Just Curious Re: so-called "Mid-Major" schools

[RGV Pony]

Perhaps this is an overly simple question, but do the following schools all have sparkling new facilities, both practice and game, and plenty of shiny new toys upon which plenty of $$ has been spent?

Bradley
Southern Illinois
Creighton
Wichita State
George Mason
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Missouri State
Northwestern State
Kent State
Iona
Nevada

All have had multiple winning seasons, contended for conference titles, and participated in more NCAA and even NIT games than SMU over the last 13 years. While I agree that coming up with many millions worth of facility improvements would help, I can't imagine all of the above named schools have done so.

[DiamondM]

I'm pretty sure Wichita State doesn't -- my 84 year old grandpa was a 40-year season ticket holder up until 5 or so years ago when they required the purchase of seat licenses to even get season tickets.

But we should note that, unless I'm mistaken, only 2 schools on that list have Division I football programs that also drain the athletic department budget (Kent State and Nevada). All of the other schools can devote a much larger piece of their smaller "mid-major" pie to basketball than we can.

Incidentally, my mother, a WSU grad, hasn't given money to the Shockers since they abandoned football.

[Stallion]

Facilities are VERY OVERRATED as the basis for a strong program at the Mid major level. Its more important to have an energetic coach who can recruit under a liberal admission policies than it is to have outstanding facilities. I'm really not going to check each school-I've done it too many times and its almost always proven correct-but I guarantee you will find JUCOs, Division 1A transfers, Prep School players and probably at some schools partial qualifiers at aleast 80% of those schools. That's how Mid Majors compete.

[Corso]

That and the fact that mid-majors have far fewer players leaving early for the pros, so many of them have rosters loaded with juniors and seniors, whereas a bunch of the "big" programs have some one-and-dones. The big programs with the marquee players might have more talent overall, but when they have a bad night, a veteran team can sneak up and pull the upset.

[DiamondM]

Yeah, if WSU let my dad in, they'll let anyone in.

Seriously, I think there is no single "model" that mid-majors follow to have success in basketball. A lot of the state schools, like Nevada and WSU, do follow the "heavy on jucos" model that Stallion suggests. But other small private liberal arts colleges, with more stringent overall academic standards like Davidson, Winthrop, George Wash., and even Bradley, have rosters filled with high schoolers, with maybe a few jucos and Div. I transfers thrown in. This suggests that there is no single miracle panacea for what ails us.

[Stallion]

You know after all these years I would think some of you Cheerleaders would stop to check what you are about to post because you know I'd check it if you didn't. The first mid-major I checked that reportedly "does things the right way" in fact in reality has a much different model. The 6 of the top 7 scorers for Bradley are either non-qualifiers out of high school or a JUCO/CC transfer one of which was via Division 1A. Quit spouting BS Every year someone comes on here with yet another miracle private school and every year I prove that the school built its program using the Stallion Model or worse. WAKE UP PEOPLE!

[Corso]

.... there is no single miracle panacea for what ails us.

That might be the single most accurate statement in this thread.

[Stallion]

REJECTION No. 2: George Washington-knew this had to be a bunch of BS before I checked it out. George Washington had 7 Prep players, one LSU transfer and another Ukrainian who went to Evangel High in Shreveport for his senior year. Eight out of the Top 9 scorers were from these non-traditional routes to college. Apparently George Washington gets almost all its players from Prep School which doesn't pass the "sniff test"

[Stallion]

REJECTION No. 3--Davidson's top 3 scorers were all Prep Players, the No. 5 scorer a College Transfer, the No. 6 scorer was a Prep player and the No. 7 Scorer was a Euro from France. They got 3 Euros in all. I'm not going to even lower myself to check how the Hell Winthrop in the WhoCares Conference got to the Big Dance. Beginning to see a pattern emerge-if not how many years will you keep your head in the sand?

[SMU Football Blog]

Stallion makes me giggle.

