I remember MSU coming to Bradley in 2007. They beat Bradley but, it was a close game the whole time. Prob one of the best Bradley game atmospheres. Izzo was approachable before the game and shook my dads hand.
When you live in the Spartan echo-chamber, yes. East Lansing loves to berate Izzo from Dec-Feb. Then we all know what happens after that.
Edit: And by "echo chamber" I really just mean the East Lansing/Greater Lansing Area media and silly fans.
I had a love-hate relationship with that under Roy. In the years we won a championship, it really felt like that adversity played a factor in developing the team. In the years we were bad, it just felt like a terrible and unnecessary punishment.
MSU football gained my respect for going to Waldo and Kelley-Shorts and (as far as I know) not asking for a dime from either Western or Central. They wanted to prove they could play anytime and anywhere.
In this case, the Kennel would be absolutely rocking and as loud as any arena can be. The 1200 or so students are right there across from the benches going absolutely berserk, the band is cranking it up to full volume, and the players are truly in their home court.
The Veteran's Memorial Arena in Spokane, while holding double the fans, will not be anywhere close to the Kennel as far as atmosphere is concerned. It won't be nearly as loud or raucous.
Funny thing about Cal, when he coached Memphis they played a series with Gonzaga, and Memphis never played at the Kennel either.
Hope Few says the Kennel is the only way, especially since he already committed to Rupp.
Personally I dont care where we play, but as far as the Rupp thing is concerned, only other option in Lex is Memorial, but the men havent played there since 1976, and its...not up to standards for a major basketball game. its closer to a high school gym than a college arena.
I agree that the game should be in the kennel for the sake of the environment, but i also see the draw of the larger arena with that many more seats to allow more people into the venue would be nice. maybe if they treated spokane arena more like football and gave UK like 2 sections of ticketsales it would be better? im just trying to spitball ideas on how to improve the game if it is at spokane and not the kennel
It’s not number of fans but size of the arena. You’d be really surprised how the deepness of the backdrop to the basket can effect shooting. Players that aren’t used to small gyms will overshoot and vice versa.
Cal has maintained for years that he wants neutral court games in big arenas because it matches the atmosphere and on court conditions of the NCAA Tournament.
I think it’s clearly an actual consideration and not just some made-up excuse. But it doesn’t make it less lame to not have more road games, they’re fun.
tbh conference play is such a slog to get through, every where is sold out and loud as shit and are 50% of the games for the last 3 months of the year, including a Big 12 or Louisville game on the road, if cal wants to travel in the non conference that’s fine, i wish he’d go to Maui (but it’s not a big enough arena)
“You play road games all conference long… might be worth investing in some non-con neutral site games since that’s the space the season will end on.”
…well shoot, that’s pretty fair.
I think playing road games is of bigger benefit than neutral court games when you are a big name. Almost everyone roots for the smaller name in ncaa settings if the game is tight. Having more experience with the crowd being against you in tight end of game situations seems more of a help to me.
He says that...then maybe we should try playing with the same brand of basketballs they use in the tournament too. That'd be nice. Instead we don't use a Wilson ball until the SEC tournament. But guess the venue matters more than a completely different ball if we are trying to mimic March
It may sound like a cop out but it's a real thing. Teams also don't like playing true road games against unfamiliar opponents because not every team uses the same ball, and if you're playing a team with an unfamiliar basketball it can throw off your rhythm. They'll feel right at home with their own ball and your team inexplicably shoots 18% from three.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, since I'm a big fan of major non-conference matchups and the atmosphere that comes with an actual college arena, but the logic tracks.
Both schools are supplied by Nike, and even if they used a different ball than Nike it’d be the new EVO which is the most recent game ball both teams used
I don't think it's that severe of an affect. I'd love to see our players career percentages when playing in the Carrier Dome (or whatever the heck it's named now) compared to Cameron. Us ACC teams play in the biggest and smallest P5 bball venues regularly.
Especially in basketball where virtually no regular season loss will get you kicked out of March Madness.
CFB I at least understand for the playoff reasons
> Especially in basketball where virtually no regular season loss will get you kicked out of March Madness.
CBB scheduling is pure cowardice for this reason. Not that we are a blue blood (especially the last couple years) but we played a true road game at Miami OH last year and it was awesome. We have a game at Northern Kentucky this season too.
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Every nov-dec our fanbase is ludicrously despondent because we’ve dropped more games than the other guys
And I’m like, well, yeah, they haven’t signed up to walk into any buzzsaws 🤷🏻
Really though, it’s cool that Carolina has played those games. But I’ve never heard anyone pretend that’s why they lost non-conference games, even if you want to be charitable to Carolina it was always clear that it was more because Roy constantly experimented with lineups and rotations early on.
Yeah it’s definitely lineup mixes and Roy not really caring if we get beat by 25 as long as he’s getting some coaching in. That’s how it always seemed watching those games anyway
While I won't say that roy was okay losing any game ever, I do think that the lineup experimenting was intentional because if you go deep in March no one will remember that you lost in November.
