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Post by Heartbroken Phoenix Fan on Mar 3, 2019 11:20:45 GMT -6
We’ve only had one game this year that drew over 3000 people. I strongly believe the only reason that game did was because it was on campus, they offered free tickets food and drink to the students. If that was at the Resch, does anyone believe they would have gotten 3000? Ended up with 3700 at the Kress would have been very close.
Yesterday they only got 2800 for a Senior that was from the area against a team that had 22 wins. It was a Saturday game with nothing else really going on in the area. Why do the Gamblers always get the seven pm slot on a Saturday? Would Gb draw better if they got the 7pm slot? If they would have beaten IUPUI Sunday and had a chance at a conference title yesterday would they have even gotten 4000?
As hard as I’ve been on this team I’ve went to two games at the Kress, one because I got free tickets, and five games at the Resch. Yesterday I went because I got free tickets and knew I was going on Tuesday and didn’t want to shell out for both with nothing really on the line yesterday. I would have watched on ESPN Plus if I didn’t go however.
I had to laugh. Listening on the radio the announcers after the game said they hope to get 4-5k here on Tuesday. I would be surprised if they get 2k. How delusional are they to give a number like that versus just giving a generic “we hope to have a big crowd.”
My question is: is this program in any trouble of going down to D2 or D3? It’s quite obvious people have lost interest in this program since Wardle (Skyes basically) left. No one even made a thread on here for yesterday’s game for Pete’s sake. Is the reduced interest since Darner has taken over a complete rejection of that style of play or just the fact that Green Bay will now only support a winner in basketball?
I understand this is a football town but this program has had good support for the most part up until the last four years. Youngstown st got 4000 for their senior day which is troubling. What has changed?
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Post by uscg2012 on Mar 3, 2019 11:48:36 GMT -6
I was going to make a thread but didn’t want to ruin our current run of winning ball games. I’m superstitious. GBPhoenix1 had made the past few threads so let’s pin this loss on him 😉
I could be wrong but I think the noon start times have something to do with the lack of attendance. Not sure why we always had that time slot this year. Milwaukee has their games start at 6 which I think would bring out a bigger crowd. You could go out for drinks at the local establishments and then walk over to the Resch for a game.
Linc absolutely has to get this next recruiting class right in 2020. So many decent in state kids that they need to bring to Green Bay. Bring in some in state kids and let them develop over the course of 4 years. Plus they would have seniors in Pipes, Patterson, Christ and Bell to look up too.
Build a consistent winning culture and show some consistency both on the court and being able to keep a roster together.
No way will this team go down to division 2 or 3.
FIGURE OUT HOW TO BEAT IUPUI, we would be a three seed this year and possibly could of been fighting to win the whole conference if could just figure them out. That’s on Linc and his staff. Unacceptable
One last thing NEVER hold a game at the Kress Center at 1130 on friday again! Especially when it’s against one of your best non conference opponents.
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Post by briankuklinski on Mar 3, 2019 12:24:39 GMT -6
As one of the radio announcers, we said we were hoping to see 4+k there on Tuesday, because this team deserves the support. It’s frustrating for all that the crowds have been small and quiet. I wish the Phoenix fans would be louder at games. They did a decent job yesterday getting loud. Hope that continues.
As far as noon games go, putting together a schedule for GB is hard when there is a lot of other stuff at The Resch. The last 3 Saturday home games also had hockey at 7p that night. The 1130 game was also because of a similar conflict with an event at the Resch and also the schedule at the Kress. We did a whole 30 minutes with Coach Darner about the struggles of putting a schedule together not only for GB but a majority of mid-major programs.
I think the program is moving in the right direction and will see some good success, and is in decent shape.
I’m excited about the HL tourney, as from what I am reading the national talking heads feel GB is a sleeper to win the tourney.
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Post by uscg2012 on Mar 3, 2019 12:35:19 GMT -6
As one of the radio announcers, we said we were hoping to see 4+k there on Tuesday, because this team deserves the support. It’s frustrating for all that the crowds have been small and quiet. I wish the Phoenix fans would be louder at games. They did a decent job yesterday getting loud. Hope that continues. As far as noon games go, putting together a schedule for GB is hard when there is a lot of other stuff at The Resch. The last 3 Saturday home games also had hockey at 7p that night. The 1130 game was also because of a similar conflict with an event at the Resch and also the schedule at the Kress. We did a whole 30 minutes with Coach Darner about the struggles of putting a schedule together not only for GB but a majority of mid-major programs. I think the program is moving in the right direction and will see some good success, and is in decent shape. I’m excited about the HL tourney, as from what I am reading the national talking heads feel GB is a sleeper to win the tourney. The crowd has had its moments this year. I was at the Detroit game and it was pretty loud then as well. Probably because every one was trying to get after Antonie Davis. He’s a stud. Will be hard to replace Cohen next year but everyone else returns and we add two promising players in Kellogg and Davis. Excited for their development.
