GP1

@Dave, have you ever had a statistics class? You post reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer takes a job on Wall Street and gets fired because his boss tells him his work doesn't make sense as if he had no business training.

@zipmeister, have you been talking with Mrs. GP1?

Deadspin Some of my favorites center around pay for coaches and ADs. It is interesting. If the players have to play for the love of the game and a scholarship for an education they don't want and the schools don't care if they get or not, why couldn't we compensate coaches and ADs for the love of the game. For coaching football and running athletic departments, those two groups could get free tuition to the school where they are serving for the love of sports. It's funny how much of the conversation about this issue centers around whether or not the players are being greedy or if the "deserve" the money. Nobody is focusing on the real greed, which resides in athletic department administration offices and coaches offices. The problem in college athletics is not now, nor has it ever been about the players. The problem with college athletics is the people who run it and their shallow opportunism. The conversation needs to focus on whether or not the ADs and coaches are REALLY worth the money they are being paid.

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.

A dome? They could turn it into a giant greenhouse. God knows we have all seen plenty of trees growing in the stands in the past. Colorado connection? Medical marijua?

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.

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.

Colin Cowherd made a good point about this today. The ncaa pretends it needs to study every issue forever before making ANY changes. The funny thing is whenever someone comes out with something that makes them look like complete idiots, they have this uncanny ability to make quick changes because more than anything, they don't like to look stupid over their stupid rules. Universities are going to end up paying players to play and this is an easily avoidable problem if the NCAA would just let players have jobs or capitalize off of their fame. I wonder if the President of the ncaa has brought any of his employees in his office and asked them to review the rule book and get back to him about which rules are so stupid they could make them look stupid and repeal them as soon as possible. My guess is they wouldn't find any because the people working for him are probably the people who came up with the rules in the first place and they could look stupid.

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.

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 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.

We need a bag man. Actually, it looks like we need a lot of them.

Mama's Little Yella Pils Oskar Blues Brewery recently opened a brewery in Brevard, NC. Had Mama's Little Yella Pils last night. Nice refreshing beer for a warm day. Good flavor, not too hard to drink.

Congratulations Hilltopper.

I just took a shower. After reading this, I feel like I have to go take another.

Anyone who can make the trip to Boone, NC for the ASU game should try to make it. You won't sit in a huge stadium like people like to do, but you will get a great afternoon in a really nice stadium. Imagine your weekend in the NC mountains. Golf, hiking, fishing, photography, motorcycle/bicycle riding, visit Blowing Rock, visit Grandfather Mountain, go to Asheville, etc. in the Smoke Mountains AND going to a Zips game. Could be something you never forget.

Link I like 2015 and absolutely love 2016. Unsure about 2017...not enough information yet...what's there looks good.

John Stewart has some final words about March Madness. Link

Me too JZ. I love the decisiveness. Pohl is the man and should be treated as such unless the wheels absolutely fall off, which I don't think is going the happen. No experimentation. No fiddle farting around with other guys. It's time to start winning. He is a good player. Concerns about depth? My only concern about depth is if we have to use it. Most MAC teams aren't very deep to begin with.

It's one of the constants. I see them as more like Newton's Laws. Sort of "GP1's Laws of Athletic Directors". I'd start a thread, but I'm too busy with work.

Address

Worse yet...a marketing campaign with the slogan, "Come watch Akron play and catch some Z's."

Because they are trying to reestablish the long history of mediocrity that is BC basketball.?.?

UCONN vs. Kentucky. Two teams representing corruption and sleaze in college basketball make the finals of the tournament that funds a corrupt and sleazy organization. Seems like a perfect finals to me. I'll read about it in the papers on Tuesday.

Bump