Rick said

I would like to present an "alternate" point of view.

Have mostly been a supporter of "build it and they will come", but the fact of the matter is that NCAA Men's Basketball attendance is in a state of decline overall - Dukes of the world being the aside.

A BIG part of this, IMHO, is this:

Scoring continues to trend downward.

You have to have scoring to make it worthy of watching, after all that is the main point of the game?

Regardless, even if FAU had the BEST facility on all of C-USA they are battling apathy at the local level, where fans only want to come out to see "quality" teams.

We can play Ave Maria, or Warner in Madison Square Garden and NO ONE will be there.

Posted On: Nov 23rd 2015, 8:49 AM #352354

I agree, it doesn't really matter the facility or the opponent.  If the fans know they will be entertained they will come out.  In basketball if we are going to have a delay of game technical and behind a point before tip off and then have 3 turnovers people will stay away.  Same for football we have been promised an dynamic offense and the only consistency this season has been ill timed penalties or turnovers.

Put on an exciting show and you will get nice crowds.

My point was to explain why we lose to schools we think are lower programs than we are. They aren't really lower than us.

My point is that we do not have a basketball program, we have a basketball team.  We may have some years of success and some years that are not so great. We have no foundation for a program. That takes money that we do not have.

I don't advocate a new facility because we don't need one. But until we get one, and invest in a program, we just have what we have…a basketball team with a new coach every 3-5 years (based on both success and failure). And that may be all that's necessary…for FAU.

Wow, that's a fantastic post, Mark. I agree that the facilities thing will always keep us back and keep us from gaining any REAL consistency. I'm embarrassed of our arena. Have you seen other C-USA arenas? They make ours look worse than high school gym!

However, I think we can be an entertaining program. You saw that with Jarvis in 2010-11. That year we beat USF at home, and Miss. St on the road and won the regular season Sunbelt title. We had good crowds at all those games and had some of the most exciting basketball games I've ever seen. Let us not forget this : . That right there was a foundation setting win/year. Unfortunately, we just could not maintain it.

Basketball will always be a losing money sport until we're selling out every game and get a good TV contract. However, that doesn't mean that we can't have a decent team and have a good time doing it. Curry seems to have brought in alot of talent. Maybe we can see that talent develop like Jarvis did. We made significant improvements in Jarvis' 2nd year and then won 20 games in his 3rd. I hope we can turn things around to at least be somewhat competitive in CUSA this year.

Greatest FAU basketball game (from a fan's perspective) ever?

I know that is a memory that will be forever etched in my memory.

We charge our students through the roof for the programs we have.  Almost $17 per credit hour  

FAU Athletics Operations 2012 - $15,707,021 2013 - $17,556,053 2014 - $20,428,407 2015 - $22,133,710

I am not sure this is an issue of not having money, rather how we spend the $22 million we have.

College basketball in the state of Florida generally does not work. People don't care. Honestly I lost all interest after the loss to Warner. But that's because I don't enjoy the sport all that much. 

President Kelly wants FAU on a national stage. I'm sure upgrading the basketball program will be addressed at some point. He came here from an ACC affiliation so I would think basketball is in the equation for overall improvement.

illinoisowl said

President Kelly wants FAU on a national stage. I'm sure upgrading the basketball program will be addressed at some point. He came here from an ACC affiliation so I would think basketball is in the equation for overall improvement.

Posted On: Nov 27th 2015, 12:55 PM #352453

He does, that being said Clemson's basketball program has been pretty bad for 20 years.

But you are correct, the current state of mens basketball does not align with Kelly's vision.

DeltAlumnus said

College basketball in the state of Florida generally does not work. People don't care. Honestly I lost all interest after the loss to Warner. But that's because I don't enjoy the sport all that much. 

Posted On: Nov 27th 2015, 12:36 PM #352451

UF, FSU and Miami have all been in the top 25 perpetually over the last 5-10 years…with a few national championships mixed in.  

Aside from FGSU, the mid-majors in the state have been below average (UCF, USF, FIU and FAU).  I think these florida programs need to 'flip the script' (heard Eminem use that term, I think I am using it correctly) by doing what mid-west schools do in football…go up to Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey etc more to recruit.

I know recruiting from a distance takes a budget, however unlike football…you only need 3-4 key players per year.  It has to be realitively easy to talk a kid from Newark, Flint, Detroit, etc to play ball in Boca Raton.

Only 4 out the 13 players on our roster are from Florida. Historically, we've recruited heavily out of state for bball so I think we've already flipped the script to to speak.

Also, UNF might be the best "mid-major" in the state. They won the A-Sun last year and have already upset Illinois.