i just wanted to pull out dan's comment from the other thread about the name on our jersey and perception. i assume you meant the drexel on the front since it was in relation to temple being a city game.

back when i was in school...there definitely was a sense that we were inferior and kind of an outsider with the other big 5 schools. 20 years or so later (hard to believe)...i'm not sure i feel that way for a few reasons...

1. we've won a championship and went to the tournament.
2. we've won our share of games against these teams...especially sju and penn.
3. every other program in the city is down. way down in some cases.
4. villanova is way up which makes everyone else look that much worse.
5. the big 5 is a shell of what it once was. games aren't at the palestra anymore. nobody is going to beat villanova. the competitive games are between mediocre at best teams.

ultimately it doesn't matter what people think about us anyway. i do think any inferiority complex some people might have should be gone. i know drexel in general has always felt like the forgotten step child. there's no reason for that anymore. everybody feels inferior these days especially when sizing themselves up to villanova.

i think the philly sports media deserves a lot of the blame for the decline of the big 5 as well. it could hold itself up in the past without any media attention...but these days it would benefit from any discussion...ANY DISCUSSION AT ALL...about college basketball on the phanatic or wip. it's like they've collectively chosen to ignore it. that's not anything new since all they want to talk about is the eagles or the pro teams and especially the drama/nonsense that goes along with them. sports betting is their next priority. college basketball in philly needs the attention right now to keep it going and they're not doing their job.

Outside of Villanova, interest in Philadelphia college basketball has declined considerably. KYW has shortened their sports reports altogether and they no longer report on college sports, unless there's a major event.

Driving home from the subway after finding out that the Temple game was cancelled, there was no mention of the game being cancelled on KYW.

The Inquirer sort of covers college sports, but it's mostly AP blurbs. The days of each team having a beat writer is in the past. The paper is loaded with human interest stories, which may involve any of the Philly college teams, but they can be printed on any given day.

Student attendance is down just about everywhere.

It's hard to find local college teams on television anymore. Most of the games are hidden behind the ESPN and Flo paywalls, so very few people are watching most of the games unless they are diehards.

And except for the week before the NCAA Tournament, the local sports talk stations stopped covering college sports years ago, because there are too many different teams to cover. Now it's 24 hours a day coverage of Eagles, Eagles, Sixers, Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, Eagles.

Finally, only 1 of the 6 local teams has live radio broadcasts of their games. Drexel got blasted years ago for ending radio broadcasts, and the other teams have followed suit over the past decade. Now, in Philadelphia, only Temple and Penn State have basketball radio broadcasts in Philadelphia. Not even Villanova. I've always enjoyed listing to college basketball in the car and I can no longer do that as it's not easy to stream with my phone.

(12-20-2021 08:14 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  i assume you meant the drexel on the front since it was in relation to temple being a city game.

I was actually talking about Temple, not Drexel, but for the same reasons you mentioned. It seems like a mental block in our own heads. Our record against the other city teams is pretty atrocious. Even when we have had good teams, we struggle against bad teams from around the city. My point was we need to ignore the name on the front of their jersey and just play. When we are a better team we need to be beating these other schools. Under Bruiser and under Spiker, that has not happened around the city. So that was my point.

With that said, you ever venture to any active board from the other schools and we are still absolutely viewed as the step child of the city. Until we win consistently, I think we always will be. Eeking out victories over bad teams wont change a narrative, tournament appearance or not. If the game happens tomorrow against La Salle, the same applies. That is a team we should beat without too much struggle. Make it happen. Dont let it go down to the wire in a slugfest

there are people around here who look down on lasalle so that type of attitude will always float around fan bases.

i'm not sure the casual fan feels that way about us...but the bigger problem like jb said is i'm not sure how many casual fans are really out there these days. it is a good time for us to be on the upswing assuming we can pull things together and have a good conference season. putting typos on releases aside...there is at least effort coming from the marketing end which is an improvement from other years. our tickets seem to be cheaper to start with. i think there have to be people who want to still follow college basketball especially as hopefully this covid surge settles down...and we have an opportunity to be that team if we play our cards right.

Absolutely we do. We also need to play our game regardless of opponent, regardless of past history.