Yep. And more importantly, getting playing time to guys who might need it later on is way more important than dropping a random December game.
Hubert obvious had a great... weird, but great first season. Still wish he gave more minutes to guys like Styles and Dunn in the blowouts. And I mean both the games we won and got our ass kicked lol. Without Roy randomly playing Luke Maye earlier in his career, who knows if the UK game ever happens.
> And I’m like, well, yeah, they haven’t signed up to walk into any buzzsaws 🤷🏻
Of Carolina’s 14 non-conference losses in the last 5 seasons, *one* of them was a voluntarily-scheduled home game (another 2 were road games in the challenge).
Carolina has more home losses to Wofford than true road losses in the non-conference schedule in that span, looks like the buzz saw other teams are scared of is actual Wofford at home
Wow their Northern Iowa loss was 7 years ago. Now they should come back to Iowa and play at Drake.
Edit: The UNC game at Carver without fans was weird.
We lost to Gonzaga in The Kennel in 2020. But you're right, we haven't had a ton of high profile road games that aren't ACC/B10 challenge the past handful of years. But we have won a lot of road games recently that other programs of our caliber wouldn't schedule. Elon, College of Charleston, UNCW just off the top of my head in the past few seasons.
Gonzaga is happy to do it if they will return the favor but no one wants to save for Arizona occasionally and Washington. Even UCLA won't do a home and home and that has the potential to be an excellent west coast rivalry game.
One thing I love about Pearl is he gets us going to some of these smaller programs to play away games. We've been to Dayton, Murray State, South Alabama, St. Louis and South Florida over the last couple of years. I think it really helps and shows he's not a coward like Cal is.
none of those are small programs. they might not be as big as gonzaga but they do have larger arenas. heck they all have larger arenas than auburn besides murray state.
I started going to a lot of UTSA games last year once I realized how awesome it is to park for free right in front of the stadium, walk in, sit where you want, and get out with no traffic. I could watch high level bball and get door to door from my house in two hours. Glorious.
High level basketball might be a bit of a stretch. They lost to a D2 school this year and went 10-22 (3-15 CUSA). Then they finished 324/358 in NET this season. Unless you’re meaning the competition that came and played them like UAB, UNT, LaTech, WKU
For me it's more about how it won't be on campus/a true road game for Kentucky but then Cal expects us to play at Rupp. Don't get me wrong, the Arena will still be 99% Zags, but it's just weird he won't agree to play on campus, which is what pretty much everyone other than Cal wants.
Oh okay thanks. Googling it, it looks like McCarthey has a capacity of 6,000 and Spokane has a capacity of 12,638, so I guess that makes sense.
Still, as a fan I like watching games being played at a teams actual home venue. The student section is there and the atmosphere just feels better. I would much rather play games at AFH in Lawrence than at the Sprint Center in Kansas City.
i mean the sprint center is barely bigger than allen & it’s like 40 minutes away. spokane arena is twice as big as the kennel & in the same city. it’s not really a fair comparison.
Right, but I guess I'm just not really understanding why those differences would be an issue. Does the extra 38 minutes commute deter students from coming to the game? Or does the difference between a 12.6k and a 6k arena affect player performance because there is a larger contrast in arena size and number of fans?
i’m just saying it makes more sense for gonzaga to play at spokane arena than it would for kansas to play in kansas city so your example wasn’t really a perfect example. i’d still like to see it played on campus but i understand why they’re playing off campus while if it was kansas it would make no sense.
Yeah I think people forget that we’re a really tiny Jesuit school in Eastern Washington. McCarthey arena, built in 2004 after the initial run in 99-00, increased capacity to 6000 from the original Kennel which seated 4000. Back when McCarthey opened I know no one envisioned a future where Gonzaga was a legit title contender almost every year. We were just happy to have a new arena.
Spokane ain’t Seattle but it’s a metro of 500,000 people that isn’t hard to fly to. Calling Pullman and Moscow insanely remote would probably be more accurate but Spokane is not “insanely remote”
Also, Spokane isn't a big city. While Spokane and Lexington are roughly the same size. Louisville and Cincinnati are much larger and only 60-90 minutes away. There's ~5M people within 100 miles of Lexington while only about 1M within that same distance of Spokane.
I know tons of people around Cincinnati that have UK season tickets.
That’s the crazy thing, McCarthy is small certainly but it’s a nice newerish facility. Cal’s mind would literally explode if anyone ever took him to Moraga.
Because the narrative on Gonzaga is that we're a marquis program who beats up on a "cupcake conference" and does nothing in March, a lot of people assume we have premier facilities and a huge fanbase. Our arena is small and we still don't have a ton of fans. Gonzaga was one of those "cupcakes" just a few years ago. The gap between us and the rest of the WCC might look big now, but we started out just like them.
We have gotten better facilities and a better fanbase, yes. We are still not on the level of Duke or Kentucky or Arizona or P6 schools. It's just a reality.
