Men's Basketball Success vs. Football Program - Question

[ZuluWarrior]

If we could have a Men's Basketball Team that was consistently vying for MAC Championships and making the NCAA Tourney every 3-4 years, but you had to give up football would you do it?

I honestly don't know, but I'm tired of weak-ass basketball and I love the Tourney.

[BGSU33]

HECK NO!!! I want them both, period! You can look at other schools in the MAC who are able to do well in both sports recently. And BG has as well, but the men's basketball team's inability to win a MAC Tournament has haunted BG for years. We've had some outstanding teams in 1997, 2000 & 2002, but couldn't do it. But take Ohio University this year for example, they won the MAC Tournament in basketball this year and went to the NCAA Tournament, and also won the MAC East in football and went to a bowl game. Ohio also did the same thing as recent as 2005 in basketball and 2006 in football. It can be done. But it will only be done if the men's basketball team can finally win the MAC Tournament.

[Rollo83]

What would you rather have...Kent State's men's basketball program the last 10 years, or Central Michigan's football progam the last 5 years?

[hammb]

What would you rather have...Kent State's men's basketball program the last 10 years, or Central Michigan's football progam the last 5 years?

KSU Hoops and it's not even close.

[KPAFalcon]

You can have both. Move football down to a lower division.

Look at the resources that are required to field a D-1 football program. For what? Five home games, 2 or 3 are played when the students are not in town and a chance at playing in the WHO CARES bowl game. Move it down to a lower division and compete on a national level. It takes fewer resources and is more exciting. Ricmond and Villinova had a blast this year. These schools didn’t worry about get invited to the WHO CARES bowl game. They were competing for a national championship. Plus this is followed up by a great Bball season.

Move some of the resources to the sports the students and community can enjoy. Basketball & Hockey

CM has had the most successful Fball program lately. Would you rather have it or Miami Hockey, Dayton Bball, Xavier Bball, or BG hockey in the 80's?

[MarkL]

You can have both. Move football down to a lower division.

Look at the resources that are required to field a D-1 football program. For what? Five home games, 2 or 3 are played when the students are not in town and a chance at playing in the WHO CARES bowl game. Move it down to a lower division and compete on a national level. It takes fewer resources and is more exciting. Ricmond and Villinova had a blast this year. These schools didn’t worry about get invited to the WHO CARES bowl game. They were competing for a national championship. Plus this is followed up by a great Bball season.

Ow. My brain hurts after reading that.

Not a chance. The upsets throughout the years, the national attention we've received, and just the fun of playing in D1A more than justifies maintaining an upper division team, even if we get screwed by the MAC each and every year.

[FalconTurf]

I just read in these posts some of the problems and mostly it relates to money.

1) 3-4 home football games while students are in town. If you want to get the students, alumni and community involved you must play when people can attend.

2) The biggest money issues for basketball in my opinion are: a) bring in interesting opponents and b) recruiting budget to go out and get that gem from overseas or in a remote region of the U.S. that hasn't gotten the attention they deserved.

3) WHO CARES BOWL. The attitude at BG needs to change. Each game, match or meet in every sport is an opportunity to enhance the image of Falcon athletics and BGSU. It may not reach the masses like a BCS bowl but I would imagine many people Mobile, AL and Boise, ID have a better view of BGSU now that we visited.

Every small opportunity leads to a BiG opportunity = Wapak plays in the regionals at BGSU and years later we build a new arena in large part to the relationships formed that night.

[falconfan1]

Humanitarian Bowl for BG- 3 million plus viewers. Very important. Great publicity- if we knock a ball down late it's an even bigger multiplier because we win with the best QB/WR combo in the country. Yep, I'll take our boys over Texas and ND's crew in a college game.

Ohio's BB game vs Georgetown NCAA- many viewers. Win is a multiplier. Great publicity.

BG's women's BB game vs MSU NCAA- many viewers. Great publicity. If we don't turn it over, a huge multiplier after we whip UK (I know- looking ahead even after a loss!)


Now, are you telling me one MAC school can't accomplish the above in one year or two out of three of the above and repeat it every few years?

