Louisiana Tops Tulane, 68-61

[Cajunsmike]

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.

I agree that the influence on recruiting decisions from this board or others is likely minimal.

[zephyr]

Those with $100MM+ budgets have far less concern over fan forums. Their issues (or lack of success) are national sports news. W Wade being recorded buying recruits resulted practically zero negative issues from LSU fans.....it brought them top recruits and are now ranked. Being caught cheating is simply an inconvenience.

Why? You just said that prospective student athletes look at them more than we think and that it can play a part in a decision. I used them as an example as to the ramped up criticism that players and coaches receive on a larger program's message board but they still tend to do just fine in recruiting.

[zephyr]

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.

Exactly

[Policarp]

Why? You just said that prospective student athletes look at them more than we think and that it can play a part in a decision. I used them as an example as to the ramped up criticism that players and coaches receive on a larger program's message board but they still tend to do just fine in recruiting.

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.

[zephyr]

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.

Not dismissing it. I'm actually just trying to get a good idea of what you call obsessive negativity? Being critical of the coaches and or players for poor performance is going to happen and in many cases is warranted. For instance, some of us here this season questioned some of the in game decisions of Napier. Doesn't mean we don't want him to succeed or even think he won't but there was some critical posts. Do you look at those as negative ? Because in my mind, there is a difference. Or, what about the recent talk of coach Marlin's extension? Again, many of us have questioned why the extensions and pay raises for mediocre results. The guys who feel he has done a great job view those comments as negative. I don't see it that way. I'd say that the Texas State mess would be negative on their board or our board last year with Hud and company ____ting the bed.

[Cajunfanatico]

I asked my son if he reads fan boards from the schools that were recruiting him last spring....his reply: yes (& he still does), not much but the recruits he knew also all peeked at school fan forums that are recruiting them. And I can assure all of you the recruits very much talk/text each other.

Parents of recruits/players are regular visitors.....that I am 100% certain. Several parents openly asked questions to Head Coach on the official visit weekend based about negative stuff they read on fan forums. Especially true for mothers of recruits.....they didnt hold back at all.

I can assure all, negative post that are too personal or get excessive (piling on) in nature aint helping.

Thanks for posting this.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Let me say it isn’t the fans job to vet coaches. Hudspeth brought a coach who had serious issues into our program. We all saw the results. IMO regardless of whatever Hud did right this was unforgivable. I’m not happy with the Big Fish for many things, but not being shady is always a saving grace.

[zephyr]

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.

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.

[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.