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Post by Heartbroken Phoenix Fan on Mar 3, 2019 12:40:09 GMT -6
As one of the radio announcers, we said we were hoping to see 4+k there on Tuesday, because this team deserves the support. It’s frustrating for all that the crowds have been small and quiet. I wish the Phoenix fans would be louder at games. They did a decent job yesterday getting loud. Hope that continues. As far as noon games go, putting together a schedule for GB is hard when there is a lot of other stuff at The Resch. The last 3 Saturday home games also had hockey at 7p that night. The 1130 game was also because of a similar conflict with an event at the Resch and also the schedule at the Kress. We did a whole 30 minutes with Coach Darner about the struggles of putting a schedule together not only for GB but a majority of mid-major programs. I think the program is moving in the right direction and will see some good success, and is in decent shape. I’m excited about the HL tourney, as from what I am reading the national talking heads feel GB is a sleeper to win the tourney. I’ve been going to Phoenix games for over 25 years now and I wish it had that college basketball atmosphere every game that you see at Marquette and Wisconsin games but unfortunately it’s never gonna happen off campus anymore. Until they can get the student section jam packed like it was in the 90s the crowd will always be dead silent until the end of games. I try to clap and be loud and am the only one in my section cheering so I stop after ten seconds cause I look like an idiot otherwise. It’s depressing but a sad reality of this program. The people who to go the games are mostly retired folk who watch the game as something to do with their buddies and listening to them talk you can tell they know squat about the program or its players. I would love 4K too but if they can’t get it on a Saturday there is zero chance they are getting it on a Tuesday even if it is a tourney game. Back when they hosted UWM in the 4 9 game (year they lost to valpo at buzzer) they only had 1800. I suspect more for this game but probably 2200-2300. I just think people in this area don’t like this style of play and are making a statement by not showing up. I work with a GB alum and he said he’s gone to one game since 2012 and it was the Badger game. He hates this style of play but also didn’t like Wardle. He is also a huge Badger fan though. I think the problem is GB will always play second fiddle to Wisconsin and the Packers. There was two older gentleman in front of me and one was watching the end of the Badger game on his phone. That was right at the end of the GB game too. Frustrating but the only way to fix these issues I think is to move back on campus and try to build the student section and therefore the noise. They obviously love their current situation though.
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Post by fansincebuss on Mar 3, 2019 13:21:16 GMT -6
As the name implies, I have been going to the games since the beginning with the exception of an eight year gap where I lived out of state. I do think the program is on an upswing, no way they should entertain moving to Division II or III. Saturday evening games would certainly be better than noon and 11:30 on a Friday was just plain dumb. I live near the Kress but I prefer games at the Resch (It would be much better with 4000 fans). I go to the women's games as well and it is an even older crowd. Also very few students despite it being on campus. The large crowd at the Kress for Milwaukee can be attributed to the opponent, heavy promotion, and free tickets.
I think the single biggest reason for average attendance being down is the lack of a marquee opponent like Wisconsin, Marquette or Virginia to drive up the averages. Unfortunately I do not see that changing. I also believe there are more students at the games than we realize, the just choose to sit in a section other that the student section.
Not a lot of interest on message boards can be attributed to having other sources of news like twitter.
On a side note, it was nice seeing Buss at the game and some of the early players, unfortunately there are a few that are no longer with us.
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Post by GBPhoenix1 on Mar 3, 2019 14:56:12 GMT -6
GB played Wisconsin Lutheran at 1130 on a Tuesday and Indiana State at 330 on a Friday. Neither was a box office success but I felt important to clarify.
I have some thoughts but some of them aren't nice so I will keep them to myself.
The style brings to mind 2 f words, no not that f word. I think fun and frustrating. They get a lot of fun home run plays. They also have guys doing frustrating things that they shouldn't do. Guys who can't handle and shoot shouldn't be doing those things. What good is playing fast if you end up with low quality outcomes because guys are beyond their skill level?
You can have 4 coach's recruiting and GB has 3 coach's with limited connections and history in Wisconsin prior to being hired. It should surprise nobody that GB has had limited success in state recruiting. For that matter they have limited D1 experience on the bench in any regard. A learning curve is inevitable, hopefully lessons have been learned so the product gets better going forward.