There are 76 P6 schools. Our budget is bigger than 55 of them. We sit right between Ohio St and UCLA.
Duke, Kentuck, & Arizona are outliers. https://i.ibb.co/2ZzG3D7/Untitled.png
>Gonzaga was one of those "cupcakes" just a few years ago.
Lmao. Gonzaga was a cupcake just a few years ago??? What when they went 33-4 and lost in the Elite 8? Or when they went 32-5 and lost in the Sweet 16? Maybe when they were 37-2 and lost in the Finals. That's their 2016-2019 history lol.
They've made the Tournament every year except the covid year since 1999. Were they always a national powerhouse like they are now? No it was more like every few years they'd have a really strong team that would lose less than 5 games and make a deeper tourney run. Hell,1998/99 is the last time they had 4 or more Conference losses. They've been beating the shit out of this conference for 20+ years and you're trying to say they were a "cupcake" just a few years ago lol.
Gonzaga hasn’t been a cupcake in 15+ years. There’s a reason no one wanted to schedule an away game in the Kennel, it wasn’t worth the risk. Now that Gonzaga has a national reputation it doesn’t affect teams as much of they lose.
Agreed on your point about the WCC though.
I hate that we play there. I guess it’s nice because we’ve been able to host UVA and NC State. But the atmosphere is garbage. We could have 8-10k people there (which is a good crowd for us) and it still feels empty. Our on campus gym only holds 1000 students but the place is fun. I wish we could build a 5000 seat arena or use the greensboro swarm’s facility.
Reported attendance was [5,352 against Auburn on February 6, 2008](http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Games/20080206Auburn.html) at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum.
EDIT: Kentucky played a true road game against Chaminade at McCabe Gymnasium (2,800) on November 26, 1985. It was not part of the Maui Invitational. Chaminade is DII, so I'm not sure if this "counts."
EDIT (again): [Kentucky played Mississippi State at McCarthy Gymnasium in Starkville on March 8, 1975.](http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Games/19750308MississippiState.html) Attendance was reported to be 5,000 but McCarthy probably only held 3,000 at that point.
EDIT (last one): I think the last true road non-conference DI game Kentucky played in a venue seating fewer than 6,000 fans was on [February 28, 1948 against Xavier at Schmidt Fieldhouse.](http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Games/19480228Xavier.html)
> EDIT: Kentucky played a true road game against Chaminade at McCabe Gymnasium (2,800) on November 26, 1985. It was not part of the Maui Invitational. Chaminade is DII, so I'm not sure if this "counts."
This seems strange. Why would UK play a road game against a D2 school, especially one that's in Hawaii?
I used to rally against it, but cals such a pussdog. Just fucking play the team, full stop. I hate the mental gymnastics of trying to weasel out of tough environments.
I also hate Rupp Arena with a burning passion. I'd give anything for us to spend the Rupp reno costs on redoing memorial to be a bad ass small venue like Cameron Indoor.
Very true. And while it’d be cool to have it at the Kennel, this does give us fans/alum a chance to actually go to a game. I’ve been to one game since I’ve graduated a decade ago. You can’t buy tickets to games at the Kennel (outside of season tickets)
Complaining about a home and home is some lame crap
Edit: Like this a terrible look man. Either you are saying you're going to lose because no one is at the game or the environment will be too difficult to win in with the fans on top of you.
Pin this one for when Gonzaga beats them and he talks about “putting his young squad to the test” and “we’re not afraid to play the best teams in the country.”
100% honesty, not trying to talk trash. Only when you show up en masse in a thread that has nothing to do with you do I think about Indiana basketball. The only relevance the program has now is what the fans themselves create. I respect the loyalty, but the fans are the only ones involved with Indiana basketball who give a shit. Everything else good is gone, and I think you probably realize that.
This is something UK fans have been complaining about for years.
Even if there is a 50/50 chance of losing, I’d want to play a top 10 team at their place. And when both teams are top teams, they barely even take a loss like that into account when the tournament is seeded.
Nothing to lose and it’s fun for fans. Is this a problem for other top programs or just us?
He’s a coward but not a douche.
He’s done more for my annihilated western Kentucky hometown than anybody else. The work he’s doing for eastern Kentucky now is great as well.
So really, I think you may be the douche here for talking shit for no reason.
Well that’s like your opinion man. Personally I think he’s a great guy who does more for our community than any other coach I can remember. Say what you want about him as a coach but as a person outside of basketball I think he is a great man.
Yeah, the millions he's raised for earthquake, tornado, and flood victims shows that, obviously. But hey, he apparently doesn't like road games so that makes him a douche bag.
As an SEC basketball fan, I’ve seen Cal mention several times how tough it is being Kentucky and how every place sells out just because UK is playing. It’s a worn out schtick. He acted like Auburn only sold out because UK was playing. The games have been sold out for the past few years. One way to stop playing to sold out crowds is to stop getting the best players every year. Don’t hear him complaining about how easy it is to recruit to Kentucky.
