Bull94

Pelfrey is NOT an upgrade from Mac. His first 3 years at USA they went 36-48. Hardly a world beater. Compare that to Macs 3 years prior to USF. Same thing. Not an upgrade.

I would love for us to make the financial committment to make a run at Grant. He recruits our state so well. I'm just not sure we are ready to do that though.

funny how you think this guy is such a great fit when he has a mediocre at best record over the last 5 years in the Sunbelt Conference. You were one to always bring up Macs record. How about Pelfrey's first 3 years at USA?? He was 36-48 in the freaking sunbelt and somehow this guy is your savior? What a joke. You would have wanted him fired if you were a USA student after 3 years and now you think he is our BE basketball program's savior.

No way Pelphrey is in line for the Kentucky job. They have bigger fish to fry. They aren't going to buyout Tubby for $4 M and then bring in the current coach at USA. Tubby is gone this year. They aren't going to wait 2 years. Anyone not smart enough to sign Brewer from UF and Lofton from UT when they were begging to go to Kentucky is a terrible recruiter. Their boosters have said they have no problem coming up with the $4M buyout. I think they make a hard run at Donovan after the tourney. He didn't sign an extension last year when offered. He is either going to take a huge pile of cash from Kentucky or use it as leverage to sign with Florida. Personally I think he could be gone after this year. All his players are leaving. If they don't get Donovan then I think they bring in Gillespie. They want a guy who has proven he can coach at a higher level then the Sunbelt conference. He should be a good fit for us though. Especially considering we still have Sunbelt facilities!!

This was exactly my point. What player wouldn't want to play for a program that has national prominence, top ten facilities, perks, etc regardless of the coach? Florida will be a great program long after Donovan if they are committed to it. Especially if they spend $6M dollars per year on their bball budget. He might have been pulling in players at Marshall but certainly not McDonald's All Americans and top 150 recruits like he does at UF. I agree that a good coach and recruiter can put a program over the top. In fact they are vital to that program's success. I just believe, in my opinion, that the success and prominence of a program is at least as important when it comes to selling a kid than the coach himself. Except in the case of R Zook at Illinois! I don't know how that guy does it??

rutgers is now winning because they have dumped a bunch of money into the program. they doubled the budget in the last 10 years and actually had a higher football budget than Michigan in 04-05. I bet if we double our basketball budget and make a commitment to build a winner then we will. It takes time and money though. http://www.cbc.ca/cp/football/061122/f112211A.html

Uh FSU had a top 25 recruiting class last year and this year. As did Florida with a top 10 class. Miami had a top 30 class. Basketball recruiting isn't terrible. Duke is a top 20 academic institution, it is much easier to get 2 guys in with not so great grades than 15. That is why they have football troubles. UConn puts a lot of money into football, just hasn't turned their way. You comment that 85% of a recruiting is the program is hokiesmoke. Florida was an average program before Donovan came in and started pulling in top recruits. What about Huggins (I hate using him as an example) at K-State. Tim Flyod at USC. Bruce Pearl at Tennessee? Those last three programs have average success at best. Recruiting is 85% coach at most schools, at a UK/Duke/UNC the program can sell itself. UF had been to a final four before Donovan. Hardly average. Give Donovan the USF job with the same pay and budget of RMC and tell me how high his class will be ranked. Give RMC the UF job with Donovan's pay and budget and I bet his class outranks Donovan's here. Do you think recruits would run from UF if Donovan leaves? No they're building a solid program there that is committed to winning. Even the beloved Huggy couldn't get Mayo to KSU. He has improved their recruiting but obviously that's his 15% worth. Tell me why Doughtery can't bring in a top 5 class to SMU? Do you think Huggy could? Tim Floyd has a ton of BCS money as a recommittment to win now. Didn't say it wasn't possible to rebuild a program or even build one with enough money. They obviously went out and bought an ex NBA coach. Bruce Pearl is a very good bench coach. He does sell his program well but look what he did in his first year with another guys recruits. as for uconn, let them keep all that football talent the state produces. I'll take the state of Florida's 4th best any day against them.

