The defense cost us the game, as always in the Darner era. We have no future at all if a dramatic change isn't made to the defense.
Defense, 100%. I disagree with the fellow who said that free throw shooting is what cost GB the game. GB shot 61.1% from the free throw line, only 3.1% worse than their season average (although that average was pulled there partly because of last night). Milwaukee shot 69.7% from the line, which was 6.5% less than the new season average. Free throws almost cost
us the game.
On a side note before I continue: what is this bizarro world we live in right now? In my 11 years since coming to Milwaukee, I've come to know two things: Milwaukee is shitty at free throws and Green Bay is good at free throws. The last two years it's totally flipped; we're first (!) at the line and Green Bay is 9th.
Getting my first in-person look at #RP40 was pretty cool. It's exciting as hell. Darner just doesn't have the horses he needs at the moment to get it done. In a perfect world, Love would be the second guard in the #RP40 system and Fouse would be the only "big" on the floor.
And that's a shame - because Love and Fouse would thrive in this system. I mean they are thriving, but they'd thrive on a full roster of guys brought in for this system. Neither of the Little Chute guys are cut out for #RP40 and it showed. Our guys ate Lowe's lunch, and Botz was almost a non-factor outside the three shots - of course, those three shots were huge and GB wouldn't have been in the game had he missed them. But he's a real liability on defense and he can't run for 20 minutes straight.
It's not a knock. Both Lowe and Botz were good fits for Wardle's system. They'd be good fits in a lot of systems. RP40 isn't one of them.
It takes time. When Pearl got here, some of the guys weren't good fits for his press-and-run system - almost the opposite of RP40, it was still about speed but centered around defense. A lot of guys in Pearl's first couple years weren't cut out for his system, so for every Clay Tucker and Dylan Page that fit like gloves, there was another couple dudes who didn't fit. Once he could replace them with guys like Boo Davis and Ed McCants, things went swimmingly (obviously).
So I guess what I'm saying is, it takes time. The system is going to work. You'd hope to have Fouse for another couple of seasons, but there's always another guy in the pipeline.
I wanted to say something on the new rotation guys.
- Khalil Small is a player. He'll be a heck of a player by the time he's a senior. At the moment he's a nice role player, a good worker. If you told me he'll average 16 points as a senior, I wouldn't blink. I liked him last night - I liked him a lot more in your W against Wright State early in the year. Definitely has gotten better since his spot minutes last season.
- Charles Cooper is a great JUCO guy. He is a really nice shooter and I'm impressed with his ability to attack the hoop. He's got a bright future, although he's a senior next year. He should make the jump and should be 'the guy' next season unless one of the new recruits lights the world on fire.
- Jamar Hurdle just seems to be a guy at this point. I recall watching a couple of his games at high school and thinking he'd be a good player for Parkside. I think he'll be able to put up some good numbers once he's on the court more, but he's not going to replace Fouse (no one will).
All in all, this is what I'll say for those of you who are impatient with Darner. You're 13-9, 5-4 in the Horizon League. You're coming off two NIT teams and each year lost one of the 6 or 7 best players in school history. The new coach is a proven winner at lower levels - D-II National Championships aren't anything to shake a stick at (Greg Kampe never did that at Oakland and he was regarded as one of the best coaches in the country at that level). The system this coach has brought is an extreme departure from the former one. He's following a coach who had more success than anyone since Bennett.
In short, be patient. The team is fifth in the conference and two points away from third despite all the turnover and brand new system. What's Linc Darner gonna do when he builds a roster around his system?
You guys just gotta make sure the university plays ball on some of the things Darner may need to win. You have some serious disadvantages in the program that should have made life very tough for you. Your budget for athletics says you should have YSU levels of success. Instead, GB has gotten more bang for their buck than any school in the conference in hoops (men's and of course women's).