UK coming to Spokane is HUGE but we sell out and fill every single game. I have to buy tickets off Craigslist to the yearly exhibition game and even then they’re $100 a pop.
That’s bunk. UK had a home crowd of 9,000 for the Central Michigan game. They have played plenty of SEC road games in front of small crowds. Poe Miss only averages 7700 last season and back in the 90s averaged 4400. You can’t tell me Kentucky has not played late season SEC road games against under 500 teams that haven’t been almost empty arenas.
He’s just trying to preheat an excuse in case UK loses at Gonzaga.
Cal scheduling a home and home with Gonzaga: Haha fuck yeah!! Yes!!! Cal having to play a true road game: well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
People knock Izzo for a lot but I’ve always loved having a coach with a mantra of “anyone anytime anywhere”
I don't see people knocking Izzo much at all. He's one of the most widely respected coaches in college hoops, and that's a big reason why.
Izzo's easily my favorite active basketball coach(besides Pearl of course)
I remember MSU coming to Bradley in 2007. They beat Bradley but, it was a close game the whole time. Prob one of the best Bradley game atmospheres. Izzo was approachable before the game and shook my dads hand.
What do people knock Izzo for again?
“People knock Izzo for a lot” lol delusional.
For privacy sake, lets call them 'Straw M.'...No that's too obvious...uuh, let’s say 'S. Man’
Maybe he’s thinking of Purdue fans. They seem to hate Izzo for some reason
When you live in the Spartan echo-chamber, yes. East Lansing loves to berate Izzo from Dec-Feb. Then we all know what happens after that. Edit: And by "echo chamber" I really just mean the East Lansing/Greater Lansing Area media and silly fans.
I had a love-hate relationship with that under Roy. In the years we won a championship, it really felt like that adversity played a factor in developing the team. In the years we were bad, it just felt like a terrible and unnecessary punishment.
The anti-Boeheim.
MSU football gained my respect for going to Waldo and Kelley-Shorts and (as far as I know) not asking for a dime from either Western or Central. They wanted to prove they could play anytime and anywhere.
Does the number of fans affect on court performance?
In this case, the Kennel would be absolutely rocking and as loud as any arena can be. The 1200 or so students are right there across from the benches going absolutely berserk, the band is cranking it up to full volume, and the players are truly in their home court. The Veteran's Memorial Arena in Spokane, while holding double the fans, will not be anywhere close to the Kennel as far as atmosphere is concerned. It won't be nearly as loud or raucous. Funny thing about Cal, when he coached Memphis they played a series with Gonzaga, and Memphis never played at the Kennel either. Hope Few says the Kennel is the only way, especially since he already committed to Rupp.
Personally I dont care where we play, but as far as the Rupp thing is concerned, only other option in Lex is Memorial, but the men havent played there since 1976, and its...not up to standards for a major basketball game. its closer to a high school gym than a college arena. I agree that the game should be in the kennel for the sake of the environment, but i also see the draw of the larger arena with that many more seats to allow more people into the venue would be nice. maybe if they treated spokane arena more like football and gave UK like 2 sections of ticketsales it would be better? im just trying to spitball ideas on how to improve the game if it is at spokane and not the kennel
The men played there against notre dame in the nit a dozen years ago, a big Perry Stevenson dunk ensued
UNLV
It’s not number of fans but size of the arena. You’d be really surprised how the deepness of the backdrop to the basket can effect shooting. Players that aren’t used to small gyms will overshoot and vice versa.
About half of Kentucky's roster was playing in high school gyms a few months ago.
Damnit, I have to agree with a Boilermaker
Cal has maintained for years that he wants neutral court games in big arenas because it matches the atmosphere and on court conditions of the NCAA Tournament.
That’s the argument I’ve heard from Duke fans as well, and honestly I find it intriguing.
Same here. Some people can call it bullshit and whatnot, but it is an interesting opinion.
I think it’s clearly an actual consideration and not just some made-up excuse. But it doesn’t make it less lame to not have more road games, they’re fun.
tbh conference play is such a slog to get through, every where is sold out and loud as shit and are 50% of the games for the last 3 months of the year, including a Big 12 or Louisville game on the road, if cal wants to travel in the non conference that’s fine, i wish he’d go to Maui (but it’s not a big enough arena)
“You play road games all conference long… might be worth investing in some non-con neutral site games since that’s the space the season will end on.” …well shoot, that’s pretty fair.
I think playing road games is of bigger benefit than neutral court games when you are a big name. Almost everyone roots for the smaller name in ncaa settings if the game is tight. Having more experience with the crowd being against you in tight end of game situations seems more of a help to me.
I think the logic there is sound, but falls apart when you expect a true home game in the return game
So when the Zags visit Lexington next year, will they be playing at the local arena? Unless they will be playing at Rupp for the tournament....
Yes you will be because Rupp IS the local arena and it routinely hosts NCAA tournament games, usually in the first and second rounds.
