Would a New Coach Re-Energize the MBB Fanbase

ArcherSPS

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Aug 22, 2012
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I have a buddy who thinks it’s too far gone barring we do something absurd like make the top 10. Would a young, energetic new hire make our fans get back to attending? Part of me is scared our fanbase is too far gone.
 

Smoked Toag

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Of course he would. Probably moreso if football falters.

How can a fanbase be too far gone? That doesn't even make sense. The only way that happens is if there literally aren't any fans to come, and that's not the case for MSU basketball. Any SEC school has tons of students literally less than 15 minutes away in every direction.
 

ArcherSPS

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Aug 22, 2012
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Look at our crowds during these past few years even when we made the tourney as the second highest seed in our history. We have maybe 5k against a top 25 opponent.
 

Cooterpoot

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Aug 29, 2012
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No, but if he won it would. All those high dollar empty seats won't fill up due to a new coach.
 

bruiser.sixpack

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That’s why we needed a new building. One level bowl, unlike the 9 foot wall and additional 3 feet before you get to the first row of seats in the upper level. Basketball arenas should be pits. You enter at ground level and walk down to the floor.

Also only need 8000 seats total!
 

MSUDC11

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Look at our crowds during these past few years even when we made the tourney as the second highest seed in our history. We have maybe 5k against a top 25 opponent.

Howland being as interesting as a jar of mayonnaise hasn’t helped matters. Also the fact that we lose almost every single big game we play in.

I do think the women being Final Four good during Howland’s rise probably didn’t help the attendance situation either. People connected with Vic and his teams in ways that they never connected with Howland or his bunch.
 

The Peeper

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Feb 26, 2008
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Young and energetic has nothing to do with it, winning has everything to do w/ it. Nobody cares if the coach is "young and energetic" if their team is getting their brains beat out or blowing every game in the last 10 minutes. We could get Slow Joe Mo'head and Dan Mullen to coach them and if they were winning the place would still be packed.
 

Dawg1976

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Aug 22, 2012
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When we had a successful WBB team and coach people turned out. No reason to think it wouldn’t on the men side. The hard part is getting the right coach.
 

Smoked Toag

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Look at our crowds during these past few years even when we made the tourney as the second highest seed in our history. We have maybe 5k against a top 25 opponent.
This is mostly due to Howland. Every time we'd get a decent win, we'd cancel it with an awful loss. He's just a hard coach to get behind, the games were boring, and the team seemed to have a ho-hum attitude. It just never took off. I mean we all knew that team in 2019 was gonna get bounced early. We also knew that 2020 team was going to miss the Dance.

His entire tenure was just a boring let-down.
 

Smoked Toag

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Honestly the only sport we get up for any more is baseball. Football has been stale since September 29, 2018
Fixed that for you.

And now, looking back - it was all just so unnecessary. Danny failed at Florida, Loaferz has ruined his ties with his alma mater, and our football program could be in Howland territory if we don't get some excitement going soon.
 

johnson86-1

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Aug 22, 2012
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Young and energetic has nothing to do with it, winning has everything to do w/ it. Nobody cares if the coach is "young and energetic" if their team is getting their brains beat out or blowing every game in the last 10 minutes. We could get Slow Joe Mo'head and Dan Mullen to coach them and if they were winning the place would still be packed.

Young and energetic (or really probably just energetic) does help. Mullen had people fired up for football before he started winning. Wouldn't have mattered if we hadn't shown a lot of progress and promise his first year, but he did the best his abrasive yankee *** could to get the fans invested that first year.

If we get somebody that builds a little excitement, it will help some with attendance immediately. If they immediately show some improvement and a fun brand of basketball, that will keep it going. But yes, if the improvement doesn't start showing quickly, and that improvement doesn't turn into winning within a year or two, any bump from the coach being energetic will disappear in short order.
 

