Louisiana Tops Tulane, 68-61

[Cajunfanatico]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, a post can come across as intentionally negative, or it can come across as constructive criticism. It's a fine line to be sure, but words have meaning. We have some posters here who will always look at the glass as half empty, which is their right. I just cringe sometimes when I read their words because of the signal it must send to outsiders.

In another life, I often told my salesmen not to let themselves get dragged into a negative conversations about our competitors. Instead, when such an attempt was made, I urged them to say something like, "XYZ does a fine job but here is why our services and products represent a better value for the dollars you spend".........and then back up those words with actual examples.

[Cajunfanatico]

I didn't read your middle paragraph before I posted earlier. So, I do remember some posts about Marlin after the Toledo loss but not as many after the Tulane win. However, the critical nature of some here in regards to Marlin is justified. The numbers suggest that. The timing may be a bit puzzling to you as we are early in the season but year in and year out, we struggle with good to even average opponents which is why one of Marlin's biggest criticisms is about his lack of pure name wins, conference titles, NCAA tourney appearances etc..In the past, I've heard of words like accountability used when discussing coaches and their failures. While we've seen modest success with Marlin, many just don't feel he is held accountable enough for all of the things I just mentioned plus a lack of fundraising for his program even though he is given extensions and more and more job security. It's like we are just fine being the 3rd best program in the SBC and an NCAA tournament appearance every 6-8 years. I don't look at that as negativity. We all hope and expect him to get the program moving further upward for which those extensions would be justified. A negative person would assume that it will never happen no matter what he does.

One of the main problems I have with the basketball program right now (appears others do as well) is scheduling. I was floored when I learned here that the average basektball coach at our level does most of the team's scheduling. As others have noted, it seems akin to a professor asking his students to write the test they'd like to take. Well, what would you expect the outcome to look like?

I hope Maggard gets more involved in this process as I believe we'd see positive results, perhaps not as quickly as we'd like, but eventually.

[Cajunfanatico]

BTW, here's a Tulane fan who gets it:

You might need to pay more attention of who has been in the National spot light through multiple sports between us and ULL. For the past 10 years, they have been making more noise in multiple sports. Football isn’t even a comparison. How many Bowl Games have we been to since in the past 10 years? Say what you want about the NOLA, but those Cajuns has showed up and showed us out in our city. All of those NOLA Bowl trips immediately knockout your football debate. There baseball and basketball teams has had there days in the sun and has surpassed us as well. While fans like you sit back and wait for LSU to call, those ULL folks are getting their names seen in more tournaments and bowl games. C-USA or American (aka Big C-USA) ULL has been doing better things than us. We need to step our game up.

What does playing ULL do for us? It gives our facilities bigger attendance numbers. It gives Louisiana recruits a chance to see who is the better FBS program. It gives us a chance to see that it’s possible to pack a Superdome being a G5 Louisiana program. It lets the state know that we can beat ULL (and that’s been a struggle) and aren’t running from them like La Tech does to ULM. I can’t see why some of us are riding this fake high horse. We are not the second best athletic program at the moment.

[Cajunsmike]

I said they do look and talk about it. Mentioned nothing about decisions...that is far more varied. For Beau he connected well with the staff at WSU....and Tx Tech wanted to RS him his Fr year. That didnt sit well with Beau. I am saying obsessive negativity doesnt help.

Example.....rampant negativity after a very sweet win vs in state basketball rival on Wednesday. It was a bummer for me to see half the post gsme trash talking our coach after a hard fought win. We freaking won. Game plan adjustments at half worked well. Our coach Marlin out coached Dunleavy. Against Toledo i saw our guys miss dozens of open looks. Game plan worked.....we shot the rock terribly.

On our official visits Parents (mthe mothers) did ask questions with the coaches re issues on these boards. They also would bring it up as a discussion topic with other parents at the dinner table. Our kids were sitting together at other tables. Will the coaches be fired? Why do some people hate him so much? Are 2 examples I heard asked by mothers of recruits. It was eye opening for me to witness this. To simply dismiss obsessive levels of negativity is foolish.

