What if?

[spacemonkey]

I think you are seeing the demise of one name college sports teams dominating the TV dollars. My theory is mainly based on what I am doing and many others I would imagine. Now that I can watch App and be a fan of App on TV (ESPN+). Some of these UNC/NCSTATE/Wake Forest were the only game in town most of my life. There was no real way to be an App State fan...or a ECU fan...Wofford...Davidson....now you can be a fan of your team. I would love to see the numbers but it has had to hurt all of the big name teams that were the only game in town. Notre Dame was the only team on TV when I was a kid...Then the ACC dominated the tv with one game a week in football and a few more per week in Basketball and of course the ACC basketball tournament. This year I watched the Sunbelt tournament because that is what I care about. I would think a lot of SOCON..ASUN...MAC and other conferences have people like me that skipped the ACC Tournament or SEC or BIG East to watch their own tournament.

[Cro-Magnon App]

Grinnell College is the one people are familiar with - a high scoring run and gun style that always leads the nation in 3s made and attempted. Not much success. 8-16 last year but they averaged about a 100 a game.

Pfeiffer College under Dave Davis (after Bobby Lutz left) did the same thing and Coach Davis took that style with him to Newberry College. Limited success.

VMI did the same thing with Duggar Baucom - high octane offense combined with the 1-3-4 3/4 court press. When Duggar went to The Citadel they played a more deliberate pace.

Many high schools try it. If they have talent, they win. If not, they get hammered.

Most of these high-flying teams give up a lot of easy shots with the style of defense they must play to keep the pace going.

[Bigdaddyg1]

You either control the pace, work for good shots and play good defense or you just go wide open like most NBA and jack shots. If you do the latter in college how do you keep the bigs happy if they aren't perimeter shooters? Are a couple of guys gonna just jack shots? As far as attendance goes I think if you really want App students to attend we really need them sitting along side the court. Lord knows those empty seats are intimidating.
You have to give stuff away and do goofy crap to keep this age group interested. Look at games on TV with other schools.
Most of these kids don't care about the game. They are there to be rowdy and to have fun.

[WASU 93]

You either control the pace, work for good shots and play good defense or you just go wide open like most NBA and jack shots. If you do the latter in college how do you keep the bigs happy if they aren't perimeter shooters? Are a couple of guys gonna just jack shots? As far as attendance goes I think if you really want App students to attend we really need them sitting along side the court. Lord knows those empty seats are intimidating.
You have to give stuff away and do goofy crap to keep this age group interested. Look at games on TV with other schools.
Most of these kids don't care about the game. They are there to be rowdy and to have fun.

We already do the giveaways and crazy stuff. If you go back to the Loyola Marymount days, the whole team was scoring (it wasn't just jacking up perimeter shots (although they did shoot their share of 3's). The original suggestion was based on the lack of a major NIL presence on the mountain, could we get 7 or 8 scorers up the mountain (who would all play 20-30 minutes in a high intensity setting) and would that more exciting brand of basketball bring out more than 500-1000 students per game.

[Cro-Magnon App]

Until you get whipped by 30 a few times because the shots ain’t falling or somebody has a scheme and the people to cover it.
One thing can be constant - defense.

[EastHallApp]

I wouldn't be opposed to it, and purely as a basketball fan, I definitely don't love the pack-line defense/slow-paced offense combo.

That said, I don't think the comparison to football works. App adopted the spread option when it was still relatively new, especially at the 1-AA level. That's why WVU was lighting people up with it and why it gave us a competitive advantage. Over time, most teams moved to that style (and adapted their defenses to it), and the field caught up with us.

You're talking about switching to a style that, depending on what you have in mind, is either already widely practiced (NBA-style pace-and-space) or went out of vogue at least a couple of decades ago (full-court defensive pressure). Not to say you couldn't have success with either, but I don't think you'd have the same benefit of being ahead of the curve.

[WASU 93]

I wouldn't be opposed to it, and purely as a basketball fan, I definitely don't love the pack-line defense/slow-paced offense combo.

That said, I don't think the comparison to football works. App adopted the spread option when it was still relatively new, especially at the 1-AA level. That's why WVU was lighting people up with it and why it gave us a competitive advantage. Over time, most teams moved to that style (and adapted their defenses to it), and the field caught up with us.

You're talking about switching to a style that, depending on what you have in mind, is either already widely practiced (NBA-style pace-and-space) or went out of vogue at least a couple of decades ago (full-court defensive pressure). Not to say you couldn't have success with either, but I don't think you'd have the same benefit of being ahead of the curve.

