Dan Silly-o says...

[ProfessaBull]

yeah and when football season starts he will say that we do not spend enough on football to compete with the Big 3.

don't listen to the idiot.

He actually praised USF all year long and I heard him say several times, "It's now the Big 4"

[Bull94]

Joe,

That was Coach K's big complaint when the ACC brought in Miami, VTech, and BC. He knows that football is the money maker and he knows that it will make it all the more difficult for basketball schools to compete with the kind of money the football programs are bringing in. The ACC (traditionally a basketball conference) realized this too.

If we're smart, we will build our football program to it's fullest potential before anything else.

[BullDoug]

About Leavitt's cafeteria request, how did they miss that when building the athletic facility?  Kinda make ya shake your head & wonder.

[ProfessaBull]

I'll have to agree we don't spend the money to compete in the Big East.

We spent a lil less than $2 Million on the basketball program , by comparison. Rutgers spent $ 3.2Million. UConn spent $5.5 Million. Cincy spent 3.7 Million.

In reality if you don't spend the money you aren't going to compete.

Which is why when Vitale said this is one of the toughest jobs in America he was not to far off.  Some may feel it's more 'appealing' from a coaches standpoint, because of the conference affiliation, and visibility like more appealing as a job then say a C-DOA school (outside of Memphis) which is probably accurate, BUT any coach coming here will have a difficult task ahead of them because they're going to have to compete against the nations best, in the nation's best hoops conference, with the cheapest budget by far.

Don't agree, just look at joe's stats they're dead on.  If someone offered you a job and said you had to be better then your competition, but you'll have less resources, less support, worse facilities, less exposure (tv), and a worse salary but you have to beat the competition in a year or two, or your fired.  Tell me how that's not a tough job?  Tell me how many 'top notch' candidates will be clammoring for this job.

Funny, the two names I've heard as possible candidates are recycles from our last go around.   This is not a candidate coming from the University rather coaches that are soliciting the University.  

Whether you want CRM gone or not, much of the disfunction in hoops is directly attributable to the dollars, support, and fan base...until that improves the prospects to improve, regardless of the future staff, are not totally bright.

Wow! I AGREE! ;D

[Bullpride08]

The funny thing is Bien, I work with a few IU and UK alum, they all ask the same question..."How the ^#&* can Florida be a basketball powerhouse?"

Simple answer, the BCS. The BCS makes for football teams a non BCS title team can make 5 times what it makes for a national champion in basketball. Is it very suprising that the top 3 basketball teams right now are football schools? No! Those schools have made so much money off the BCS and the college football system that they can feed their basketball programs countless amounts of money to keep them competitive.

Is it any suprise why Louisville, Kansas, UConn, and IU have put so much money into their football programs the last few years?

USF basketball might catch lightning in a bottle and have a godd season here and there. However, if anyone really expects them to be competitive year in and out with the current funding (especially since we don't have the booster money that many schools have) is highly mistaken.

Well Joe I would say UF makes it with the BCS, AND the SEC.  The SEC pays out more dollars to their members than any other conference, and has the most tv exposure.  Additionally, UF has some very deep pocketed donors that have made sure the dollars stay in UF Athletics.  

Those, as well as the BCS have led to UF's success.  Also, UF made some masterful moves in the 80's and 90's on men's hoops that have led to this success.  Keep in mind when Norm Sloan was brought back in 80' he had built himself into a bit of a legend, and a coup for a poor UF hoops program.  He built them to a Sweet Sixteen team...Vernon Maxwell, Dwayne Davis, Schintzius, Pat Lawrence, Livingston Chapman, albeit he cheated but he got the ball rolling in Gainesville to bring recognition to the hoops program.  Bringing in Norm in 80' would be the equivalent to USF bringing in Huggins, Norm had already been in a Final Four and had like 300 wins before returning to UF.

He left, and they fell into probation but at that point dollars were flowing in and the O'Connell Center started it's reshaping.  They made another masterful move hiring Lon Kruger, and really only experienced two down years during the sanction years.  Lon built that program into a Final Four team, a real strong team that was built from a very humble beginnings not the top notch recruits Norm landed (possibly by cheating).  After that Final Four support poured in and so did dollars.  They hired one of the top coaching candidates in the land in Billy Donovan, and then the commitment flowed in they built the new practice facilities, more upgrades to O'Connell, and the hoops offices.

At this point right now you'd struggle to find 10 hoops schools that have facilities equal to UF.  So when UF stacks up they can say to recruits that we've got top notch facilities, a top notch coach, since 1980 we've been to the NCAA's 15 times, and 8 years in a row, three Final Four appearance and one National Championship, and oh yeah we put about 12k in the O-Connell Center for every game. Hmmmm, hard to beat that.

[Bullpride08]

About Leavitt's cafeteria request, how did they miss that when building the athletic facility?  Kinda make ya shake your head & wonder.

What would make you shake your head and wonder Doug?  That thing is going to be significantly costly, did you want to wait 3 more years to build the facility so we could have raised $3M more to partially cover the dining hall too?  They needed that facility built like it was yesterday, regardless of the costs, could you imagine if we spent 2-3 years and we were still in trailers up until last year?  First, there would have been no Leavitt, and probably not half the talent we possess.  Build the facility was first and foremost- it is almost 120k SF, get that in the ground and we can add, annex, and go...if we waited any longer to raise more money Leavitt would have bolted.   This showed some level of support and commitment by the Universities part.  Now the next step was practice fields, and a dining hall.  Welcome to the world of big time college athletics.

There is nothing to make you shake your head and wonder if you understand USF athletics and the limitations we're faced with.  The dining facility wasn't a 'necessity' but building the athletic facility in it's present state was.  Offices, video, weight training, rehab efforts that new facility has been enormously valuable the dining facility is a luxury that will be built.  

[Joe]

I lived in Gainesville during the Sloan years (my dad was in grad school). Actually crap you not I was in an ad with Dwayne Schintzius promoting youth programs, he came to my school and selected a hand full of students to be in it.

Crap you not he signed and autograph for me and jackass used a "$" for the S.

A lil Schintzius and Joe trivia for all of you.

[BULLfreak]

I'll have to agree we don't spend the money to compete in the Big East.

We spent a lil less than $2 Million on the basketball program , by comparison. Rutgers spent $ 3.2Million. UConn spent $5.5 Million. Cincy spent 3.7 Million.

In reality if you don't spend the money you aren't going to compete.

when did college basketball turn into MLB

[Joe]

It's alwasy been about money. You think you can spend less money than your direct competitors and expect better results? The reason the best teams are great year in and out is because they put a lot of money into their program.

Everything from facilities, training, etc costs money. When you spend less on that stuff your not going to be pulling the best players. Money matters in all college sports

[Bullpride08]

It's alwasy been about money. You think you can spend less money than your direct competitors and expect better results? The reason the best teams are great year in and out is because they put a lot of money into their program.

Everything from facilities, training, etc costs money. When you spend less on that stuff your not going to be pulling the best players. Money matters in all college sports

So simple even a Caveman can figure it out. ;D  Although, those guys that spend the most money because they also make the most money--- which is why it's not as simple as spending money. :-/

Schools like UF, and OSU sellout 100k seat stadiums, 12k hoops arenas, get massive donations, and huge conference pays.  Why does UF not like to travel away from their stadium for OCC games, well because in just ticket sales they generate around $3.5M per home game, after concessions, advertising, and parking they're closer to netting around $6-7M...USF is lucky to net a fraction of that per home game.