The Stroh Center Environment is HORRID!

[ZuluWarrior]

Somehow the university, Coach Huger, the athletic department, all of the above have to figure out a way to get students excited about BG basketball. Ever since the move to the Stroh, the handful of games I've attended have felt as lively as a Hillary Clinton Presidential Victory Celebration. The fact that the design took students out of their 6th Man role, I believe was catastrophic. There are no 'Bleacher Creatures' because there are no bleachers, on the court. I can't believe those in charge created an arena seating plan for alumni while alumni don't go. Anderson Arena, for all its faults, put the students in a role that was critical. An empty home court is creating an empty home court advantage and moving the arena to the outskirts of campus, away from off-campus housing and on-campus housing was just as negative an impact as removing courtside bleachers for students.

Other arenas made changes to such poor design, i.e. the Breslin Center and Crisler Arena.
To borrow from a former President and BG friend...
"Athletic department: Tear down your seatback chairs on one side of the court and invite your students to engage, disrupt and own the Stroh!"

[guest44]

Oh, how glad I am you brought this up. What makes college basketball great is as much the product on the court as it is the environment in the arena. The Stroh Center is a smaller version of the EMU Convocation Center, which is the worst of all. Why that is, is a grocery list of reasons.

1) Too many years of being boring, and perfectly ok with losing.
2)Opening a new arena with the least charismatic coach in school history. The Christopher extension was a killer.
3)Hiring a championship level coach (who liked to drink), then playing dumb when his wife wasn't in town, and he was out drinking like a college student. Nobody on staff with the leadership skills to address the issue. Then when basically blackmailed with a video, playing dumb once again. Then firing the coach, and the fans and media not demanding answers from the AD. Did he do any background check? Did he really think we didn't know he drank? Did Kingston look up from his phone long enough to see it? So, once again, take all progress, and add 5 more years to recover. So instead of demanding answers, the local media took pictures of Kingston's orange truck, and the fans just went back to not caring. And, by the way if you care about your school , you often are deemed someone who is bitter.
4) Too many ads and awful game day production. Nothing kills a good run like a SamB's ad when the band used to play the "Hey" song huh?

So what do we do now? My opinion. I'd rid BGSU of as much Kingston as possible. Tell his hires to give Chris a call, and help them find the next step. #TALONSUP being #TALONSDEAD is a good start. He bailed, and left BG in a bad place. Find some fresh blood, preferably those who actually care about BGSU. Not the Twitter types, but the people whose actions actually represent caring about BGSU. These coaches are going to leave at the first chance of more money or a better job. Stop the silly extensions. If they have options, they will go. BG never needs to beg for a coach to stay. BG coaches only stay because they have no better options.

[Flipper]

Jans was a bad hire...the damage was done before that. The fact that interest had waned so badly that venerable Anderson Arena wasn't half full much less sold out for the farewell should have been a HUGE warning sign to the folks in charge that changes needed to be made immediately. They weren't...

If you want to trace the current ennui to it's point of origin, I would look at the decision to let Dan Dakich return. The emotional immaturity he displayed lead tot he hiring of the calm...bordering on soporific...Louis Orr. That lead to the hiring of high energy Chris Jans. CK hired a type (hot young coach of the moment) and paid no attention to the person (big fat drunk) but I really don't think that episode had much impact because, generally speaking..nobody gave a s**t either way by then.

Hopefully...if Huger continues to recruit well, interest will return to where it was in the 70's and early 80's...even into the early 2000's in Dakich 1.0. It's not going to be this year though...and it might not be next

[guest44]

[quote="Flipper"]Jans was a bad hire...the damage was done before that. The fact that interest had waned so badly that venerable Anderson Arena wasn't half full much less sold out for the farewell should have been a HUGE warning sign to the folks in charge that changes needed to be made immediately. They weren't...


Very very true, especially given the amount of former players that attended.