There is a separate thread for scheduling concerns. I don't recall many negative comments about the actual game vs Tulane in this thread. Maybe there were but I did not read every one. I did see lots of frustration being shown due to a poor shooting night. In many ways that made the win sweeter as the guys gad to play extra hard and efficiently to pull it out. They deserve tremendous credit for pulling that out.

[Turbine]

I said they do look and talk about it. Mentioned nothing about decisions...that is far more varied. For Beau he connected well with the staff at WSU....and Tx Tech wanted to RS him his Fr year. That didnt sit well with Beau. I am saying obsessive negativity doesnt help.

Example.....rampant negativity after a very sweet win vs in state basketball rival on Wednesday. It was a bummer for me to see half the post gsme trash talking our coach after a hard fought win. We freaking won. Game plan adjustments at half worked well. Our coach Marlin out coached Dunleavy. Against Toledo i saw our guys miss dozens of open looks. Game plan worked.....we shot the rock terribly.

On our official visits Parents (mthe mothers) did ask questions with the coaches re issues on these boards. They also would bring it up as a discussion topic with other parents at the dinner table. Our kids were sitting together at other tables. Will the coaches be fired? Why do some people hate him so much? Are 2 examples I heard asked by mothers of recruits. It was eye opening for me to witness this. To simply dismiss obsessive levels of negativity is foolish.

At the end of the broadcast Jay said "bad shot" Ross said "good shot."

If Jay had typed that on a message board some would have called it 'negativity.'

Ross called it good because he was open. Jay called it bad because it ran no time off the clock.

The miss was secondary.

In game comments should be given the moment. I'm with you on post game comments though.

The strength of the message is this though. The negativity was exposed.

[Big Buds]

So message boards have the power to negatively impact recruiting but don’t have the power to positively impact change within our own programs? Can’t have it both ways.

If any of my kids are ever recruited, I can assure you, what some anonymous fan on a message board thinks will have ZERO impact on their decision to attend. If a recruit is indeed swayed by a post or posts on message boards, we don’t need that kind of person playing for our school anyway. You have to be pretty insecure and/or weak minded to be bothered that much by fan rantings on the internet.

Thank you! I could not have said it better!

[zephyr]

At the end of the broadcast Jay said "bad shot" Ross said "good shot."

If Jay had typed that on a message board some would have called it 'negativity.'

Ross called it good because he was open. Jay called it bad because it ran no time off the clock.

The miss was secondary.

In game comments should be given the moment. I'm with you on post game comments though.

The strength of the message is this though. The negativity was exposed.

The comments you see post game are being made by that person in game. Ever think about that? I don't sit on here much during games. I like to watch with no disruptions. I make my comments after. The timing doesn't make them any more or less accurate.

[Cajunsmike]

The comments you see post game are being made by that person in game. Ever think about that? I don't sit on here much during games. I like to watch with no disruptions. I make my comments after. The timing doesn't make them any more or less accurate.

I have same approach. I think post game comments are more valid. In game likely spur of moment and could be emotional rather than logical.

[Cajunsmike]

I have same approach. I think post game comments are more valid. In game likely spur of moment and could be emotional rather than logical.

Regarding Tulane. Friend of mine was at tournament last week. On the day of the Toledo game, he sees a Tulane assistant coach in elevator. Coach mentions to him that it would be nice if the two Louisiana schools played in the championship game. Buddy says to him that a home and home would also be nice. Response from Tulane guy is "that will never happen". At least we can now say we won the last one.

[DieHard1280]

Regarding Tulane. Friend of mine was at tournament last week. On the day of the Toledo game, he sees a Tulane assistant coach in elevator. Coach mentions to him that it would be nice if the two Louisiana schools played in the championship game. Buddy says to him that a home and home would also be nice. Response from Tulane guy is "that will never happen". At least we can now say we won the last one.

Never is a very long time. The AAC may have a say in the matter at some point.