(04-22-2018 01:08 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: Bumping this as it’s almost May and Chicago St hasn’t hired a Men’s basketball HC, doesn’t appear to be looking for a coach and has lost many/most of its players/assistant coaches.
Will Chicago St have a team in 2018/19?
They lost a player that was leaving anyway and two recruits. I would not call it "most of the players." In their 2017-2018 fiscal budget request, the school requested the following:
"To meet our obligations as a member of the NCAA Division I and Western Athletic Conference, Chicago State University will need approximately $1,550,000 to provide adequate resources (i.e. personnel, travel, commodities) for sport programs. CSU must start a men’s soccer program and provide scholarships at cost of attendance for at least 3 sport programs."
This was during the Illinois State budget crisis. Once that ended, they got $23 million owed from the state for fiscal year 2016-2017 and their $35 million from the state for 2017-2018. The school is in the process of interviewing three candidates for University President and I read where they are interested in a couple of local prep coaches for the basketball head coach job. This does not sound like a school that is dropping athletics or closing their doors.
Chicago State has two major issues they need to fix:
1) The enrollment
2) the school athletic performance/RPI
I don't see how dropping sports helps either of those issues. In the 2017-2018 budget report, it was mentioned that "
the current graduation rate of our student-athletes is 72% and 13 of the 14 sport programs have an Academic Progress Rate above 964 (NCAA minimum is 930)." So at least that seems to be working for the university. The athletic budget for 2016-2017 was only $5.1 million. That probably went up after the state budget crisis ended, but it is not a huge investment. The challenge for them is to try and find a way to be competitive in athletics on a small D1 athletic budget.
The school has been plagued by management issues. But I have not seen a politician go on record and say that Chicago State should be closed. The description of the campus is "161-picturesque acres in a residential community on the Southside of Chicago." The state of Illinois used state funds to build an on-campus arena for Chicago State at a cost of $38 million which opened in 2007. Given that type of investment and the location, I think they will be given plenty of time to fix their management issues.