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Who is held accountable for this mess?
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bmf25 Offline
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Who is held accountable for this mess?
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(This post was last modified: 08-10-2021 01:45 PM by bmf25.)
01-20-2018 11:42 PM
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Dragon For Life Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
We are in a rebuilding era.. also most of the teams on the list are actually good mid major teams.
01-21-2018 07:10 AM
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hiroshimacarp Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
i'll be clear about one thing before i answer bmf's question...

we shouldn't quit on coach spiker.

he is going to have to bring better players into the program. his job depends on it and is the easiest path towards turning things around. if we're bad now...wait until our only semblance of a front court graduates this year. hopefully he'll grow as a coach while he brings in better players. sometimes you have to play fast. sometimes you have to play slow. i get nervous when a coach in any sport only wants to do things one way.

the easy answer to bmf's question is the ad is to blame. bruiser should've been fired after we couldn't win the league while massenat, lee, and fouch were in the program. i understand the injury argument...but the bottom line is we didn't get it done and it was sharply downhill after they graduated. keeping him around added years to any rebuild because we let the bottom fall out.

somebody recently posted the athletic departments strategic plan or whatever they call it. they listed their priorities as 1. vidas field and 2. the dac.

with all due respect to the student athletes in those sports...and vince vidas who recently passed away...we are making a huge mistake if basketball isn't our priority. it's a cop out as far as i'm concerned. i've made the argument in the past that we should just drop down to division ii if that's our philosophy. we can be like messiah college down the road from me who has probably a few hundred fans tops who get cranked about their field hockey and soccer championships. the rest of us can find better things to do and...who knows?...maybe we'll be a good division ii basketball team.
01-21-2018 11:46 AM
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hiroshimacarp Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
(01-21-2018 07:10 AM)Dragon For Life Wrote:  We are in a rebuilding era.. also most of the teams on the list are actually good mid major teams.

sorry i'm going on a tangent here but maybe i'll piss somebody off enough to generate some good discussion.

another group of people i blame (sorry to single you out DFL but...) are the people who said things like this over the years. it's something that probably came straight out of zilmer's mouth. you really want to compare our program to buffalo? bowling green? drake?

we're drexel man. it's time to start acting proud of ourselves. it's been time. i got tired of all the excuses. virginia bias. the tournament committee hosed us.

i disappeared for a while and came back wanting nothing to do with anybody in our athletic department. some of us got way too close and bought into the bs. unfortunately i think some of those people are the few who are throwing large amounts of money at the program. i still see some of them up in our hospitality suite.

all we can do around here is a. get rich or b. have people around like metsox who are making some effort to keep accountability. otherwise...welcome to last place and a campus that is going to be boring after the eagles are done (which hopefully is in 2 weeks).
01-21-2018 11:59 AM
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fredsavage Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
answer: no one.

president doesnt care.

ad doesnt care.

coach cant recruit.

current crew (spiker's recruits) is selfish and plays no defense.

think year three of the "rebuild" is going to be any better???
01-21-2018 12:49 PM
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jcohen42 Online
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
(01-21-2018 11:59 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  another group of people i blame (sorry to single you out DFL but...) are the people who said things like this over the years. it's something that probably came straight out of zilmer's mouth. you really want to compare our program to buffalo? bowling green? drake?

we're drexel man. it's time to start acting proud of ourselves. it's been time. i got tired of all the excuses. virginia bias. the tournament committee hosed us.

i disappeared for a while and came back wanting nothing to do with anybody in our athletic department. some of us got way too close and bought into the bs. unfortunately i think some of those people are the few who are throwing large amounts of money at the program. i still see some of them up in our hospitality suite.

all we can do around here is a. get rich or b. have people around like metsox who are making some effort to keep accountability. otherwise...welcome to last place and a campus that is going to be boring after the eagles are done (which hopefully is in 2 weeks).
Honestly, what do you think "We're Drexel" means? Because to me it doesn't really scream out "high-level NCAA men's basketball". We can have standards for wanting Drexel to be better, but I don't see the infrastructure in place for Drexel men's basketball to "rule campus" so to speak. The Drexel student body generally doesn't go there for the school spirit and sports scene, they go there for the academics and professional development opportunities. Does that make a boring campus? Maybe, to some, but to others, that sort of campus is why they came to Drexel in the first place.

