(05-05-2017 10:20 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  Lets get real....if the tourney is over 150 miles away the same number of fans that's going to show up for the tourney. As if it's 450+ miles away. I will repeat this again as a fan of a basketball school...

no more showed up in B'ham than showed up in New Orleans or North Texas or Hot Springs. Mostly the same people. Fans that complain about if it was only close. Are mostly just that...complainers. No matter what it is, they will find a reason to complain and not go.

There is no where on this earth that you can put this tourney and get fan support..if the home team is not playing. As someone else said. Put in on a beach...played in a tent. Halftime you can go swimming. Most tents that can enclose a basketball court will hold the 250 fans.

Actually..location is not important, as far as attendance go. About the same fans are showing up.

I disagree. Putting the tournament in a large city where many schools have large numbers of alumni is the best shot left. I quickly found internet references to 4,000 UTEP and 3,300 Rice alumni in Dallas-Fort Worth. Maybe the new North Texas team will play past their first game in 2018, too.

Are you comparing C-USA 2017 to the Sunbelt history? With Middle Tennessee dominant last year, I am not sure that is a good comparison. The outcome of last year's tournament was easy to predict. Maybe it will be the same in 2018, and maybe it will even be WKU who dominates. But DFW is a shot worth taking.

We did a company team building event at the ATT stadium a few years ago, and the Dallas Cowboys did a good job with it. I think we might see DFW fans come to games if the package includes appearances by Cowboys players and cheerleaders. That is what happened at our team building event.

Take North Texas, the alumni population in DFW of all the conference schools, those C-USA diehards who travelled to places like Birmingham and El Paso, and those casual fans pulled in by Cowboys marketing, and this might work.

Our commissioner probably thinks it is great. The little car I saw her in could make it there in plenty of time before the games start.

Reposted with minor edits from the ODU board:

I still believe that a traditional tournament setup in a far-flung conference like CUSA is never going to fly. Home court or home-neutral tanks the attendance when the host team bows out, and true neutral ends up being inconvenient for most if not everyone. And home sites throughout sings low-major at a time when CUSA already spends too much time in that choir.

CUSA should do one of the following:
1. No tournament at all. Regular-season champ gets the autobid. Have everyone round robin once to get to 13 games, then divide the league into top seven and bottom seven, and play everyone in your half of the conference while reversing the home court (i.e. if ODU travels to Middle Tennessee in the first part of the regular season, ODU hosts them in the second part). This way everyone gets 19 games, the good teams get more games against other good teams, and the best team gets the bid (bottom-half teams are ineligible for the autobid at this point, to avoid a good No. 8 team storming through outmatched competition and ending up with the best record in the conference while the other good teams are beating each other).
1a. Eight-team tournament using the above scheduling. If you don't mind going further down the NASCAR postseason rabbit hole, then take all of the top-seven teams, and the eighth seed is whoever has the best record in the bottom half. Seeding for the top seven and champion of the bottom seven would be determined by record against that team's half of the league over the course of the season. Tiebreaker is head-to-head, then best record against the top seed, and so on down the line.
2. Round-robin postseason. Take the top four or five teams in the conference and have them play each other on a neutral site over a long weekend. The best teams are likely to have the best support, and they'll also get multiple good games to burnish their NCAA/NIT bonafides, whatever ones they may have by then.

All are unconventional solutions. In some cases, unconventional and convoluted. But I think we can all agree at this point that the tournaments we've been having are not the best way to a) get a good crowd or b) send the best team to the NCAAs. So I say roll the dice on something innovative. If it doesn't work, then fall back to the traditional bracket.

Oh, and speaking of rolling the dice, put whatever tournament in Biloxi permanently. Riverboat casinos, decent weather, proximity to New Orleans. Put the women's tournament in Hattiesburg and have the semis and finals in Biloxi. I'd go.

Needs to be in Birmingham, every one of those games would be empty.

This is an excellent proposal! There are literally thousands of C-USA alumni in the DFW metroplex and these are great facilities.

Make it happen!!!