The university is in growth mode, they aren't dropping down to D2 or D3 anytime soon IMO.
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Post by GBPhoenix1 on Mar 3, 2019 15:18:42 GMT -6
Is there any way to find that Darner interview online? I didn't have a chance to listen live.
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Post by uscg2012 on Mar 3, 2019 16:27:46 GMT -6
GB played Wisconsin Lutheran at 1130 on a Tuesday and Indiana State at 330 on a Friday. Neither was a box office success but I felt important to clarify. I have some thoughts but some of them aren't nice so I will keep them to myself. The style brings to mind 2 f words, no not that f word. I think fun and frustrating. They get a lot of fun home run plays. They also have guys doing frustrating things that they shouldn't do. Guys who can't handle and shoot shouldn't be doing those things. What good is playing fast if you end up with low quality outcomes because guys are beyond their skill level? You can have 4 coach's recruiting and GB has 3 coach's with limited connections and history in Wisconsin prior to being hired. It should surprise nobody that GB has had limited success in state recruiting. For that matter they have limited D1 experience on the bench in any regard. A learning curve is inevitable, hopefully lessons have been learned so the product gets better going forward. The university is in growth mode, they aren't dropping down to D2 or D3 anytime soon IMO. Good catch on the Wisconsin Lutheran and Indiana State mistake. Either way, that should not happen again in the future.
I saw the other day on twitter, Linc Darner had said in his past radio show that he has been trying to schedule Butler but hasn't had any luck on that front. Although he did say that Purdue will more than likely be on the schedule. I would bet as well that Evansville will be making a trip up to Green Bay and Northern Illinois will be on our schedule again. Green Bay's AD and NIU's AD are good friends and I think I remember seeing something online about how they want to make this an every year thing. Sorry to keep rambling but aren't we due for a Wisconsin trip as well?
Last thing, with the new branding for the university when will they swap out the logos at the Kress and Resch Center?
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Post by phearthephoenix on Mar 12, 2019 10:19:35 GMT -6
I'll say I am a little concerned with the direction the program is heading.
Obviously the attendance issue has been brought up but I don't think a big enough deal is being made of it. Last season attendance hit a 33-year low. This season was 12% lower than that! In 38 seasons of Division I basketball GB has only averaged under 3,000 fans per game 9 times: 1982-1986, 2002, and now 2017-present. Our attendance this year (2,167) is the lowest its been since 1986 when we averaged 1,462 per game.
There's obviously a few factors working against attendance, one being that attendance is down across college basketball for the most part. Secondly, we won't be getting Butler, Wisconsin, or Virginia games and the big crowds that inflate the attendance numbers a bit anymore. But we went from averaging 3,581 fans per game in Wardle's last season in 2015 to 2,167 this season. That's nearly a 40% drop! Not good for an already low-budget program.
On the court, Green Bay had been a reliably stable program for basically all of its Division I existence. Again, in 38 years as a DI program GB has only finished 200+ in the RPI/NET 9 times total, including this season. GB was 300+ in the RPI for the first time ever last season. I think that is a remarkable stat considering how many anchors we've seen in the HL lately. Maybe I'm putting too much into RPI/NET but I think GB needs to be back in the 100-150-200 range where it belongs (221 as of today).
Scheduling is hard but I think the staff did a pretty good job this past season opponent-wise. Maybe GB no longer has scheduling priority over the Gamblers and Blizzard since they moved some games to campus? Playing a few Saturday night games instead of Saturday noon games could've boosted attendance a bit I think. Also, playing one of the marquee non-con games (Indiana State) as a weekday matinee was pretty dumb. I also think playing the UWM game as the Krash the Kress game was silly since that one could've gotten a bigger crowd at the Resch in my opinion.
If there isn't too much roster turnover I think GB will be a top 4 team again next season. We're "only" losing Sandy Cohen but that is a massive hole to fill. I think Amari Davis will be an instant contributor so hopefully the other returners can step up to help fill the void.
Darner mentioned on the Bill Michaels Show recently that he thought we could've won a regular season title if we had Cohen, Kanter, and Anderson last season. I didn't really consider that but I think that was a realistic possibility. Instead it seems like the ceiling for his teams will always be to win a few non-con games, finish 3rd or 4th in the league, and then hope to get hot in March and win 3 straight games to be a 15 or 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. I guess that's where we will see what the expectation level for the program has become. Is that acceptable or should we be competing for regular season championships in addition to trying to get hot in March?