[zete]

Basketball was king and on campus in the 60s and had shown signs of returning since. Putting the Stroh where it is great aesthetically on the outside and is serving itself well as people enter the city from the east side. But as they say, "its on the inside that counts". Taking Memorial Hall down in 35 years and building a new facility there is probably the answer. Enough time has passed now to realize huge mistakes and miscalculations have been made. Whenever I bring some of this up to the people in the AD they blow their stacks.

[Flipper]

They are not putting a major sports venue back into the center of campus..it's a logistical nightmare now and would be in 3 or 35 years. Far more likely that you'll see an add on to the Perry Fieldhouse or the Stroh for gymnastics than you will a building where AA used to be

[zete]

They are not putting a major sports venue back into the center of campus..it's a logistical nightmare now and would be in 3 or 35 years. Far more likely that you'll see an add on to the Perry Fieldhouse or the Stroh for gymnastics than you will a building where AA used to be

Absolutely right, thus it will remain what it is for years to come if teams remain mediocre. The true test will be when the men or women win their first 15 games with some wins being over top 25 teams. Then the arena could be in Portage and fans should be lining up at the doors. Thus, the simple answer is to build the programs.

[hammb]

blaming the Stroh location or layout for the atmosphere of our games is just bitching to bitch.

I've attended over 90% of the home games in the 2000s and the atmosphere now is no different than it was the last 5-6 years in Anderson. The product on the court is what has kept our interest so low.

Flipper nailed it 100%. It's rare for awful teams to be able to pinpoint it to one event, but we absolutely can. Dakich was a wannabe Bobby Knight and even though they played their asses off for him in his first stint, he had zero credibility it respect in that locker room when he left. Hell I knew several guys on that team that threw big party when he left. When he returned they wanted nothing to do with him and his players were flat out telling recruits not to come here. Then we doubled down on stuff by refusing to fire him.

Then we turn to the opposite personality, and he said what little energy was still left on the program out well before the Stroh doors opened. Then when we had a chance to fire his ass and much off the new building with the excitement of a new coach we again doubled down on stupid and let him coach out the string.

The Jans fiasco didn't move the needle in any way. Nobody cared by the time he got here, and while he had a successful season it did nothing to build any excitement for the program and barely a blip on the radar when he was rightfully canned.

Much like the challenge Clawson faced when he arrived, this thing is a project. The way huger had been recruiting I hope he can be the guy to build the program back but I want gonna happen in a year or two. And the game day atmosphere and fan following will lag behind the actual growth, but they will follow.

[guest44]

What allowed Clawson to build was firing Brandon before the football program got to the point of no return. The same happened in women's basketball prior to Miller. However, with Orr and with Dakich it was watching the program die right in front of you. The Orr 7 years being more miserable because a 3 year old could see how it would end. My argument with Jans is not regarding whether he should still be coach. I disagree that until the final week meltdown, the environment had begun to change at home games. Not Anderson Arena or what it should be, but going to games was fun again. My argument is once you make the bed with Jans, handle it better than it was handled. A simple background check would tell you most of what you are getting. If that is what you want, prepare yourself to defend it and protect it. Any business does this every day with really talented people. The administration wanted Jans, was ok with Jans, then played dumb. Jans would still be coaching here (or would have moved to a better job already), just like the two low level assistant football coaches are, had the video never surfaced. Ya know, those guys actually had to deal with the police. Kingston would have defended him right up until the point his job would be in jeopardy. That's piss poor leadership in it's finest form, and we will all see the results of that over the next few years. I hope Huger is the guy who turns it around. You won't find a better person. However, if you look at the Jim Larranaga coaching tree, you won't find much success from his former assistants. Stan Heath for a short time being the exception. I'm rooting like hell for Huger.

[Flipper]

Jans had to go...CK obviously failed in his due diligence on hiring him...but he had to go. College basketball can be resuscitated here. You have a chance to get to the same tournament as OSU so the kids here will think it's important...it's someplace warm to go in the winter...and it's free...at least in terms of what students pay directly out of pocket at the gate.

