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BGSU Just Got Relevant in MAC Basketball


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I always find articles centering around the finances, or increased donations to a MAC school, interesting. Usually, they start out with the fact that a really generous person gave a pile of money to the school. Then the articles become more fantasy. This one does that. The pile of money they have will make them more competitive and attract better teams? It's a huge pile of money, but it ain't attracting better teams because better teams from bigger conferences aren't going to fly to BG to play in front of 2,000 people for less than what they could make for a home game. More competitive? If only throwing money at a problem was a real solution our society wouldn't have many of the problems we do. BG will get competitive when they attract better players, coaches, develop better and win games. You can throw money at coaches all day long, but if you can't get good players to move to a cow town, the winning never follows.

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Building a 65 million dollar football stadium instantly made the Zips relevant in football, right? Right?

Every MAC institution has "the tools necessary to become a perennial contender for MAC championships." Unless they have a "tool" for an AD.

Building a crappy arena, and sticking with a loser like Louis Orr as long as they did makes me believe BG does NOT have the tools necessary to be relevant in basketball. And that they may indeed have a tool as an AD.

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Yes, the article is crap. No way are teams going to travel to play in that arena. And our new football stadium didn't cure our problems either.

But, we can't deny that money, and the resources that come from having money, has made the difference between the winners and losers in big-time college athletics. Money does buy wins. However, I don't see this being a frequent occurrence for an athletic program like BG.

At the very least, for MAC schools, a donation like this provides some relief as the public money that can be spent on college athletics continues to dwindle.

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Building a 65 million dollar football stadium instantly made the Zips relevant in football, right? Right?

Every MAC institution has "the tools necessary to become a perennial contender for MAC championships." Unless they have a "tool" for an AD.

Building a crappy arena, and sticking with a loser like Louis Orr as long as they did makes me believe BG does NOT have the tools necessary to be relevant in basketball. And that they may indeed have a tool as an AD.

You touched on three points that would make for great articles. Perhaps even a series of 2-3 articles on each topic. There used to be a time when journalists would take these issues and write great articles that proved the opposite of conventional wisdom was the reality. Instead, we get the lazy tripe we see in the link above. It's like someone cloned Terry Pluto and stuck him at every media outlet in the midwest. Lazy journalism.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe journalists are just playing to their audience. Maybe we live in a society so disconnected from any reality that people believe this nonsense. I don't know. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

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But, we can't deny that money, and the resources that come from having money, has made the difference between the winners and losers in big-time college athletics. Money does buy wins. However, I don't see this being a frequent occurrence for an athletic program like BG.

At the very least, for MAC schools, a donation like this provides some relief as the public money that can be spent on college athletics continues to dwindle.

I disagree on point 1 and agree on point 2.

Money allows you to get to a point where you can compete at a high level. It doesn't guarantee wins. Good players help with winning. Good coaches get good players. Good coaches coach at winning programs because they have the best players. Winning programs attract kids who want to win. Winners win. Losers lose. Every school has new toys now so the "building process" has not had a meaningful impact at schools. The only meaningful impact has been on ADs resumes and salaries.

These donations do provide the taxpayers of Ohio with some level of relief. My guess is BG can move $700k a year from this endowment off of the Athletic Department's budget and move it into something else. At a MAClike school, it's almost just as good to give $20 million to the general fund and tell the school to clean up some of the red ink with it.

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You touched on three points that would make for great articles. Perhaps even a series of 2-3 articles on each topic. There used to be a time when journalists would take these issues and write great articles that proved the opposite of conventional wisdom was the reality. Instead, we get the lazy tripe we see in the link above. It's like someone cloned Terry Pluto and stuck him at every media outlet in the midwest. Lazy journalism.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe journalists are just playing to their audience. Maybe we live in a society so disconnected from any reality that people believe this nonsense. I don't know. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

You mean you don't appreciate Pluto's "Conversation with Myself," "8 Things I Think About," and "Scribbles" pablum? I've been complaining about Pluto for years and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. A close family member used to work near him at the ABJ and said Pluto just sat there and typed all day long - never slowing or stopping to think. "It was like he was manufacturing dog food." Which is exactly what he has been doing for 25 years.

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I disagree on point 1 and agree on point 2.

Money allows you to get to a point where you can compete at a high level. It doesn't guarantee wins. Good players help with winning. Good coaches get good players. Good coaches coach at winning programs because they have the best players. Winning programs attract kids who want to win. Winners win. Losers lose. Every school has new toys now so the "building process" has not had a meaningful impact at schools. The only meaningful impact has been on ADs resumes and salaries.

These donations do provide the taxpayers of Ohio with some level of relief. My guess is BG can move $700k a year from this endowment off of the Athletic Department's budget and move it into something else. At a MAClike school, it's almost just as good to give $20 million to the general fund and tell the school to clean up some of the red ink with it.

