Big C said:

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OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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Exactly. Where do you draw the line? This is like a group of parents trying to outdo each other in spoiling their children.

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You draw the line at somewhere that's not last in the conference. For example, maybe 'conference average". Or, if you want to go "bare bones" (and I'm not against this), maybe 9th or 10th. But not twelfth. Because right now, we got nothing. And that's ridiculous.

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You got your Cal degree, right?

HoopDreams said:

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concordtom said:

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59bear said:

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concordtom said:

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I just watched the video on that page, plus two more about John Paul Jones Arena.
I guess you are taking your annual jealousy/remorse tour?

This is all just a big competitive sloshing around of money by donors, administrators, businesses and athletics.
There are more important things in life to compete in.

....My wife mentioned to me that she heard the Final Four is a bigger financial deal for the NCAA than the Super Bowl is to the NFL. And only 17% of the take goes to cover the schools' expenses. That's a lot of revenue over expenses. I pointed out how the players get none of that surplus. Haha. What a scheme! Amateurism.
If I were on the Supreme Court, I'd upend that notion.

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If you were on the Supreme Court and upended that "scheme" you'd kill the tournament. When players become direct employees, schools will drop the sport and there will be no tournament. The only way the college game survives player payment (beyond scholarships covering the full cost of attendance) is for that payment to come from sources other than the schools. The tournament thrives, in part, because of the ties to the competing schools of people who otherwise have little or no interest in basketball. Take away the college connection and you have all the fan interest of the old AAU tournaments of my youth or the G League playoffs..

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Oh ye of little imagination.

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how about if companies sponsored teams and the players wore their corporate logos on their jerseys.

it could be the university of california yokohama tires golden bears!

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Nice artwork. Did you do that yourself?

Okay, so that's one extreme, and not exactly where I was headed.
But for the sake of argument, I'll take it to a just as plausible opposite extreme.

UC and CSU pull out of their conferences and create 3 sports divisions, play for the California championship.

California has always been a leader. Alumni should be able to get behind the games just like always. Winners will go to Bowl games, and get bids to the NCAA tournament annually. We would likely perform like the Ivy schools, but so what. Other states might follow and end the arms race.




Donors at all schools have been buying into this myth of what it means to compete.
Just say NO to the arms race, and take control of your own future. The power has been handed over to the Pac12 Conference. We are an educational institution, not a sports and social club. I would still root for Cal, even if we sucked. Hey, wait a minute, that's already the case. No Rose Bowl in my lifetime. Maybe a couple Sweet 16's... what's the difference?

While I'm at it, create a couple new sports divisions.
Robotics competition.
Science or bio-tech competition.
Academic Decathlon.
Programming competition.
Show the world that California is an educational destination, and that you don't need just big muscles to compete.

concordtom said:

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59bear said:

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concordtom said:

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I just watched the video on that page, plus two more about John Paul Jones Arena.
I guess you are taking your annual jealousy/remorse tour?

This is all just a big competitive sloshing around of money by donors, administrators, businesses and athletics.
There are more important things in life to compete in.

....My wife mentioned to me that she heard the Final Four is a bigger financial deal for the NCAA than the Super Bowl is to the NFL. And only 17% of the take goes to cover the schools' expenses. That's a lot of revenue over expenses. I pointed out how the players get none of that surplus. Haha. What a scheme! Amateurism.
If I were on the Supreme Court, I'd upend that notion.

---

If you were on the Supreme Court and upended that "scheme" you'd kill the tournament. When players become direct employees, schools will drop the sport and there will be no tournament. The only way the college game survives player payment (beyond scholarships covering the full cost of attendance) is for that payment to come from sources other than the schools. The tournament thrives, in part, because of the ties to the competing schools of people who otherwise have little or no interest in basketball. Take away the college connection and you have all the fan interest of the old AAU tournaments of my youth or the G League playoffs..

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Oh ye of little imagination.

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What's to imagine? Only a relative few schools operate their athletic programs in the black. When you factor in the extra costs (salaries, work comp, etc.) attendant direct employment, most of those go into the red. Pro sports below the major league level simply don't succeed without some form of subsidy and I don't see much appetite for colleges, especially publics, to go beyond where they are now.

59bear said:

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concordtom said:

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59bear said:

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concordtom said:

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I just watched the video on that page, plus two more about John Paul Jones Arena.
I guess you are taking your annual jealousy/remorse tour?

This is all just a big competitive sloshing around of money by donors, administrators, businesses and athletics.
There are more important things in life to compete in.

....My wife mentioned to me that she heard the Final Four is a bigger financial deal for the NCAA than the Super Bowl is to the NFL. And only 17% of the take goes to cover the schools' expenses. That's a lot of revenue over expenses. I pointed out how the players get none of that surplus. Haha. What a scheme! Amateurism.
If I were on the Supreme Court, I'd upend that notion.

