Should PSU Basketball move back to Rec Hall?
- Thread starter dcf4psu
- Start date
wonder how many of the posters have even been to a game
@ Penn State to support the team in the past 2 years? Seems some are more concerned about the size of the venue and color of walls than supporting the team.
It reminds me of the argument of why PSU could not recruit Philly kids. I think the myth has been debunked haha
We have enough students alone within 1/4 mile of the BJC to sell that place out.
Virginia Tech had a very similar situation to Penn State in the early 2000s--football school with no recent men's hoops tradition, remote rural location in mountains, students who followed successful programs from their home areas. Cassell Coliseum on the VT campus was rarely filled.
Seth Greenberg arrived in the mid 2000s and started winning consistently. Before you knew it Cassell Coliseum was selling out on a regular basis for conference games. VT dropped off later but now Buzz Williams has them winning again and drawing sellout crowds again.
If you win they will come.
Seth Greenberg arrived in the mid 2000s and started winning consistently. Before you knew it Cassell Coliseum was selling out on a regular basis for conference games. VT dropped off later but now Buzz Williams has them winning again and drawing sellout crowds again.
If you win they will come.
For years you apologized for previous head coaches saying Penn State will never get kids from Philadelphia to come to Penn State. Never ever ever ever. You couldn't have been more condescending about it either. How incredibly wrong were you?
If playing at Rec Hall for 3 seasons in front of sell out crowds could help Penn State secure 3 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, interest in the program and demand for the product explodes and Penn State cements itself as a destination for top 100 recruits.
Do the math on what a legItimate Penn State basketball program would mean for future revenues and then tell me why I shouldn't laugh in your face for not wanting to sacrifice 180k to make it happen.
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And what if playing in the BJC makes us reach 11 straight tournaments and we become a destination for top 10 recruits?
You're completely overestimating the home court advantage that we'd gain from Rec Hall vs. the BJC. Again, I ask you, quantify what you think the difference is between the two venues when it comes to the pointspread (since you said earlier that Vegas would give us a bigger edge playing in Rec Hall).
Well, they'll go watch it wherever it's played but I don't think they'll like it THAT much
The team can win playing in the BJC, I just believe playing in Rec Hall would increase our odds. Penn State has to take advantage of the current window of opportunity to win with Reaves, Carr, Stevens and Watkins. We may not get another opportunity with a group like this if the on court results don't materialize.
The fans play a role in this too and it's more important than ever that people get to the games. We not only need a home court advantage for our players, we need to show the kids we are recruiting that Penn State fans sincerely want a winner and will support the team. It would send a very bad message to future recruits if we didn't support this group of players who turned down consistently winning programs and unrivaled fan support to change the fortunes of an historically weak and poorly supported program. These kids didn't have to sign up for this. They chose the path not traveled, and for that alone they should be supported like a like a 25 game winner.
Agree with your last paragraph 100%. Get off your butts and support this team.
Dana O'Neil is a proud (sometimes) Penn Stater as well.REC HALL.....
ESPN’s Lisa Salters And Her Penn State Connection 0
By Derek Bannister on January 9, 2017 at 4:17 am Athletics, Features
Penn State has a plethora of famous and successful alumni. From Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, to Lara Spencer, a host of Good Morning America, many of Penn State’s hundreds of thousands of alumni are household names.
Add to that list Lisa Salters – a staple of the Monday Night Football team on ESPN – who played guard for the Lady Lions back in the day. Salters has covered more than 75 games for ESPN over the course of five years, and is a widely recognized part of ESPN’s primetime football coverage.
Salters graduated from Penn State in 1988 with a degree in broadcast journalism and played for the women’s basketball team from 1986-87. In fact, she is the shortest player to ever play for Penn State, coming in at just 5’2″.
Like many Penn State students and alumni, she hails from “just outside of Philly.” Salters is a native of King of Prussia, so covering Philadelphia Eagles games means visiting home and, of course, visiting the King of Prussia Mall. She’s not so different from us after all.
CLICK ON PIC TO ENLARGE
I'm going to get even more condescending too, because I never said that. I will challenge you, and anyone else for that matter, to find a statement by me that says we will never get kids from Philly. You won't find one because that was never my position.
What irked me was people who called out our coaches without even acknowledging the issues that the staffs faced in trying to get Philly talent here. So I took the time to actually list the issues we faced. I was always clear to say that the were mighty hurdles to get over, but I never said they were impossible But what is particularly interesting is that, if you were to find some of those old posts, what you would discover is that several of those issues that I raised are no longer valid. The landscape has changed.
For example, one of the big issues was that Philly kids had a negative image of the Big Ten. They had no desire to play in the Big Ten. You can check the historical record and you will find over the last 20 years that very few PA kids (less than a handful), and NO Philly kids played for any Big Ten school (other than a couple at PSU). The kids wanted to play for either an ACC school, a Big East school, or a Big Five school. Why was that? For all the Philly kids, the Big Ten was just a bunch of schools way west of them.
Well guess what? Things have changed. Three things have helped immensely.
One. The collapse of the old Big East. That sent shock waves through a lot of basketball centric communities.
Two. The creation of the Big Ten Network - and inclusion of the BTN on basic cable in Philly. All of a sudden, Big Ten schools are regularly on TV in Philly. Families realize if their kids go to a Big Ten school, they will be able to see virtually every game that their kid plays.
Three. Expansion of the Big Ten eastward. Don't underestimate the new presence of the Big Ten in the I95 corrider. The Philly media now have vested interest in covering Big Ten sports. We have established a solid media presence in the New York, Philadelphia, and DC markets. Philly kids parents know that not only is PSU a short three hour drive away but away games at Rutgers and Maryland are easy hops too (heck you can even take the train to them).
All of the above, mean that Penn State, and the rest of the Big Ten, are a much more viable landing spot for kids from eastern PA, in general, and Philly, in particular. The conference has become an attractive alternative to the ACC and the old Big East. That opens the door up to guys like Garner, Moore, Watkins, Carr, Stevens, and Bostick to head to Penn State, and Ahmad Gilbert from Philly to head to Minnesota, Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman from Allentown to go to Michigan, Clifton Moore from Hatboro to Indiana (commit), Eli Brooks from Spring Grove to Michigan (commit) and, to a lesser extent, Jared Nickens a prep at West Chester to go Maryland. Even not counting the PSU kids, that's five kids who played high school ball in Eastern Pa who are playing for or are committed to a Big Ten program. In the 20 years previous, I can't even think of one other eastern PA kid who played Big Ten ball at a school other than Penn State. You can find dozens who played in the Big East, the ACC, or the Big Five - but none in the Big Ten. That's an indicator of how the landscape has changed for Big Ten schools
I don't mean to knock the efforts of Pat Chambers, it took tons of work on his part to infiltrate the Philly scene. He succeeded where others have failed (and I don't just mean Ed DeChellis and Jerry Dunn - you can bet your bottom dollar that Philly natives Bo Ryan and Fran McCaffrey would have loved land a Philly kid or two, but they couldn't despite having strong Philly ties). Pat is to be roundly applauded for getting those kids. But the market is a bit easier for a Big Ten school to penetrate than it was a decade ago.
It you could explain to me why playing in Rec Hall is suddenly going to give us all those advantages over Big Ten schools when it never did over Eastern Eight or Atlantic Ten foes, I might be a little more accepting of your hypothesis.
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