82gradDLSdad said:calumnus said:boredom said:4thGenCal said:100% agree - but in order to get this facility built, politically (and needed) the other needs have to be shown being addressed (better weight training facilities for both teams, gymnastics support, sufficient athlete eating areas and other sport usage. It will allow the access you mentioned above. The projected facility is needed, will be a tremendous recruiting boon and aid multiple areas. My question is whether this project will be completed within the internal goal of 3 1/2 - 4 years.Big C said:4thGenCal said:Correct, the facility would house a much more effective/larger weight training area(current area is woefully ineffective/far too small,) provide space for other men's and women's teams, and allow for a larger nutruitional food eating area for the student athletes. The price tag is certainly extremely high, but the scope is also larger than just a basketball facility. Berkeley approval process, architectural plans/revisions, permit process etc all before the actual construction process. I am in commercial real estate and the construction costs have skyrocketed over the past 18 months - supply chain issues, busy construction companies, rising wages etc all have impacted the costs. There does appear strong interest from donor's to raise significant monies.socaliganbear said:
This is not just a basketball facility, it's meant to house all of the Haas programs, hence the price tag. If we have donors, let's do it.
Please tell me that, bringing in all these other teams, the facility would still at least do the one thing we all want it to do: Provide at least one quality basketball court that the men's team could practice on any time and that the players would have access to, 24/7, 365, to work on their game.
Because really, what this is all about, at least to me, is the men's basketball team being able to be competitive in recruiting. To be brutally honest, I don't care very much about the rest.
isn't this the same thing we did with the SAHPC and associated Memorial remodel? Take years and years (and see costs skyrocket). Keep adding stuff that's not core to the project. Have some belief that the new building will bring in great recruits (massive failure on the football side).
I think the broader point of "where can we get the best bang for our buck" should be considered. If we can really put together that kind of money for basketball (or even if only half of it could be brought in for basketball) there's probably other areas we should spend it on. Let's hire a good coach. Let's NIL/buy better players for that coach. Better coach + better players = winning; winning = more attendance + more donations + more tv exposure; all of that stuff = more revenue which can help pay for things like a practice facility (plus starts a virtuous cycle of recruiting and winning). Or we can have the most expensive collegiate gymnastics cafeteria in the world.
Yes, thanks, that is my broader point. If you have $120 million to invest, it makes more sense to invest in a top coach and NIL money for top players.
The problem with 'just sign a good coach' is the same as 'just invest in good stocks' (to make money). I think we have a bad 'investor' making our coaching decisions. And even good investors struggle. We should save everyone's money until we are ready to hire a good coach (and AD).
I disagree with that analogy. Anyone can buy any stock. There's not a group of generally better performing stocks that some people can buy and others can't.
I think a better analogy is recruiting. If you get a team full of 5 star recruits there's no assurance of winning but you have a much better shot than with a team of 2 and 3 star guys. Cal currently fishes in the 2-3 star range when it comes to coaching hires. That limits our chances of getting a good coach. Certainly doesn't eliminate them but maybe it means the median coach in our pool has a 30% chance of being good whereas if we had unlimited funds for hiring we'd be in a pool of coaches with a 70% chance of hiring someone who does well.
This plays out every day in sports and in life. The Yankees and Dodgers have a lot more money to spend on free agents so they have a much better chance of landing impact guys than the Royals do. Google and Facebook pay more for engineers than most places so they get more than their share of the engineers with top resumes.
Honestly, I'm surprised that "if you greatly increase your compensation pool you'll attract higher quality candidates" is a controversial viewpoint.
I'm guessing the underlying issue isn't that you don't believe the above to be true but that you just don't think Knowlton can select a good coach regardless of anything else. But isn't the conclusion there that we should either fire Knowlton, shut down athletics for a decade until he retires, or take the decision out of his hands? There's plenty of examples of ADs having a specific hiring decision taken away from them (heck, there's a fairly recent example of a Cal basketball hiring decision being taken away from an AD who got overruled on her hiring choice). If there's people who care enough to front $100M for Cal basketball they hopefully care enough to ensure it's used well.
And if we're going to continue to not care about a winning basketball program then we should, as you say, save everyone's money and not bother with the facility either.