Huger is recruiting circles around Orr and Dakich...if we can keep him for five years, I think we'll be in excellent shape.

[guest44]

I agree. Jans had to go, and Kingston and his crew should have been gone soon after. Instead, he got to stay to seek other jobs, and botch a football hire, all while avoiding the criticism.

[fanatic13]

From a student standpoint it's a culture problem. New students are told nobody goes to basketball games so then nobody goes and the circle continues. It's group think which leads to students rather sitting in their dorms than going to basketball games. The location doesn't help, because with this culture students look for any excuse not to go, and the Stroh being further away can be a reason. I know these are terrible excuses, but they're the excuses students have. Even in the Jans 20 win year students still didn't care, show up, or even know how good the team was. Even when the team is decent they're still perceived as bad.

From a general fan perspective I think it mainly is the on-court performance, because I remember some larger attendances for the Jan's year, and it would help to have more than one successful season in recent memory. Then when you have no student presence for a decade there's no young alumni coming back to buy tickets. Hopefully Huger will turn things around and the fans will come to support the team.

[gmartin]

Well location shouldn't be a problem anymore. There are 4 shuttles that go to and from the Stroh Center ever 15 min. The shuttles run 1 hour before game time to 30 min after conclusion of game. The shuttle stops almost every block. One shuttle goes down to the apartments on Klotz, Manville, South College, Napoleon and all the way out to Copper Beach. The shuttles are heated. Students can't give 'it's too far away for me to go' excuse anymore. Just need better promotions and marketing.

[hammb]

The location of the Stroh is certainly something that will be used as an "excuse" by students for not going. Just as the location of offcampus venues is used as an excuse by students at other schools. At the same time, however, the location can be an asset for non-students. My grandmother, for instance, has season tickets again. She couldn't attend the games at Anderson due to being unable to walk from the remote parking lots to the arena. And the close parking lots were tied to large-ish Falcon Club donations. Now that is no longer an obstacle she's back to have season tickets and at nearly every game.

Alumni/Townies will attend more games at the Stroh than they ever would have at Anderson due to the pure convenience. Of course you still have to put a product on the court that makes people want to pay for games.

It'd be nice if they came up with a parking structure that didn't require a MENSA membership to figure out either. It is absolutely insane that they will let the good parking sit 80% empty and make the people paying $5/game park 1/4 mile away. In fact it's not just insane; it's among the stupidest things I've ever seen in my life. You're trying to build a fanbase and you don't let anybody that isn't willing to invest in a parking pass park in the actual lot that is connected to the building? Can somebody please explain any rationale to having the parking broken into 4 separate tiers? Again, when most of those tiers sit largely empty? I get having the premium parking reserved for highest donors. I kinda even get having multiple tiers of parking for differing donor levels, but to have that massive lot sit empty because it's only for "parking pass" holders is asinine. When you sell enough parking passes to have it anywhere near capacity, fine, but now it's just stupidity.

Sorry...a tangential rant there, but it's not like it doesn't play a part in the issue.

As for the student culture issue, that goes back to something I've said for as long as I can remember. When I was a student we got rid of Blackney and hired Urban. Dakich was here for my entire 4 years. Both Urban & Dakich excelled at selling the program and exciting the campus for their programs. Like it or not, I feel that MUST be part of the job of any of our head coaches. I don't know if Huger is doing any of that sort of legwork, but if not he, then SOMEBODY from the program must be. Having the University all time leading scorer as an assistant coach seems like that might be an obvious place to look...

[guest44]

It's going to take more than one 20 win season, with a coach getting drunk, and an athletic department being blackmailed, to get people to come back. Noon tip times are the white flag at getting students to show up.

The parking is an issue. But, of all of the issues it's further down the line. Most times the worker is totally clueless and you can pretty much do what you want.

On a positive note, the popcorn is top notch. I mean almost movie theater quality IMO.