Dave Begal tears into Milwaukee Panther basketball

[IWB]

Also, look at the total enrollments....

UWGB: 6,790 - Averaging over 3,000 per game is 44% of their student enrollment.
UWM: 29,768 - Averaging over 4,000 per game is 13% of their student enrollment.

When you look at the size of a school compared to attendance, it should show you what kind of support they have.

MU: 11,782 - Averaging over 15,000 per game is 127% of their student enrollment.

[Gato78]

UWGB's facilities kill UWM. The Resch Center is OK (better than US Cell or Klotsche) but their on campus facility (Kress Center) is really nice. Not as nice as the Al but it is very nice--kicks UWM for sure.

If I don't believe UWM's then I have no reason to believe UWGB's. But even if I believe UWGB's, that isn't very impressive for a D1 program. As I said earlier, both programs are essentially the same - relatively poorly supported programs without a lot of resources, whose coaches would leave for elsewhere at a moments notice. UWM has been up when UWGB was down...and now vice versa. In a decade from now, it could all change.

[TheSultan]

I will also point out that Tod Kowalczyk went to Toledo to make $280,000 while his compensation at UWGB was about $200,000. Jeter's is $400,000. UWM is giving too much money to a poor coach.

[MU/Panther]

I was really confining my argument to UWM. UWGB does tremendously with its program. People actually go to games in GB and there is an avid following.

Many people are not going to Green Bay games. Every year they have the same average per game attendance numbers as Milwaukee. Green Bay basketball is the only winter game in town beside the hockey team (Gamblers) UWM is in a food chain with many Badger alumni in Milwaukee, Bucks, Marquette, Admirals & Wave.

Green Bay--2013/3,084, 2012/3,064, 2011/3,007

Milwaukee--2013/2,266, 2012/4,154, 2011/4,154

Plus, I'll take the Cell over the Resch Center! My wife and I like the Cell better than the Bradley Center and we like the Bradley Center.

[MU/Panther]

By in what fatass Bagel is saying in terms of attendance we shouldn't have young boys& girls play ncaa sports in softball, volleyball, soccer, etc because of attendance numbers. 4,154 is pretty solid numbers for the Panthers! That ranks about 130th out of 350 D1 schools in average attendence. Marshall was 100th, with under 6,000 per game.

[MUMac]

Remember, the Resch center is on the west side of Green Bay, while the campus is on the North East side of town. No easy way to get there for the students. A 25 minute or so drive. That impacts student attendance, greatly. UWGB would have been better with the Resch on campus, or near it, but the city wanted it near the Arena and Lambeau Field.

[IWB]

UWGB has a GREAT facility on campus. They designed it after the McGuire Center, with the mindset to add just a little more to every aspect. However, the men's team can't play there. It is either that they were in a long term contract with the Resch Center or is it that the Horizon requires a certain amount of seating? I can't remember why, maybe MU/Panther knows.

In my opinion, even though the Resch Center is cool as it is a great facility and across the street from Lambeau, they should play on campus.

[unclejohn]

It sure wasn't a sympathetic article on Begel's part, but I have sometimes thought the same thing. Why does UWM even have a D-1 program? Realistically, I cannot see UWM ever becoming a major program. Historically, it has been pretty bad. When they first went to D-1, they ran up some impressive records, and a few people thought they were pretty good. They weren't. They were the very best weak independent team in the country. They won a lot of games against really bad teams. One year they finished with close to the best record in the country, beat Wisconsin, swept Green Bay, and thought they were a really good team. The other side of it is that they picked up a loss against Missouri Kansas City when they had to play there, almost lost to Chicago State at home after Marquette had beaten the same team by 50 earlier in the season, and when they did play an actual good team, Rick Majerus's Utah team beat them by 40 at their place. Then their first coach got fired for cheating with his expense account, they hired local AAU coach and former Marquette assistant Ric Cobb, and they were one of the worst teams in the country for a few years. The big change was not the hiring of Bruce Pearl, but the hiring of Bo Ryan, who in two years got them from terrible, to not as bad, to about average in a small conference. Of course, Bo quickly left.

Pearl had a nice run, but some people who spend too much time on message boards might have observed that even the most passionate UWM defender, the guy who kept insisting that Marquette had to play UWM because it was "good for basketball in the state," thought Pearl was pretty slimy when he was at UWM, and doesn't want him back. And of course, Pearl left as well.