[DiamondM]

Okay, I'll admit to confusion on this one: "prep school" = junior college???? Like Oak Hill Academy? Where Bamba Fall came from? I thought we were talking about having more athlete-friendly majors, and better policies to facilitate easier credit hour transfers from jucos and Div. I schools. Would those policies help us those prep school guys who chose GW instead of SMU?

I think you purposefully missed my point. I did look at the roster of GW before posting, along with Northern Iowa, Davidson, and Bradley. (I even debated putting Bradley in my post because I know that Tony Bennett, Tauai, and a couple other jucos are starters on their sweet 16 team -- you called me on it. Good for you.) I didn't do background checks on GW's players or check their test scores and GPA. My bad. I guess I just didn't realize that the famous Stallion transfer admission policy harangue included every "prep" school in the country -- again including Oak Hill Academy apparently. So please explain to me how come our admissions and transfer hour policy let in someone from Oak Hill in the first place. Seriously, I'm trying to understand how it is that we do have juco players and prep school players on our rosters, just not the ones you think are very good, when our policies supposedly don't allow these guys in. Is it your position that the ones on our rosters are some of the few star students in the bunch? That every other player at those prep schools and junior colleges who chose Davidson or GW or Wintrhop was inaccessible to us because he couldn't get in? Just trying to understand.

Oh, and Davidson's 3 Euros to our 2 Euros plus 1 African (before Ritter was dismissed from the team) means that they've got better policies with respect to foreigners than we do? French Euros are better than Lithuanian Euros I guess.

[Hoop Fan]

I'd bet these schools have comparable facilites RELATIVE to the conferences they play in. I know Southern Illinois facility firsthand and while nothing to write home about, it has been maintained properly, has decent lockerrooms and does not scream out 1952 when you walk in there. I think they have a dedicated practice facility too.

Some of these schools also pack in 7000-10000 fans no problem because they are in small to medium sized towns where they are the 'show'. SMU quite obviously does not have that so you have to compensate in other basic ways. Having a gym that has barely changed one bit since Jim Krebs played ain't the way to do it.

Also the schools that won the MEAC aren't competing with Memphis and UAB in their league tournaments. SMU has the worst of all worlds. Old tired facilities, no practice gym, no fan support and a league that has several schools who are willing, able and want to play and win at a big time level. We HAVENT done anything to allow our basketball coaches to succeed. If you dont have fan support, make the facilites nice. If you cant make the facilities nice, be flexible academically. We dont have any of it now do we?

[Hoop Fan]

also, think about this. Moody is NOW eleven years older than when Dement took over and started ranting about facilities. That means Moody is now roughly 20% older and it was considered old then. Moody was a dinosaur in 1988 when Kato Armstrong ran wild. That is 18 friggin years ago. Not to mention that 10 years added to an already old body, is that much more consequential than 10 years to a young or middle aged one. Moody is a joke right now and its screams out that SMU doesnt give a damn about its basketball program. Keep on rationalizing folks and looking for selective pieces of information and not the big picture.

If you cant have everything, get something. Facilities, academic flexibilty, fan support, something. You cant send coaches out there with nothing.

[RGV Pony]

Stallion, I'm not sure what you're rejecting. You refer to "cheerleaders;" on the contrary, my post was directed to "all you bitchers." Football bitchers usually espouse the 'broken model;' if you check the bball board of late, you'll notice the bball bitchers tout the importance of facilities, practice and otherwise. My question was simply a counterpoint.

Funny how a point can be brought up that is contrary to what one of the "bitchers" espouses and quickly be labeled "cheerleading."

To wit, Hoop Fan says:
"Build a facility, support the program and the chances of Tubbs or anybody else recruiting a few top players to smu goes up dramatically."

Stallion, however, says for bball it's "the model." I guess.

[Hoop Fan]

RGV, these things are not mutually exclusive. You cant be inadequate and bottom of the barrell in every category and expect to compete very well. I bet you Bennett would not have even take the smu job had we not had Ford Stadium in place. Has it carried the day in itself? No, but its something to work with.