Bull94

excellent. I remember when we were on regularly. unfortunately ESPN feels a need to kill all local markets so they can monopolize the eyeballs for their game of the day.

beastie, Why was our winning percentage higher in basketball then in football? Look at year over year numbers.Record wise(which is I believe all that matters), It's obvious that basketball has improved while football actually regressed. If we had BE caliber recruits in football and not in basketball,how come the results weren't there? I don't know if you watched either team play but it was more painful watching football this year. We have a huge recruiting advantage in football over basketball regardless of conference. We play in a football state( I believe there was an article posted about how much bball talent comes out of this area while we are sitting on a goldmine of football talent). We play in one of the nicest pro stadiums in the country. No comparison. I believe we are headed in the right direction for both programs.

I think that is a chicken and egg arguement. Does recruiting well produce winners or does winning attract good recruits? I am more concerned with how we develop our talent than I am with where they rank on the Rivals recruiting list. I hate to tell you but Rivals rankings aren't the end all concerning talent evaluation. There are a million examples of lower ranked recruits developing into better talent than guys who were ranked higher than them. I think that is why they actually play the games rather than present the Nat Champ to whoever had the highest Rivals  ranking. Now looking at the top 150 list, do you think there is any coach out there we could hire for what we pay CRM and somehow expect him to get these types of recruits? After all we aren't a perrenial winner,yet.

Don't you think we should be more concerned with the results on the floor? I could care less if we have the 200th ranked recruiting class as long as we win on the court. I think he showed progress this year. Everyone needs to give him credit for that. Until we show signs of regressing he should be our coach.

Wow talk about expectations!! I can't wait until our prgram is at the level where we can consider firing the head coach because we haven't played for a Nat Champ in the last 2 years. They made a huge mistake moving to the ACC. It used to be guaranteed they would go undefeated in conference play. Not so any more. We'll be the new Beasts of the Big East. Which coaches are on the hottest seats? 7. Larry Coker, Miami (FL): Miami has gone two years without playing for a national championship and lost the ACC title last season at home. Coker won't be fired, but many Hurricane fans are starting to grumble.

dabull 80, Can't argue those credentials. UNCC has a pretty good history. I believe this will be their 10th NCAA tourney appearance so things were in place before Lutz got there. I think we should expect our program to grow to the same level as either UNCC or UAB in the long run. In fact if things had been run properly in the past there would be no reason not to be there today. I believe I heard on the radio on my way to the game that we lead the all time series with UNCC 27(now 28) - 25. Our longest running series. It's a shame that it will be ending. Lutz is a UNCC grad and says that it is his dream job. Might be tough to hire away someone from their dream job. UNCC to USF would have been considered a lateral move at best before the BE invite. Now if we commit to rebuilding our basketball program (facilities, fan base, salaries, etc) there is no reason why we couldn't hire away more established coaching talent. I like the momentum that CRM is building though. I think the character that he is bringing to the program can only be positive. Our players wanted the win more than they did. Simple as that. It was great to see them play their hearts out.

Not to take anything away from VTech but the ACC is way overrated this year. Top 3 teams  good. Everyone else average at best actually. I wish the "expert" TV analysts would give up trying to sell the ACC as the best conference both in football and basketball. Maryland wasn't .500 in conference and was barely .500 overall. They shouldn't make the tourney.

I totally agree with Howie, Bulliever, Bien, etc.  I feel like alot of people on here tear down USF athletics. I think the media's focus is negative no matter the subject. That is to be expected but we are FANS. We're all USF supporters so we shoudl act like it and support our programs. Compare our tiny problems to those of UF, FSU, or any other major BCS program. Not even close. Look what Colorado is going through. How about Crowder from UF last year? They suspend him for one game for his involvement in a very serious fight. What did they do with the other UF player? Can you say they favored Crowder because he was a "star"? They wouldn't even make it a game that counts. It was against a 1aa team. (most overrated linebacker last year- couldn't stop the run to save his life) I think both Leavitt and McCullum are getting a reputation for being team first guys. No one is above the team. Leavitt sends a message to his team that nobody is above reproach and some how he is not a disciplinarian. If anything I would say the opposite.

He did end up running for them because he said he found the right shoes?!?!  I don't think he worked out or did any drills though. Not sure. Here is another earlier article. It says that March 10 is his own personal pro day. Instead, he has slid to the fringe of the top 10. Now, with his decision to skip workouts until his own personal pro day on March 10 in Tampa, Williams may have fallen out of that group. http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cr-combinenotes022505&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

I think that is the Mike Williams pro day. Not sure if any Bulls will be working out. Hope so though. Williams has declined to both lift and run in Indianapolis, choosing to go through his critical workout paces in the more familiar setting of the University of South Florida in Tampa, his hometown. if he turns in an impressive 40-yard dash time on his March 10 pro day workout in Tampa. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/don_banks/02/26/williams/index.html

I don't get that. The browns had one of the best pass Ds in the NFL. 5th in yards and 5th in TDs.

