Oh great, Esposito says NOW teams don't want to play at The Barn

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Check out this quote from Esposito:

"Some schools are saying, 'Yeah, we'll play you, but it'll have to be at the Target Center ... we're not coming to The Barn," he said before Thursday's game. "It gets harder to schedule. Everybody called me the first year we got here ... Now, it's getting harder to get the games scheduled."

So who called us this last year that we turned down? And now we're not even going to have as "good" of a home non-conference schedule as we did this past year?! When Esposito gave Myron this quote, I hope Myron followed up with "so if people were calling last year, how come we had the schedule we did?"

http://www.startribune.com/sports/g...UoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUnciaec8O7EyUsr

Go Gophers!!
 

I am not sure I believe that. Georgetown played at Duke today. What about Texas v. Wisconsin? Teams don't want to play an unranked team that might beat them, but they will play teams that help their SoS.

I think we will be a SoS team soon and will not have that problem. We'll have to go play at their house in a home-and-home as well, so if we are willing to do that teams should be willing to reciprocate.
 

Agreed, there is no reason for schools to avoid home and homes in basketball. It's not football where one loss can kill you. I thought the same thing about Texas-Wisconsin, MSU-and everybody (some are neutral, but not all). Big teams play all the time in CBB. Someone's lying or not trying hard enough.

If Maturi can finally schedule BCS teams every year in football, basketball should have no problem.
 

I thought this was a very strange article and not at all in line with the positive vibe coming out of the program. Tough to believe ...
 

Reading between the lines of Tubby's quote in the article, I think that he is putting it on Esposito's shoulders. There is no excuse for the quality of our preseason schedule. Living with a few cupcakes is the reality of college basketball but when our premier preseason home game is Virginia it's hard not to feel ripped off.
 


jamiche said:
Reading between the lines of Tubby's quote in the article, I think that he is putting it on Esposito's shoulders. There is no excuse for the quality of our preseason schedule. Living with a few cupcakes is the reality of college basketball but when our premier preseason home game is Virginia it's hard not to feel ripped off.
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I look for tougher Gopher OOC schedules to match the talented rosters in 2010 and 2011.
 

jamiche said:
Reading between the lines of Tubby's quote in the article, I think that he is putting it on Esposito's shoulders. There is no excuse for the quality of our preseason schedule. Living with a few cupcakes is the reality of college basketball but when our premier preseason home game is Virginia it's hard not to feel ripped off.
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Totally agree with this.
 

So do teams not want to play at the Barn because they're intimidated by it, or because the facilities aren't perfect??
 

1. espisito needs to let it slip out who is afraid to come to the barn to play.

2. why does he call them BCS schools?

3.how is the target center a neutral site?
 




My thoughts on this subject:

1. Part of the reason why big name schools won't yet to do home-and-homes with the Gophers is that Minnesota isn't a big enough of a name yet for the other schools. Take Duke-Georgetown or Texas-Wisconsin matchups that were mentioned earlier. In those cases, the team that loses doesn't have have to apologize for anything. The brand name of the other school is strong enough that the losing team's fan base realizes that the winning team is good and there's nothing to be ashamed of/mad about.

The Gophers need to have some success in the NCAA tournament for that to happen for them. If you take a traditionally good, but not awesome program outside of the midwest and they lose to the Gophers, the fans are going to be mad because they don't know enough. I think Louisville this year was an exception because the U of L fans have a intimate knowledge of Tubby.

2. FOT, I don't doubt that the schedule will get more difficult, but I think many Gophers season ticket holders would like to see the HOME schedule improved. Dating back to the end of the Monson era, there have been way too man 250+ RPI teams on the home schedule and not enough good teams. The Gophers haven't played a n-c home game against a team that reached the NCAA tournament since UAB in 2005-06. They haven't played a n-c game against a top six conference program that reached the NCAA tournament since Oregon in 2001-02.

There are many people out there, myself included, who think that is unacceptable. The core of the Gophers fan base has been extremely loyal since the Haskins scandal broke. Thousands of fans continued to buy season tickets each year and spent thousands of dollars for those tickets. I don't think people are unrealistic in their expectations and I don't even think they want Carolina, Duke, Kansas and UCLA on the schedule. I think if the home schedule included one decent top six conference opponent and one decent opponent from the next level, people would be thrilled.

3. How about the Gophers try to find similar emerging programs and try to get games with them? What about Baylor? I can't imagine any big boys wanting to go there for the same reasons the Gophers are having problems. I think there are several Big East possibilities. Cincinnati, West Virginia, Villanova (you could even do some sort of cross-marketing with the Wolves re: Foye). Arizona State seems like it could be done considering Tubby's ties with Sendek. Illinois and Vanderbilt played a home and home so maybe that's a possibility.

