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The Manning Buyout

The thing is we've invested a tremendous amount of money into basketball facilities in the last 20-30 years with a real acceleration when Shah and Sutton got their bigger paydays. We are at least in the ballpark with player-centric facilities among our peers and aspirants. We made some fairly deliberate choices to do so over investments into our home court. In the same vein, Clawson has prioritized spending on similar projects over investments into Truist Field. That seems to work out ok.
 
donaldross said:
I do have lots of first hand knowledge of kids not coming to Wake because of the Joel.

It is simply not a fact as you say that the Joel hasn’t hurt us. It’s crushed us when we needed it the most.
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LOL. Recruits told you, face to face, that they wanted to come to school here, but instead chose to go to.......where? What school are we losing recruits to that has some intimate on campus arena? What recruits would tell you that?

Also, you'll have to forgive me for saying face to face; it's just a figure of speech. The only way you could ever be face to face with a basketball player is with a stepladder.
 
DR is like the worst advocate for an on campus arena that you could imagine.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Present your evidence, counselor.
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I'm still waiting to hear who all has left the team because they were frustrated with playing in the Joel.

"Yes our recruiting has been hampered greatly over the decades because we play in a morgue. It also doesn’t help us keep players. It’s just really that kids get frustrated..."
 
Duke has lost some recruits because of Cameron. They want to play in the Dean Dome or Rupp instead. Cameron is a glorified high school gym.
 
donaldross said:
The Joel was a massive liability particularly during this time frame. There were 1000s of empty seats. The most impactful seats were owned by old folks as they are today forcing the students off in the corners which produced what was a better atmosphere than we have today--but still far below those schools which actually won in that era. The Joel cost us significantly at that time both in terms of recruiting and on court success.
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It did. That is not up for debate IMO.

But it basically is a non factor in the NIL era. Athletes that will make an impact in our winning want money. Full stop.
 
As someone who played AAU and took a few recruiting trips back in the Tim Duncan era, the Joel was absolutely a positive. You have to remember that high school kids back then typically played in small crappy gyms (my high school gym is insane now compared to what we played in) - the #1 thing when you took a visit was how huge and NBA-like the arena was. Touring places like UNC or NC State - they were massive and just felt like playing basketball on a different planet. And Wake already had a bit of a knock being such a small school, so the Joel feeling like a borderline NBA arena, being off campus, plus the crowds back then were solid - it was definitely a selling point. Our football program was a joke so basketball needed a legitimacy boost.

Obviously the Joel is too big for Wake, but focusing only on that or the off campus thing is reductive. It's also just really freaking old. The sound system is old, the food is tired, the whole look and feel is dated. We also sucked for too long and torched our non-student (and student, really) fanbase. Folks forget that Wake's isolation as basically a gated community in Winston-Salem wouldn't exactly invite outside fans in if we did somehow fund an on-campus arena. And it's not like it's really all that difficult for students to get to the Joel anyway - we used to just walk despite there being shuttles. Plenty of campuses that have "on-campus arenas" are a longer walk than what we had.
 
DeacDiggler said:
LOL. Recruits told you, face to face, that they wanted to come to school here, but instead chose to go to.......where? What school are we losing recruits to that has some intimate on campus arena? What recruits would tell you that?

Also, you'll have to forgive me for saying face to face; it's just a figure of speech. The only way you could ever be face to face with a basketball player is with a stepladder.
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have not heard that in any of my conversations with recruits whether under DM or SF btw.

Back to work I go!
 
donaldross said:
I do have lots of first hand knowledge of kids not coming to Wake because of the Joel.

It is simply not a fact as you say that the Joel hasn’t hurt us. It’s crushed us when we needed it the most.
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In the past this may have been the case, although nobody here really believes your "first hand knowledge" bullshit. Going forward it just doesn't matter. Pay the players, before investing in a building they will play roughly 15 games a year in, and they will come. Or somebody else will pay them more and they will go elsewhere.
 
Liquid Karma said:
In the past this may have been the case, although nobody here really believes your "first hand knowledge" bullshit. Going forward it just doesn't matter. Pay the players, before investing in a building they will play roughly 15 games a year in, and they will come. Or somebody else will pay them more and they will go elsewhere.
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Tier 1 Sauce?
 
Oh, and Manning in 2015-2016 was 2-17 across our ACC schedule and ACCT.

Including the Jan., 2016 UVA debacle. That was a night when I thought "he needs to go now and we need an interim asap."

We had on that team: Devin Thomas/Mitoglu/CMM and added True FR Crawford/Collins/Moore.

Another key to that disaster, is it appears we only used 11 of 13 scholarships. Seems like Forbes would have gotten 2 good transfers to round out that team.
 
DCDeac said:
As someone who played AAU and took a few recruiting trips back in the Tim Duncan era, the Joel was absolutely a positive. You have to remember that high school kids back then typically played in small crappy gyms (my high school gym is insane now compared to what we played in) - the #1 thing when you took a visit was how huge and NBA-like the arena was. Touring places like UNC or NC State - they were massive and just felt like playing basketball on a different planet. And Wake already had a bit of a knock being such a small school, so the Joel feeling like a borderline NBA arena, being off campus, plus the crowds back then were solid - it was definitely a selling point. Our football program was a joke so basketball needed a legitimacy boost.

Obviously the Joel is too big for Wake, but focusing only on that or the off campus thing is reductive. It's also just really freaking old. The sound system is old, the food is tired, the whole look and feel is dated. We also sucked for too long and torched our non-student (and student, really) fanbase. Folks forget that Wake's isolation as basically a gated community in Winston-Salem wouldn't exactly invite outside fans in if we did somehow fund an on-campus arena. And it's not like it's really all that difficult for students to get to the Joel anyway - we used to just walk despite there being shuttles. Plenty of campuses that have "on-campus arenas" are a longer walk than what we had.
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This. The Joel is not what is wrong with Wake basketball. The place was a madhouse during the good Odom years and of course during Prosser. Wake has a good coach who can recruit and develop NBA caliber talent for the first time in a generation. The only thing wrong with the Joel is that 90% of the NBA talent in the last twenty years used the wrong locker room.
 
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