Wasn't Cunningham put on scholarship
If Ray isn't going to make room for a player he needs (Pollard or someone else) just because he may go one over the limit and heaven forbid have to cut someone loose then he doesn't want to win very badly.
Just to prove the point that basketball is a different animal from football where attendance is driven by players just as much, if not more so, than wins and losses... I give you the following.
The largest increases in attendance from 2012 to 2013 were, in order:
1) UCLA
2) NC State
3) Colorado
4) GaTech
The difference in wins/losses was:
1) UCAL +6
2) NC State 0
3) Colorado -3
4) GaTech +5
An average of +2 wins per season drove the four largest attendance increases in the nation???? That seems off... So, what could it be then????
Recruting Class Rankings
UCLA #1
NC State #4
Coloardo #19
GaTech #10
Star power puts butts in seats for basketball. If they want to sell out the hum, they have to turn it in to a highlight factory. people aren't driving four hours round trip to see zero turnovers and the thrill of a W. They're driving for the experience of the game and action on the floor. Wins and losses matter, but the players making plays put butts in seats.
Good post, Hack, and that's good info. I think you can absolutely bring people in by simply winning and playing good basketball, though.
Part of why I'm guessing the top attendance increases were correlated with abnormally good recruiting classes is that the attendance jumped immediately. Obviously it's going to take longer to get a fanbase's attention simply by winning more games. Like with State this year, we're 5-1, which is cool, but we haven't really played anybody so people still don't know what we are.
There's no way this is actually going to happen, but say we started beating legitimately good teams, like UNLV and Florida in SEC play and at one point were sitting at something like 16-3...I guarantee you then the fans would start showing up. But since it took longer, your overall attendance numbers for the year won't be improved by as much as a program that had people show up from day one because they said, 'Look at all these studs we have!'
I would bet Colorado saw their attendance dip a little at the end of the year last year when fans started to realize the recruits weren't translating to immediate wins.
I think fans would still rather see some no-names win a bunch than a bunch of 'stars' lose.
I can agree with that.
winning is a must to get butts in seats, but I think having star players is also a must and, as shown, can actually have a quicker effect. If Ray signs Malik, I can guarantee you the students show up in large numbers immediately... more so than if we have a 20-win season next year.
There's no doubt that signing studs jump-starts the process, and getting Malik would be massive. But the reason they're showing up is still because they're expecting wins to follow. You would get more people to attend if you have one huge stud and win 12 games than if you win 12 games with no-names, but I still think you'll get more people to show up for a 25-win team with no studs than you will a 12-win team with a stud.
do you mean the 2011-2012 season to the 2012-2013 season? i'm assuming you do.
i'm not a huge follower of CBB anymore, so maybe you'll pick this apart, but here goes:
1) wasn't pauley pavilion under renovation in 2011-2012 so ucla was playing off campus? i'd say that combined with a down season in 2011-2012 was responsible for the majority of that swing.
edit: yep, it was being renovated.
"After Pauley's closure for renovation, the 2011-12 Bruins men's basketball team played their home games off-campus at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena and the Honda Center. Women's basketball and other Pauley Pavilion teams played at the on-campus John Wooden Center."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauley_Pavilion#Renovation
2) wasn't nc st very highly ranked heading into the 2012-2013 season after a tourney run in 2011-2012? like preseason top 10? they ended up underachieving, but i'd say that the big preseason ranking brought the crowds through the doors for the early season games, and of course they have pretty good attendance for all the ACC games.
edit: yep. preseason #6 and coming off a sweet 16 run and returning 4 starters.
