Well said.
This isn't Hoosiers. No coach is turning Ollie into Jimmy Chitwood
Coaches recruit talent/athleticism over lesser talent/high basketball IQ time and time again.
John Groce at Illinois
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Well said.
This isn't Hoosiers. No coach is turning Ollie into Jimmy Chitwood
Coaches recruit talent/athleticism over lesser talent/high basketball IQ time and time again.
HoopCity
- Huntsville, AL
You said, "November games vs awful teams."
How do you figure, and with the injuries ??
November Games:
Chicago State is terrible.
North Dakota State 16-10
UAB 20-5 Conference Leader
North Florida 18-10 Conference Leader
Chattanooga 23-4 Conference Leader
Providence 19-7 #23 in Country
Iowa State 18-7 #6 in Country
icengineer
- Southern Illinois
Illinifan1951
- Southeastern Illinois
Those facts sure shut down a lot of arguments don't they?
Did you guys even read anything from that post or just read that line and somehow get attached to it?
I'll fill you in. The post was about attendance. I wasnt even talking about this year. The November home games was meant historically, your worst drawing crowds are usually in November, and usually vs bad teams. We didn't have that this year.
Please go back and read the entire post. Playing Iowa State in Florida has absolutely nothing to do with it.
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Haha. You beat me to a response. I think they missed reading your post and instead went immediately on the defense. :tsk:
cmrfrd7
- Olympia, WA
Not to sound too critical but did you read the post to which you're responding? Shuttlesworth was making a point about the flagging attendance at Assembly Hall and that the poorly attended games played in Springfield aren't taken into account in this year's trend, which would make the number look much worse. You retorted with a bunch of games played away and at neutral sites which are completely unrelated to the original point. I happen to agree with Shuttlesworth. I'm not saying he should or should not be fired but the new AD is going to have to take a long hard look at the attendance numbers when deciding the future direction of the program.
TruIllini89
Find Girls from your city for night
- Usa
I doubt it, but great post anyway :thumb:
Reread the post.He said historcly ,not this year,
HoopCity
- Huntsville, AL
I read, "For the first time since since 1983 attendance is below 13000. This is despite what historically are the least attended games not even counting towards that (November games vs awful teams)
My response was about the first time since 1983, which is now. The quality of teams we have played against this November is what I posted about.
Nice twisting of words in the post although we are talking about Groce being fired or not, this year not last year. Groce scheduled talented teams in November, just saying.
We're talking about attendance at home games.
Now that we are back on the attendance topic, I want to have some "fun" with numbers. I firmly believe this is the worst year ever for Illinois basketball attendance, and it isn't even close.
So far we are averaging 12,900 people at our home games (not counting the Springfield games here). People at the games are saying the attendance has been reported much higher than the amount of people there. I'm not going to address that in this post, but feel free to take that as you will.
There seems to be 2 sources for historical attendance records. The NCAAs numbers seem to differ than our own archives. The NCAA's seem a little incomplete so well go with our own.
Let's set some things straight. Illinois historically has had amazing attendance. They've been #1 in the country multiple times. They've only been been outside the national top 20 on 2 occasions (1992 and 1999). They've never fallen outside the top 25. They've quite often averaged over 16k for a full season which is just an amazing number for college basketball. Even in down years, Illini basketball draws very very well.
To the best of my knowledge, since the opening of Assembly Hall, we have never averaged below the 13,000 mark until this year. I said 1983 before but if you look at our numbers vs the NCAA's, it's over 13,000. Even if you use the NCAA's numbers, that mark was good for 11th best in the country, still an impressive feat.
Right now, it looks like we could finish outside the top 25 in national attendance for the first time in our program's history. It's tough to say for sure. It's going to depend where other programs end up and what our attendance is over the last 3 home games. Indiana should draw very well regardless but I can't imagine Rutgers or Minnesota helping.
