EKU AD - scheduling wtf..?

[colonel 31]

I meant 4 games in a row home and away

[Colonel Grad]

Here's my thoughts.

Yes it is an unfortunate situation and who knows who is really responsible for the screw up. But these things happen and the All A is extremely important to the university. It is important enough to move 4 games off campus.

Here's my complaint, and every single person in a leadership position at the university is to blame for this. We absolutely should not be playing at two NAIA arenas. THAT IS AN EMBARRASSMENT. Especially Georgetown. That arena is a dump. These are two NCAA Division I basketball teams. D-I teams do not move games to bad NAIA arenas. That is extremely poor leadership and vision.

Other options could have been the Kentucky Horse Park, the civic center in Corbin, the civic center in Pikeville, Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. Probably too much of a stretch, but at least explore the possibility of Freedom Hall in Louisville.

I get what you're saying, but there's a very simple reason why. Cost. We could probably play at those other places if we'd just fire and assistant coach or something. I don't know that I'd say it's poor vision to make an economical decision when we just had $25 million of budget slashed by Frankfort.

Pikeville is a pretty good haul for most people in the Richmond area, although you could argue it's a chance to at least try and build the fan base in true eastern Kentucky. If it truly and effectively did that, then I'd say let's play a couple games in Pikeville every season.

Selfishly I'd love to see it here in Louisville, but Freedom Hall costs a pretty penny. Also, you'd probably have like 1,000 people tops in an arena that seats 19,000. Broadbent Arena isn't even that cheap, and it's not the greatest seating arrangement for basketball. Honestly, the best smaller arena in town is at Valley High School, but you'd have to install shotclocks, and the court is probably an 84' high school court as opposed to a 94' college court (though I'm not certain about that). It seats 3,000, though. Bellarmine would be an option as well. It seats about 2,500 and they've done some decent updates to Knights Hall.

Also, the Berea Arena is gorgeous. I think they picked the two places they did because cost was reasonable, and they're both very short drives from campus.

Costs is certainly a good point. But, I'm very familiar with the rental fees for both the horse park arena and the Corbin civic center. The use of one of them instead of Georgetown college I think would have been a reasonable cost for EKU. It would definitely not mean firing an assistant coach.

Have you ever been inside the Georgetown College basketball "arena"?

[EKU05]

No I haven't. I've seen images and videos, but I never doubted what you're saying about it. It is what it is. Regardless, just because we could manage to afford a larger/nicer facility doesn't make it a wise investment. I mean...why rent a larger facility like that for most of it to sit empty (which it would)?

Obviously the firing of an assistant coach is something of an exaggeration for effect, but then again starting this season we no longer have a director of basketball operations due to cost cutting measures...so maybe it's not so far fetched. Dollars are tight, and spending more isn't smart unless there's a tangible benefit to doing so. Turning our nose up at the use of a facility in a one-time situation just because we're a D1 program and we can isn't really tangible enough for me.

If anything, I might have asked UK to donate use of Memorial Coliseum for a night. They've let other programs use their facilities before (they even let Louisville football practice at Nutter Fieldhouse before Louisville had their own indoor facility). Heck, another D1 arena of similar size to ours is about the same distance as Corbin (Morehead).

[Colonel Grad]

No I haven't. I've seen images and videos, but I never doubted what you're saying about it. It is what it is. Regardless, just because we could manage to afford a larger/nicer facility doesn't make it a wise investment. I mean...why rent a larger facility like that for most of it to sit empty (which it would)?

Obviously the firing of an assistant coach is something of an exaggeration for effect, but then again starting this season we no longer have a director of basketball operations due to cost cutting measures...so maybe it's not so far fetched. Dollars are tight, and spending more isn't smart unless there's a tangible benefit to doing so. Turning our nose up at the use of a facility in a one-time situation just because we're a D1 program and we can isn't really tangible enough for me.

If anything, I might have asked UK to donate use of Memorial Coliseum for a night. They've let other programs use their facilities before (they even let Louisville football practice at Nutter Fieldhouse before Louisville had their own indoor facility). Heck, another D1 arena of similar size to ours is about the same distance as Corbin (Morehead).

Good points. The fiscal conservative in me agrees with you very much.

But, I say you can't put a price (within reason) on image and perception.

I'm not saying throw 10k down the drain if you can get a place for 2k. But IF Georgetown costs 4k and Corbin would have cost 6k. Then I think spending an extra couple thousand so that you're not lowering your standards and providing a quality image on ESPN+ would have been worth it.

I agree, anything in Lexington or Louisville would not have a crowd big enough to fill those facilities. But I think with the right push there could have been 5,000 in the Corbin arena. Also would have been slightly closer to Tennessee Tech.

I have no idea if any free facilities were available. I doubt it very much. I know Georgetown charged EKU when the football game was played there. If someone charged a school under those circumstances, I can't imagine they'd offer up something free under this situation. But if so, by all means you can't beat free.