Lets not be naïve. The good coaches who attract these good players gravitate towards those who are able to pay them the largest amounts of money. And, not every school has "toys".

On your 2nd paragraph, yes, this does help a MAC-level school considerably in terms of he problems we all have funding our athletic programs. We are all becoming more and more reliant on private money, and none of us get very much of it, in comparison to the most recognized athletic programs.

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To clear things up - an endowment isn't $20 mil they have to freely spend. They can spend the earnings on that principal amount. Say ~5% annually. That's $1M per year... It's not peanuts, but it's not like that's going to be the factor to push them over the edge.

Ask KD what he could do with an extra $1mil a year. That amount would be a 50% increase in money available. Better assistant coaches, increased recruiting budget, the ability to pay for better home game opponents etc... If you think those things wouldn't make a difference to an already good program you don't understand how things get done.

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Let's not ignore the fact that BGSU already made a good move last month on their head coach selection even before getting the windfall:

Bowling Green Hires Wichita State Assistant Chris Jans As New Men's Basketball Head Coach

There are no guarantees. Jans could fail as a head coach even after being so successful as associate head coach at Wichita State. BGSU could pee away the money on frivolous things and not leverage it effectively. But I wouldn't underestimate their potential with Jans now running a program $20 million richer than it was when he signed on.

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Ask KD what he could do with an extra $1mil a year. That amount would be a 50% increase in money available. Better assistant coaches, increased recruiting budget, the ability to pay for better home game opponents etc... If you think those things wouldn't make a difference to an already good program you don't understand how things get done.

I'm not sure you read my post. I said it's not peanuts. It's a factor, but not THE factor.

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To clear things up - an endowment isn't $20 mil they have to freely spend. They can spend the earnings on that principal amount. Say ~5% annually. That's $1M per year... It's not peanuts, but it's not like that's going to be the factor to push them over the edge.

The article says the endowment pays $675K per year with 75% going to BG. That's $506,250 per year extra to basketball. Once KD gave himself a pay raise and payed coaches more, I'm not certain there would be much left over to attract any big name teams to the JAR. The numbers just don't work for me.

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Ask KD what he could do with an extra $1mil a year. That amount would be a 50% increase in money available. Better assistant coaches, increased recruiting budget, the ability to pay for better home game opponents etc... If you think those things wouldn't make a difference to an already good program you don't understand how things get done.

I have a question Hilltopper and it has nothing to do with your post. Rather the picture.

Who thought it was a good idea to have middle aged people photographed in profile next to a well conditioned college basketball player? Looks like an advertisement for a personal trainer.

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I have a question Hilltopper and it has nothing to do with your post. Rather the picture.

Who thought it was a good idea to have middle aged people photographed in profile next to a well conditioned college basketball player? Looks like an advertisement for a personal trainer.

.....

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My mistake -- jupitertoo is correct. The endowment was doubled from $10 million to $20 million. I usually do a better job of reading all the details. They've had access to the $10 million endowment over the last three seasons, and so far team results have shown no great improvement. It remains to be seen if replacing Orr with Jans will finally get the ball rolling.

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Humans used to believe that when an earthquake happened, it meant a plague would follow because it happened in the past. It will be interesting to see if a turnaround in BG basketball happens if fans will think a new coaching staff and better players are the reason, or if the money and new arena made the difference.

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You touched on three points that would make for great articles. Perhaps even a series of 2-3 articles on each topic. There used to be a time when journalists would take these issues and write great articles that proved the opposite of conventional wisdom was the reality. Instead, we get the lazy tripe we see in the link above. It's like someone cloned Terry Pluto and stuck him at every media outlet in the midwest. Lazy journalism.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe journalists are just playing to their audience. Maybe we live in a society so disconnected from any reality that people believe this nonsense. I don't know. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

I don't think there is any maybe about it. ;)

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... It will be interesting to see if a turnaround in BG basketball happens if fans will think a new coaching staff and better players are the reason, or if the money and new arena made the difference.

Anyone who thinks any single factor makes the difference is usually wrong because it almost always takes a number of factors working together in different proportions to turn a program around. For example, those who would say a new coach made all the difference by himself might be ignoring that it took a savvy AD to go after that coach and it took an infusion of additional funding and better facilities to convince that coach he had the resources to attract higher level players.

In the case of BGSU, the infusion of money came first, starting three years ago with the first $10 million and continuing with the recent announcement of an additional $10 million. They gave Orr a chance to work with that and he couldn't move the needle, so the AD went after a higher-level coach. How much did that multimillion-dollar war chest influence Jans to leave a proven winner to take over a long-losing program at a school without a big, enthusiastic basketball fan base?

If BGSU truly turns around their basketball program, the most accurate analysis would be one that calculates the contribution of all the individual factors -- XX% money, XX% facilities, XX% AD, XX% coach, etc., etc., with all factors together adding up to 100%.

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