facility is built before they graduate? Once they establish consistency in winning at home, will the student body come out and support? Will the alumni come out and support? Hell, if you just had those two pools of people support then you would have a solid fan base. What you proposed has happened already and when the winning comes (and it will), will the fans come? They will be the foundation for hopefully future TOP Teir recruits choosing SMU. The key is if a team does their part will the university, student body, and alumni do theirs? We shall soon see.

[McClown27]

From my perspective we shall soon see. Rhonda has went out and brought in a TOP Tier recruiting class for 2006. Bar any major injury they should be minimum 8 deep next year. They should win early and often, seriously compete for Conference title and an invite to the NCAA tourney. Now as I understand it the practice facility is soon under construction because the promise of one is being used in the recruiting process now. So your scenario can be put in place specific to womens basketball this next year. You now have difference makers or play makers joining this program. You have a National Top 40 player coming in Jillian Samuels, you have 3 others that were heavily recruited nationally in Delisha Wills, Brittany Gilliam(Redshirt), and Alice Severin. These are TOP TIER recruites for girls ball. It will interesting to see if the practice facility is built before they graduate? Once they establish consistency in winning at home, will the student body come out and support? Will the alumni come out and support? Hell, if you just had those two pools of people support then you would have a solid fan base. What you proposed has happened already and when the winning comes (and it will), will the fans come? They will be the foundation for hopefully future TOP Teir recruits choosing SMU. The key is if a team does their part will the university, student body, and alumni do theirs? We shall soon see.

Bigtime41,

Your questions raise the issue of viability for the women's basketball program as a revenue source in Dallas. However, they do not really get at anything I have posted about. Your reasoning seems to suggest that the men's program should be more successful and copy the talent and record of the women's program. I agree with you. Obviously, new facilities were not needed to make the women more competitive, just the right head coach.

Also, because they are so succesful without fantastic facilities, I am sure that the men's team can copy this success. We are really one of the few schools that demands facilities before we achieve any success, thus leaving the new facility empty.

This would be an excellent time to build facilities for schools like GMU, Wichita State, or Bradley; after some objective success has been achieved and people are likely to be excited about the program.

[Stallion]

as to the question about Prep Schools there was another George Mason kid that went to something like the Maine Institute Academy for POST GRADUATE studies-from memory. Go to the official roster at the school's website and you can quickly find out this information. I didn't include the kid that went to the Jesuit school since it wasn't post graduate. It takes about 10 minutes to find obvious academic risks at each of these schools-I'm sure there are some other buried skeltons in the closet that might take a bit more time.

[Pony4Life]

I wasn't challenging you there, I just don't know. There are a lot of private schools where you can do a PG year or graduate as a regular HS student, and the diploma looks the same. I simply don't know how to tell which is which.
Thanks for the feedback.

[Stallion]

that's not what this is about. Go read the Washington Post article-its simply an avenue hijacked by Coaches to get marginal students eligible as soon as possible and without having to go to CC/JC. Some Preps being used these days don't have any curiculm, no text books, a single teacher and everybody enrolled seems to be a Division 1A Football or Basketball Superstar Recruit. To be fair-I didn't detect the "sham Prep School" situation-in 10 minutes-with the George Mason kids but they were 5th year players who were presumably forced to go the Prep School route to become eligible. This is becoming epidemic in College Sports.

[EastStang]

I think Worschester Academy has a pretty long history. Isn't that where Mike Jarvis coached? I don't know about the other Mason transferees. As I said, Mason has a nice field house one generation newer than ours. Its hard to get to because well Mason is hard to get to. Its average attendance is around 3,500/game. It has 14,000 students, but it is a commuter school with a large night school segment. As I said, it is a state school, a commuter school, and they have a larger curriculum that they can offer students and thus hours are more easily transferred. However, I think I heard on the radio that some of their starters were majoring in political science and one is psychology. They do have a Sports Management Major.