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Texas basketball '21-'22: Welcome Chris Beard


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On 8/28/2021 at 9:54 AM, Pancho said:

I’m one of the ones who didn’t think this was possible because of the specs of Gregory compared to what is needed to play a game per the rule book.  It’s possible that a.) I’m wrong and the specs are there or 2.) the specs aren’t there but SHSU and the NCAA agreed to a waiver.  I think doing a non-con there is great.  Not sure I’d do a conference game there.

Regardless this is cool, even if I’m Wong.  I just have a different and more positive view of the program with Beard as HC than I did with Shaka or with the final years of Barnes.

I'm sorry, am i missing something here? How often do you spell Wong that your phone (i'm assuming) changed wrong? LOL

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22 hours ago, SL Xpress said:

Do we know how ticket selection and seating priorities are going to work?

One of the biggest issues with the Erwin Center is that when Deloss Dodds arrived at Texas every program was responsible for their own fundraising. I'm not going to explain why this was untenable, particularly for non revenue sports. Probably the most important decision he made his entire long tenure was to trash all that and put all fundraising under one umbrella, the Longhorn Foundation. One donation enabled a similar ticket selection priority for every sport. Obviously football was the big draw, especially with the construction of the east side with the club seating and all the suites. Also, to generate higher revenues a concerted effort was made to market to area companies to make donations for premium seating for business purposes, much like is done by professional teams. 

Frankly, all of this makes sense, especially if the chief goal is to keep driving higher revenues. Which it was. 

The unintended consequence is that premium basketball tickets became relatively cheap. If you're already donating $5000+ for premium seating for the football games, the season ticket package for basketball was chump change. Sure, throw it in there. Also, students were a very low priority for the athletic department. Their seating was moved in both football and basketball to make way for more premium seating, and esoteric rules were put in place that favored student organizations, particularly the Greek system, over individual students. At one point they did move student seats to behind the baskets, but if you didn't get any of those seats you were relegated to the dim corners upstairs, with no legitimate option to move down even with all the empty seating around the court.

And as we all know, boy has there been a lot of empty seating around the court. Because frankly, all those season tickets being purchased as throw ins along with the donation to acquire premium football tickets are simply not getting used.

I view the opening of the Moody Center as a one time opportunity to change that in a seismic way.  I've heard the student section is going to surround the court on three sides. There's a "I'll believe it when I see it" aspect to that, but I'm hopeful. And then if they could possibly separate basketball season tickets somehow from football donations, that would be great. I don't think that's politically possible, but anything that would incentivize people who buy basketball tickets to actually care about the basketball games would be helpful. Do we know if there's any kind of discussion along these lines?

SL, I think that a big part of the problem was DKR. He was a great football coach but lacked as an AD. Just my .02.

 

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Yeah, I guess I get what he's doing.  We're gonna have a great team but that non-conf. home schedule is dogshit.  Coulda used one more "name" program.  Conference play will be a stellar RPI boost. 

Tennessee should be Top 15 material.  Kansas, Baylor, OK-State, and WVU all in the Top 20.  That's probably 10 games (with conference tourney against Top 20 opponents).  Stanford and Texas Tech should be around ranked periphery.  

Also 10 non-conference home games.  I don't think that's ever happened in program history.  That's amazing.  Most I can ever remember is 8 in a season.  Maybe the Gregory Gym one counts as a "neutral-site" game?  But ten?  Wow.  

Edited by Lobo
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Do we know how ticket selection and seating priorities are going to work?
One of the biggest issues with the Erwin Center is that when Deloss Dodds arrived at Texas every program was responsible for their own fundraising. I'm not going to explain why this was untenable, particularly for non revenue sports. Probably the most important decision he made his entire long tenure was to trash all that and put all fundraising under one umbrella, the Longhorn Foundation. One donation enabled a similar ticket selection priority for every sport. Obviously football was the big draw, especially with the construction of the east side with the club seating and all the suites. Also, to generate higher revenues a concerted effort was made to market to area companies to make donations for premium seating for business purposes, much like is done by professional teams. 
Frankly, all of this makes sense, especially if the chief goal is to keep driving higher revenues. Which it was. 
The unintended consequence is that premium basketball tickets became relatively cheap. If you're already donating $5000+ for premium seating for the football games, the season ticket package for basketball was chump change. Sure, throw it in there. Also, students were a very low priority for the athletic department. Their seating was moved in both football and basketball to make way for more premium seating, and esoteric rules were put in place that favored student organizations, particularly the Greek system, over individual students. At one point they did move student seats to behind the baskets, but if you didn't get any of those seats you were relegated to the dim corners upstairs, with no legitimate option to move down even with all the empty seating around the court.
And as we all know, boy has there been a lot of empty seating around the court. Because frankly, all those season tickets being purchased as throw ins along with the donation to acquire premium football tickets are simply not getting used.
I view the opening of the Moody Center as a one time opportunity to change that in a seismic way.  I've heard the student section is going to surround the court on three sides. There's a "I'll believe it when I see it" aspect to that, but I'm hopeful. And then if they could possibly separate basketball season tickets somehow from football donations, that would be great. I don't think that's politically possible, but anything that would incentivize people who buy basketball tickets to actually care about the basketball games would be helpful. Do we know if there's any kind of discussion along these lines?

Not being snarky … have you considered taking this to CDC? You can probably articulate it well enough to generate a legit response and he seems to be very in touch
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4 hours ago, Gut Wagon said:

Not sure I was at the last game at Gregory, but there's a good chance of it. Although I live a long, long way from Austin these days, I'm seriously thinking about going to the SHSU game. 

Gut, definitely go if you can by things will be different this time. There will be no bleacher seats on the lower level so you won't get any splinters. They probably fixed the windows upstairs so it won't be 40 degrees during the winter and parking won't be the same.😁

  • Hook 'Em 1
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