Because Florida is a football state. Why can FSU recruit top 5 football classes every year but not in basketball? Same with Miami?? How about Duke and UCONN? If they have such great basketball recruiting classes every year why not the same for football? apples and oranges.

I would love to be able to bring in solid recruiting classes full of high schoolers and give them time to develop. Our situation is much different than these other programs. While they develop into nice "teams" many couldn't compete year in and year out with top notch programs. Usually they are senior heavy teams that play against younger power teams when they are able to pull off an upset here and there. I believe RMC was forced to go the JUCO and transfer route because he couldn't find BE level talent at the high school level willing to play at USF. Maybe he is starting to make inroads with guys like Howard, Curry, Bozeman, Sakka, etc but only time will tell. Obviously the JUCO and transfer talent hasn't been able to compete either but he thought it would give him the best chance to win right away. He gambled and lost. I still believe he gave us the best chance to win with these guys. No way any coach could come in and recruit high schoolers good enough to compete in the BE with the state that this program is in. I believe 85% of recruiting is done by the program regardless of the coach. Even Greenburg said that kids don't grow up wanting to be Bulls. I believe the situation needs to be addressed as well but it goes much deeper than the coach. I know you do but I'm not sure many on here realize this.

I feel sorry for CRM. I bet he regrets ever taking this job. He will be the poster boy for all those assistants that are told to wait for the right opportunity. I'm sure Grant is glad he waited for something better to come along. [edit]Edited by Bulliever to remove quoted ignorant comment by flsportsfan83 - Strike 1[/edit]

nobody has anything to say about this post. Seems logical to me. I'll respond to that post. I disagree that his performance has been subpar relatively speaking. He is the lowest paid coach with the worst facilities and the lowest budget in a basketball power conference in only his 2nd year. Why does anybody expect any coach to finish higher than 16th place given these conditions? I think he actually exceeded expectations by finishing higher than 16th considering this and many experts who picked us to finish dead last again would agree. I have no problem bringing in transfers. Lots of programs do it. Should we as a program regardless of the coach be expected to recruit against the likes of LSU, Purdue, Arizona, FSU etc for these kids straight out of high school? Not in the position we are currently in. Do we say "no" to a Gransberry when he wants to come here? How about Holmes? The #1 at his position in the state of Florida who everybody wanted decides to transfer in with 3 years left and we just say "sorry we only take high school kids"? JUCO kids are used every where to fill needs. I believe SoJo was a JUCO. Now he's in the NBA. Mattis was a JUCO too and he broke USF's record for blocks. Do we need a change? Absolutely but it starts at the top. We need to spend some money on facility upgrades, recruiting budgets, etc before we expect ANY coach to be successful here. Are we ready to make that committment? Not sure but I hope it doesn't stunt the growth of our football program. I have no problem if we decide to bring in a new coach but if we don't make the financial committment to win then we won't regardless of who sits on the bench.

To help out the university? I do understand where you're coming from but if you can afford it, why not up the donation to help out the programs? why don't those older alums donate more for the good of the university? It's because they don't have to. They can make their same donation and continue getting the best seats. No incentive to up the ante. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of older alums/big boosters who give over and above the minimum requirements for whatever seating you're talking about. If they didn't, we'd be in an even worse place financially than we are, relative to other programs in our conference. I'm sure there are Trip and they would continue to get good tickets basd on their donation levels. This would make those that don't to up their donation or give up their seats. It's the American way. I mentioned KU because they play in a small arena like us. They had people willing tickets based on donation levels set decades earlier. How is this fair? What do you say to a new alum that donates multiple times more and gets way worse tickets? They reset tickets based on donation levels and they raised millions more because of it. Not to say USF demand is any where near KU but all the same the higher the donation amount the better your seats. We don't play in arenas the size of Marquette, Georgetown and many other teams that have plenty of good tickets to go around. We need to give people an incentive to donate more and to do that you need to have the good seats available. Seating should be reset every 5 years based on the amount you donate. As demand rises so do donations.