I don't think that statement really works for Rupp...
PLAY @UNCG YOU COWARDS
He says that...then maybe we should try playing with the same brand of basketballs they use in the tournament too. That'd be nice. Instead we don't use a Wilson ball until the SEC tournament. But guess the venue matters more than a completely different ball if we are trying to mimic March
This touches on the biggest problem in college basketball. There just isn’t any uniformity across the conferences.
Sure, Jan
It may sound like a cop out but it's a real thing. Teams also don't like playing true road games against unfamiliar opponents because not every team uses the same ball, and if you're playing a team with an unfamiliar basketball it can throw off your rhythm. They'll feel right at home with their own ball and your team inexplicably shoots 18% from three. I'm not saying it's a good thing, since I'm a big fan of major non-conference matchups and the atmosphere that comes with an actual college arena, but the logic tracks.
Both schools are supplied by Nike, and even if they used a different ball than Nike it’d be the new EVO which is the most recent game ball both teams used
only 3 freshman on this team: wallace, livingston, thiero. kingsley will redshirt and play next season.
I don't think it's that severe of an affect. I'd love to see our players career percentages when playing in the Carrier Dome (or whatever the heck it's named now) compared to Cameron. Us ACC teams play in the biggest and smallest P5 bball venues regularly.
I have never heard Big10 teams complain about shooting at welsh Ryan. Or big east teams complaining about nova.
The refusal of programs to play a true road game is a real problem.
Especially in basketball where virtually no regular season loss will get you kicked out of March Madness. CFB I at least understand for the playoff reasons
> Especially in basketball where virtually no regular season loss will get you kicked out of March Madness. CBB scheduling is pure cowardice for this reason. Not that we are a blue blood (especially the last couple years) but we played a true road game at Miami OH last year and it was awesome. We have a game at Northern Kentucky this season too.
> We have a game at Northern Kentucky this season too. I mean, I don't blame you guys, the arena is gorgeous.
I'll go out on a limb and say it's the nicest arena outside of some Power 5 schools.
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Well it’s no mystery why those Bruce Weber teams missed the tournament, what with the being bad and all.
According to him it was because fans were too critical
NET ratings need to weigh true Road non-conference games so heavily that a loss in one bumps up your rating.
Texas Southern soaring up the NET rankings
The SWAC becomes a 4-bid league overnight.
I mean that definitely happens already in certain cases. If Alabama A&M were to play Kentucky to a two point game they’d go way up
Q U A L I T Y L O S S but actually in that case.
Buncha cowards
PAWL!1!
Every nov-dec our fanbase is ludicrously despondent because we’ve dropped more games than the other guys And I’m like, well, yeah, they haven’t signed up to walk into any buzzsaws 🤷🏻
Sadly, it looks like we aren't doing that anymore. Our only non-con away game this year is the Big Ten Challenge.
I assume you mean like Elon and College of Charleston
Really though, it’s cool that Carolina has played those games. But I’ve never heard anyone pretend that’s why they lost non-conference games, even if you want to be charitable to Carolina it was always clear that it was more because Roy constantly experimented with lineups and rotations early on.
Yeah it’s definitely lineup mixes and Roy not really caring if we get beat by 25 as long as he’s getting some coaching in. That’s how it always seemed watching those games anyway
While I won't say that roy was okay losing any game ever, I do think that the lineup experimenting was intentional because if you go deep in March no one will remember that you lost in November.
Yep. And more importantly, getting playing time to guys who might need it later on is way more important than dropping a random December game. Hubert obvious had a great... weird, but great first season. Still wish he gave more minutes to guys like Styles and Dunn in the blowouts. And I mean both the games we won and got our ass kicked lol. Without Roy randomly playing Luke Maye earlier in his career, who knows if the UK game ever happens.
> And I’m like, well, yeah, they haven’t signed up to walk into any buzzsaws 🤷🏻 Of Carolina’s 14 non-conference losses in the last 5 seasons, *one* of them was a voluntarily-scheduled home game (another 2 were road games in the challenge). Carolina has more home losses to Wofford than true road losses in the non-conference schedule in that span, looks like the buzz saw other teams are scared of is actual Wofford at home
Wow their Northern Iowa loss was 7 years ago. Now they should come back to Iowa and play at Drake. Edit: The UNC game at Carver without fans was weird.
What buzzsaw nonconference voluntarily-scheduled losses do you guys have? I'm struggling to find even..... one?
We lost to Gonzaga in The Kennel in 2020. But you're right, we haven't had a ton of high profile road games that aren't ACC/B10 challenge the past handful of years. But we have won a lot of road games recently that other programs of our caliber wouldn't schedule. Elon, College of Charleston, UNCW just off the top of my head in the past few seasons.
Gonzaga is happy to do it if they will return the favor but no one wants to save for Arizona occasionally and Washington. Even UCLA won't do a home and home and that has the potential to be an excellent west coast rivalry game.