Anyways, the overall picture isn't good at all. The attendance numbers are very very poor no matter how you put it, and that's after spending 160 million on what is essentially a new stadium, and eliminating what are historically the games that will hurt your attendance the most (November home games). Perhaps as key as that is that the program can't sell the big money suites.
I can't imagine the new AD looking at that and think the program is in good shape under John Groce. Even in bad years we've drawn much better than we are this year. Just for comparison, in 2007 we averaged 16,618. In Weber's final year we drew 15k. Both very strong numbers. Attendance is the one constantly great thing about Illini basketball, but thag seems to be dying under Groce.
Very good points. People kept using the dwindling attendance numbers as fuel for Beckman's firing but don't feel it applies to Groce.
Are people actually surprised that attendance is down this year? Our attendance was 15th in the country last year and of course it's down this year with our poor performances and decrease in capacity. Bruce had higher attendance in his last year than Kruger and Self's best years. Does that mean we should have kept Bruce? Attendance doesn't paint the entire picture.
It's not about being down. That changes from year to year.
It's about being down in historically bad fashion. I've addressed the lower capacity. It doesn't mean much when you haven't sold out one time this year. We simply aren't selling enough tickets
It looks like many seasons in the 70s where average attendance was below 10K, but those were pretty bleak times for Illini sports.
Agree, and the point about trying to sell the suites and loge seats is very valid, especially in a shaky economy.
Football attendance is usually bigger $$, so it gets more attention. You have to have a really big drop in basketball #s to have a big impact on the budget.
Except that we aren't down in a historically bad fashion. If you mean 10 years, then sure.
Re: the 70s, I assume you're looking at the ncaa numbers. I've found them to be way off. That's why I couldn't say for certain.
Nah, it's historically bad. Pretty likely we finish with our worst or second worst ranking ever when it comes to attendance.
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Foggy Notion
- San Francisco
You could have written the same thing about Groce's first year at Illinois.
For this year, sure, but wasn't that kind of expected when we've missed the tourney two years in a row, and missing it again this year?
Edit: I still don't get where you're getting that 13k would be our worst or second worst ranking ever.. could you provide a link to where you're getting your numbers?
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No, using the Illinois media guide.
I just came across a great pdf on the NCAA's website. Wont let me link it unforunately. Let me correct some numbers here. We were number 1 in the early 70s a few times. Mid 70s were a disaster for us attendance wise, hard to tell where we would be the. It started tracking the top 25 in 1978. 78 is also the only year we've been outside the top 25. From 79 to 1990 we were inside the top 15.
Here's every other year we were outside the top 20 with our ranking:
92: 22
93: 22
99: 23
That's it. Pretty impressive. Most of those years were spent in the top 15 with a lot in the top 10 as well. This year will more than likely add to that non top 20 list unfortunately, and is in definite danger of falling out of the top 25 all together for just the second time on record.
Kind of off track here, but it would be interesting to see this as a % of capacity. One reason we (and the Big Ten) tend to be in the top 25 each season is we have one of the larger facilities around. Aside from Kentucky, BYU and Syracuse, there really aren't too many arenas that have a capacity over 15K. Of course, you still have to sell the tickets and we're starting to find out what our floor is with the loyal base this year.
I found a top 10 list of college basketball facilities. The Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York is the largest with a listed capacity of 33,000. Number 10 is the University of Arkansas with 19,368. There were no Big 10 facilities in the top 10. Ohio State has the largest capacity with 18,809. The State Farm Center with a capacity of 16,618 is 5th in capacity in the Big 10. Indiana, Maryland, and Wisconsin have more seating. The State Farm Center was built in 1963. Only, Northwestern and Minnesota have older arenas in the Big 10. Many of the larger facilities have been built since the State Farm Center was constructed. Also, there are several large college basketball arenas (Syracuse for example) which are not on campus.
Has the renovation and reseating hurt attendance? I would think the renovation would help attendance, which makes the decline this year look even worse.
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