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Thread: In the bleak midwinter

  1. #1

    In the bleak midwinter

    That's probably the darkest titled Christmas carol that I know, but it is depressingly descriptive of the state of the program. I'll say first, as I have repeatedly, that LaVall Jordan seems like a good guy, and we all know that there are some very fine young men on the team even though there is not much talent by the standards of our program over the last fifteen years. They have actually exceeded my expectations so far, but that's not saying much -- at 4-9 the team is a win or two ahead of where I expected. By the end of the year, with the Horizon League being historically, remarkably bad, it's not impossible it could reach low double digits in wins. We might even end the year somewhere outside the 300s -- low, low major territory -- in the RPI and kenpom ratings.

    But let's get some hard truths on the table.

    Some might say that the team's woeful record was to be expected because this is a "rebuilding year." Well first of all, it didn't need to be. Imagine adding three high major quality starters to this team (not to mention at least one juco transfer big man now playing at another school). It was utter insanity for a mid-major program like ours to give up that precious opportunity. You can't do that at this level! Did the decision-botchers really not understand that our best players would leave when they abused the team with the the no-post-season decision and then massacred the coaching staff they came to play for? Actually, I suspect they did understand it. But they were so frightened by the prospect of a successful year under their nemesis Rob Jeter that they were willing to sacrifice any possibility of success.

    So instead we don't have a rebuilding year -- we have undergone a complete teardown, to be followed by years of trying just to get the program back to where it already was. We have been put in a position where a team that won 20 games twice in the past three years (despite "sabotage") and went to the NCAA tournament only three years ago is now looking up at a miserably bad league. And the only hope we have to change that is to attract recruits to a reeling program playing in empty gyms (more on that later). Of course, those recruits that are the only chance for the program need to be obtained by recruiters with no track record in Wisconsin and then coached by a staff with very little experience. How does that plan sound?

    And then there's the fan interest. Any of you few remaining readers who view this board or the old one have noticed the same thing. The walls are closing in. There is virtually no conversation. This exactly mirrors what is happening at the games. No one is going. Attendance, always a challenge in this city, has collapsed into a bad joke. We almost certainly have not seen actual attendance exceeding 600-700 people at any game this year. I have real doubts that we will see a legitimate crowd of 1,500 at a game this season, excepting possibly Valpo and GB -- when their fans will probably outnumber ours. All that work done over years (many more years than our recent AD's tenure, let me be clear) to secure the Arena? What's the point now? Our "crowds" could comfortably fit in the minimal bleachers at Baker Fieldhouse if it still stood. Is there still a gym floor at Engelmann? Maybe we could move there and set up a couple folding chairs. It would certainly be cheaper.

    If someone had wanted to draw up a plan to destroy interest in our program, to make it more likely that the calls would begin to drop the program entirely or to move it back down to the dismal reaches of D2 or 3, could they have done it any better than what has actually happened? Our astonishingly inept administration not only banished our coaching staff, our best players, our radio voice and the legitimate prospect of a tournament year this year, in doing so they also alienated so many of us fans and boosters who refuse to abet their incompetence and venality by attending or supporting the program until they are gone. And the dismal present and (to put it kindly) uncertain future of our program are managing to alienate those few who remained. Who are now also voting with their feet. College sports is all about passion and emotion. Does any remain? The worst possible thing you can say about a program is that nobody cares. And we are getting there.

    We are in the bleak midwinter, and I have grave doubts that we will ever again see a spring as long as the architects of our demise hold the power to stop it from coming -- something that appears to be their exact plan.

    Happy Holidays
    "She would constantly try to throw [Coach Jeter] off and create distractions," said another source who worked in the athletic department and no longer is at UWM. "All the time. It was bad. I felt bad for him all the time. I told him, 'You're a bigger man than I am.' It was brutal. Sabotage was in the cards." -- From the JS story, March 17, 2016

    "Baldwin! Get in here and grovel!" "Right away Ms. B!!"

  2. #2
    And having just posted the unvarnished truth above, I look at my JS Online news feed and find a new "let's put some lipstick on this pig" column from Gary D'Amato, including this mind-boggling observation:

    "Jordan has embraced the challenge of building a program from the ground up."

    We won 20 games last year! We went to the tourney three years ago! We had three of the best players in the league coming back as senior starters this year! What the hell are we doing at ground freaking zero!!!!!?????? Why should we have to "build a program from the ground up" -- an almost impossible and undeniably lengthy project for a program like ours, when we were nowhere near the ground? Again, it isn't because of the new coaches, who I'm sure are nice young fellows. It's certainly not the fault of players like Cody who have every right to be proud.