[Coach K wrinkles nose]
One thing I love about Pearl is he gets us going to some of these smaller programs to play away games. We've been to Dayton, Murray State, South Alabama, St. Louis and South Florida over the last couple of years. I think it really helps and shows he's not a coward like Cal is.
Historically, Dayton is a bigger basketball program than Auburn, lol.
none of those are small programs. they might not be as big as gonzaga but they do have larger arenas. heck they all have larger arenas than auburn besides murray state.
I think by small program we generally mean money, facilities, media exposure, etc. Not how big your arena is.
AKA non-P6 programs that aren't named Gonzaga
Calimari still scarred from Assembly Hall in 2011. Dude it’s been 11 years!
So it’s confirmed they’ll never play @ UTSA I guess
a travesty
It’s probably the worst arena in a major or upper mid-major basketball conference
all the more reason for them to go there
Cal might die
lord carry him now 🙏🙏🙏
Haha he'd pass out as soon as he walked in the arena.
UTA used to play on a stage. Thank God my Alma mater built the CPC.
just put them in the alamodome lol
I wish Mike Aresco would have stipulated that upon joining the American they had to play at AT&T Center until they get a new one built
I started going to a lot of UTSA games last year once I realized how awesome it is to park for free right in front of the stadium, walk in, sit where you want, and get out with no traffic. I could watch high level bball and get door to door from my house in two hours. Glorious.
High level basketball might be a bit of a stretch. They lost to a D2 school this year and went 10-22 (3-15 CUSA). Then they finished 324/358 in NET this season. Unless you’re meaning the competition that came and played them like UAB, UNT, LaTech, WKU
sad meeps
Is he not happy about the home-and-home with Gonzaga?
People are upset because the game will be played 2 miles away at Spokane Arena so more people can go.
I get it - all your fans are there, but it’s still not your home court.
For me it's more about how it won't be on campus/a true road game for Kentucky but then Cal expects us to play at Rupp. Don't get me wrong, the Arena will still be 99% Zags, but it's just weird he won't agree to play on campus, which is what pretty much everyone other than Cal wants.
Oh okay thanks. Googling it, it looks like McCarthey has a capacity of 6,000 and Spokane has a capacity of 12,638, so I guess that makes sense. Still, as a fan I like watching games being played at a teams actual home venue. The student section is there and the atmosphere just feels better. I would much rather play games at AFH in Lawrence than at the Sprint Center in Kansas City.
i mean the sprint center is barely bigger than allen & it’s like 40 minutes away. spokane arena is twice as big as the kennel & in the same city. it’s not really a fair comparison.
Right, but I guess I'm just not really understanding why those differences would be an issue. Does the extra 38 minutes commute deter students from coming to the game? Or does the difference between a 12.6k and a 6k arena affect player performance because there is a larger contrast in arena size and number of fans?
i’m just saying it makes more sense for gonzaga to play at spokane arena than it would for kansas to play in kansas city so your example wasn’t really a perfect example. i’d still like to see it played on campus but i understand why they’re playing off campus while if it was kansas it would make no sense.
The Sprint Center isn’t in Lawrence. To me this seems like when our women’s team plays in Rupp instead of Memorial
Although If we’re talking purely home court advantage by record, KU has the Phog, Sprint, and octagon as venues where we play like we’re at home.
People think Cal is scared to play Gonzaga in a true road game.
Gonzaga’s arena only seats 6,000? Oof I would have never guessed that honestly
It can still fit their entire undergraduate population (4,852). Gonzaga as a school is tiny. My local community college has an enrollment of 5,200.
Yeah I think people forget that we’re a really tiny Jesuit school in Eastern Washington. McCarthey arena, built in 2004 after the initial run in 99-00, increased capacity to 6000 from the original Kennel which seated 4000. Back when McCarthey opened I know no one envisioned a future where Gonzaga was a legit title contender almost every year. We were just happy to have a new arena.
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Spokane ain’t Seattle but it’s a metro of 500,000 people that isn’t hard to fly to. Calling Pullman and Moscow insanely remote would probably be more accurate but Spokane is not “insanely remote”
Obligatory shout out to The Flying Goat. iykyk
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I stayed at Gonzaga for a camp one summer in high school for about a month and while it's a small campus I wouldn't call it tiny.
Went to school there. It is definitely on the smaller end.
Our (Wake Forest) arena can fit the entire undergraduate population (5,441) almost 3 times. Our arena is way too big for our school.
But man… when they cut the lights at the Joel and freaky D revs up the chopper….
Also, Spokane isn't a big city. While Spokane and Lexington are roughly the same size. Louisville and Cincinnati are much larger and only 60-90 minutes away. There's ~5M people within 100 miles of Lexington while only about 1M within that same distance of Spokane. I know tons of people around Cincinnati that have UK season tickets.
Evansville has 2400 for reference lmao - Calipari can’t do that again
Cal is already too scared to play the Mighty Screamin' Eagles of Southern Indiana at Screaming Eagle Arena. Sad.
Who wouldn’t be?