(05-06-2017 07:50 AM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(05-05-2017 10:20 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  Lets get real....if the tourney is over 150 miles away the same number of fans that's going to show up for the tourney. As if it's 450+ miles away. I will repeat this again as a fan of a basketball school...

no more showed up in B'ham than showed up in New Orleans or North Texas or Hot Springs. Mostly the same people. Fans that complain about if it was only close. Are mostly just that...complainers. No matter what it is, they will find a reason to complain and not go.

There is no where on this earth that you can put this tourney and get fan support..if the home team is not playing. As someone else said. Put in on a beach...played in a tent. Halftime you can go swimming. Most tents that can enclose a basketball court will hold the 250 fans.

Actually..location is not important, as far as attendance go. About the same fans are showing up.

I disagree. Putting the tournament in a large city where many schools have large numbers of alumni is the best shot left. I quickly found internet references to 4,000 UTEP and 3,300 Rice alumni in Dallas-Fort Worth. Maybe the new North Texas team will play past their first game in 2018, too.

Are you comparing C-USA 2017 to the Sunbelt history? With Middle Tennessee dominant last year, I am not sure that is a good comparison. The outcome of last year's tournament was easy to predict. Maybe it will be the same in 2018, and maybe it will even be WKU who dominates. But DFW is a shot worth taking.

We did a company team building event at the ATT stadium a few years ago, and the Dallas Cowboys did a good job with it. I think we might see DFW fans come to games if the package includes appearances by Cowboys players and cheerleaders. That is what happened at our team building event.

Take North Texas, the alumni population in DFW of all the conference schools, those C-USA diehards who travelled to places like Birmingham and El Paso, and those casual fans pulled in by Cowboys marketing, and this might work.

There are also over 5,000 LT alumni in the dfw area. Hope this gets approved.

If they can figure out the logistics, i will like the idea. I'd also think they should drop the number of C-USA tournament teams to 8. I don't know everything about "the Star", but I do know Jerry Jones has nice stuff. This could be really good for C-USA. If North Texas has made a solid hire, it could be great for North Texas.

Having said that, I would totally understand some of the eastern programs not liking this.

Dallas Cowboy Stadium!? Wouldnt ya'll be better off in a nice centrally located high school gym?

Also...would you take Tulane and ECU back? Please?

I would go. The destination is much more appealing than Bham or El Paso and it's easier/cheaper to get there. Sign me up

(05-05-2017 01:39 PM)Blue_Trombone Wrote:  http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/ol...08cec.html

Looks like C-USA might be hosting the basketball tournaments on a football field.

Quote:Could it be the site of the 2018 Conference USA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments? A vote by athletic directors later this month will decide.
...
Both UAB and UTEP used separate arenas for the men’s and women’s games through the first two rounds. The Cowboys’ facility could be configured to put two courts on the playing field, according to a source with knowledge of the proposal.
...
An announcement could be made before the conference’s spring meetings in Destin, Fla., May 22-24. The selection of the athletic directors is subject to the approval of conference presidents.

What do y'all think about this proposal?

Totally insane. CUSA is like Obamacare, it is imploding and a move like this would only speed the issue. Might be best though to go ahead and do it, would help putting this forsaken group out of its misery sooner.

Im a fan of the idea. Obviously I have a UNT bias and Frisco is only a 5 hour drive for me. But is there another city in the country that has more CUSA alumni than Dallas? DFW also has 2 airports that make flying in easier and cheaper than Birmingham and El Paso. This is our best chance to make this work as long as the alumni in the DFW area make an effort.

Suggestion: rotate between Dallas, Charlotte, and one other central-ish location (Nola? Bham?)

(05-06-2017 11:17 PM)Magic95Fan Wrote:  Im a fan of the idea. Obviously I have a UNT bias and Frisco is only a 5 hour drive for me. But is there another city in the country that has more CUSA alumni than Dallas? DFW also has 2 airports that make flying in easier and cheaper than Birmingham and El Paso. This is our best chance to make this work as long as the alumni in the DFW area make an effort.

