MBB G13 Final: Louisiana 73, SLU 72

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Originally Posted by Cajunfanatico

Zeph, simple decisions such as how to apply administrative costs to the different programs under the athletic department's umbrella could greatly affect the "profitability" of each. And as has been stated here repeatedly, there aren't but a handful of programs in the entire country that actually make a profit at the end of the fiscal year in athletics.

You may not want to keep getting into this, but I am actually beginning to really wonder how the different sports stack up against one another on the single line item issue of revenues generated via season ticket sales. Wouldn't you like to know that number? Can't be too hard to figure out.

Football
Men's basketball
Women's basketball
Baseball
Softball

Number of season tickets sold for each, value of each season ticket sold.

I guess my reason for wanting to know is that the final number is a real indicator of fan support for each. We fans can't control how much it costs to send the baseball team to a 3 day tournament in California, but we can decide if we wish to shell out XYZ for the season in one lump sum payment.

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Did you look up the report I attached? Its from the NCAA and gives median averages across all sports. This is what I was going by. see below. Page 26. If you are referencing UL, the audit that is released every year doesn't really get into this so there is no specific info there that I've noticed.

http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/fi...l_20180123.pdf

I recall over the years our basketball program occassionally signing, "Mr. Basketball of the state of Florida", or "Mr. Basketball of the state of Alabama".

When was the last time we did such a thing? Anyone know? Or should I not bother asking because things have changed too much?

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Originally Posted by Cajunfanatico

I recall over the years our basketball program occassionally signing, "Mr. Basketball of the state of Florida", or "Mr. Basketball of the state of Alabama".

When was the last time we did such a thing? Anyone know? Or should I not bother asking because things have changed too much?

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Andrew Toney and George Almonds. Was not Kevin Broooks Mr. Basketball his senior year?

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Originally Posted by CajunT

Andrew Toney and George Almonds. Was not Kevin Broooks Mr. Basketball his senior year?

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I knew Toney was CajunT, but didn't recall that Almonds was. Don't recall on Kevin Brooks either.

For some reason I was thinking Alanzo Allen might have been a "Mr. Basketball" from Florida but could be mistaken. Alanzo Allen came off the bench for us! Imagine that.

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Originally Posted by Cajunfanatico

I recall over the years our basketball program occassionally signing, "Mr. Basketball of the state of Florida", or "Mr. Basketball of the state of Alabama".

When was the last time we did such a thing? Anyone know? Or should I not bother asking because things have changed too much?

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I remember a couple of years ago the knock against Marlin was that players would not come here or stay. Now that he gets good players, its not good enough unless he gets a Mr. Basketball?

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Originally Posted by Ragin4U

I remember a couple of years ago the knock against Marlin was that players would not come here or stay. Now that he gets good players, its not good enough unless he gets a Mr. Basketball?

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Yes, that's what I was saying. Unless every one of our recruits is "Mr. Basketball" from their respective states, Marlin's a failure.

I swear, some of you guys are overly-invested in this subject.

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Originally Posted by Ragin4U

I remember a couple of years ago the knock against Marlin was that players would not come here or stay. Now that he gets good players, its not good enough unless he gets a Mr. Basketball?

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His 3 best players this year are transfers. Arguably his "best" signings are 3 star guys. One of which is still in HS and the other has not touched the court due to injury. We have no idea how good they will be in the future. By good players, I assume you are talking about them and not Lafayette, Miller, Gladney etc...? I think if you took Gant and Stroman off this team, our talent would be considered bottom half of the league.

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Originally Posted by Cajunfanatico

I knew Toney was CajunT, but didn't recall that Almonds was. Don't recall on Kevin Brooks either.

For some reason I was thinking Alanzo Allen might have been a "Mr. Basketball" from Florida but could be mistaken. Alanzo Allen came off the bench for us! Imagine that.

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George Almonds was a 3 sport HS All-American in HS, MBB, Football and Track & Field.

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Originally Posted by Cajunfanatico

Yes, that's what I was saying. Unless every one of our recruits is "Mr. Basketball" from their respective states, Marlin's a failure.

I swear, some of you guys are overly-invested in this subject.

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LOL

We aren’t allowed to criticize basketball coaches here. If you say anything remotely negative, you will get fussed at. It’s become similar to Farmer’s Corner Bar Crew.