UWM is a second-tier state university. Nothing wrong with that. I had a couple nephews who went there, and they got a decent education. When they arrived, they heard the typical stuff about how Marquette used to play UWM all the time, then UWM got good and we wouldn't any more. Then they forgot about it. I don't think either one of them went to a game in four years. But they did meet Jimmy Butler at a party, thought he was a nice guy, and cheered for him at Marquette. UWM's attendance figures are not hard to find. The NCAA posts them every year. For years, UWM has drawn somewhere between 2000-3500. Of course, that is paid attendance, so there are not always that many fans in attendance. Often, it is well under 1000. The year Bo took over and demanded a home game, UWM drew 800 a game. So I have to wonder why UWM needs a D-1 program. They have a huge student body and lots of local alums, almost all of whom are totally indifferent to the athletic department. UWM might be the second state university in the state, but it is not UCLA. It is hard to see them ever becoming a significant athletic school, and I do not see the athletic department being that important to advancing as a university. I know they have tried to step up their engineering program recently. Do any of those engineering students care about basketball? When I was around, UWM was actually pretty well regarded nationally for architecture. I doubt a single architect cares about basketball. And I really question that as a factor to building solid academic programs. I had a friend who attended Northern Illinois at a time when it had one of the better programs in adult learning in the country and was earning an international reputation. Yes, I know. NIU has a great football team and went to the Orange Bowl last year. But at the time, they were terrible, were playing in the Big West conference because they couldn't find anywhere else to play, and nobody cared. But their adult learning program was pretty good.

That seems to me to be what second-tier state universities can do. They can be solid enough in most fields, really good in a few, and hope for the best. Most are not going to be among the elite universities in the country, and athletics is not likely to help much. In Chicago, UIC is getting a better academic reputation, but not because of its athletics. It is nicknamed The University of Indians and Chinese, as local Asians have figured out that it is a relative bargain to get a good enough education. If UWM wants to build a notable athletic program, it would have to pour resources into it for the long haul. That is tough to do. It takes some commitment from the administration, and UWM has had its problems. I am not sure what caused them to go through so many AD's, but clearly they were not on the same page as the administration. And the administration tends to change, since UWM is largely a stepping-stone for administrators as well as coaches. The last chancellor who was big on athletics left for Cincinnati, where she promptly fired Bob Huggins. Even when she was behind it and trying to build the UWM brand and campus solidarity, most of the UWM community were totally indifferent except for a couple weeks in March. I suspect it would take a decade or so of success on the court before additional attention and spending paid off for UWM, and even then, it is iffy. I have to think that a D-2 or even D-3 program would accomplish about as much as the current one does, allow students to participate if they are interested, give alums someone to cheer for if their teams are good in a given year, and cost a lot less.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

It sure wasn't a sympathetic article on Begel's part, but I have sometimes thought the same thing. Why does UWM even have a D-1 program? Realistically, I cannot see UWM ever becoming a major program. Historically, it has been pretty bad. When they first went to D-1, they ran up some impressive records, and a few people thought they were pretty good. They weren't. They were the very best weak independent team in the country. They won a lot of games against really bad teams. One year they finished with close to the best record in the country, beat Wisconsin, swept Green Bay, and thought they were a really good team. The other side of it is that they picked up a loss against Missouri Kansas City when they had to play there, almost lost to Chicago State at home after Marquette had beaten the same team by 50 earlier in the season, and when they did play an actual good team, Rick Majerus's Utah team beat them by 40 at their place. Then their first coach got fired for cheating with his expense account, they hired local AAU coach and former Marquette assistant Ric Cobb, and they were one of the worst teams in the country for a few years. The big change was not the hiring of Bruce Pearl, but the hiring of Bo Ryan, who in two years got them from terrible, to not as bad, to about average in a small conference. Of course, Bo quickly left.

I get where you are coming from, but the problem I believe is the personnel. We've seen the program have success, and while they weren't able to sustain it beyond Ryan and Pearl, that's mostly because they have done such a poor job with Jeter's contract. Get rid of him and they may be able to turn it around.

Here's the thing...schools like Gonzaga, Butler, and VCU have all built successful, sustained programs out of not a whole heck of a lot. Even if you want to look further down the chain, how about Davidson, Oakland, and Belmont? Milwaukee certainly has a large enough market to put butts in seats. As was mentioned earlier, their attendance was in the top 130 in the country. Maybe not great, but if you figure the major conferences probably account for about 70% of the top 100, that puts UWM in the range of 60th out of 280 schools. Being in the top quarter of the mid-majors isn't all that bad.