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Post by phearthephoenix on Mar 12, 2019 10:31:58 GMT -6
Is there any way to find that Darner interview online? I didn't have a chance to listen live. One other thing I'll add in addition to my post above is that the program really misses the way Andrew Gavin promoted it. That's not to say that Joey D is doing a bad job or anything like that. Andrew was just so good at what he did which is why he has rocketed all the way up to running his own athletics department at UW-Parkside. Of course it was easy to promote Sykes and teams that are winning 20+ games a year, but thanks to him we had consistent video highlights, video of the press conferences after games, a better social media presence, ect. Teams like Oakland and UIC and even Milwaukee do this. All of that helps to raise awareness of the program. The coaches radio show should be podcasted for others to listen to that didn't have a chance to listen live. That might be a WDUZ issue but still. Not even including the Belmont fiasco, the ESPN+ game presentation could also be a bit better. Watching on replay I think Ted and Cordero do a really good job but their audio sounded bad all season until the quarterfinal game against UIC. There's also little things like the dead ball camera angle pointing towards the student section corner showing the empty end of the arena that make it seem like there's absolutely nobody at the game. If I was a casual fan tuning in and saw that it wouldn't exactly make me clamor to be a part of that atmosphere. I am a big fan of Oakland's ESPN+ game presentation.
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Post by thetulsawarrior on Mar 12, 2019 11:00:33 GMT -6
Marketing could use some creativity and simply more presence. In the digital era online video, pictures and audio is a no brainer.
On the court, 17-18 was a washout with the defections of Kanter and Anderson. I think Darner was blindsided there. He learned from that and we saw a couple of solid juco reinforcements in 18-19.
19-20 will be the make or break season. Will there be enough talent to challenge for the Horizon League title? I want to see some development from the prep players who have been brought in. If I see Hankerson, Bell, Patterson, and Pipes being consistent contributors the team could be solid. Tank, McCloud and McNair will be anchors. Questions marks -- Schwartz and Chevalier -- they should be able to provide outside firepower but what about defense?
Does anyone know the story with Smith?
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Post by uscg2012 on Mar 12, 2019 14:48:26 GMT -6
Definitely need a mixture of noon tip offs and evening tip off times. The crowd numbers would most definitely increase and the student support would probably be better as well.
A positive I have seen is that Green Bay is willing to try new things to increase attendance. Therefore looking forward to seeing what else they can come up with.
Both Tank and McNair need to work on/develop an outside shot. You saw how teams would not even come out on them when they had the ball.
I most definitely think Tre Bell needs to be given the opportunity to see an uptick in minutes and even a starting job. Not entirely sure why Schawtz was starting the games to end the year. Need more consistency out of him.
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Post by kmell822 on Mar 13, 2019 16:03:27 GMT -6
Marketing could use some creativity and simply more presence. In the digital era online video, pictures and audio is a no brainer. On the court, 17-18 was a washout with the defections of Kanter and Anderson. I think Darner was blindsided there. He learned from that and we saw a couple of solid juco reinforcements in 18-19. 19-20 will be the make or break season. Will there be enough talent to challenge for the Horizon League title? I want to see some development from the prep players who have been brought in. If I see Hankerson, Bell, Patterson, and Pipes being consistent contributors the team could be solid. Tank, McCloud and McNair will be anchors. Questions marks -- Schwartz and Chevalier -- they should be able to provide outside firepower but what about defense? Does anyone know the story with Smith? Agreed, there is a marketing aspect to attendance. Timing of home games with the right opponents is critical. Getting students to go is also critical but playing in Ashwaubenon hinders their attendance. Winning solves a lot of problems but inherent is the need for support from the college and town.
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Post by Panther on Mar 13, 2019 16:23:16 GMT -6
Marketing could use some creativity and simply more presence. In the digital era online video, pictures and audio is a no brainer. On the court, 17-18 was a washout with the defections of Kanter and Anderson. I think Darner was blindsided there. He learned from that and we saw a couple of solid juco reinforcements in 18-19. 19-20 will be the make or break season. Will there be enough talent to challenge for the Horizon League title? I want to see some development from the prep players who have been brought in. If I see Hankerson, Bell, Patterson, and Pipes being consistent contributors the team could be solid. Tank, McCloud and McNair will be anchors. Questions marks -- Schwartz and Chevalier -- they should be able to provide outside firepower but what about defense? Does anyone know the story with Smith? From what I gathered by asking people during home games, Smith was being a distraction because he wasn't playing and coach thought it was best that he not be around the team. Not sure where this goes as he was still on campus and taking classes... As season ends, I'm sure we will know more about the situation.
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