It can be done and we aren't far away in my opinion. We need good coaching, great recruiting and a little good fortune. You need some luck, but, in our league etc, it can be done.

We don't need to change conferences, drop in football or anything else like that. We need to focus on getting better, building support at all levels and build on our alums around the country. The Stroh Center is an incredible commitment to basketball at BG. A huge step.The football program is in great hands and our facilities there top most of our competition. Basketball programs use some of those facilities too.

Go Falcons!

[Falcon137]

Lets take a look at the schools within a few hours that BG has to compete with; Miami (OH), Xavier, Dayton, Wright State, Ohio State, Youngstown State, Butler, Valpo, Akron, Kent State, Toledo, Detroit. The list goes on and on. That is a lot of school to fight for players with.

Xavier- No football. Dayton-1AA Non-scholarship. Butler- 1AA Non-scholarship. Wright State-No football. Ohio State-BCS conference $. Youngstown State- Football cash cow. Miami, Akron, Kent State, Toledo- Same boat as BG. Detroit-No football.

Now, do I think BG can / should be in the top half of the MAC every year with the Stroh Center and a semi high profile coach like Orr? Absolutely.

But, I don't think BG will be able to compete with schools like Dayton (averages 13k for home games) and Xavier (10k for home games). Those schools have huge recruiting budgets, are in hot beds for high school basketball, fly charter to almost all road games and are in high major conference. Schools like Dayton and Xavier have basketball carry their athletic budget.

Their coaches make close to a million dollars a year and are in large cities. I know from personal experience that Brian Gregory at Dayton drives a free Mercedes, wears free suits, makes 30k a year doing coaches shows, appears in multiple local commercials and has a base salary of more than 500k this year that goes up to almost 1 million in the coming years. That is what it takes to compete in major college basketball. Keeping in mind that Dayton has been to 1 NCAA tournament in the past 5 years.

If I had to pick CMU football or Kent State basketball it is Central football. Heck over the past 15 years I would take Miami basketball over KSU. People outside of the MAC simply don't care about MAC basketball, Akron won 27 games one year and didn't get an invite to the NIT.

There are 200 less D1 football teams than basketball teams. How many times has CMU been on ESPN in the past 5 years compared to KSU basketball over 10 years? I would guess that Central has been on more despite playing probably 100 less games over that stretch. The attention BG football receives is huge for the university, at the end of the day it's simple. People care about MAC football, they could care less about MAC basketball.

[ZuluWarrior]

I probably should add more clarity. I wasn't trying to say best MAC basketball school vs. best Mac football as a comparison. I'm suggesting a basketball program with significant to success closer to Gonzaga and with no football.

Would you trade a Gonzaga type basketball program for no Football? I still don't know, except I hate never making the big dance...I HATE IT, and I don't have much confidence right now that we are on the right track, although the Stroh Center should be BiG!

[LowryFalcon]

I would not give up any BG sport. BG is one of only a few colleges that plays ALL its sports in the top division of college athletics and I am proud of that fact. Yes we may not have had the best Mens basketball team this year but our Womens team made the big dance and our football team made a Bowl Game. How many teams in the MAC can say that besides Ohio? Bowling Green has had success in many sports and I think part of why some of you may be in a funk is because we keep seeing the Womens team year in and year out win MAC championships and we want to bring some of that success in Mens basketball.
Mens basketball got lucky with Dan Dakich. I am not saying he was an awesome coach but he really brought some great recruits to BGSU that played with lots of emotion and really fired up the crowd. Now a days we keep finding ourselves looking back on that time and wishing we could relive it, but I am confident those times will come back to BG. I think once the Stroh center is complete that it will help us recruit some better athletes and also get more butts in the seats and really revive BG basketball to what it once was. I see even more success in the future that will out due anything we've done in the last decade.

[Falcon137]

I probably should add more clarity. I wasn't trying to say best MAC basketball school vs. best Mac football as a comparison. I'm suggesting a basketball program with significant to success closer to Gonzaga and with no football.