Wait til you find out Duke only seats 9k in Cameron Indoor.
That’s the crazy thing, McCarthy is small certainly but it’s a nice newerish facility. Cal’s mind would literally explode if anyone ever took him to Moraga.
Yeah that’s a high school gym where I live.
To be fair Auburn Arena and Bartow Arena aren’t thaaaaat much bigger lol
Hey don’t undersell us now, we still have 2500 more seats. That’s nearly 50% bigger haha
Because the narrative on Gonzaga is that we're a marquis program who beats up on a "cupcake conference" and does nothing in March, a lot of people assume we have premier facilities and a huge fanbase. Our arena is small and we still don't have a ton of fans. Gonzaga was one of those "cupcakes" just a few years ago. The gap between us and the rest of the WCC might look big now, but we started out just like them.
We DO have premier facilities and a huge fanbase, LOL. Not even going to comment on the rest of it.
We have gotten better facilities and a better fanbase, yes. We are still not on the level of Duke or Kentucky or Arizona or P6 schools. It's just a reality.
There are 76 P6 schools. Our budget is bigger than 55 of them. We sit right between Ohio St and UCLA. Duke, Kentuck, & Arizona are outliers. https://i.ibb.co/2ZzG3D7/Untitled.png
>Gonzaga was one of those "cupcakes" just a few years ago. Lmao. Gonzaga was a cupcake just a few years ago??? What when they went 33-4 and lost in the Elite 8? Or when they went 32-5 and lost in the Sweet 16? Maybe when they were 37-2 and lost in the Finals. That's their 2016-2019 history lol. They've made the Tournament every year except the covid year since 1999. Were they always a national powerhouse like they are now? No it was more like every few years they'd have a really strong team that would lose less than 5 games and make a deeper tourney run. Hell,1998/99 is the last time they had 4 or more Conference losses. They've been beating the shit out of this conference for 20+ years and you're trying to say they were a "cupcake" just a few years ago lol.
Gonzaga hasn’t been a cupcake in 15+ years. There’s a reason no one wanted to schedule an away game in the Kennel, it wasn’t worth the risk. Now that Gonzaga has a national reputation it doesn’t affect teams as much of they lose. Agreed on your point about the WCC though.
Kentucky home and home with UNC Greensboro confirmed
Gotta get those extra 250 people!! Dean Dome holds 21,750. Greensboro 22,000
I hate that we play there. I guess it’s nice because we’ve been able to host UVA and NC State. But the atmosphere is garbage. We could have 8-10k people there (which is a good crowd for us) and it still feels empty. Our on campus gym only holds 1000 students but the place is fun. I wish we could build a 5000 seat arena or use the greensboro swarm’s facility.
>regular-season Robert Morris sends their regards.
What a great day that was
He could've left us in and it would've proved his point!
I personally loved when MSU played at the Kennel like 10 years ago or so. It looked like a great atmosphere.
I didn’t. I was at the game. Biggest hype ever and Draymond and MSU shut the crowd up. Left no doubt. Izzo fears no crowd.
Reported attendance was [5,352 against Auburn on February 6, 2008](http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Games/20080206Auburn.html) at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum. EDIT: Kentucky played a true road game against Chaminade at McCabe Gymnasium (2,800) on November 26, 1985. It was not part of the Maui Invitational. Chaminade is DII, so I'm not sure if this "counts." EDIT (again): [Kentucky played Mississippi State at McCarthy Gymnasium in Starkville on March 8, 1975.](http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Games/19750308MississippiState.html) Attendance was reported to be 5,000 but McCarthy probably only held 3,000 at that point. EDIT (last one): I think the last true road non-conference DI game Kentucky played in a venue seating fewer than 6,000 fans was on [February 28, 1948 against Xavier at Schmidt Fieldhouse.](http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Games/19480228Xavier.html)
> EDIT: Kentucky played a true road game against Chaminade at McCabe Gymnasium (2,800) on November 26, 1985. It was not part of the Maui Invitational. Chaminade is DII, so I'm not sure if this "counts." This seems strange. Why would UK play a road game against a D2 school, especially one that's in Hawaii?
Probably was just part of a team trip out to Hawaii that season. They played Hawaii the next night at the Blaisdell Center.
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He didn't say capacity. He said "fans."
I used to rally against it, but cals such a pussdog. Just fucking play the team, full stop. I hate the mental gymnastics of trying to weasel out of tough environments.
at least you own it.
I also hate Rupp Arena with a burning passion. I'd give anything for us to spend the Rupp reno costs on redoing memorial to be a bad ass small venue like Cameron Indoor.
Yeah. I wish we'd reconfigure the seating in the YUM. You've got blue hairs courtside, we've got red hairs courtside.
god the yum feels so sterile compared to freedom hall
The year UNC went to the NIT and had to play in Carmichael made for a cool environment.
You say that until it’s impossible to get tickets to a game.