"Entering the 2012-13 season, expectations ran high for Gottfried's second season at the helm as head coach for the NC State Wolfpack. The Wolfpack returned four starters from its 2012 Sweet Sixteen squad and were joined by a trio of talented freshman, each of whom were selected as McDonald's All Americans. As a result, the NC State men’s basketball team started the 2012-13 season as the sixth-ranked team in the Associated Press preseason poll. It was the Wolfpack’s second-highest preseason ranking in program history. Additionally, NC State was voted as preseason favorite to win the ACC title in the conference’s annual media survey and the inaugural league coaches’ poll. Ultimately, the 2012-13 NC State Wolfpack did not live up to media expectations. 24-11 overall (11-7 ACC), the Wolfpack finished tied for fourth in the ACC regular season standings and as a #8 seed lost its first game in the second round of the 2013 NCAA tournament."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NC_Stat...0.93Current.29
3) wasn't colorado coming off a good season in 2011-2012, i think their 1st ncaa tourney in years? i'd say that got a lot more butts in the seats in the early part of the 2012-2013 season.
edit: yep. won the 2012 pac 12 tourney and made a sweet 16 run.
"The Buffs won their first conference tournament championship in 2012, their first year in the Pac-12 conference. Led by tournament MVP Carlon Brown, the 6th seeded Buffs won four games in four days to bring the championship back to Boulder and earn an invitation to the 2012 NCAA Tournament where they would go on to beat UNLV in the second round before losing to Baylor in the third round."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorad...ment_champions
not really sure on the GT one, but they also improved by 5 Ws, so that probably played a factor.
so i think 3 of the 4 are easily explainable for many reasons not having anything to do with star power. 2 of them were coming off their most successful seasons in years and expectations were high. a 3rd one spent the year playing miles away from campus due to renovations and improved their Ws by 6 from 2011-2012 to 2012-2013. seems like Ws are what puts butts in the seats, it's just that you usually see the bump the following season because everyone is hyped up and more people show up for the non-conference schedule. when you have an unexpectedly good year, you don't really know it's coming until january or february, and by then the it's too late to pull up the low attendance numbers from the non-conference schedule.
Last edited by dawgs; 12-04-2013 at 04:07 PM.
If we don't make a spot for Pollard -- who is basically falling into our laps at this point -- I will seriously question Ray's ability to have long-term success here.
This is open and shut. You go get Pollard -- and there are 7-8 expendable scholarships on our team right now when you've got a talent like that basically beating the door down.
For all of his faults, this is something Stansbury handled very, very well...
That sort of still proves the point that wins isn't the major driving factor season to season. with an average of +2 wins it would seem that the factors you mentioned and the recruiting classes are what put butts in seats... the +2 wins surely didn't. In short, I think it's somewhere in the middle. "Expectations" sell tickets though. Not wins. Wins will just keep them coming.
i disagree, the expectations come with the Ws from the previous season. colorado and nc st fans didn't know their teams would be good in 2011-2012 when they were playing nevada and unc-wilmington types in the non-conference portion of the season. by the time they got rolling later in the year, they had half a season of lackluster attendance under their belts, and they were into the conference season, where most every program sees a nice attendance boost. the following season with momentum and expectations derived from having a good season the previous year, they actually drew decent crowds to the non-conference games against nevada and unc-wilminton types, therefore they averaged more fans the following season because the crowds showed up for the crap games.
i don't know how you can try to twist those numbers into supporting your comment that stars drive attendance, not Ws when the Ws clearly led to expectations the following season which leads to bigger crowds. usually when a team is winning, the best players become stars for the program anyway. chicken or the egg. just because we signed sidney who at one point was the best HS player in his class and a 5* recruit, he didn't draw big crowds. the crowds dropped off big time because we were underachieving. if we had been winning, it would have been the Ws that brought the crowds in, not the opportunity to see sidney play. of course you can also argue that if sidney became the star he could have been, then we'd have been winning and the crowds would have been bigger, and that's true too. but i think the crowds come for the Ws. the casual fan with no ties to the program tunes in on TV for the stars.
Well I would certainly much rather have Pollard than Daniels and they basically play the same position. Also, we have one extra true PG right now. We have Ready and Bloodman and Jacoby Davis. You really only need 2 true PGs on a team. Would see to me one of either Bloodman or Davis is expendable.