It's fine to have expectations for our programs, but we should have those expectations with the idea of what Drexel can become, and not what Drexel is or has been. Because I suspect you're romanticizing the couple great years Drexel had, and treating it as the norm rather than an anomaly. That's what Drexel can potentially become, but that's not really what defines it yet, and harkening back to those times as a reason why we should be rioting or keeping some high level of accountability is disingenuous to me.
01-21-2018 05:45 PM
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fredsavage Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
(01-21-2018 05:45 PM)jcohen42 Wrote:  
(01-21-2018 11:59 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  another group of people i blame (sorry to single you out DFL but...) are the people who said things like this over the years. it's something that probably came straight out of zilmer's mouth. you really want to compare our program to buffalo? bowling green? drake?

we're drexel man. it's time to start acting proud of ourselves. it's been time. i got tired of all the excuses. virginia bias. the tournament committee hosed us.

i disappeared for a while and came back wanting nothing to do with anybody in our athletic department. some of us got way too close and bought into the bs. unfortunately i think some of those people are the few who are throwing large amounts of money at the program. i still see some of them up in our hospitality suite.

all we can do around here is a. get rich or b. have people around like metsox who are making some effort to keep accountability. otherwise...welcome to last place and a campus that is going to be boring after the eagles are done (which hopefully is in 2 weeks).
Honestly, what do you think "We're Drexel" means? Because to me it doesn't really scream out "high-level NCAA men's basketball". We can have standards for wanting Drexel to be better, but I don't see the infrastructure in place for Drexel men's basketball to "rule campus" so to speak. The Drexel student body generally doesn't go there for the school spirit and sports scene, they go there for the academics and professional development opportunities. Does that make a boring campus? Maybe, to some, but to others, that sort of campus is why they came to Drexel in the first place.

It's fine to have expectations for our programs, but we should have those expectations with the idea of what Drexel can become, and not what Drexel is or has been. Because I suspect you're romanticizing the couple great years Drexel had, and treating it as the norm rather than an anomaly. That's what Drexel can potentially become, but that's not really what defines it yet, and harkening back to those times as a reason why we should be rioting or keeping some high level of accountability is disingenuous to me.

despite really only 2 winning seasons in the last 15 years, attendance held roughly constant from 05 - 12.

student turnout was increasing.

students from the good years were graduating and becoming young alums (read: potential donors and season ticket holders).

what ended up happening?

games on TV - poof

large scale marketing - poof

personal outreaches to potential fans / donors - nonexistent.

attendance from 12 - 17 - through the floor. see bmf's post.

point - the athletic director has let this program disappear.

not going to get better.
01-22-2018 08:12 AM
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J.B. Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
The Eagles are in the Super Bowl and Drexel's Women's Basketball Team is ranked in the Top 50 in the RPI. That's all that matters right now.

Save your 2 user ID's worth of crying and whining for another time.
(This post was last modified: 01-22-2018 08:53 AM by J.B..)
01-22-2018 08:35 AM
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DrachenFire Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
(01-21-2018 11:46 AM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  i'll be clear about one thing before i answer bmf's question...

we shouldn't quit on coach spiker.

he is going to have to bring better players into the program. his job depends on it and is the easiest path towards turning things around. if we're bad now...wait until our only semblance of a front court graduates this year. hopefully he'll grow as a coach while he brings in better players. sometimes you have to play fast. sometimes you have to play slow. i get nervous when a coach in any sport only wants to do things one way.

the easy answer to bmf's question is the ad is to blame. bruiser should've been fired after we couldn't win the league while massenat, lee, and fouch were in the program. i understand the injury argument...but the bottom line is we didn't get it done and it was sharply downhill after they graduated. keeping him around added years to any rebuild because we let the bottom fall out.

