The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

1. Houston (112)
2. Gonzaga (106)
3. Kansas (101)
4. Purdue (97)
5. Drake (96)
6. Arizona (95)
6. San Diego State (95)
8. Baylor (94)
9. UAB (92)
9. UAT (92)



https://x.com/CBKReport/status/1754535988905521534?s=20

And yet we have no regular season conference championships, no at large bids, and no tournament wins.

The wins have been fun but they are a good bit of empty calories.

#BartowStandard.

Interesting thing about the Bartow Standard is that more than half of it happened in an era that is about as extinct as the Jurassic period.

Since the calendar turned to 1991, UAB has three conference tournament championships and two regular season conference titles. This is still more than most of UAB’s financial peers.

I suppose we could trade some consistency for a higher peak or two. Would you be happy trading long periods of being bad to awful for a magical run or two?

Which path would you enjoy more as a fan?

Of course fans would love to be consistently good and enjoy those peaks. Memphis fans have had some of that. Ask them how they feel.

Or it might be a little easier to accept that as a fan of a lower resourced program, you will be lucky to see your team win more than it loses. Many of the teams in UAB’s conference history have been playing ball for a lot longer and are still under .500 and don’t have a single season that matches UAB’s season *last* year.

I get what you’re saying.

I will answer by saying I would enjoy living up to expectations. I don’t think we have done that the last two years.

I think even this year’s team has underperformed relative to its talent and its obvious ability to compete with basically everyone on our schedule, even the “big boys.”

I appreciate that UAB is a high floor, successful program - I just want us to stop underperforming and that being celebrated by everyone. Sure 92 wins since 2020 is really good, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of the wins and the success, but what have we REALLY accomplished?

I agree — to me the standard should not be the past. It should be the potential of each individual team in context of the competition. The things you can control. A lot of what happens in college sports, especially relative to ceiling, is out of UAB’s control.

The past is a great foundation showing that success is possible here over the long haul. It isn’t a blip on a screen gone as soon as a special player, coach or set of circumstances expires.

Some fan bases never really experience long haul success. But they also don’t know the consistent pain of “almost” quite like UAB fans. The feeling of leaving something on the table gnaws at you differently.

(02-05-2024 01:20 PM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  I agree — to me the standard should not be the past. It should be the potential of each individual team in context of the competition. The things you can control. A lot of what happens in college sports, especially relative to ceiling, is out of UAB’s control.

The past is a great foundation showing that success is possible here over the long haul. It isn’t a blip on a screen gone as soon as a special player, coach or set of circumstances expires.

Some fan bases never really experience long haul success. But they also don’t know the consistent pain of “almost” quite like UAB fans. The feeling of leaving something on the table gnaws at you differently.

That's what kills me.

FAU showed us what we left on the table last year. Last year should've been OUR year, and we largely blew it when it counted.

Oh well, spilled milk and all that...

I look at it from a relevancy standpoint.

- What’s your quality of competition? Bad, noncon wise, and we dropped many of those games. Conference play, above average at the top. The middle is not NIT invite worthy.

- Are you playing games worthy of respect for testing yourself in Noncon?
Short answer: No. There’s not a Top 25 worthy opponent in our noncon.

- Are you beating the better teams on your schedule?
About half and half. FAU will be dancing. Memphis may salvage an NIT bid. We beat a name in Maryland, not a good team. Lost to clemson, above average year for them. Lost to Mcneese(they’re Samford, with a win over a bad Michigan), lost to Charlotte(middle of the pack team talent wise, benefiting from some home draws in conference play), won at UNT(they got an injury bug, as soon it was time to play them), lost to SMU(middle of the pack team talent wise, with an inflated NET because they played mediocre High majors)

- 90+ wins you say?
Our hoops scheduling is equivalent to our football scheduling. We don’t like to play tough games. We will not leave Bartow arena unless it’s a winnable MTE with some average teams. The NET system idiotically rewards playing neutral site games damn near better than going and playing somebody good on the road. We strategically schedule to find easy enough wins that we can play in the NIT. We think 23-27 wins should get you an NIT invite. That’s mediocre expectations in my book.

-where’s the hardware?
We have a conference tournament championship. I’m proud of that. That in my book, doesn’t distinguish a conference champion. It uplifts an underdog and steals a spot from someone more deserving. I want regular season titles. If it wasn’t all about money, the folks in charge would rightfully make the regular season champs the auto bids.

- Are you in the field of 68 from an at-large standpoint?
No, and we probably couldn’t pay to be in the CBI, at this point.

Bottom line: 90+ wins is mainly a smoke screen. What do you have to show for it in the trophy case or the raptors? You know, some coaches would love the simple goal of making the ncaa tournament, and not requiring any hardware. Making the NCAA tournament is pretty much all I ask for. But I know that if you aren’t winning your league in the regular season, you are probably acquiring land mine losses. Which has been the case.

Some of you can't be happy about anything, can you?

I bet UAB could be up 40 in a football game and ya'll would still be complainng about something....oh wait, that already happened...

I don’t care what the margin is, as long as and if we win. I just don’t go around touting “UAB has lost __ one possession games” like it’s a consolation and should be given a pass. If AK was an outsider, folks wouldn’t be as lenient. But, much of what we said doesn’t just apply to him. This applies to the last 17-18 years. Our Nemesis moved on from CUSA and we couldn’t win that league consistently. Two of our conference peers that left with us, outgrew us.