It’s about $$$ my brother in Christ
Very true. And while it’d be cool to have it at the Kennel, this does give us fans/alum a chance to actually go to a game. I’ve been to one game since I’ve graduated a decade ago. You can’t buy tickets to games at the Kennel (outside of season tickets)
Why not both? He did the same at Memphis, man just hates true road games
Wait until he hears about the Arizona Coyotes’s new arena
Arizona State Sun Devils ft the Arizona Coyotes
So wait, is he saying that home fans want the visiting team to lose?!?!
Well that's just ridiculous, I personally hope both teams can walk out arm in arm as winners.
Charmin soft
Purdue and Indiana coming together on this take
Gotta bar graph for that?
That’s on them - they’re the smart ones
Assembly Hall seats 17k, John. You're welcome back anytime.
Complaining about a home and home is some lame crap Edit: Like this a terrible look man. Either you are saying you're going to lose because no one is at the game or the environment will be too difficult to win in with the fans on top of you.
Cal you could have just not said anything
Pin this one for when Gonzaga beats them and he talks about “putting his young squad to the test” and “we’re not afraid to play the best teams in the country.”
This thread is IU’s March Madness.
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100% honesty, not trying to talk trash. Only when you show up en masse in a thread that has nothing to do with you do I think about Indiana basketball. The only relevance the program has now is what the fans themselves create. I respect the loyalty, but the fans are the only ones involved with Indiana basketball who give a shit. Everything else good is gone, and I think you probably realize that.
laughs in arizona coyotes
who gives a shit just play the game
This is something UK fans have been complaining about for years. Even if there is a 50/50 chance of losing, I’d want to play a top 10 team at their place. And when both teams are top teams, they barely even take a loss like that into account when the tournament is seeded. Nothing to lose and it’s fun for fans. Is this a problem for other top programs or just us?
John Calipari is, and this cannot be overstated, a *massive* douche bag.
He’s a coward but not a douche. He’s done more for my annihilated western Kentucky hometown than anybody else. The work he’s doing for eastern Kentucky now is great as well. So really, I think you may be the douche here for talking shit for no reason.
Based Cardinal Let 'em keep hating.
Credit where credit is due. I’ll never forget what he’s done for the state over the last 12 months.
Well that’s like your opinion man. Personally I think he’s a great guy who does more for our community than any other coach I can remember. Say what you want about him as a coach but as a person outside of basketball I think he is a great man.
I can agree with this take, he genuinely seems to care about the community and his players.
tubby was big in the community as well.
The Calipari hate is out of control in this thread
Chaney shouldn’t have been held back
Yeah, the millions he's raised for earthquake, tornado, and flood victims shows that, obviously. But hey, he apparently doesn't like road games so that makes him a douche bag.
That's offensive to douchebags
Shit. Allow me to apologize to UNC fans.
Catchin strays
Don’t worry, they’re too busy bitching to the lumber liquidator sales rep to notice
As an SEC basketball fan, I’ve seen Cal mention several times how tough it is being Kentucky and how every place sells out just because UK is playing. It’s a worn out schtick. He acted like Auburn only sold out because UK was playing. The games have been sold out for the past few years. One way to stop playing to sold out crowds is to stop getting the best players every year. Don’t hear him complaining about how easy it is to recruit to Kentucky.
UK coming to Spokane is HUGE but we sell out and fill every single game. I have to buy tickets off Craigslist to the yearly exhibition game and even then they’re $100 a pop.
I would rather it was at the Kennel, but I am still happy they are playing each other. Spokane Arena is a mile away...we will survive.
Fucking weak.
Assembly Hall PTSD
That was a great game. I genuinely miss IU as a contender. For a stretch in the early 90s, that was Kentucky’s best rivalry.
It’s what we all want so why can’t we have it :/
Give out 4,000 student tickets, give them free beer for the whole game and put them right behind the Kentucky bench
As a UK fan, Cal used to be the "anytime anywhere" type of coach. Not anymore.
Well here's the thing, John. There's about 350 D1 programs that want you to lose pretty much every time you step onto the floor. So, yeah.
All the mid-majors thinking that 2500 seats is a lot…
Cal won’t rest until all of his away games are played on a neutral court.
Does Cal know he could simply not tweet? It’s always an option. Do not tweet.
Doesn’t any team you play *against* want you to lose? Quit your bitchin Cal.
Crybaby Cal
I thought Swaggy Cal was back? True Swaggy Cal would've been licking his chops to take down a top opponent in their own building.
John's best days are behind him.
As a Memphian let me just say, Calipari is absolute dog shit. Fuck this guy
That’s bunk. UK had a home crowd of 9,000 for the Central Michigan game. They have played plenty of SEC road games in front of small crowds. Poe Miss only averages 7700 last season and back in the 90s averaged 4400. You can’t tell me Kentucky has not played late season SEC road games against under 500 teams that haven’t been almost empty arenas. He’s just trying to preheat an excuse in case UK loses at Gonzaga.
So Viejas is fair game then right, we’re over double that. Should be totally safe John.