Absolutely. Should at least try it once and see how it goes. Nothing wrong with Birmingham and El Paso but they have already hosted several times. You can get pretty cheap flights to Dallas for the fans that can't drive. Getting a decent amount of the alumni in that area to come out will be the key.

One question....

how many of those CUSA alumni shows up for a Tech game at UNT or Rice? Or any other CUSA alumni base in Dallas how many shows up when they are playing at UNT or at Rice or anywhere else close by?


We are probably talking in double digits at most. But that's OK, not many more will show up no matter where it's at.

I forgot who asked me the question about comparing CUSA tourney to the SBC. Well I didn't but if you are asking me to....

The SBC tourney was ran way better and had better attendance for the most part. I know more Western fans showed up. And I know Middle vs Western for the championship game in Mobile had 6k in attendance. Yes those were butts in the seats. I know most games in Hot Springs had 2,000+ (actual butts in seats) at the games and Ark St vs UALR just about packed it. Even when it was played in Little Rock attendance was better than the 3 CUSA Tourneys I attended. Other than when UAB was playing. Might have had something to do with reasonable priced tickets....$15 instead of the $37 for CUSA.

more bang for your buck with other things to do if you did not want to go to all games. Yes even Hot Springs and especially New Orleans or Mobile. But that's just my opinion...

(05-06-2017 11:33 PM)Cardiff Wrote:  Suggestion: rotate between Dallas, Charlotte, and one other central-ish location (Nola? Bham?)

If this works in Dallas, we should rotate with a similar east host. Is that Nashville or Charlotte?

In my opinion, we have all the data we need on Birmingham.

(05-07-2017 04:46 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  One question....

how many of those CUSA alumni shows up for a Tech game at UNT or Rice? Or any other CUSA alumni base in Dallas how many shows up when they are playing at UNT or at Rice or anywhere else close by?

LA Tech DFW fans always show up well locally vs UNT and SMU; the same holds true in Houston. Behind Shreveport, DFW is Tech's largest alumni population. As was stated by another poster DFW is probably THE HIGHEST concentration of C-USA alumni of any metro area. UNT, LA Tech, UTEP, UTSA, and Rice collectively have a pretty large DFW base. With American Airlines and Southwest Airlines corporate headquarters both being in Dallas, getting a flight in and out is easier than any other city.

It is waaaay past time that C-USA FINALY did something to address postseason attendance!

(05-07-2017 08:25 AM)DogsWin1 Wrote:  

(05-07-2017 04:46 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  One question....

how many of those CUSA alumni shows up for a Tech game at UNT or Rice? Or any other CUSA alumni base in Dallas how many shows up when they are playing at UNT or at Rice or anywhere else close by?

LA Tech DFW fans always show up well locally vs UNT and SMU; the same holds true in Houston. Behind Shreveport, DFW is Tech's largest alumni population. As was stated by another poster DFW is probably THE HIGHEST concentration of C-USA alumni of any metro area. UNT, LA Tech, UTEP, UTSA, and Rice collectively have a pretty large DFW base. With American Airlines and Southwest Airlines corporate headquarters both being in Dallas, getting a flight in and out is easier than any other city.

It is waaaay past time that C-USA FINALY did something to address postseason attendance!

Also this past year Tech-UNT game, Tech sold out it's allotment from what I remember and also took their full band & spirit squad on the road. Tech had a couple of filled section.

We have travelled well @Rice, @UNT, @USM. Last time Tech played SMU, we had more fans in the stands vs SMU, granted most SMU fans were too cool to walk in the stadium and decided to tailgate on their Blvd.

First of all, it's The Star which is the Cowbows PRACTICE facility, not AT&T Stadium. The Star seats about 12,000. For comparison, UNT's SuperPit seats about 10,000. The Star is a much scaled down version of AT&T stadium with similar amenities, just far fewer of them.

How much has CUSA tournament attendance been affected by by all the teams sucking? It's hard to get real excited about spending a bunch of money and time to go see a team that was disappointing all year. If the league improves will attendance go up?