Horizon League Tournament

[Skrapheap]

This year's Men's tournament is a classic example of why the metaphor "madness" is popularly applied to college basketball tournament games.

Kudos are due to Coach Jordan and the Men's team for getting to the conference semifinal. Everybody got their tickets to cheer the Panthers on at the Final Four? 🙄

The Women's bracket has played out closer to expectations, but the Panther women have a semifinal date with a Green Bay team they have already beaten once this season. It will take an effort like yesterday's quarterfinal win over Oakland to get to the final, but it seems less unlikely than in previous years.

[Jimmy Lemke]

I think today is going to be very enjoyable.

Take Amanda out of it and just enjoy the Madness.

[Jimmy Lemke]

I think today is going to be very enjoyable.

Take Amanda out of it and just enjoy the Madness.

[dylanrocks]

I'm happy for our players and coaches, but I think that the real story is how far the Horizon League and its tournament have fallen in such a short period of time.

Remember when the HLT was the envy and template of all other mid- and low-major leagues ... two years ago! Now, it's the biggest logjam anywhere, with teams unable before games to even dribble a ball on the court on which they'll be playing!

Once they skim beyond their understandable excitement, I know for a fact that my friends on the other board feel the same way.

Perhaps a Milwaukee-Youngstown State final will get the league's administrators to reverse course once the present contract is over and never repeat this folly again.

Go, Panthers!

[Jimmy Lemke]

Conference is locked in for three years. Gotta make the best of it.

I'm going to go for sure next year because I wanna see the new arena. Whether or not I go this year depends on tonight's result.

[Jimmy Lemke]

Conference is locked in for three years. Gotta make the best of it.

I'm going to go for sure next year because I wanna see the new arena. Whether or not I go this year depends on tonight's result.

[BBF]

I am on record as to the disaster that is the new HLT format. And that's totally independent of the fact that the Joe Louis might be the worst major arena in the entire midwest. Honestly, the tournament would be SO much better off at the Fort Wayne Coliseum. (And btw Jimmy -- last I heard the new Detroit arena will struggle to open by next year.)

As for this specifc tournament I am very worried by what may transpire the next few games. If we lose either game LJ will be an abject failure who can't win the tournament when it's right there for the taking.

If we win the next two games he deserves utterly no credit because it will be a complete fluke.

That, at least, is exactly what the deadenders always said about RJ, and I know they will want to be intellectually consistent this year. Poor LJ can't win with these "fans" (and a certain over-her-head AD)-- just like Jeter never could.

P.S. -- dylan is on the money here. A potential pairing of Milwaukee or UIC against YSU will draw fans by the dozens for the nationally televised final. Yet another Horizon League humiliation harking back to the infamous Loyola-UIC game in Cleveland that our idiot administrators seems to have erased from their memories (or never knew, in the case of a certain over-her-head AD). If I was Lecrone I'd be praying mightily for NKU. They might at least bring a couple busloads of students.

Incredibly, the actual attendance for this year's HLT must be a small fraction of what it was last year. Just like the program run by a certain over-her-head AD.

[Jimmy Lemke]

UIC apparently had the biggest official contingent.

[BBF]

So if UIC plays NKU in the final are you predicting the actual paid, in person attendance could reach 2,000 people?

Or to put it another way, about 1/5th of the crowd that the HLT Final would certainly have played in front of this year at the Arena?

[dylanrocks]

Twenty minutes, guys! Keep shooting, Brock!

The good news on attendance is that we have half of the "crowd." The bad news ... is that it's 10 people!

[shaun]

Awesome game!! Very proud of the team! Can't believe, just one more game...

[dylanrocks]

Is there a crazier program in college sports?

[DKelly28]

While I'm not going to support a couple people and their shenanigans at the university, I'm definitely proud of the effort of the players and coaches for their efforts during this tournament run. This is one of the craziest runs in sports I've ever seen.

[Skrapheap]

I had to laugh on the way home, listening to Scott Warras do his post-game show. He announced, twice, and apparently with a straight face, the attendance at the game as 3700.

[dylanrocks]

I had to laugh on the way home, listening to Scott Warras do his post-game show. He announced, twice, and apparently with a straight face, the attendance at the game as 3,700.

Which game? The last Bucks home game?

[BBF]

3700!? You could literally count the fans, they were so spread out. There's no way in hell there were as many as 1,000 fans in that building. They might have crowded that number with the bands and ushers and cheerleaders -- but fans? That's ridiculous.

[Skrapheap]

3700!? You could literally count the fans, they were so spread out. There's no way in hell there were as many as 1,000 fans in that building. They might have crowded that number with the bands and ushers and cheerleaders -- but fans? That's ridiculous.

Don't they sell tickets by "session:" a couple of games grouped together? So they'd pad the numbers by claiming the tickets sold for the first semi-final as attendance for the second semi-final (along with counting fans, ushers, and cheerleaders) even though most of them had left after watching the first game...

[BBF]

That's true Skrap, but I watched a lot of the first game too -- and the crowd was no bigger for that one. I think a lot of this is that they are rolling in tickets sold to fans of teams that didn't make it this far and have been thrown in the trash already. And some of it is just pure H League horsesh!t. The move to Detroit was an unmitigated disaster from an attendance standpoint. Gosh, who could have ever seen that coming!? A certain over-her-head AD certainly didn't.

It is literally true that if tonight's final was being played where it should have been played -- in the Panther Arena (with the players she chased away we would have won the league going away) -- the ACTUAL attendance for that one game in Milwaukee tonight would likely have doubled if not tripled the actual attendance for the full run of the tournament in Detroit this year (or last).

[Jimmy Lemke]

All we can do is make the best of it. Once AB is gone, I'd like to see the university make a real push to market the Tournament to our community. I'm going to make the trip for the whole tournament next season, but I would buy my tickets through a different school if our athletic director remains.

I would have guessed the attendance for Tuesday night's final to be about 2,000 legitimately. I would have accepted a 3,500 announcement. But as Skrap mentioned, they padded the attendance for it by counting the whole day.