(01-31-2021 10:05 PM)GE and MTS Wrote: Jacksonville State
The Jacksonville State Gamecocks return to the ASUN after almost 20 seasons away. Their total wins are over 330 put them 5th in the conference. Despite being around for much longer than most ASUN programs, they only won one conference championship (a tournament win, no regular season wins) in those 26 seasons. They made the NCAA tournament that season, losing immediately which is to be expected from anyone in their position. With their relatively long history, that builds them up a cushion that others will need to overcome, giving JSU a solid floor in my rankings. However, they should have more conference championships in all their time, and thus more NCAA tournament appearances.
This -- especially the sentence I've emphasized in boldface -- is 100% correct.
JSU was a D-II powerhouse throughout the 80s and early 90s. We won one national title (1985) but made regular appearances in the D-II tournament, including a trip to the Elite Eight in 1991-92, our penultimate season in D-II.
It was expected that our basketball team would continue to produce at the next level, after the usual growing pains.
Instead, our early years in the TAAC were mediocre at best.
What happened?
Well, JSU's athletic leadership at the time (including several trustees) were complete and total morons.
They fired Coach Jones (the architect behind our D-II success) because he was unable to win in D-I with the same facilities and same coaching & recruiting budget he had in D-II.
Even though they screwed Coach Jones, they brought in an excellent replacement, Mark Turgeon. Coach Turgeon was given a higher budget (because of course!) and was able to turn in a 17-win season in his second year. After following that up with another middling year, he was hired away by the deeper pockets at Wichita State. (He's now at Maryland.)
After that, our athletic department entered an era of further incompetence and greater complacency.
We had two coaches who stayed nearly a decade each, despite averaging only 11-12 wins a season and never winning a championship. Despite our D-II success, the thinking was, "JSU just isn't in a good area for basketball. We should be happy with the rare 15-20 win season. That's as good as it will ever get in D-I."
It was only after our current AD Greg Seitz was hired that this defeatist attitude changed.
When Seitz was finally in a position to make a hire, he brought in Ray Harper, who averaged 20 wins per season in his first four years, including our only conference championship. (So far this season, the Gamecocks are 10-6 with 10 games remaining.)
Our mindset as a university has changed from the ultimate goal of "winning 15 games and making the conference tournament" to "winning the conference and making it back to the Dance." No one is happy with a 15-win season anymore.
All this to say that while JSU's decades of D-I mediocrity are certainly a thing, it's not where we choose to remain. In basketball (as well as football) we were an example of how NOT to make the transition from D-II to D-I. I like to believe we've learned our lesson.