Part of my take was from a recruiting standpoint. (and remember, it's a what if?, not a we should definitely do this).

Currently, we don't have:

1. Big time $$$
2. Big time NIL
3. Great TV coverage/media
4. The same student support (or even a close-cousin) that we have for football/ticket demand for anything outside of Auburn coming up the mountain)

The thought was that we could potentially get 6-8 scorers and play a base-line to base-line 40-minute high intensity game that might overcome some of the obstacles that we have. More players would play all-out for 20-30 minutes. And, there is the potential that our crowds could grow, if there is more excitement in the building.
Sure, some of it went out of vogue a couple of decades ago. But, we just might want to zig, when everyone else is zagging. (and the pack-line is already starting to deteriorate as offenses adjust).

It was merely an off-season discussion topic.

[Stonewall]

This is going to be a very good year.

[EastHallApp]

I wouldn't be opposed to it, and purely as a basketball fan, I definitely don't love the pack-line defense/slow-paced offense combo.

That said, I don't think the comparison to football works. App adopted the spread option when it was still relatively new, especially at the 1-AA level. That's why WVU was lighting people up with it and why it gave us a competitive advantage. Over time, most teams moved to that style (and adapted their defenses to it), and the field caught up with us.

You're talking about switching to a style that, depending on what you have in mind, is either already widely practiced (NBA-style pace-and-space) or went out of vogue at least a couple of decades ago (full-court defensive pressure). Not to say you couldn't have success with either, but I don't think you'd have the same benefit of being ahead of the curve.

Part of my take was from a recruiting standpoint. (and remember, it's a what if?, not a we should definitely do this).

Currently, we don't have:

1. Big time $$$
2. Big time NIL
3. Great TV coverage/media
4. The same student support (or even a close-cousin) that we have for football/ticket demand for anything outside of Auburn coming up the mountain)

The thought was that we could potentially get 6-8 scorers and play a base-line to base-line 40-minute high intensity game that might overcome some of the obstacles that we have. More players would play all-out for 20-30 minutes. And, there is the potential that our crowds could grow, if there is more excitement in the building.
Sure, some of it went out of vogue a couple of decades ago. But, we just might want to zig, when everyone else is zagging. (and the pack-line is already starting to deteriorate as offenses adjust).

It was merely an off-season discussion topic.

Yeah, again, I don't hate it. In fact I kind of wanted us to give Duggar Baucum a shot at some point just to see what he could do with even App-level athletes, though in hindsight that probably was a bad idea.

I don't know that it's been shown to be a recruiting advantage, but I do think agree it might help bring a few fans in.

Regardless, I can't see Kerns completely doing a 180 on style of play. More of a consideration for future coaching searches, I think.

[agentpaul001]

I mean in retrospect I think if we don't have a serious injury issue from the Georgia Southern Sunbelt game in '22 we probably win the Sunbelt tournament that year. We were so thin on the bench to begin with that I honestly think that was the straw that did it.

And last year's team was the best Kern's has coached thus far even with losing Delph who obviously was a great both ways + working in several new people into defense. Free throws obviously continued to be a huge issue but those were concentrated with a few in in particular and we still had a few players with marked improvement.

[Stonewall]

I mean in retrospect I think if we don't have a serious injury issue from the Georgia Southern Sunbelt game in '22 we probably win the Sunbelt tournament that year. We were so thin on the bench to begin with that I honestly think that was the straw that did it.

And last year's team was the best Kern's has coached thus far even with losing Delph who obviously was a great both ways + working in several new people into defense. Free throws obviously continued to be a huge issue but those were concentrated with a few in in particular and we still had a few players with marked improvement.

Huntley going down to that cheap shot may well have cost us .We were close without him , he had found his game and was making an impact.

[Stonewall]

This is going to be a very good year.

That was October 1,2023. Admittedly I got a few sneak peeks at the team and some pretty good intel. I did not expect the slow start on the early long road trip but did expect a conference title. The tournament is always a long shot . This season is likely not over but let me lay this out…if we can keep the team together next year , we might be as good or better.

[WASU 93]

It was a fun year in Holmes with seats in the top row and non-student end zone occupied for many games and with fans parking in Peacock for basketball games. This potential game day atmosphere was the point of this thread originally.
May we continue to have that atmosphere going forward.

[appvette]

This was fun to read. If we only knew how fun defense could be when you're leading the nation in blocks!