DoggieDaddy13

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Dec 23, 2017
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I have a buddy who thinks it’s too far gone barring we do something absurd like make the top 10. Would a young, energetic new hire make our fans get back to attending? Part of me is scared our fanbase is too far gone.

I'm scared too. Because our fans are more boring than our walking dead coach and lackluster team.

BRING BACK THE STUDENT SECTION!!!
 

thatsbaseball

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May 29, 2007
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Looking at MSU atlhetics objectively there's only one conclusion to be drawn

John Cohen is one Teflon coated mofo
 
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Aug 22, 2012
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I mean yeah I guess. But at the time of the hire, who didn't think it was a good move to get Howland? Has it worked out? No. But considering where we were, it seemed like a pretty good hire at the time.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I don't blame Cohen for Cannizaro, Moorhead or Howland not working out. They were all good hires at the time.

Honestly, getting rid of JoMo was a great move and some of our previous ADs would've probably buried their head in the sand and said, "Well he won the Egg Bowl."
 

patdog

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May 28, 2007
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Cohen didn't hire Howland. And he definitely should bear blame for Cannizaro. You don't hire a baseball coach in December, and there's almost no way there weren't red flags out there for any college baseball insider to find if they looked. He should have pulled double duty for a few months or let Henderson be interim coach before making a hire in June.
 
Aug 22, 2012
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Who hired Howland? Stricklin? I honestly can't remember.

And I guess I'm naive about this, but how was Cohen supposed to know Cann was gonna cheat on his pregnant wife? Was that relationship already going on before he got to State?
 

patdog

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Stricklin hired Howland. And yeah, I thought it was a home run hire at the time.

I find it hard to believe Cannizaro didn't have a pretty long, and probably not so secret, history of similar skirt-chasing. You just don't go from devoted married man to screwing the football coach's assistant and sexting her from the dugout during practices and even games overnight. The red flags had to be out there. But even if they weren't, you still don't hire a baseball coach in December. Your candidate pool is almost nonexistent then.
 

mstateglfr

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Feb 24, 2008
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This is mostly due to Howland. Every time we'd get a decent win, we'd cancel it with an awful loss.

Go back and count how many actual games resulted in an 'awful loss'. Then count how many came after a decent win.
Reality wont support your narrative.


Fact is, very few losses have been 'awful losses'.

Bad losses this year have been to Louisville, Minnesota, and Ole Miss. Even those are just bad and not awful. They are all major conference teams that won 13 games. Its not like we lost to Oregon State.
Last year's losses to A&M and Ole Miss were bad. Pretty bad, really. Awful?...eh, I wouldnt argue if they were called that.
'19-20 had no awful losses.
'18-19 had no awful losses.
'17-18 had no awful losses. Losses to Vandy and Ole Miss were bad that year, but not at all awful.

In the previous 5 years, there were two awful losses and a handful of bad losses.


What is rough to see when you look back, is all the losses to Ole Miss. Good lord thats a lot.
 

thatsbaseball

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Instead of looking at individual hiring faux pas' it's time to take a step back and take a look at the general direction of the department as a whole. Ours appears to be stagnant to me.
 

DawgatAuburn

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There are at least two kinds of losses, maybe more. One is a bad loss by metrics. The three you named this year were terrible by metrics. But from a fanbase perspective and building momentum within a season, it's also a bad loss when you have a game in hand or a shot to win and don't close it out. We have a ton of those. Colorado State, Florida, LSU, Tennessee, Kentucky, Auburn and on and on and on. Howland increases the problem by having next to nothing in the meaningful win column. We beat a Notae-less Arkansas and got a nice home win over Bama. That's it. We followed the Arkansas win by getting our teeth kicked in by 4-14 Ole Miss. We followed the Alabama win with another of our classic meltdowns in Florida. Just as soon as we had anything to look forward to, Howland pissed it away.