First of all, I never said "we can't attract top talent" only that I believe given the current circumstances we shouldn't expect to attract top talent. A remodel of the sundome, a few years to build momentum, and better fan support should help in recruiting. It is a fact that we have virtually no HOOPS tradition. I think you'll find it hard to argue that. I'm not sure if I said that Florida was not a basketball state but I think you'll find that the Florida schools put a greater emphasis on their football programs. How many National titles has the state won in basketball? How many in football? It is apples and oranges. Men's recruiting is much more competitive. I don't see Alabama boosters(or half of the SEC among others) paying high school coaches $150k to direct their top women's players to their schools. According to your logic, we should give CJF the head coaching job for the men's team. He is such a great recruiter that we should expect him to bring in top 35  classes every year for the men's program too.

Give the kid a break. First off, he wasn't able to support his kids because the NCAA doesn't allow it. I believe they have a rule against athletes having jobs. Maybe if the schools that bring in billions of dollars in revenue and pay their coaches multi-millions found it in their hearts to actually give the ones bringing in that money a fair share, they could support their kids. I find nothing wrong with him trying to get an education to better his economic standing. Does anyone know what he has to do in order to get his license back? Pay back child support? He should just drop out of school now and flip burgers full time. In the long run his kids will be much better off!! The system stinks. The NCAA chews them up and spits them out. There should be a stipend these full time student athletes get in order to support their families. Being a football player is like having a full time job only they don't get paid to bring in millions to the schools. That's the crime.

Interesting apples and oranges comparison. Women's hoops vs. Men's hoops..... I could only imagine what beastie (or any of us for that matter) would be saying if we had hired a 28 year old Mens coach whose only head coaching experience came at the high school level. We would have run him out of town with a record like CF had his first 2 years . Lucky we didn't run CF out as women's coach. CRM vs. CF. Nearly identical records after the first 2 years. Maybe different approaches but they seem to be on similar paths. Good programs take time to build. MM I agree that Coach F is underpaid but it is a fact that men's coaches are paid about 3 times on average what women's coaches are paid. That is a whole different discussion. CF makes about $80k while CRM makes about $240k. Coach F is paid the 12th lowest amount among the top 117 BCS schools. I'd be willing to bet CRM is probably around the same level. Sad but true. If we don't step up to the plate then CF will be gone. I think his contract expires this year??

Bullheaded, I think we can and will be big time. It's just takes time to grow. Our football program has grown faster than our fan and economic base. Miami had this same problem early on. They had good teams but no fan support. The BE brought us in for our potential. Fan potential as well as football talent potential. They realize we aren't there yet. If you thought I had the potential and hired me fresh from school to be an exec then I think you might expect to have to train me and let me gain experience through time before you allowed me to run the company. Trust me. We will be running the BE football company before long!!

Why does everyone think we are a "big time" program? We weren't even around 10 years ago. The fastest growing program,yes. Loads of potential, absolutely. We have gone from 1aa to BCS in a blink of an eye. We have to expect growing pains. It does not make economic sense to rent a 65k seat stadium for 1,500 people. I would be willing to bet UF and FSU don't spend much promoting their spring game. People go because they have been going for years. They have a tradition of going. It will grow with time.  Spend it on an I-275 billboard that 100,000+ people drive by every single day. Make it a really cool iconic u neon sign with info on individual game ticks. Get 1% of the 100k to BUY a ticket to a game. Show them a good time and you may have a season ticket holder. Could you imagine them having a good time at the spring game? It's ungodly hot. No real competitive football being played. And they get to see our 4th best punter play. Not a good way to sell a product even if it is free. We want them there when we have 35,000 screaming fans and it's fourth and goal with the game on the line.

Howie, I think this says it all. Maybe they realize that they won't recoup the investment. Louisville has done a great job. They have a tremendous amount of momentum. They were expected to have a great year last year and nothing indicates they won't again this year. I think if we ended the year ranked in the top ten we would have no problem getting 10k + to our spring game. Season tickets would be an easy sell. Until then I think we need to go after the casual fan during the regular season. Show them what a good product we can put on the field and then expect them to buy season tickets. I think most football fans know that the Bulls play college football now. Now we need to concentrate on building a winner. The best marketing is the buzz created by a winning team.

The problem is that the stadium alone costs $20k. In order to get anywhere near 10k people they would have to spend additional money to advertise. Even then there is no guarantee. I would rather see them focus on the casual fan during the season when attendance (and the games) matters. Billboards around town prompting them to buy walk up tickets. Eventually we will build a program that demands that type of spring game but why not put the money to better use until then. We had a down year last year. Season tickets will be a hard sell no matter how much you promote. Everyone knew the Bucs were here back in the late eighties but no one attended the games. Build a winner and the fans will come. The Bucs and the Lightning have proven that. No matter how much the D-rays promote, they won't get crowds until they start winning (especially at exibition games).

