BBF
02-12-2017, 03:33 PM
People don't like being wrong. Some learn from it. Some refuse to accept it, despite overpowering evidence. We see it endemically in the body politic, of course, especially lately, but it is rarely more apparent than in sports fandom, that special domain where so many of us are convinced that we are as knowledgeable as coaches.
To wit the latest post on the Eunuch board. It's from one of our best fans (and I mean that sincerely), but one who was so invested in the myopic conviction that all our problems were the fault of the last coaching staff that instead of meeting the evidence that the program has been shredded head on, he has decided to double down on a storyline that was always questionable at best. Obviously, the glass was not always half empty under Coach Jeter. But that perception was generally more common among those who refused to look behind the curtain, who "didn't give a flying f*** who the AD was" -- even, apparently, when the AD was taking actions that directly harmed the program.
In truth there is no evidence whatsoever that the team is better coached today than it was under Coach Jeter. Quite the contrary. And this isn't a knock on Jordan. It would have been shocking if a rookie coach had the same coaching acumen as a veteran who took us to five 20 win seasons, two NCAA tournaments, two HL titles, two HL tournament titles, and steered us back to being a winning program after one AD's inexplicable decision to consign us to a high school gym, again after the academic suspension that was the result of administrative incompetence killed our momentum in 2015 -- and despite the "sabotage" of another AD. Many fans just don't want to be bothered by such arcane issues as whether the AD is truly assisting the program, just as others don't care about how recruits are acquired, or what the character of the team and its players is like. It's about winning or losing, period. The just want to eat the sausage, not watch it made.
But let's take a clear eyed look at where we are, in exactly that context of winning and losing. Instead of having a team that would have featured three high D1 quality senior starters -- an astonishing rarity in mid-major basketball -- including arguably one of the top 5 or 10 guard tandems in the country, we have a team that, despite playing in the worst, weakest Horizon League in history, is objectively terrible. 8-19. 4-10. That's not just an objective measure -- it's the only one that counts in terms of winning and losing. Overmatched and undercoached, and with no better prospects than the dim possibility of not finishing in last place. In the worst, weakest Horizon League in history. And we not only traded a real possibility of a league championship and an NCAA tournament this year for a race to the bottom -- we are also clearly years away from simply getting the program back to where Rob Jeter already had it. If we ever do. And in making this awful trade, a lot of good people got hurt in the process. Perhaps that horrible realization is setting in for some.
And there's another critical objective measure that we need to look at. Attendance. Surely to the surprise of the few who agreed with our friend on the E board, their conviction about what ailed the program does not appear to have been widely shared. There was no burst of enthusiasm for change going into this year that brought more fans. Far from it. The fans voted with their feet -- by not walking into the Arena, notwithstanding all the physical improvements. They saw what happened to our program for what it was -- an ill-considered and ill-intentioned purge of good people, from coaches to administrators to players. Good people who had devoted themselves to making this a program we could be proud of despite the interference from and lack of support by those whose responsibility it was to provide that support.
At this point there is simply no doubt that our attendance has crashed to Cobbian levels, just as our team's performance has. How do you think that will affect our entire athletic program going forward? It's pretty obvious. And that is 100% on our administration. 100%.
This is us now. This is Milwaukee basketball. A struggling team in a terrible league with disappearing fan support. Some folks need to own it.
To wit the latest post on the Eunuch board. It's from one of our best fans (and I mean that sincerely), but one who was so invested in the myopic conviction that all our problems were the fault of the last coaching staff that instead of meeting the evidence that the program has been shredded head on, he has decided to double down on a storyline that was always questionable at best. Obviously, the glass was not always half empty under Coach Jeter. But that perception was generally more common among those who refused to look behind the curtain, who "didn't give a flying f*** who the AD was" -- even, apparently, when the AD was taking actions that directly harmed the program.
In truth there is no evidence whatsoever that the team is better coached today than it was under Coach Jeter. Quite the contrary. And this isn't a knock on Jordan. It would have been shocking if a rookie coach had the same coaching acumen as a veteran who took us to five 20 win seasons, two NCAA tournaments, two HL titles, two HL tournament titles, and steered us back to being a winning program after one AD's inexplicable decision to consign us to a high school gym, again after the academic suspension that was the result of administrative incompetence killed our momentum in 2015 -- and despite the "sabotage" of another AD. Many fans just don't want to be bothered by such arcane issues as whether the AD is truly assisting the program, just as others don't care about how recruits are acquired, or what the character of the team and its players is like. It's about winning or losing, period. The just want to eat the sausage, not watch it made.
But let's take a clear eyed look at where we are, in exactly that context of winning and losing. Instead of having a team that would have featured three high D1 quality senior starters -- an astonishing rarity in mid-major basketball -- including arguably one of the top 5 or 10 guard tandems in the country, we have a team that, despite playing in the worst, weakest Horizon League in history, is objectively terrible. 8-19. 4-10. That's not just an objective measure -- it's the only one that counts in terms of winning and losing. Overmatched and undercoached, and with no better prospects than the dim possibility of not finishing in last place. In the worst, weakest Horizon League in history. And we not only traded a real possibility of a league championship and an NCAA tournament this year for a race to the bottom -- we are also clearly years away from simply getting the program back to where Rob Jeter already had it. If we ever do. And in making this awful trade, a lot of good people got hurt in the process. Perhaps that horrible realization is setting in for some.
And there's another critical objective measure that we need to look at. Attendance. Surely to the surprise of the few who agreed with our friend on the E board, their conviction about what ailed the program does not appear to have been widely shared. There was no burst of enthusiasm for change going into this year that brought more fans. Far from it. The fans voted with their feet -- by not walking into the Arena, notwithstanding all the physical improvements. They saw what happened to our program for what it was -- an ill-considered and ill-intentioned purge of good people, from coaches to administrators to players. Good people who had devoted themselves to making this a program we could be proud of despite the interference from and lack of support by those whose responsibility it was to provide that support.
At this point there is simply no doubt that our attendance has crashed to Cobbian levels, just as our team's performance has. How do you think that will affect our entire athletic program going forward? It's pretty obvious. And that is 100% on our administration. 100%.
This is us now. This is Milwaukee basketball. A struggling team in a terrible league with disappearing fan support. Some folks need to own it.