The previous year was no better. Start 0-2, lose a game against Dayton because you can't manage the end of the game or overtime, lose to the worst Kentucky team of the last decade after Cal got tossed, then don't beat anyone of consequence the whole year. One Q1 win all year last year.
 

msstate7

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Nov 27, 2008
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Over the last 4 years, we're tied with Florida for 7th in sec wins. I have a hard time seeing a coach that can pass auburn, Kentucky, Tenn, ark, bama, and lsu. Perhaps the ncaa will allow us to pass lsu
 

johnson86-1

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Aug 22, 2012
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Over the last 4 years, we're tied with Florida for 7th in sec wins. I have a hard time seeing a coach that can pass auburn, Kentucky, Tenn, ark, bama, and lsu. Perhaps the ncaa will allow us to pass lsu

If you look at Howland's overall results, there are ok. Disappointing compared to expectations when he was hired, but probably not a fireable offense yet. But damn it is frustrating and hard to watch. If he was getting the same results but doing it with less talent but a more exciting brand of basketball, I think people would actually be reasonably happy.
 

jb1020

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Jun 7, 2009
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Being a regular in the top 25 would bring back most. Hell, when is the last time we spent the majority of the season in the top 25? Even half the season?
 

msugolf

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Dec 29, 2008
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Imagine asking the hot chick out for a date for about 7 years straight and she says yes over and over. You take her out, buy her dinner but she ends up leaving the bar with someone else every time. Eventually you give up. You stop calling and then she calls asking why you never ask her out anymore.

That's what it was like with Howland. Now if we move on to another hot chick and she puts out? Then we're in!
 

Smoked Toag

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Stricklin hired Howland. And yeah, I thought it was a home run hire at the time.

I find it hard to believe Cannizaro didn't have a pretty long, and probably not so secret, history of similar skirt-chasing. You just don't go from devoted married man to screwing the football coach's assistant and sexting her from the dugout during practices and even games overnight. The red flags had to be out there. But even if they weren't, you still don't hire a baseball coach in December. Your candidate pool is almost nonexistent then.
He probably didn't have the option until he took us to the Super with an injury decimated team, and produced the SEC triple crown winner.
 

Smoked Toag

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Instead of looking at individual hiring faux pas' it's time to take a step back and take a look at the general direction of the department as a whole. Ours appears to be stagnant to me.
IIRC, we won the school's first ever national championship. Meanwhile there is a high possibility that the football program is on the way up, judging by history.
 

paindonthurt

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Jun 27, 2009
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Hahhhhaha go back and read your last 20 posts and get back to me on arguing abt dumb stuff.
 

Go Budaw

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Who hired Howland? Stricklin? I honestly can't remember.

And I guess I'm naive about this, but how was Cohen supposed to know Cann was gonna cheat on his pregnant wife? Was that relationship already going on before he got to State?

Officially, Stricklin hired Howland.

Unofficially, the boosters hired him by placing him in Stricklin’s lap. Stricklin canned Ray a few days after stating publicly that he would be back for a 4th season. This was after things got negotiated behind the scenes to get a deal in place.
 

Maroonthirteen

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Are you saying Just hiring a young energetic coach will bring back the crowds, game 1 or by sec play the first season? I don't think so. It will take going undefeated or close in NOv, Dec AND starting hot in sec play
 

curseddawgs

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Jun 16, 2021
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We were in the top 25 for all of the 2018-19 season until the first week of February
 

philduckworth

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Of course he would. Probably moreso if football falters.

How can a fanbase be too far gone? That doesn't even make sense. The only way that happens is if there literally aren't any fans to come, and that's not the case for MSU basketball. Any SEC school has tons of students literally less than 15 minutes away in every direction.

tell that to UGA.
 

philduckworth

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Feb 20, 2015
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can't just be a new coach. needs to be an exciting brand of basketball. The students create the atmosphere. That's up to Cohen and the admininstration to figure out.

gotta stop giving the best seats to the big football donors who couldn't care less about basketball. I know a guy with 4 lower level seats who goes to 1 or 2 games a year and doesn't care about giving his tickets away or selling them.
 

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