Pearl succeeded down here because he was able to do some things. You guys know some of them, you don't know all of them, most of them shouldn't be against NCAA rules, some of them no longer are. Darner is going to need help to make sure he can build the roster he needs, so you have to be strong-worded with your department and the administration. The edict from the chancellor's office should be this: Linc Darner is the man on this campus, help or get out of the way. I'm not saying that Darner is a guy who wants to bend rules. I'm saying that if he has a player he needs to get into campus that maybe doesn't fit minimum academic requirements for UWGB but does for the NCAA, the university needs to acquiesce and let the player enroll. Darner needs to have free reign in campus buildings short of being able to freely walk into kids' dorm rooms. It's a problem we have down here; people complain that Jeter doesn't do the recruitment of regular students for games like Pearl did. They'll bring up that Pearl would go to the dorms and get on a table and shout at kids that they need to be at the next game. Times have changed; Jeter would have to spend two hours filling out paperwork just to get in the dorm. There's a bunch of red tape, and we have a major problem with it.
I'm also to the point where I think it might be in GB's best interest to strongly consider the Kress full-time. It's a beautiful facility that could just use a couple upgrades for concessions that would take away some of the stress in the walkways. You want students to be at the games; it takes a long time, but if students are at the games and enjoying themselves, these are the kids who will graduate and be more likely to stay in the area, buy season tickets and become donors to both athletics and academics in the university. I think you could stick $5-10 million in the Kress, add a year-round university sports bar and fix the congestion problems in the concourse, and you'd have an incredible home gym that would be 1,000,000 times harder for road teams to win in than the Resch.
I understand the Resch Center is a great arena and I know that the Phoenix are the 'only game in town' for hoops. But this is a school that averages 2,668 fans a game this season; in great years, without looking I'm guessing that average is about 5,000 (our best year for attendance was 5,300 in 2005-06). If I'm the athletic director and I'm trying to build Green Bay Athletics into a better program that can totally sustain itself and help the university grow, I know students need to be going to basketball games and loving the program. So I'm putting games at the Kress, filling the baseline on both sides with students, and who knows - some of them may graduate, become successful, and begin donating to the program. This 50 students at the Resch Center is not good for business. A 10,000-seat arena with 5,000 seats filled is still a half-full arena. When it's only 30% full as it is this season, fans aren't going to want to keep being a part of the action because there isn't a lot of action. I'd rather have 4,000 in the Kress Center than 6,000 in the Resch Center. The boost in atmosphere is most definitely worth it.
If I could wave a magic wand, I'd drop the seating capacity of every Horizon League arena except Oakland. Drop the ARC to 4k, Milwaukee Arena to 6k, the Resch to 6k, Calihan to 3-4k. Beeghly down to 2-3k, Wolstein to 3-4k, Nutter to 7-8k, BB&T to 5k, UIC Pavilion to 3-4k. I think the biggest problem the conference has with getting fans out is that it's not a tough ticket, so people aren't fighting to get in the door. That's across the conference. I bet that if GB played this season in the Kress, you wouldn't be averaging 2700 but rather 3500. If it's a tough ticket people will fight to get in the door.
San Diego State fills their gym every year (before Fisher, they averaged like 1.5-2k a game, 3k at best). This offseason, they raised season ticket prices across the board by 65%. When you raise season tickets by 25%, you hope to keep 80% of your season ticket holders. That's an optimistic number. Not only did SDSU do that, they had a 98% renewal rate. That's insanity. A $100 ticket to SDSU games is now $165, and they lost only 2% of their season ticket holders. That's not just because SDSU is good. It's because the atmosphere in Viejas Arena is incredible.
I know I kind of went off the rails there, but last night's game was a great reminder to me why I love the rivalry. I want GB to be good, because it makes the games better. This rivalry is fun even when one of us sucks; when we're both good, it's GREAT. I know the problems that exist currently and some of the problems coming down the pipeline for GB in the future; I think the school is served better, now and in the future, to let Linc Darner do everything he needs to do and make it a tough ticket.
