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Post by fanblade on Oct 30, 2007 13:57:37 GMT -5
The LA Times has finally crawled out of it's hole to cover the WCC and of course the title is "The Gonzaga Effect."  www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-wcc30oct30,1,5318599.story?page=1&coll=la-headlines-sports Only mention of LA's WCC teams buried in this 2 page writeup... Rodney Tention is starting his third season at Loyola Marymount with little back after an injury-riddled 13-18 season. Vance Walberg is in his second at Pepperdine, and after an 8-23 struggle as players tried to adapt to his system or left the program, lost leading scorer Kingsley Costain, who was dismissed from school for a violation of university policy this month. The league hasn't always been Gonzaga and the seven dwarfs.
Loyola Marymount reached the Elite Eight in 1990 after the death of Hank Gathers. Santa Clara upset second-seeded Arizona with a team led by Steve Nash in 1993, and Pepperdine has made many appearances, memorably upsetting Indiana in Bob Knight's last game as the Hoosiers' coach. In another era, San Francisco won two national championships with Bill Russell. Not much we haven't seen 100x. Little wonder LAT is going down in flames. |
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Post by lionspride on Oct 30, 2007 20:29:44 GMT -5
Thanks for the article. I agree that you cannot reproduce the "Gonzaga" effect in the WCC. Instead, YOU CAN DO IT EVEN BETTER. LMU and Rodney Tention will. I think Fr. Lawton has finally realized that to make LMU a predominent university on the west coast, you must be 1 or 2 in conference every year. If the administration is on the same page, it can be done and done better.
I do not buy into the fact that because Gonzaga is located in Spokane and does not have any other D1 or professional team, it has propelled the situation. I think it is happened chance some of their success and success has breeded more success. It is all perception and Gonzaga has been a master of disguise. I am not taking anything away from them and their success. They win the games and that is the bottom line. But the article talks about starting up a successful program and I truly thing it has happened by chance AND then everything started to fall in place.
If you are in LA and have millions more individuals living here and a more desirable area for recruits, I don't care if there is 7 other D1 schools in the LA vacinity there is no excuse we cannot fill 4,000+ in Gersten night in and night out. You could fill GP with 3k of your own students and 1,000 season ticket fans (all you need is 1,000 people from a city that holds millions and a university alumni pool of nearly 50,000). It would be at full capacity every game. If GP was sold out consistently, we would have an excuse to get a better facility. Better facility = better recruits. Better recruits = more than likely MORE wins.
Go Lions!
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How to increase attendance at LMU Basketball Games
1) Tell someone you know that does not attend games and have them join you;
2) Call the athletic office and ask what they are doing to bring awareness of LMU basketball to the community (let alone its own student population)
3) Donate your tax deductible contribution specifically to LMU Men's Basketball and have it tagged for increased publicity.
LionsPride's answer to most things = attendance
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Post by lmu on Oct 30, 2007 21:29:17 GMT -5
like I've said before, the heart of the problem is winning. You can have 60 billions people living in LA, and still GP would not fill its stand. Why not? Because we are not winning.
It's not about our alumni size, not about the population in LA, it's all about winning. Once we start winning, everything will fall into place. Want a new arena? Want a sellout crowd every night? We will have all that and more once we start winning.
Btw, I don't think any zags fan would be happy reading your 2nd paragraph. It didn't just happen by chance, if it's that simple we would have been a b'ball powerhouse since the Hank Gather era. It's difficult to get to the top and even more difficult to stay there. Can't take anything away from the zags, they deserve it.
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Post by lionspride on Oct 30, 2007 21:35:02 GMT -5
lmu: I'm not taking anything away from the zags success. The article is simply focused on creating success. I think the zags created success by some skills, but mostly luck. Just like you say, once you win everything will fall in place. The zags won and somehow things fell in place.
Regarding the Gathers era.....from reading several old articles on the subject, individuals say that the President of the university at the time put a "implicit hold" on the basketball program due to the ligitation that followed. Ironically, our basketball program took a big hit for the tradegy of the Gathers era. There was about 3-5 years of things being on hold. The university benefited from the initial limelight of the success, but got sting with the tragedy.
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Post by scoop on Oct 31, 2007 22:59:31 GMT -5
Lets tip off already. i'm ready for the lions to take the court. Lets see what we have been waiting for. I hope no added pressure but i hear oj is all we have been hoping for. lets support this young group and let them know what lions fans are all about. cuz we will be seeing them on the court for years to come. i think this is the group that will contend for a league championship in the next few years. i am so pumped i cant even tell you. take what we see on sunday and multiply it by .75 and we will see somwhere between what we have next year and the year after... this team will be great. Coach tention and co.. congrats i am excitied about the future and will support rain or shine!!!!!
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