somebody recently posted the athletic departments strategic plan or whatever they call it. they listed their priorities as 1. vidas field and 2. the dac.

with all due respect to the student athletes in those sports...and vince vidas who recently passed away...we are making a huge mistake if basketball isn't our priority. it's a cop out as far as i'm concerned. i've made the argument in the past that we should just drop down to division ii if that's our philosophy. we can be like messiah college down the road from me who has probably a few hundred fans tops who get cranked about their field hockey and soccer championships. the rest of us can find better things to do and...who knows?...maybe we'll be a good division ii basketball team.

A fish rots from the head down, and the true head isn't Big Z, though he certainly doesn't help.
01-23-2018 04:45 PM
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hiroshimacarp Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
jcohen42...

if you read any of my women's basketball posts then you'll understand what i'd be happy with. denise dillon can stay as long as she wants. we're in contention every year and every few years we break through with a tournament appearance or nit title. if anything she exceeds my expectations.

i do not expect to be vcu or villanova. i also don't expect to compare ourselves to mediocre at best mid major programs. if we're just about the academics...then shut the athletic program down or back down to division ii or iii...which is what i recommended.

that way i don't have to waste my time debating with somebody who calls me "disingenuous" because i want to root for a respectable basketball program. give me a break.
01-23-2018 07:32 PM
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jcohen42 Online
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
(01-23-2018 07:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  every few years we break through with a tournament appearance or nit title. if anything she exceeds my expectations.
Let's see... Women's NCAA tournament appearances: 1. WNIT titles: 1. But yeah, "every few years".

If anything, what the women's team does represents close to the ceiling for what the men's team can do, and they rarely win the conference. Not to mention that generally, men's basketball just is more competitive than women's, especially in terms of media and fan attention. I'm gonna go out on a very short limb and say your expectations of the Drexel men's basketball program are unrealistically high. This is not a storied program, it's an upstart program in a school not conducive to school spirit or athletics that's trying to make its way in a crowded college basketball landscape. This takes years to develop, decades even.

(01-23-2018 07:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  that way i don't have to waste my time debating with somebody who calls me "disingenuous" because i want to root for a respectable basketball program. give me a break.
If you can't handle that, then you've really got no business trying to start a debate in the first place. Go find an echo chamber somewhere if that's what you're looking for.
01-23-2018 11:21 PM
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fredsavage Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
^^^^^^^^ what he said

the program is not upstart. it's floundering. look at the numbers.

the president has a million things on his plate.

the director of athletics has .... athletics.

so.....what's this guy doing?

(answer ---> focusing on sports where it's easier to be competitive)
01-24-2018 08:20 AM
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dan10 Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
Our women's team is the epitome of what we should be striving for. Constantly challenging for NCAA berths year in and year out. When that fails always being in consideration for the NIT. We had great momentum and have seen where the mens team can get to during the highest years of the CAA. We were a very good team capable of knocking off anyone while constantly being a top half team in the discussion for top 4. Sure it did not lead to any NCAA appearances (2 close calls) but that type of success can be had every year. Holding ourselves to less than that is selling ourselves short.

Not to bring up old topics of discussion, but fanbase wise you will never draw at Drexel. Winning will bring fans out, thats it. You are a predominantly engineering school that doesnt have interest in basketball, yet alone sports. They are there for school, thats it. On top of it you post the enrollment numbers knowing you are sharing a completely inaccurate picture of the school. You know that our masters program is huge. Our undergraduate enrollment is about 16,000. When you are looking at student turn out you are only looking at undergraduate enrollment, realistically. Beyond that you also know about 50-60% of that enrollment is ever actually on campus due to co-op. Another chunk of that is commuting from NJ and dont actually live or stay on campus and are not going to come into town for sports. So at best you are looking at around 8,000 undergraduate students on campus. And that is if you are getting 100% of students interested in sports. So to fill a 2000 seat arena out of 8000 students who are at a school for studies and not sports, it becomes a challenge to fill any size arena. On top of that we have only been division 1 since 1973. There is not a lot of history and strong alumni base for sports in such a short period of time. When we did have success the fans have come out. In Philadelphia pro sports run everything and in college basketball Drexel was not part of the tradition initially and will always be on the back burner as a result locally.

