Dan Silly-o says...

[smazza]

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.

UF could afford to bring in sloan and kruger for the very points you mentioned.

i don't think USF can go that route, we do need to build a solid product while we "wait" for the dollars to hire big name or top up-and-commer...IMO mac has build a foundation and needs one more year to see if he can cont to improve...DW needs this year to find the next "cheap" diamond in the rough to bring in next year to cont. to build if mac fails. just my opinion.

rmc has built nothing and needs to be fired