---

If you were on the Supreme Court and upended that "scheme" you'd kill the tournament. When players become direct employees, schools will drop the sport and there will be no tournament. The only way the college game survives player payment (beyond scholarships covering the full cost of attendance) is for that payment to come from sources other than the schools. The tournament thrives, in part, because of the ties to the competing schools of people who otherwise have little or no interest in basketball. Take away the college connection and you have all the fan interest of the old AAU tournaments of my youth or the G League playoffs..

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Oh ye of little imagination.

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What's to imagine? Only a relative few schools operate their athletic programs in the black. When you factor in the extra costs (salaries, work comp, etc.) attendant direct employment, most of those go into the red. Pro sports below the major league level simply don't succeed without some form of subsidy and I don't see much appetite for colleges, especially publics, to go beyond where they are now.

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I imagine this:

People like to play sports, compete. There are club level sports galore. I joined fraternity to play in the more competitive fraternity league, rather than just the dorm league. So, it's not like the sporting world would die if we paid athletes.

Right now, football and basketball subsidize all other sports. And people come on here and say you can't pay hoops stars because then there would be no field hockey.

I say,
1) it's unfair for Jack to subsidize Joe, or Josephine. That's not how life is supposed to work.
2) Title 9 can exist just fine outside of the "for profit" sports.
3) schools can still run other sports teams, just with a smaller budget. Field hockey does not have to travel to Washington and Arizona in order to have a competitive, sporting, and educational experience.

Our thinking about all this has gotten way out of wack. The prestige of the university depends on being able to convince a handful of kids who can jump really high that we have the most plush leather seats? PLEASE!!!

I understand that the state of California had a project similar to the UVA one in the planning stages. Unfortunately the money is being diverted to build a bullet train from Chico to Ukiah. Jerry Brown will be the conductor of the train.

flounder said:

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I am currently at UVA Law and the grounds here are beautiful. It is such a stark difference from Cal - no packs of transients walking around the campus and surrounding area, the campus buildings are all nice looking (no Evans Hall type crap) and not falling apart (Haviland Hall has chicken wire to hold the cracked concrete in place). I went to the UVA v Pitt game and the arena is absolutely stunning. Multiple recreation centers on campus. Tons of great food. Our only excuse is the price of land/lack of availability (People's Park should have bulldozers at work on it right now).

Side note, their starting PG is a three star true frosh from SoCal.

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Nobody in their right mind would defend Evans Hall and a few of the other "architectural gems" on campus. But a 2014 article on earthquakes.berkeley.edu states that they spent > 2 billion dollars on the Berkeley campus to improve "earthquake resilience" just in the decade up to 2014. No doubt that included the CMS rebuild, but it's still a huge amount of money that's not available for beautiful grounds. Building near earthquake faults is expensive.

flounder said:

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I am currently at UVA Law and the grounds here are beautiful. It is such a stark difference from Cal - no packs of transients walking around the campus and surrounding area, the campus buildings are all nice looking (no Evans Hall type crap) and not falling apart (Haviland Hall has chicken wire to hold the cracked concrete in place). I went to the UVA v Pitt game and the arena is absolutely stunning. Multiple recreation centers on campus. Tons of great food. Our only excuse is the price of land/lack of availability (People's Park should have bulldozers at work on it right now).

Side note, their starting PG is a three star true frosh from SoCal.

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NOTE TO ADMINS: Sorry for dup post - issues with internet access at work this morning.

caltagjohnson said:

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I understand that the state of California had a project similar to the UVA one in the planning stages. Unfortunately the money is being diverted to build a bullet train from Chico to Ukiah. Jerry Brown will be the conductor of the train.

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By the time it's built (Fresno to Bakersfield, same difference) it will carry his casket.
Terrible situation.

OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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Big C said:

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OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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Big C said:

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We don't need to have something utra-fancy, but we need a dedicated practice facility where the players know they can go any time, to work on their game. Not having one is hurting our chances, mainly because it hurts recruiting.

We're either in this to compete, or we're not.

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But it's not really just the practice facility. It's the luxurious other stuff that comes with it too. A practice facility without the dedicated lounge, study center, locker room, restaurant, film room, Game Center, etc, isn't "really" competing. And all that other stuff is absurd. Look, I love college sports as much as anyone but this is wrong. Maybe it's time to get out of college sports or go Ivy and just be done with it.

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Exactly. Where do you draw the line? This is like a group of parents trying to outdo each other in spoiling their children.

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You draw the line at somewhere that's not last in the conference. For example, maybe 'conference average". Or, if you want to go "bare bones" (and I'm not against this), maybe 9th or 10th. But not twelfth. Because right now, we got nothing. And that's ridiculous.

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Average is fine with me. Over the top isn't. The problem is "average" keeps going up and up.

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Average, or even near-average, is fine with me, too. Dead last, with no dedicated practice facility, is not. Let's at least get something decent, ASAP.

Big C said:

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OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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Big C said:

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OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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Big C said:

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We don't need to have something utra-fancy, but we need a dedicated practice facility where the players know they can go any time, to work on their game. Not having one is hurting our chances, mainly because it hurts recruiting.