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Originally Posted by zephyr

His 3 best players this year are transfers. Arguably his "best" signings are 3 star guys. One of which is still in HS and the other has not touched the court due to injury. We have no idea how good they will be in the future. By good players, I assume you are talking about them and not Lafayette, Miller, Gladney etc...? I think if you took Gant and Stroman off this team, our talent would be considered bottom half of the league.

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Gant was Mr Basketball of Georgia. Mylik Wilson has a good shot at being Mr Basketball here this year. Justin Miller was the MVP of the Kentucky sweet 16 state championship tournament, but of course he is not a “good player”. There are only a handful of teams in the country who if you robbed them of their top 2 players wouldn’t fall into the bottom half of their conference in talent level.

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Originally Posted by Cajunsmike

Agreed and that is why it is the main goal. Stated several times by people in the program. My point was in regards to judging the program on an overall basis. No argument it is better to win the tournament. You still have to produce a quality team in order to do that. Rare for a team not playing well going into the tournament to win it.

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No question. You have to produce a quality team to win the tournament. Judging by our results, it doesn’t quite look like we have done that consistently.

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Originally Posted by zephyr

I have debated this often, particularly last year. I believe that our program needs to breed a consistent winner. We have been all over the place for the past 30 years or more. Good season here terrible the next. People often ask, which would you prefer out of the two scenarios you suggested. I don't think there necessarily has to be a distinction between them or you have to choose one or the other.

I think we need to build a program from the ground up. We need to define our successes by winning conference titles. Believe it or not, this gets the attention of players. They want to play for winning programs. My thought on this is that once you are building a consistent winner, you will be in a better position to win your conference tournament and go to the dance. At the least, if you win conference like we did last year, you at least get to the NIT.

By doing this, we are hopeful that recruiting is consistently strong and we are naturally setting high expectations from our current and future players that we are expected to win titles. Like I said, you do that and you are naturally in a better position to make the NCAA.

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I agree with the fact that you have to build a program to have consistent success. The problem that I have is that this coaching staff hasn’t shown me that quite yet. Like Mike said, recruiting wasn’t quite up to par building depth; and we still have shortcomings even today.

This is where I separate myself from the basketball loyalists. I hear “wait and see what happens this season.” The problem with that is the fact that I already knew the answer to it even before Marquetti got hurt. We weren’t making the tournament with this team nor were we winning a conference championship. Sorry. Wasn’t going to happen. It’s nothing personal against anyone, but I’ve seen the same song and dance for way too long to get excited.

Now.......I will say this. IF we either win a conference championship OR make the NCAA tournament by the end of this season, I will happily be the first to come on here and publicly state that I was wrong and eat crow. But I don’t think that I will have to worry about that.

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Originally Posted by TheRealZeebart

Mike come on man... We have gotten rid of coaches for mediocre performances recently, we just keep rewarding this guy. Why?

Z

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We have gotten rid of coaches who had losing records. Marlin won the SBC last year. There is no precedent for letting go of a title winning coach at this university. Now if you want to argue an extension was not warranted, I will agree, but Marlin has done nothing to this point to get fired. I am willing to let the season play out. If we have a sub .500 record in conference your opinion will hold more weight and his seat will become very hot.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">-Foundational pay increases by $30K on April 1, 2019, and continuing each April 1 of the contract term.<br>-Coach can reach additional incentive based bonus pay including $25K if the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cajuns?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cajuns</a> win the Sun Belt regular season or tournament championship.</p>&mdash; Cody Junot (@CJunot) <a href="https://twitter.com/CJunot/status/1080612951453765638?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Imagine what we would pay a guy with a top 50 win but he is now the highest paid coach in the league, and his expectations should be as such.

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Originally Posted by MetryCajun

We have gotten rid of coaches who had losing records. Marlin won the SBC last year. There is no precedent for letting go of a title winning coach at this university. Now if you want to argue an extension was not warranted, I will agree, but Marlin has done nothing to this point to get fired. I am willing to let the season play out. If we have a sub .500 record in conference your opinion will hold more weight and his seat will become very hot.