To help out the university? I do understand where you're coming from but if you can afford it, why not up the donation to help out the programs? why don't those older alums donate more for the good of the university? It's because they don't have to. They can make their same donation and continue getting the best seats. No incentive to up the ante.

To help out the university? I do understand where you're coming from but if you can afford it, why not up the donation to help out the programs? That's not the good old American way. That's why they base seating priorities on donation levels to begin with. They want to give you an incentive to donate more. Give me an incentive to donate more and I will. Don't expect me to do it out of the kindness of my heart.

no it's not a guarantee but this is an exception not the rule. do you think the d-rays have a shot to win the East by spending 3 times less than the Yankees or red sox? how about if I hire a lawyer? Should I expect the same results from a guy who charges $100 an hour as i should if I hire a guy for $300 and hour? do you think I'd get a nicer house if I spent 3 times what you pay to have yours built? not neccessarily but 9 times out of 10, I will.

sorry dabull but we live in a capitalist society and those willing to pay a higher price deserve the best seats. How come I can't get the same seats as older alums even though I donate multiple times as much? There is no incentive to donate more. In fact I could donate much less and still have my same seats and I'm strongly considering this because I don't see me ever getting 1st level seats. Why pay for something if I can't get it? I'm not saying anyone has to increase their donation, only that the highest donors get the best seats. This is how it works in our country. Seating should be reset every 5 years based on how much you donate. Otherwise there is never an incentive to donate more. I basically have to wait for the older alums to give their seats up or die. Why bother donating more?? That was my point. The crowds wouldn't be any smaller.

You should have come up with the $600k to buy out RMC and the extra $900k in salary plus all the additional funding he would have required last year. I'm sure Woolard would have listened to you.

Absolutely. This is insane. Losing momentum in football would do much more damage to the school's athletic reputation than staying bad-to-mediocre in basketball. I totally agree. I would rather have a shot at a BCS game and payout every year then a one and done in the NCAAs. So now we are depending on football to improve our bb program?? That is insane. Let's pretend for a moment that we don't have a football team. So, what do we do to turn this bb program around? obviously if we didn't have a growing football program that needs the money to continue it's path then we would be able to concentrate on basketball. We also would still be in CUSA or some other lowly conference. We were chosen to join the BE on our football potential. You can't just pretend to not have a football program. Coach K was pissed when the ACC expanded because he knew they were trying to turn a hoops conference into a football conference. That's the cash cow of college sports. Unfortunately in order to grow a new program most of the funding has to go to football. Why do you think football schools are starting to compete in basketball? Texas, OU, UF, OSU, etc. Because they bring in loads of money to fund all of their sports programs through football. First, We need to raise basketball revenues by resetting the donation levels at the arena. Kansas did this several years ago because they started to bleed money. All the best seats were going to all the old donors at ridiculously low donation levels. Their new AD came in and said up your donation or lose your seats. Many did but some didn't. New donors came in to buy the rest. There was no incentive to donate more money when you couldn't get the best seats. They raised tons of new money and now they are financially much better off. I think only time will allow us to compete financially in basketball. Once our football program is well established and we have been to a couple of BCS games and we have 45,000 season tickets sold.

not only that but if you aren't willing or able to financially committ to building a program you won't attract many good coaches.

Absolutely. This is insane. Losing momentum in football would do much more damage to the school's athletic reputation than staying bad-to-mediocre in basketball. I totally agree. I would rather have a shot at a BCS game and payout every year then a one and done in the NCAAs.

Hire a new coach. No, this is the BE, we need to pay a higher salary. Yes. No. Absolutely. Any other questions? Rueb So it looks like you would rather try to compete in basketball than football? Don't you think it would be a wiser investment to build our football program to the point where we generate enough cash to support all other sports first ? Isn't it as obvious to you as it is to many others that football is the cash cow of college sports? You're willing to jeopordize that for basketball now? Say we up our basketball budget $2M, that would still put us in the bottom half of BE funding. Take that away from football and where does that leave us? I'd rather take the long term approach. Invest in the cash cow and then fund the other programs as we start to get BCS invites and 45,000 in the seats. Seems as though it has worked quite well for a lot of other schools.