So your attendance, despite what Begel says, isn't as atrocious as it may seem. They need to start with an AD that is invested in the school and program. Someone that can make a decent hire, even after the first guy leaves for a better job. That's how Butler and VCU became respectable. They followed up good hires with good hires. Next, and this is where they most recently missed the boat, be proactive in moving up the conference ladder. I have a feeling the A-10 would love a decent Milwaukee program. It would immediately be one of their biggest markets. But you need someone able to push for that move. As the dominoes fall, there are open spots. UWM should be trying to get into one of those. An invested AD, a coach that can put something together, and an aggressive plan to improve conference stature could make Milwaukee relevant.

Will they ever be a major program? No, probably not. Schools like VCU and Butler may have built sustained success, but not everyone will be so fortunate. But if Milwaukee was good enough to regularly be a NIT/CBI team with occasional NCAA berths, that'd be a major win. And I really don't think it's necessarily that far away, though as their administration seems to be set up at the moment, it may as well be light years.

[unclejohn]

I will respectfully disagree. First, I do not think Jeter is such a bad coach. His record is right around .500, which, all things being equal, is where one would expect a record to be. He's had his ups and downs, most recently downs. But he has had some ups. He had a great year with what was left of Pearl's program, but there was not that much in the pipeline. And Jeter lost a bunch of the players left behind by Pearl. Some have suggested, unbelievable as it may seem, that perhaps Bruce did not always run the squeaky-cleanest program, or recruit the most dedicated and pure-of-heart student/athletes, and his successor had to clean things up. He did. Jeter went back to Square One and rebuilt the program. He got them a league championship, but they couldn't beat Butler. Along the way, he had some hits and misses. The big fat juco guy who scored lots of points was a hit. The two kids from Chicago Simeon who dropped out after a semester were misses. Those are the kids mid-major coaches have to take a chance on. Buzz would never have touched them. It seems to me he is getting a whole lot of money for a coach with a .500 record in a crummy conference, but part of that was the luck of signing a big contract so that he wouldn't go to Iowa State.

As for attendance, I take it with a grain of salt. Last year, UWM had reported attendance of about 4200. Pretty good for them, and significantly better than they had reached in recent years, including years when they were actually good, and drew a couple sell-out crowds at the Arena. They also moved back to campus, which suggests to me that the people at the games were almost all students who got in for free. I also suspect that they counted everyone who might have been on campus during a game or something. In any case, their attendance in recent years has been closer to 3000 most years. That might put them in the top X% in the country, but so what? If you look at the numbers, there are about 50 teams that average in five figures. (Marquette btw was 13th. That is seven spots lower than our new conference rival Creighton.) But after that bunch, there is a huge drop off. So top half or top quarter doesn't really matter. They are nowhere near the top 50 or so.

But there are not that many smaller programs that have had sustained success. You named most of them. And though teams can move up in the pecking order, it is really tough. Butler was good under a procession of coaches for the better part of two decades before they got into the A-10 and then the Big East, and even then, there was some luck involved. Stevens is a great coach, but making two consecutive finals is catching lightning in a bottle. Gonzaga has done it mostly under one coach who has shown a perverse refusal to go to a big school and chase lots of money. VCU is a bit more interesting, since it has experienced various degrees of success for decades, long before UWM even had a D-1 program. They were competitive in the Sun Belt, which got them into the Metro. They have had ups and downs as well, but they have done it for a long time.

More common are the mid-majors who come up and go down depending on one particular good coach. East Tennessee has done pretty well under Murry Bartow, so he'll probably get hired somewhere else. Not sure about Belmont. Long Beach is doing quite well under Don Monson. This is their first successful run since Seth Greenberg coached them in the 90's, which was their first successful run since Tark the Shark coached them in the 70's. Very few programs do it on a sustained basis. If UWM wanted to, it would have to make a commitment, stick to it, and spend significant money. Build a new practice facility. Get serious about an on-campus arena. A few things like that. And I have to question whether it is worth it. Do they get more bang for their buck doing that, or pouring their money into their engineering school? Even if they could have the long-term success of the likes of VCU or Davidson (and they have nowhere near the tradition or resources of Davidson) would it be worth it? I think it makes sense for a school like Loyola to jump at a chance to join the MVC. They can use the publicity. They can potentially recruit some local players, garner some local interest, and perhaps attract some more students. But UWM? Where is the payoff? They are going to get students anyway, and mostly the same type of students, regardless of athletics. Take a look at the MAC teams. Several of them are similar in attendance and enrollment to UWM. Yes, it is exciting on campus when Western Michigan wins, but they'll still be there if they lose. So where is the payoff? It seems to me that UWM might well create as much excitement and get as much coverage with a really competitive D-3 team, like Whitewater in football.