Tip toeing the line of hoping to get a first round bye is a pretty low ceiling for a program that likes to flaunt its early glory.

We’ve reached the point where the fans get blamed. It’s not like we are supposed to entertain ourselves. People want to see a good product vs good competition. Not a bad product vs average competition.

Please point out the peers of UAB that are significantly outperforming UAB the last decade? By peers I mean Group of Five programs with D1 football. Not the big east or schools with FCS football that are basketball centric. Not being a smart-arse here, for real. Are there any?

FAU I will give you at the moment. They have a total of 4 decent seasons in their history but have captured something with one set of players and coach. They lose those players after this year and if Indiana keeps playing like they are, they will lose Dusty May within two months also.

Memphis? Yeah, a little. They are historically a better program. But not all that much the last decade.

Who am I missing?

(02-05-2024 03:44 PM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  Please point out the peers of UAB that are significantly outperforming UAB the last decade? By peers I mean Group of Five programs with D1 football. Not the big east or schools with FCS football that are basketball centric. Not being a smart-arse here, for real. Are there any?

FAU I will give you at the moment. They have a total of 4 decent seasons in their history but have captured something with one set of players and coach. They lose those players after this year and if Indiana keeps playing like they are, they will lose Dusty May within two months also.

Memphis? Yeah, a little. They are historically a better program. But not all that much the last decade.

Who am I missing?

we are playing close and we can win the end of the season tournament ,,,,,anything else is practice for this tournament

FAU and North Texas are both currently more relevant than us. MTSU outshined us overall, during our time in a league with them. Marshall evened themselves out with us, before they split from us. It’s not simply about outperforming them. It’s about standing out. We’ve never taken the reigns and said this is our league and we’re going to put some separation between us. Instead, we’ve kind of just taken a rest half way up the ladder and others have climbed high enough to even out perceptions.

Main thing is, EVERY time we have a chance to play for 1st place, we blow it. We’ve now done it in back to back weeks.

I disagree with you on all of those teams except FAU. And until they prove otherwise, I expect them to drop back down to closer to their historical norms soon.

Also, by what objective measures would you say UAB is supposed to be better than those programs. UAB is, historically, but what reasons would there be for that? It isn’t budget, location, fan support, facilities, fan support, booster support, NBA pipeline or recruiting success. Maybe **that** is the Bartow Standard. IDK, I get the frustration of wanting more but big picture, UAB is pretty darn successful.

I find it interesting that of all the teams in the American, the schools the least basketball achievements are East Carolina by a mile, then USF by about 3/4 of a mile and finally the current darling FAU.

And don’t get me wrong, I get the frustration. UAB basketball the last couple decades has been like the NFL teams that go 9-7 every year but miss the playoffs by a game and then are stuck looking back at the 3 games they had a chance to win but didn’t.

Yeaaaaa! More stats

If history don’t meaning anything then why should 90 wins over the last few years with virtually nothing to cement it mean anything.

If your history don’t set the standard then what’s the point of bringing it up at all? The glory days or the 90 wins…

I may have green shades on based on why I think we should be the cream of the crop in the last two leagues we’ve been in. Our history. They come off when I accept we’ve been to 3 tournaments in 17-18 years and I look at and acknowledge the short term successes of those around us. I acknowledge that put them ahead of us in current relevancy. The question I ask of our program is what have you done lately.

Others I imagine have their green shades off when looking at those 17-18 years and say why would we be held to a standard from back then. Then the green shades come back on Feeling sorry for ourselves that our peers left us for the big East and that we simply can’t schedule good enough to get an at-large bid and that since we are surrounded by quite a few “never-haves” that it’s ok for us to blend in.

That’s why there’s a split in the fanbase but also no drawing power in getting casuals to the games.

There’s still a formula to get an at-large bid, we simply don’t try because instead of selling out a few games after winning tough noncon road games We’d rather host more home games of 2500-4000 vs average mid majors and low majors. Mike Davis knew the formula. Hell, even ehsan knew the formula. Simply wasn’t ready to be a HC.

I truly can’t figure how some folks on this forum ever became sports fans. lol

There was a time I didn’t care in my preteen years about sports(I spent most weekends at Hueytown Skateland, outside of football season), when UAB was giving out bobble heads and golden flake sponsored UAB basketball cards. That got me in the door, I learned the game of basketball at Bartow arena going with my grandpa. UAB basketball happened to be fun back then and the crowds pretty much doubled what we draw now. The basketball coach loved the city and the program. Also, remember seeing him in many different advertisements on TV.

There was a time this school and supporters cared.

IKR. If I ever get that miserable I’ll stop following and supporting. Just because I am not miserable every season for every sport doesn’t mean I don’t have high expectations. Looking forward to beating FAU Thursday.

(02-05-2024 10:21 PM)UABFAN23 Wrote:  There was a time I didn’t care in my preteen years about sports(I spent most weekends at Hueytown Skateland, outside of football season), when UAB was giving out bobble heads and golden flake sponsored UAB basketball cards. That got me in the door, I learned the game of basketball at Bartow arena going with my grandpa. UAB basketball happened to be fun back then and the crowds pretty much doubled what we draw now. The basketball coach loved the city and the program. Also, remember seeing him in many different advertisements on TV.

There was a time this school and supporters cared.

Thirsty Thursday will do just that