We're either in this to compete, or we're not.

---

But it's not really just the practice facility. It's the luxurious other stuff that comes with it too. A practice facility without the dedicated lounge, study center, locker room, restaurant, film room, Game Center, etc, isn't "really" competing. And all that other stuff is absurd. Look, I love college sports as much as anyone but this is wrong. Maybe it's time to get out of college sports or go Ivy and just be done with it.

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Exactly. Where do you draw the line? This is like a group of parents trying to outdo each other in spoiling their children.

---

You draw the line at somewhere that's not last in the conference. For example, maybe 'conference average". Or, if you want to go "bare bones" (and I'm not against this), maybe 9th or 10th. But not twelfth. Because right now, we got nothing. And that's ridiculous.

---

Average is fine with me. Over the top isn't. The problem is "average" keeps going up and up.

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Average, or even near-average, is fine with me, too. Dead last, with no dedicated practice facility, is not. Let's at least get something decent, ASAP.

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A practice facility is fine, and should be priority. Game rooms, fancy theaters, are BS. I'm afraid even dead last facilities soon will be extravagant.

The key is to have donors pay for these things. For UCLA, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love donated large sums to get their names on the practice court (Westbrook) and the weight room/training center (Love).

OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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Big C said:

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OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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Big C said:

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OneTopOneChickenApple said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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Big C said:

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We don't need to have something utra-fancy, but we need a dedicated practice facility where the players know they can go any time, to work on their game. Not having one is hurting our chances, mainly because it hurts recruiting.

We're either in this to compete, or we're not.

---

But it's not really just the practice facility. It's the luxurious other stuff that comes with it too. A practice facility without the dedicated lounge, study center, locker room, restaurant, film room, Game Center, etc, isn't "really" competing. And all that other stuff is absurd. Look, I love college sports as much as anyone but this is wrong. Maybe it's time to get out of college sports or go Ivy and just be done with it.

---

Exactly. Where do you draw the line? This is like a group of parents trying to outdo each other in spoiling their children.

---

You draw the line at somewhere that's not last in the conference. For example, maybe 'conference average". Or, if you want to go "bare bones" (and I'm not against this), maybe 9th or 10th. But not twelfth. Because right now, we got nothing. And that's ridiculous.

---

Average is fine with me. Over the top isn't. The problem is "average" keeps going up and up.

---

Average, or even near-average, is fine with me, too. Dead last, with no dedicated practice facility, is not. Let's at least get something decent, ASAP.

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A practice facility is fine, and should be priority. Game rooms, fancy theaters, are BS. I'm afraid even dead last facilities soon will be extravagant.

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Maybe a Butler Building in the middle of Faculty Glade.

Basketball practice facility concept . . .

Counter point

Virginia winning a NC is bad news for the Bear faithful that is resigned to treading mediocrity because it destorys their central argument.

Virginia is a non-blue blood elite academic public university in the toughest basketball conference that has built a national program with modest recruiting classes and zero one-and-dones.

Cal is an elite public university in the worst P6 conference.

What's Cal's excuse?

GBear4Life said:

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Virginia winning a NC is bad news for the Bear faithful that is resigned to treading mediocrity because it destorys their central argument.

Virginia is a non-blue blood elite academic public university in the toughest basketball conference that has built a national program with modest recruiting classes and zero one-and-dones.

Cal is an elite public university in the worst P6 conference.

What's Cal's excuse?

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Should be good news. Shows it can be done with the right coach.

The Virginia win shows that coaching matters. That's actually horrible news for Cal and its recent hire.

GBear4Life said:

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Virginia winning a NC is bad news for the Bear faithful that is resigned to treading mediocrity because it destorys their central argument.

Virginia is a non-blue blood elite academic public university in the toughest basketball conference that has built a national program with modest recruiting classes and zero one-and-dones.

Cal is an elite public university in the worst P6 conference.

What's Cal's excuse?

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Apathy, lack of will, institutional antagonism. Take your choice.

socaliganbear said:

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The Virginia win shows that coaching matters. That's actually horrible news for Cal and it's recent hire.

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True. I'm already looking past this hire.

59bear said:

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GBear4Life said:

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Virginia is a non-blue blood elite academic public university in the toughest basketball conference that has built a national program with modest recruiting classes and zero one-and-dones.

Cal is an elite public university in the worst P6 conference.

What's Cal's excuse?

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Apathy, lack of will, institutional antagonism. Take your choice.

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How about all of the above?

Texas Tech's facilities aren't bad either, although not up to Virginia's standard.

https://texastech.com/facilities/?id=4

https://texastech.com/news/2017/11/8/general-tech-announces-10-million-gift-for-basketball-facility.aspx

https://www.texastech.edu/fpc/projects/project-status.php?project=17-04&entity=TTU&status=in-design

https://texastech.com/facilities/?id=12

If you want to be a champion, or at least be highly competitive, you have to act like it. Cal doesn't act like it.