Those are all challenges, but they can be overcome. Winning does that. The years we just missed out on the tournament, tickets were tough to get. With winning, Drexel shows up and our home court becomes very difficult for opposing teams. Much of this in recent history (post Malik) has been done with Zillmer despite his lack of interest and can still be done going forward with him. It is a unique situation at Drexel and throwing the new coach under the bus in year 2 is silly. He knew he was walking into a winless situation. He is trying and the best we can do is support it. Everyone know moving on from Bruiser could lead to someone else not working out, but that doesnt mean you throw in the towel so quickly, otherwise you are just another Philadelphia sports fan (and I do not mean this as a positive). Is Spiker our answer? We do not know. Maybe he is, maybe he is not. But you cannot place judgement on him for this mess as he walked into a mess and is doing what he can to clean it up despite the institution giving little support to help the cause.
01-24-2018 09:09 AM
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Spearsie Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
Well put Dan - right on the money.
01-24-2018 10:24 AM
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J.B. Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
(01-24-2018 09:09 AM)dan10 Wrote:  Our women's team is the epitome of what we should be striving for. Constantly challenging for NCAA berths year in and year out. When that fails always being in consideration for the NIT. We had great momentum and have seen where the mens team can get to during the highest years of the CAA. We were a very good team capable of knocking off anyone while constantly being a top half team in the discussion for top 4. Sure it did not lead to any NCAA appearances (2 close calls) but that type of success can be had every year. Holding ourselves to less than that is selling ourselves short.

Not to bring up old topics of discussion, but fanbase wise you will never draw at Drexel. Winning will bring fans out, thats it. You are a predominantly engineering school that doesnt have interest in basketball, yet alone sports. They are there for school, thats it. On top of it you post the enrollment numbers knowing you are sharing a completely inaccurate picture of the school. You know that our masters program is huge. Our undergraduate enrollment is about 16,000. When you are looking at student turn out you are only looking at undergraduate enrollment, realistically. Beyond that you also know about 50-60% of that enrollment is ever actually on campus due to co-op. Another chunk of that is commuting from NJ and dont actually live or stay on campus and are not going to come into town for sports. So at best you are looking at around 8,000 undergraduate students on campus. And that is if you are getting 100% of students interested in sports. So to fill a 2000 seat arena out of 8000 students who are at a school for studies and not sports, it becomes a challenge to fill any size arena. On top of that we have only been division 1 since 1973. There is not a lot of history and strong alumni base for sports in such a short period of time. When we did have success the fans have come out. In Philadelphia pro sports run everything and in college basketball Drexel was not part of the tradition initially and will always be on the back burner as a result locally.

Those are all challenges, but they can be overcome. Winning does that. The years we just missed out on the tournament, tickets were tough to get. With winning, Drexel shows up and our home court becomes very difficult for opposing teams. Much of this in recent history (post Malik) has been done with Zillmer despite his lack of interest and can still be done going forward with him. It is a unique situation at Drexel and throwing the new coach under the bus in year 2 is silly. He knew he was walking into a winless situation. He is trying and the best we can do is support it. Everyone know moving on from Bruiser could lead to someone else not working out, but that doesnt mean you throw in the towel so quickly, otherwise you are just another Philadelphia sports fan (and I do not mean this as a positive). Is Spiker our answer? We do not know. Maybe he is, maybe he is not. But you cannot place judgement on him for this mess as he walked into a mess and is doing what he can to clean it up despite the institution giving little support to help the cause.