    It's because we have an incompetent administration that spit in the eye of the players, fans, donors and community. Gary, don't kid yourself: until the saboteurs are gone, so are we. Because until they're gone, we know this program can never reach its potential.
    "She would constantly try to throw [Coach Jeter] off and create distractions," said another source who worked in the athletic department and no longer is at UWM. "All the time. It was bad. I felt bad for him all the time. I told him, 'You're a bigger man than I am.' It was brutal. Sabotage was in the cards." -- From the JS story, March 17, 2016

    "Baldwin! Get in here and grovel!" "Right away Ms. B!!"

  3. #3

    Why now?

    Where was Gary D'Amato a year ago at this time when the team was 9-4 and had beaten Minnesota and Wisconsin?

  4. #4
    100% agree with what you've posted, Fran.

    I'm not even going to give Gannett, the JS or D'Amato the satisfaction of a page view on that article.

  5. #5
    I have said this multiple times, here and on the "other board". I had a period of my life where I could not devote the time or money to the program I would have liked to. Now things have changed for me in my life and I was.....WAS....ready to come back into "active status". Then came the news of the Jeter coup, and I began to learn about the inept "social experiment" being conducted in our Athletic Department.

    Instead of making hiring decisions based on merit, qualifications, and performance, UWM made one based on identity politics. So now we have an inept, petty, bitter, and wholly unqualified person at the helm hired not for what she has done, but simply for who she was.

    That leaves me no choice. I am no longer willing to devote a single cent, or a single minute of my time, to another in a long line of University funded (read: taxpayer funded) social experiments designed to prove that all that matters is identity, and achievement is secondary.

    I fully expect that this team, and this staff, will receive "Participation Trophies" from their "leadership" and the University, and we will all hear many tales of how hard they worked, and that the losing doesn't matter.

    As if it were not already clear: in sports, LOSING matters. WINNING matters. Certainly you want to win the right way, and not be Pearlesque, but losing the right way is NOT acceptable either.

    As for Jordan, he is now part of the problem. He knew what he was doing taking this job. He knew he was participating in a grand social experiment and assisting in the destruction of a program for personal political agendas. He took the job anyway. Hell, he was OFFERED the job due to even MORE identity politics at work.

    They can all go have sexual intercourse with themselves....I will root for the Badgers. At least that University has not allowed PC BS and Identity Politics to dominate the Athletics Department.
    Class of 1998
    Lubar School of Business - BBA Management Information Systems
    Formerly known as Nighthawk
    The Dark Hawk arose in a time of great turmoil to fight for truth, justice and the Panther way.

  6. #6

    A conference in tatters

    At last look, the H League has further regressed as a conference, sliding to 50-55 against Division 1 competition.

    Let's all put our heads together and think real hard about how that record might easily be 55-50 ... or better.

    It seems like Eva is trying to wreck a program and a conference all at once. If this is the future of college athletics, count me out.

  7. #7
    How do you really feel Hawk?

    I look at this strictly from a results standpoint. Whatever the reason behind why we got this administration, the bottom line is that it was another in a long and infuriating line of terrible hires, all of which damaged our program terribly.
    "She would constantly try to throw [Coach Jeter] off and create distractions," said another source who worked in the athletic department and no longer is at UWM. "All the time. It was bad. I felt bad for him all the time. I told him, 'You're a bigger man than I am.' It was brutal. Sabotage was in the cards." -- From the JS story, March 17, 2016

    "Baldwin! Get in here and grovel!" "Right away Ms. B!!"

  8. #8
    Haven't read the D'Amato piece.

    Given the state of the program and the league, it seems appropos to quote myself:
    Quote Originally Posted by Skrapheap View Post
    i hope the Athletic department is suitably grateful to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel for running a press release as a Gary Amato article.

  9. #9

    Don't forget Scotty

    Scotty Tyler, yet another baby who was thrown out with the bathwater during the spring purge, last night had 45 points and 11 rebounds as the No. 16 Whitewater Warhawks improved to 9-0 with a 109-96 victory over previously unbeaten Ripon.

    Scotty, who would have been an important reserve on a very good Milwaukee team this season, is averaging 15.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.8 blocks per game as Whitewater's starting power forward.

    The assistant coach who brought Scotty to Whitewater also helped land the team's leading and fifth-leading scorers, Chris Jones and Demetrius Woodley, from the JUCO ranks. His name? Chad Boudreau.

    Good grief!

  10. #10
    Recruiting to D3 is one thing, dr. Do you have any proof that Boudreau could recruit D1 players that were any good?

    (He said, playing straight man.)
    "She would constantly try to throw [Coach Jeter] off and create distractions," said another source who worked in the athletic department and no longer is at UWM. "All the time. It was bad. I felt bad for him all the time. I told him, 'You're a bigger man than I am.' It was brutal. Sabotage was in the cards." -- From the JS story, March 17, 2016

    "Baldwin! Get in here and grovel!" "Right away Ms. B!!"

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