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View Full Version : Go Gators! Go Dawgs! (Basketball Recruiting)



Patrick Yates
10-02-2007, 12:27 PM
Bear with me.

This weekend, both of Duke's main targets are visiting what are perhaps our stiffest compeition for each respective player.

Monroe is hitting LSU and Williams is checking out UTenn.

Why the title of the post? Football.

Both recruits just happen to have chosen trips to coincide on weekends when the host schools are playing HUGE home football games (LSU-Florida and UT-UGA). For the respective hoops staffs, this is brilliant planning. Both LSU and UT will get to show off huge football stadiums (LSU-80K and UT 110K) that will be full of rabid and boisterous football fans.

My mother's family is from the Knoxville area, and as a child I attended many football games at Neyland, and it is rocking. Both of these stadiums have a Cameron-Like (lite) atmosphere. The tailgating at both is tremendous (as at virtually all SEC schools). By taking the recruits to these games, the hoops coaches will show off rabid fan-bases, and tell (lie) to the recruits about how those recruits could push the BB team to the same lofty status as the FB team, and that these fans would fill the BB arenas.

Thus, GO GATORS! GO DAWGS! I imagine that most of the fans here have experienced a loss in CIS. It hoovers donkey genatalia. Imagine 75,000 - 100,000 fans experiencing that. It is like nerve toxin hitting the arena. A loss by one or both of the home teams could sour the entire recruiting visit, and cast a pall over the entire campus that would leave a bad taste in the mouths of the players.

It might not seem like a lot, but for any other posters who have ever been to a home SEC FB loss, you can back me up. It is depressing to the extreme. It is worse than losing in Cameron. At CIS, there are fewer people, we do not boo, and the building is situated such as to allow the students and non-students easy egress from the stadium (Good luck getting 70,000 fans out of a FB arena in under 20 minutes, not to mention the ungodly trafic snarl outside. If they are unhappy and little drunk, watch out. It gets Foogly). Also, the losses at CIS, though painful, are not as meaningful due to the fact that BB has an actual NC tourney. We lose at home, too bad. We can still settle the NC debate in March, on the Court. The BCS computers make each week a must win for teams harboring post-season dreams.

So, apathetic FB fans. Actually take an interest in a team not Duke this week. Pull for those Gators and Dawgs (this one will really stick in my craw). Road wins by these two teams could ruin recruiting visits for players Duke needs to get for us to be a real favorite for the FF next years.

Also, there is the hope that, in defeat, the SEC home fans will show their rears (as they are wont to do in big home losses, see Alabama). A shower of boos and or flying projectiles directed at the opposing teams (or home players who dissappointed on the field that day) could be a real eye-opener for family oriented kids like the ones we are pursueing.

I know it is a little far fetched, and home losses wouldn't seal the deal for Duke, but the races for both EW and GM are very tight. Any, and every, little bit helps.

Patrick Yates

ps. You have to give K credit for building a BB team when he cannot take recruits to a hopping FB stadium like other coaches. It makes his success all the more impressive when you factor in that K does not have access to a wonderful recruiting tool like a compeitive FB team and stadium.

wilson
10-02-2007, 02:10 PM
Dawgs will win. Gators will not.

Clipsfan
10-02-2007, 08:30 PM
I just don't think that I can pull for the Gators, I've run into some obnoxious Gator fans recently and was delighted to see them lose last week. Back-to-back losses would be even better. No, I'm not vindictive :)

SilkyJ
10-03-2007, 04:53 PM
I just don't think that I can pull for the Gators, I've run into some obnoxious Gator fans recently and was delighted to see them lose last week. Back-to-back losses would be even better. No, I'm not vindictive :)

If I told you that the Gators winning guaranteed Monroe to Duke I bet you would pull for them :)

prefan21
10-03-2007, 07:00 PM
If I told you that the Gators winning guaranteed Monroe to Duke I bet you would pull for them :)

"Well I was on the fence about where to play basketball, but then LSU's football team lost..."

I don't see it ;)

ACCBBallFan
10-04-2007, 09:26 AM
Seemed to work in the Olek Czyz sweepstakes, though he was a done deal before Lousville lost in football and the booing fans sealed the deal.

Patrick Yates
10-04-2007, 10:29 AM
"Well I was on the fence about where to play basketball, but then LSU's football team lost..."

I don't see it ;)

Put it this way, if they are on the fence, every little bit helps. Will a loss guarantee us getting either recruit. No way. Nor will two victories for the home teams guarantee that we get neither recruit. But everything that happens on a visit adds up in the recruits mind. Each one keeps a pros and cons list in his head.

Now, the very nature of visits allows that Coaches will ensure that there are as many pros as possible. The players will see the best dorms, best classes, best facilities, best dining options, and the comeliest coeds of questionable virtue. That is the nature of the official visit, and the kids know that coaches will only show the good. The players are looking for the bad, so that they can make an informed decision.

Home losses in big football games are huge cons, especially if the home fans show they rear ends (and at SEC schools, they WILL show said rears when the home team loses, guaranteed). Bad behaving fans or a general air of negativity following a loss might be the ONLY "con" that a recruit encounters during his visit. So, every little bit helps.

Put it this way. Would you rather a recruit (while visiting a competing school) witness a home loss in Football, with any and all negativity that might entail? Or, would you rather a player bask in the glow of 80,000 to 100,000 fans exulting in a key victory, and taking the party to the tailgating area, or back to the dorms, both of which the recruit will experience? Which scenario would you rather Monroe and Williams experience?

Personally, I pull for home losses.

Patrick Yates

ps. On a quasi related note, the wheels have fallen off at Tennessee a little. Duke Crews and Ramer Smith have both recently created little imbroglios for the hoops team. If the Williamses are as upright as we have been lead to believe, they must be starting to ask themselves some probing questions about the nature of the UT bb team.

ACCBBallFan
10-04-2007, 03:53 PM
ps. On a quasi related note, the wheels have fallen off at Tennessee a little. Duke Crews and Ramer Smith have both recently created little imbroglios for the hoops team. If the Williamses are as upright as we have been lead to believe, they must be starting to ask themselves some probing questions about the nature of the UT bb team.
Was not sure what you were alluding to on Ramar Smith until I found this from Googling

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2007/oct/02/ramar-smith-slightly-injured-after-borrowing-wreck/