Great Post Dan. Totally Agree.
(This post was last modified: 01-24-2018 07:06 PM by J.B..)
01-24-2018 07:04 PM
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EvanJ Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
The amount of undergraduate students are from Wikipedia:

Hofstra: average attendance of 1,505/6,913 students = 0.2177
Drexel: average attendance of 967/16,896 students = 0.0572

Hofstra's ratio is 3.8 times Drexel's value. Hofstra is much better this season, but was in the bottom half of the RPI last season. As you know, neither team has made the NCAA Tournament while in the CAA. I know that not all of the attendance is from students.
01-24-2018 08:58 PM
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fredsavage Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
if winning is the only thing that will bring fans out ...

1. the athletic director made 1 hire in 17 years ... and hired a coach that was under 500 in the patriot league.

2. to win, coach needs good players. players want to play on tv, and in front of crowds, not empty seats.

3. the athletic director has allowed the floor to fall out ... investing in areas like squash, and crew ... while the assets needed to maintain basketball - tv, radio, billboards, student section - have gone by the wayside.

if fans want this to turn around, start making noise that the athletic director needs to be held accountable
01-24-2018 09:42 PM
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dan10 Offline
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
1. I am not saying our attendance is acceptable and not low. We know it is. My point is if you are grabbing 10% of available students (which is optimistic) you are looking at 800 students. Not having students at the game will crush your attendance. At Drexel we dont have a large fan base so if your students dont show up the attendance falls drastically. Without a winning product (in 5 years) those students disappear as their interest wanes.

2. If you think Spiker is a bad coach that is fine, but making that judgement for losing at Army is about as asinine as possible. He is one of 3 coaches to have success at Army. The other two are HOF coaches (Knight and K). Kids want to play, some of the other stuff isnt really all that true. If you have a legit future for the NBA sure those things matter, but for the great majority they want an opportunity to play DI basketball, period. They know they are not going to the NBA. And to win you do not need good players, you need players that fit your identity and can execute on that identity. All players who make a DI roster can play basketball well.

3. Nobody is going to disagree with you here. In fact just about everyone on here has called for his head for no fewer than the past decade. At this point it is what it is and we know what we have. We have shown the ability to win in this situation before and we can do it again.
01-25-2018 07:54 AM
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RE: Who is held accountable for this mess?
(01-24-2018 09:42 PM)fredsavage Wrote:  3. the athletic director has allowed the floor to fall out ... investing in areas like squash, and crew ... while the assets needed to maintain basketball - tv, radio, billboards, student section - have gone by the wayside.

if fans want this to turn around, start making noise that the athletic director needs to be held accountable

(01-25-2018 07:54 AM)dan10 Wrote:  3. Nobody is going to disagree with you here. In fact just about everyone on here has called for his head for no fewer than the past decade. At this point it is what it is and we know what we have. We have shown the ability to win in this situation before and we can do it again.

I am far from a fan of Big Z, but obviously the powers that be - the Board of Trustees and the President - are fine with the current state of affairs. If they weren't, you wouldn't have Fry writing in the WSJ the laughable claim that we don't have football so we can compete to win conference titles when it's easily determined we've won only 4, while the rest of our former NAC/AE compatriots have won at least 17. Or Fry not showing up to the introductory press conference for Spiker. Basketball is here only to allow the other sports to be Division 1, it operates in the black, that's good enough. We used to have hoops billboards in the 30th Street Station area, those haven't been around for a few years. There is no presence whatsoever along Market St. in front of the DAC/Rec Center. Our insistence of adhering to a phony, nonconforming to history view of the student-athlete model causes us to be the only program in the area, save for Penn, to not offer Cost-of-Attendance stipends to players. All these things point to not really caring.

I am leaning towards agreeing with Hiroshima (Go Fauxnatics!), and have emailed metsox about it in the past, that I don't really think we should be Division 1. We should be Division 3, where there are no athletic scholarships and we can embrace the true meaning of scholar-athletes, find a conference with schools nearby and save a ton of money. To thine own self be true.

It's nice to have The Zone back.
01-25-2018 01:35 PM
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