As much as it pains me to say this, this was an area where Monson did a good job, especially early. During his tenure, there were home and homes with Georgia, Texas Tech, Oregon, Marquette and two with Nebraska.
 

The Nebraska games were leftover from a long term contract started at the end of the Haskins era, I believe.
 

Lincoln,

That might be right for the first games. But they played six years in a row, so it had to have been extended by Monson.
 



I think that if the Gophers did move to the Target Center it would be a disaster. The reason that I would like that it would be a disaster is becase it would be a schudleing nightmare with every thing else that goes on at the Target Center playing the home games would not work out well at all. Secondly the games would be moved off campus. I know people would be up in arms if they had to go to the Target Center to watch a college basketball game there.

I know that they host big Basketball tournaments in the Traget Center every year, I just think that yes the Target Center is a good venue to watch basketball i just don't think it is a good venue to watch Gopher Basketball.
 

anonymous said:
My thoughts on this subject:

1. Part of the reason why big name schools won't yet to do home-and-homes with the Gophers is that Minnesota isn't a big enough of a name yet for the other schools. Take Duke-Georgetown or Texas-Wisconsin matchups that were mentioned earlier. In those cases, the team that loses doesn't have have to apologize for anything. The brand name of the other school is strong enough that the losing team's fan base realizes that the winning team is good and there's nothing to be ashamed of/mad about.

The Gophers need to have some success in the NCAA tournament for that to happen for them. If you take a traditionally good, but not awesome program outside of the midwest and they lose to the Gophers, the fans are going to be mad because they don't know enough. I think Louisville this year was an exception because the U of L fans have a intimate knowledge of Tubby.

2. FOT, I don't doubt that the schedule will get more difficult, but I think many Gophers season ticket holders would like to see the HOME schedule improved. Dating back to the end of the Monson era, there have been way too man 250+ RPI teams on the home schedule and not enough good teams. The Gophers haven't played a n-c home game against a team that reached the NCAA tournament since UAB in 2005-06. They haven't played a n-c game against a top six conference program that reached the NCAA tournament since Oregon in 2001-02.

There are many people out there, myself included, who think that is unacceptable. The core of the Gophers fan base has been extremely loyal since the Haskins scandal broke. Thousands of fans continued to buy season tickets each year and spent thousands of dollars for those tickets. I don't think people are unrealistic in their expectations and I don't even think they want Carolina, Duke, Kansas and UCLA on the schedule. I think if the home schedule included one decent top six conference opponent and one decent opponent from the next level, people would be thrilled.

3. How about the Gophers try to find similar emerging programs and try to get games with them? What about Baylor? I can't imagine any big boys wanting to go there for the same reasons the Gophers are having problems. I think there are several Big East possibilities. Cincinnati, West Virginia, Villanova (you could even do some sort of cross-marketing with the Wolves re: Foye). Arizona State seems like it could be done considering Tubby's ties with Sendek. Illinois and Vanderbilt played a home and home so maybe that's a possibility.

As much as it pains me to say this, this was an area where Monson did a good job, especially early. During his tenure, there were home and homes with Georgia, Texas Tech, Oregon, Marquette and two with Nebraska.
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It will. I talked to JE both on Saturday and Sunday about that topic. Next year's schedule is set and it will be much more to your liking.
 

Sounds like weak excuses to me

JE was treated with kid gloves in this story. As others have pointed out, other teams with equally or tougher home courts (Wisky) have been able to land good home games. I don't expect multiple BCS type home games in the OCC but we should get at least one non ACC / Big Ten Challenge game.

The complaint is the home schedule for the most part. ITs great that we are playing in a good tourney next year but that does not help those of us paying a lot of money to go to the Barn.

Thus far, its the only area of criticism for the Tubby staff that is warranted. Everything else has been awesome.
 

Rouser said:
JE was treated with kid gloves in this story. As others have pointed out, other teams with equally or tougher home courts (Wisky) have been able to land good home games. I don't expect multiple BCS type home games in the OCC but we should get at least one non ACC / Big Ten Challenge game.

The complaint is the home schedule for the most part. ITs great that we are playing in a good tourney next year but that does not help those of us paying a lot of money to go to the Barn.

Thus far, its the only area of criticism for the Tubby staff that is warranted. Everything else has been awesome.
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Other than pissing down the leg at Northwestern.
 

stevenmgr said:
I think that if the Gophers did move to the Target Center it would be a disaster. The reason that I would like that it would be a disaster is becase it would be a schudleing nightmare with every thing else that goes on at the Target Center playing the home games would not work out well at all. Secondly the games would be moved off campus. I know people would be up in arms if they had to go to the Target Center to watch a college basketball game there.