Bullheaded, The spring game is always mentioned in the paper. Free advertising and people still don't show. You honestly think we should waste our ad dollars on promoting a free game plus pay $20k for the stadium! I'm sure the few people that this would attract will say "man I better jump on season tickets, look at all these people here!" I agree with Wooly. Use the $20k on billboards or some other form to get people to regular season games. We don't have an unlimited budget and I think $20k + advertising is a signifigant sum. Why waste it trying to promote a free scrimmage.

I agree Bulldoug. What this team was lacking this year was a 3rd scoring option and some help at the point. Mosley (our 2nd leading scorer last year) would have done wonders for us. When teams keyed on shutting down Leather or Swift, we were done. Turnovers killed us. While we may not have made the NCAA or NIT, I think a better conference record and possibly a mini-run in CUSA tourney would have been likely. I'm still hoping for the CUSA tourney run though. Some might think that this amounts to not producing anything but to me this is quite good progress for a 2nd year in a rebuild.

Save the $20k. Big time programs bring in big time crowds even for their spring games. We're not there quite yet. It's kind of embarrassing to watch a game in a stadium that seats 60k+ when there are only 1,500 diehards there. How many of us would piss and moan if they charged $15 a head so they could break even? $20k is a good chunk of money. I doubt even "sponsors" want to spend that kind of change advertising to so few. BTW I'm in that picture too.

Bulliever, Thanks for the info. I just want people to realize the ranking of the recruit isn't always as important as the character of the recruit. Personally, I thought BB underachieved. Kelvin barely remained academically eligible for a semester. Although it probably didn't hurt to take a flier on him, I think Seth would even admit he was a longshot. Probably why most schools pass on this type of kid. Some of these kids are not cut out for college. No matter how high a ranking they receive. Baker hurts a little. He had tons of upside. I'll trust CRM on that one. Who do you think had a better ranking coming out of high school: Chris Rix or MB? Alot of this ranking stuff is subjective. It's what you do with your potential talent that matters.

TLVS, You're definitely right about sweeping things under the rug. Winning makes everything look prettier. I didn't phrase that correctly. I didn't mean class as in image wise but rather class as in talent level. The only way I could see USF picking up a top 150 recruit is if he lived close to Tampa and wanted to stay close to home and/or had academic issues or character issues that a more established program might not be willing to take a chance on. Those were the type that a very good recruiting SG could bring in. Borderline guys. I think our new coach is going with a completely new philosophy. Nothing wrong with that but it will take time to impliment. Maybe he will take a shot on one of these types but it doesn't seem to fit his style. There is a risk-reward associated with these guys. Sometimes they are not worth trying to build a team around. McCants was ranked #4 in the country. Brown was probably near the bottom of the top 150. McCants was worth taking a shot on. Brown on the other hand...

Beastie, Sorry if I upset you. I didn't mean to suggest USF is some podunk school in the middle of nowhere. Only that we have not put 1/10 the effort or money it takes to build an elite basketball program. The problems run much deeper than CRM's recruiting. The top players Greenie recruited were all from the area and suspect characters to say the least. I'm sure the top schools in the country would not even consider taking a shot on Brown, Waldon, etc. Headcases one and all. I think recruit rankings are overrated. Greenie was supposedly a god when it came to recruiting and that was the best he could do. We tried the me first superstar approach. I'm willing to try the "team" approach now. Bringing in high ranked, borderline headcases didn't work for us. We might not ever be able to bring in the type of class guys Duke, UNC, UCONN etc bring in. We certainly shouldn't expect it now. Maybe after we have a nice arena and we bring in 19,000+ fans per game. By the way we pay our coach like we are some podunk school in the middle of nowhere. Try and give him some respect for working hard for peanuts. I'm sure you do everything in your power to support USF basketball. Season tickets, donations, fan gear, etc. I appreciate that. One day hopefully we'll be able to say we were there when everyone gave up on USF basketball. Remember the old days with Seth's big time recruits. Read on http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/News/110801/Sports/Brittian_third_USF_pl.shtml

Turkey, All I wanted was some proof. Maybe an old article stating this as fact. Not a recollection. No doubt Baker and Waldon. Baxter I would disagree. Maybe Jackson and Brown. Look how long Brown lasted. Seth was known for recruiting primaddonna head cases. Borderline qualifiers that might pan out. I bet most of these guys wouldn't have come here except for the fact it was close to home and their grades were suspect and Greenie was the only one willing to take a risk. Maybe CRM is looking for team players. Not me first type of guys. Look how all the "good" recruiting Seth did worked out for us. 2 of his best, Jackson and BB, played together for years and did nothing for this program. It's probably an insult to group Seth's top 100 with those other guys you consider top recruits. Diarra was rated the #26 center by Rivals. Look how well that has panned out. No offense but the guy stinks. S Jones is better and he wasn't rated. Ratings don't mean everything. Guess how many Rivals rated recruits BC has had in the last 3 years? 1 same as us. Hasn't hurt them any. Would I like to get these guys? Absolutely. Realistically though no matter who our coach is odds are we aren't going to.