That's great you don't think he should be coach next year Rueb. What's your plan of action? Should we go out and hire somebody for the same money? Do we up the funding? Should we expect any coach to succeed if we don't committ financially to winning? Are you willing to see the football program stagnate if we take away from that in order to fund basketball?

How does talking about the program ruin a "fun" season?  What about this season was "fun"?  That's the attitude I don't get.  I get what you are saying that everyone is hoping we win, but sometimes it seems like it doesn't matter to people.  It seems by that statement that you'd enjoy the season no matter how successful we are.  After football season is over and some other sports have yet to get started (softball, baseball), what else is there to talk about?  Are we supposed to ignore the negatives and not criticize the program at all until the season is over?  What else would we talk about?  I also understand not calling anyone a "clown" as Bulliever says, but a lot of people can criticize the program without going nuts and name-calling.  Those are completely different things.  I don't know the coach personally so I'm not going to judge him personally.  However, our team needs to do better and I don't get the point of waiting for the season to be over to say anything negative about the basketball team.  Anyway, hopefully it does matter to everyone that we win, but sometimes it just seems like people are too complacent. I have no problem with people criticizing the program but the endless "fire Mac" talk is ridiculous. If we are not ready and willing to committ financially to this program then nothing will change regardless of who our coach is. That's what a lot of people don't get. They come on here and call for Mac's dismissal thinking that all will be different just by changing the coach. They're wrong. I'm all for change if that means we will committ to competing financially in the BE. I don't think that Mac got a fair shot at success in the BE though with the limited resources we provided to him and for people to bash him for that is lame. I just hope that if they do committ financially to basketball that it doesn't take away from the growth of our football program. I think that comes first. One thing Woolard can do to raise some funds is to update the donor amounts for the best sections in the arena. Kansas did this several years ago because they were having financial troubles and people were willing their tickets on after paying the same donation amounts for decades. It was unpopular with the old timers that had tickets for years but it was neccessary if they wanted to continue funding the program properly. They instantly raised millions in additional donations to keep their program solvent. It's time for us to do this. We can't be expected to run a successful BE program off of Sunbelt donations. It allows younger alums who are willing and able to donate more to get the best seats. It also allows any of the old timers who are willing to up their donations to keep their seats.

what about Villanova last year? they started 4 guards and did pretty well. I didn't think we were willing to run the floor enough this year.

Mac isn't a good recruiter anyway, and with poor results what's the difference? The next coach is gonna get handed a certain quality of product either way. At the rate we're going, bringing in some JUCO kids isn't going to make a difference in the long run. Many coaches go this route in the first couple years of building a program. By putting a winning product out on the floor. Jose Fernandez was a no-name coach when he got here, the difference in the men's and women's programs is huge. If McCullum was having similar success as Fernandez you would see big attendance and the donors would surely follow. Comparing men's and women's basketball is completely ridiculous. Where is the huge attendance jump for Jose? How about the big donors for him? If they were the same then why hasn't he attracted either? Doesn't RMC have one of the top Florida recruits coming in next year? We all salavated over him when he chose FSU. Everybody said Mac needed to land him or else. Now that he is transfering in nobody gives him credit. Not ridiculous at all, considering Jose didn't come from a "pedigreed" background in coaching. If a similar coach on the men's side had similar success, you would see a lot more fans and eventually, donors. McCullum might have reeled in a couple of nice recruits, but overall recruiting has been weak. He could have done a better job recruiting for the Big East, imo. We are a couple years into it and still struggle with depth of talent. So you're saying we should bring in a guy whose only head coaching experience is at the high school level to coach our men's BE basketball team?? and you think he would have greater success than RMC?? That's crazy. I find it funny that given the history of this program and all the obstacles it faces people still believe RMC should be bringing in McDonald's All Americans in our 2nd year of BE play.