I know that they host big Basketball tournaments in the Traget Center every year, I just think that yes the Target Center is a good venue to watch basketball i just don't think it is a good venue to watch Gopher Basketball.
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I think you are confused a bit here--the suggestion was that we play a game at the Target Center, not the entire schedule. If it meant actually getting to see a real basketball team in the NC, I'm more than willing to make a trip to the Target Center (or the X for that matter).
 

FOT,

I hope you are right. I, however, remain skeptical because if the schedule was truly set, then why did JE say what he did to Myron?

Also, I remember there being talk a year ago about how they were trying to get a home-and-home with a big name. That, however, didn't happen.

We'll see I guess.
 

Ski U Master said:
So do teams not want to play at the Barn because they're intimidated by it, or because the facilities aren't perfect??
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Intimidated. The Barn is one of the Top 10, if not Top 5 hardest places to play at in the NCAA due mostly to the raised floor as well as the (sometimes) rocking environment. Vaderbuilt is another one that no one wants to play at and they too have the raised floor. Ask any professional gambler or oddsmaker and they'll tell you there is an extra home court advantage that has to be built into betting the line.
 

That raised court is GREAT to play on compared to some of those tight little courts with no out of bounds territory. Did you see Duke's home games lately? They have fans piled so close to the court that you can't even read the upper half of "DUKE" on their endlines. Ridiculous. Williams Arena, by comparison, is spacious; I don't get all the complaining. If there were any statistics that would back up a difference in injuries between the raised floor of Williams Arena and any other court, then those statistics would be mentioned every telecast in Minneapolis. By lack of any statistics, you can conclude then that they are insignificant.

P.S. Note, by the way, that some moron doing an NFL game a few weeks back commented that the artificial turf - in this case Field Turf or such, probably helped to cause some guy's leg injury. Meanwhile, there are no statistics to back up that statement; nor did his injury appear to be something that a grass field would have prevented. The old Astroturf - yes, it was bad. But the new turf has been considered as good or better than real grass. But I wonder how many people believed the fool announcer? That's where hysteria comes from, uneducated rumors. When was the last major injury to a player at Williams, again?
 

anonymous said:
FOT,

I hope you are right. I, however, remain skeptical because if the schedule was truly set, then why did JE say what he did to Myron?

Also, I remember there being talk a year ago about how they were trying to get a home-and-home with a big name. That, however, didn't happen.

We'll see I guess.
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I'm not skeptical. I believe JE was misquoted (or misinterpreted) by Myron. I'm not a Myron fan.
 

FOT,

I remain skeptical about the home schedule, but I'm a bit of a skeptic by nature.

On the subject of the Star Tribune beat writer, I think he is doing a better job this year. But he still isn't great. It seems as if he tapes all of his interviews, so I'm guessing that JE wasn't misquoted. It seems that that is the frequent excuse made when someone says something that blows up, but in many ways that is terribly disrespectful to the reporter.
 

anonymous said:
FOT,

I remain skeptical about the home schedule, but I'm a bit of a skeptic by nature.

On the subject of the Star Tribune beat writer, I think he is doing a better job this year. But he still isn't great. It seems as if he tapes all of his interviews, so I'm guessing that JE wasn't misquoted. It seems that that is the frequent excuse made when someone says something that blows up, but in many ways that is terribly disrespectful to the reporter.
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Misquoted was my poor choice of words. Misinterpreted is a better word to use.
 

Fair enough FOT.

MM isn't going to win the Pulitzer, but he is getting better. And I don't think he makes stuff up.
 

Amen to what Rouser & Anonymous said

The HOME NONCONFERENCE SCHEDULE is what a lot of us have been complaining about. It is my #1 pet peeve.

Yes, we're glad the overall nonconference schedule will be tougher next year with the Anaheim Classic, but that still doesn't solve the problem for season-ticket holders. Joe (and Tubby), just throw us a bone, please. Zero excuse for not being able to line up a home-and-home with a fellow BCS program.
 


You bet, Gonzaga or Memphis would be cool, too.

Or a Dayton, or a Temple, or a Butler (OSU played 'em this year), or a Utah, or a BYU, or a Nevada, or a Utah State. All quality non-BCS programs. I'd take a home-and-home with any of those in a heartbeat. Any college basketball fan that follows the sport at all (and most importantly the Selection Committee) knows that losing to any of those teams would not be an embarrassment, even for a BCS school. The rubes that don't have a clue about college hoops, yes, they'd p*ss & moan if the Gophers lost to one of those programs, but that's only because they're clueless.
 

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