Would you trade a Gonzaga type basketball program for no Football? I still don't know, except I hate never making the big dance...I HATE IT, and I don't have much confidence right now that we are on the right track, although the Stroh Center should be BiG!

Ahh, well that is different. I think it's easy to make a knee jerk reaction while the tournament is going on and say take the Gonzaga type program. But it would make for some looooong weekends in the fall. I'm keeping the football program.

[hammb]

I probably should add more clarity. I wasn't trying to say best MAC basketball school vs. best Mac football as a comparison. I'm suggesting a basketball program with significant to success closer to Gonzaga and with no football.

Would you trade a Gonzaga type basketball program for no Football? I still don't know, except I hate never making the big dance...I HATE IT, and I don't have much confidence right now that we are on the right track, although the Stroh Center should be BiG!

Ahh, well that is different. I think it's easy to make a knee jerk reaction while the tournament is going on and say take the Gonzaga type program. But it would make for some looooong weekends in the fall. I'm keeping the football program.

I love the football team. I have only missed a couple home games in the past decade, and I've been to road games at OSU, Purdue, UM, and Toledo in that timeframe. I love tailgating, and I would hate to lose those Saturday afternoons in the fall.

That said, I would probably trade our football program for a Gonzaga level basketball program. They're a household name simply because of that basketball program. As much as I love football we are never going to be allowed to compete for the biggest rewards in football. The power conferences just aren't going to let a little guy win a national title. There is no such restriction in basketball. The hoops team has the opportunity every spring...if they win 8 games in a row they could win the national title. It's not likely, but the possibility at least exists. For that reason I'd love to see us pump more resources into the basketball program.

[Falcon137]

I probably should add more clarity. I wasn't trying to say best MAC basketball school vs. best Mac football as a comparison. I'm suggesting a basketball program with significant to success closer to Gonzaga and with no football.

Would you trade a Gonzaga type basketball program for no Football? I still don't know, except I hate never making the big dance...I HATE IT, and I don't have much confidence right now that we are on the right track, although the Stroh Center should be BiG!

Ahh, well that is different. I think it's easy to make a knee jerk reaction while the tournament is going on and say take the Gonzaga type program. But it would make for some looooong weekends in the fall. I'm keeping the football program.

I love the football team. I have only missed a couple home games in the past decade, and I've been to road games at OSU, Purdue, UM, and Toledo in that timeframe. I love tailgating, and I would hate to lose those Saturday afternoons in the fall.

That said, I would probably trade our football program for a Gonzaga level basketball program. They're a household name simply because of that basketball program. As much as I love football we are never going to be allowed to compete for the biggest rewards in football. The power conferences just aren't going to let a little guy win a national title. There is no such restriction in basketball. The hoops team has the opportunity every spring...if they win 8 games in a row they could win the national title. It's not likely, but the possibility at least exists. For that reason I'd love to see us pump more resources into the basketball program.

For selfish reasons, same here. This is a fun question and I would take a Xavier type program tomorrow even if it meant cutting football. But, IMO no MAC school will ever get to the level of a Xavier, Butler, Gonzaga, Dayton type program.

[BGSU33]

I probably should add more clarity. I wasn't trying to say best MAC basketball school vs. best Mac football as a comparison. I'm suggesting a basketball program with significant to success closer to Gonzaga and with no football.

Would you trade a Gonzaga type basketball program for no Football? I still don't know, except I hate never making the big dance...I HATE IT, and I don't have much confidence right now that we are on the right track, although the Stroh Center should be BiG!

I still wouldn't trade football no matter what. I want BG football, and at the FBS level, period. Would I love basketball to be more of a player? Sure. I don't expect us to be a Gonzaga, but being an Ohio, Kent State, Miami or Akron would be nice (basically the rest of the MAC East). It would be nice to make the tournament every five or ten years or so, and not have a 42-year drought!!! If we could win the darn MAC Tournament, we aren't even having a discussion like this. As mentioned earlier, we've had some very good teams in 1997, 2000 & 2002 that couldn't get it done, but we also had a #1 seed and regular season champion as recent as last year that couldn't do it either.