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No firing is necessary at this point. Higher expectations and a willingness by the university to hold coach accountable to those expectations should be fully expected and is what I think is most important.

Hunter GAST - $500,000

Ogden UTA - $400,000

Cunningham Troy - $289,364


CUSA

Nick McDevitt MTSU- 750,000

Stansbury WKU - 650,000

Konkol La tech - 400,000

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Originally Posted by zephyr

No firing is necessary at this point. Higher expectations and a willingness by the university to hold coach accountable to those expectations should be fully expected and is what I think is most important.

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We are 28 pages here because there are people who either think he should be fired, that the program should be disbanded, or his salary should be cut to a HS level. Since you said it what should Maggard do at this point to “hold Marlin accountable”. The season is currently playing out and we have not even started conference play. The goal for the team is to win the conference and then win the tournament. That seem like he is being held accountable. If neither of those goals are attained he will then have to explain to his boss why they didn’t and how he is going to make it happen.
I realize some fans enjoy firing coaches and like having new energy injected into the program, but unfortunately for them Marlin won the SBC last year and got coach of the year honors. They will probably have to wait a couple of years before they get their pound of flesh.

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Originally Posted by ULvictory

1 NIT and 1 NCAA appearance in 8 years. There. Corrected.

As for the MINIMUM demand of finishing in the top 3/4 of the Sun Belt, I’m glad we have done that. But it should be expected with our program, especially with the crummy teams we face.

But big picture here........postseason........millions of people seeing our name on a bracket when they fill it out.........

That should be our goal. And I shouldn’t constantly have to hear spin when we fail to accomplish that. As a donor, it’s insulting.

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See, that wasn't so hard.

There's nothing we can do about the "crappy" teams we play in the Sun Belt. All we can do is try to beat them.

And, while the resume is what it is, I maintain if Marlin had won those two championships early in his tenure, you haters would be pounding the "what have you done for me lately" drum. So, yeah, I'm allowed to discount the first three years.

But you are typical of so many on this board. You bring up what you want (top 3 or four in the league). I tell you they are doing that. You do a "yeah, but".

It's called moving the needle. And, there are plenty on this board who do that. I guess that's part of being a "fan."

In the past five years, there is only one other Sun Belt school with multiple post-season appearances which include an NCAA berth.

I don't want to be second. I want to be first. We all do. But let's quit acting like our program is in the sewer. As a donor, THAT'S insulting.

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Originally Posted by talktomewillis

See, that wasn't so hard.

There's nothing we can do about the "crappy" teams we play in the Sun Belt. All we can do is try to beat them.

And, while the resume is what it is, I maintain if Marlin had won those two championships early in his tenure, you haters would be pounding the "what have you done for me lately" drum. So, yeah, I'm allowed to discount the first three years.

But you are typical of so many on this board. You bring up what you want (top 3 or four in the league). I tell you they are doing that. You do a "yeah, but".

It's called moving the needle. And, there are plenty on this board who do that. I guess that's part of being a "fan."

In the past five years, there is only one other Sun Belt school with multiple post-season appearances which include an NCAA berth.

I don't want to be second. I want to be first. We all do. But let's quit acting like our program is in the sewer. As a donor, THAT'S insulting.

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I don't think it's in the sewer and no one is saying that ... it's its just average and that the issues with giving a 5-year deal to a coach that's been average with no signature wins.

We can't afford to hire a new coach in the next few years because we are a few million dollars in debt ... but we got burnt the last time we gave a coach a long-term extension

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Originally Posted by ULvictory

LOL

We aren’t allowed to criticize basketball coaches here. If you say anything remotely negative, you will get fussed at. It’s become similar to Farmer’s Corner Bar Crew.

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So you think when someone posts info to refute your argument, you are getting fussed at? Interesting.

I'm not a sycophant by any measure since I have nothing to gain here but I will continue to argue my point and defend a coach, player or program from people both inside and outside the University.

I won’t put words into anyone’s mouth/post, but I’m sure there are some who would love Marlin to be replaced by a program legacy or local high school coach simply because Marlin was picked over their buddy. Yeah, that ____ works out real well in this day and age. McNeese and ULM finally saw the light, that should give you a hint.

We’re not USL’ing it anymore.

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Originally Posted by zephyr

His 3 best players this year are transfers. Arguably his "best" signings are 3 star guys. One of which is still in HS and the other has not touched the court due to injury. We have no idea how good they will be in the future. By good players, I assume you are talking about them and not Lafayette, Miller, Gladney etc...? I think if you took Gant and Stroman off this team, our talent would be considered bottom half of the league.

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I thought both Julien and Wilson were four star guys. Maybe they are on some sights but not others. I think Johnson was as well when he left HS in Baton Rouge for St. Louis. You are right though in the ranking does not mean they will be productive players. Just gives you a slight reason to be optimistic they will be successful.

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Originally Posted by talktomewillis

See, that wasn't so hard.

There's nothing we can do about the "crappy" teams we play in the Sun Belt. All we can do is try to beat them.

And, while the resume is what it is, I maintain if Marlin had won those two championships early in his tenure, you haters would be pounding the "what have you done for me lately" drum. So, yeah, I'm allowed to discount the first three years.

But you are typical of so many on this board. You bring up what you want (top 3 or four in the league). I tell you they are doing that. You do a "yeah, but".

It's called moving the needle. And, there are plenty on this board who do that. I guess that's part of being a "fan."

In the past five years, there is only one other Sun Belt school with multiple post-season appearances which include an NCAA berth.

I don't want to be second. I want to be first. We all do. But let's quit acting like our program is in the sewer. As a donor, THAT'S insulting.

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"If Marlin had won two championships early in his tenure instead of more recently, I would be pounding the 'what have you done for me lately' drum........"

That would mean we would be paying a coach ~$500k with no postseason appearance in the past 5 years. Luckily, that's not the case. See: Hud.

I don't know who you are, but you must be part of that basketball social club that MAT was talking about. I love how you basketball apologists play victim as if we are "picking" on basketball. The second someone raises an eyebrow at Marlin, y'all come hurrying to his defense. If you know me or have read my posts, you will see that I took up for Napier after the loss against Coastal; and I also took up for Robe after that blunder of a start last season in baseball. I also took up for Glasco during the season when his team showed some signs of struggle early on. Trust me. I have more important things to do in my life than to just pick on a program of a school that I graduated from and love. And I like Coach Marlin. I think he's a nice guy. But I also think when you're paid a certain salary, you compliment it with performance. This is not a bureaucracy. So, let's not go there.

Secondly, are we supposed to just succumb to the fact that only one other Sun Belt school has multiple post-season appearances? So now what? We just fold and say, "Oh, well. Other schools in our conference barely make the tournament more than once. I guess we can't either." If so, then that's a shame. I'm not asking Coach Marlin to hang the moon. Nor am I asking for his firing, so please quit assuming that. All I'm asking is for is for more postseason appearances than what he has shown in the 8 years he has been here. Just get it done. Don't give me excuses of why we can't do it. Don't sit here and complain about teams not wanting to come to Lafayette. Don't try to justify the modern era of college basketball. Just earn your salary and find a way. That's what he's paid to do.

Finishing in the top 4 of the conference consistently is what I ask for because it's SUPPOSED to be done over here. If you're going to pound your chest on just that, then great. My demand for that as a fan should be a minimal accomplishment.

So, there it is in writing (or typing in this matter): top 4 conference finish and more postseason appearances. We will soon see if our coaching staff can accomplish this.

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Originally Posted by Cajunsmike

I thought both Julien and Wilson were four star guys. Maybe they are on some sights but not others. I think Johnson was as well when he left HS in Baton Rouge for St. Louis. You are right though in the ranking does not mean they will be productive players. Just gives you a slight reason to be optimistic they will be successful.

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Neither were 4* Stars on any site, but both certainly had quality offers from other good programs. As Jay stated, if you miss on one or two in a class in regards to MBB recruiting, it's going to leave holes in the depth chart. Coach Marlin needs more signees like Julien and Wilson to elevate his program, and less like Lafayette, Hayes and Wesley.

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Originally Posted by Ragin4U

So you think when someone posts info to refute your argument, you are getting fussed at? Interesting.

I'm not a sycophant by any measure since I have nothing to gain here but I will continue to argue my point and defend a coach, player or program from people both inside and outside the University.

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Oh yeah. Apparently, I want Coach Marlin fired also.