|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Men’s Basketball:Scheduling UL basketball home games no easy chore – Hosts UNO Tonight 12/21Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, December 21, 2015 Money. Fear. Each appears to play a critical part in the UL’s basketball team’s 2015-16 non-conference home schedule being what it is, which is to say limited in number and void of teams from a league any higher-profile than the Southland Conference. When the Ragin’ Cajuns play host Monday night to the University of New Orleans, in fact, it will mark just the fourth — and last — non-conference home game for UL this season. The opponents? Two are Southland schools, UNO and McNeese State. One is an NCAA Division III non-scholarship program, Louisiana College. And one is an NAIA team, Loyola of New Orleans. Getting anything more than a mid-major to play UL at the Cajundome, according to Cajuns athletic director Scott Farmer, is “extremely hard.” “It’s even getting hard to get mid-majors to come in here. It really, truthfully, is,” Farmer said. “Basketball, playing at home, obviously, you have a much better chance to win. And the big boys are just not traveling very much anymore. “They certainly don’t want to travel and go to a place where they’ve got a chance to lose,” he added. “They just don’t do that.” UL coach Bob Marlin wishes they would. But he knows the reality. “They’re leery about going on the road,” Marlin said. “If you look at any Power Five conference (SEC, ACC, Pac-12, Big 12, Big Ten) … and even the Group of Five (Sun Belt, MAC, AAC, Conference USA, Mountain West) … they play at home. They play guarantee games. … Look at LSU’s schedule.” The 6-4 Tigers play only two true non-conference road games this season, and they’ve lost both, falling at College of Charleston and Houston. They’ve played two neutral-site games, and lost both of those as well, to Marquette and North Carolina State at the Legends Classic in Brooklyn, New York. But LSU scheduled nine 2015-16 non-conference games at the Maravich Center, where so far this season they’re 6-0 including wins over much-lower-level McNeese State, Kennesaw State, North Florida and Gardner-Webb. “Everybody plays, like, 10 home games and one on the road,” said Marlin, whose 3-6 Cajuns are 3-0 at home this season and 0-6 on the road. “We don’t have that luxury. And because of that it’s hurt our record … overall. “It’s something we’re gonna have to continue to try to do — to push to get people to come.” Accomplishing that, however, is much easier said than done. “I think it’s a little bit of a backhanded compliment to us,” Marlin said, “and what we do here, and the success we have in the Cajundome, the success I’ve had at home over my career. “And it’s something that’s very frustrating.” MONEY, MONEY, MONEY Securing home games frequently requires paying the opponent — often called “guarantee games,” or referred to as “buying” a game. It’s not cheap, especially to land big-name programs and even in the case of mid-majors like UL. “Right now,” said Cajuns basketball operations director Michael Murphy, the man chiefly responsible for scheduling UL games, “the going rate for a road game is anywhere between $80,000 and $100,000.” The Cajuns, for instance, were paid $92,000 for last Tuesday night’s 89-80 loss at No. 22 UCLA of the Pac-12. They also were paid close to that range for losses earlier this season at Miami of the ACC and Alabama of the SEC. UL — with an overall athletic department budget of not much more than $21 million, the overwhelming majority of which goes to football — simply cannot afford to throw that kind of money around to buy basketball games. Instead, the Cajuns resort to scheduling regular-season home games against the likes of Loyola-New Orleans and Louisiana College — who can be had for something in the range of $2,500 to $8,000, and who don’t even count the visits as regular-season games for themselves because of the governing rules under which they play. “So forget about getting Power 5 conference schools to come to us,” Murphy said. “It’s getting another mid-major to come to us. If it’s not an in-state school, it’s really difficult.” One problem? Most mid-majors aren’t about to come for a discount rate. “You can’t say, ‘We’re gonna give you $50,000 or $60,000 to go get somebody from the Big South or the Atlantic Sun,’ ” Murphy said. Why not? “They’re saying to themselves, ‘Why do I want to come play you for 60 when I’m probably gonna lose, as opposed to going somewhere where I can get 90?’ ” Scheduling a tournament at home doesn’t make it any easier, either. “It all comes down to one thing: money,” Murphy said. “Whether it’s a single game, whether it’s a tournament-type atmosphere, what have you, it all comes down to money, and it’s an expensive proposition. “It is the culture of college basketball,” he added. “It is the way college basketball has been run, is being run and will continue to be run. It’s all about playing at home, and that takes money.” Why is it so important to play at home? On one hand, it shouldn’t be. “It doesn’t matter where you play. The best team’s gonna win,” Marlin said. “That’s one thing about our sport. … The goal’s always 10 feet high, and the court’s the same. It’s just like ‘Hoosiers.’ ” On the other hand, homecourt advantage is often critical. “It’s a statistical fact that 70-plus percent of teams that play at home win,” Murphy said. “If you’re able to win at home, that drives your RPI.” If a team doesn’t have an extremely high Ratings Percentage Index — especially a program from the Sun Belt, which usually is a one-bid league — it cannot land an NCAA Tournament berth unless it wins its conference tournament. So bringing in a high-profile opponent can help a program cash in at the gate, and boost RPI, which potentially can lead to an NCAA Tourney berth, where the big bucks potentially can be made. But in any business it’s often difficult — if not impossible — to make money without spending money. Therein lies the rub. “For anybody,” Murphy said, “you’re gonna (want to) play (a lot) at home to give yourself a chance to have the type of record you’re gonna need in order to be an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.” That’s why the Power 5 teams prefer as few road games as possible. “The big boys don’t have to (travel). They just don’t,” Murphy said. “They’ve got some money, to where they — literally, if they didn’t want to — would never have to leave home.” There’s a twist, though, and it pivots around the NCAA Selection Committee “They want to see quality road wins,” Murphy said, “and because of that you’re seeing more and more of the Power 5 conference teams go on the road and play.” “It’s a way for those Power 5 teams to get quality road wins without actually being on the road,” Murphy said. So why don’t the Cajuns do more of that? “It’s incredibly difficult for me to schedule for a Bob Marlin-coached basketball team,” Murphy said, “and it doesn’t matter if we’re trying to play on the road against a big-timer, if we’re trying to get someone to come to us, if we’re trying to get into a tournament.” Led by current Orlando Magic point guard Elfrid Payton, UL went to the 2014 NCAA Tournament by winning the Sun Belt tourney. Last season it won two CIT.com Tournament games, and this season it returned NBA-prospect big man Shawn Long on an experienced-laden club. “It’s hard for us to get into MTEs,” Murphy said, “because a lot of the other so-called ‘mid-majors’ don’t want us in the tournament, and when they find out we’re in (it) they would drop out. “Because of that,” he added, “a lot of people don’t even bother to call us anymore.” THE FEAR FACTOR Murphy really does sense a fear factor, UL’s current 1-6 record against NCAA Division I opponents notwithstanding. “We’re considered a quality opponent that’s gonna be difficult to play against that has good players that’s gonna push your team to the limit like we last (Tuesday) night against the 22nd-ranked team in the country,” he said. UL went at it with UCLA, which earlier this season upset then-No. 1 Kentucky. Murphy recalls a police officer assigned to shadow UL asking Marlin how he felt about his team as the Cajuns were leaving Pauley Pavilion last week. “(Marlin) said, ‘Well, we’re disappointed with the loss,’ ” Murphy said. “(The officer) goes, ‘I thought you played hard. I know you guys played us closer than Kentucky did.’ That was a heckuva statement.” As Murphy sees it, though, the issue is larger. He suggests some opposing coaches simply are scared to play Marlin, who won a national junior college championship and coached Sam Houston State of the Southland to two NCAA Tournaments. “Our problem: It’s not that people don’t want to come to Lafayette. It’s not that people don’t want to play the Cajuns. They don’t want to play Bob Marlin,” he said. “They don’t want to compete against one of his teams, no matter if it’s Lafayette, Sam Houston, Pensacola Junior College or The-Middle-of-Nowhere University. I mean, I get that all the time.” “It all goes back to the reputation of Coach Marlin from his stay at Sam Houston, from his time here at Lafayette,” Murphy said. “It’s the style of play we bring to the table. We’re gonna score points, which means you’re gonna have to score points to beat us — and sometimes that can be hard.” Even after losing 79-59 at Pepperdine last Friday night, and with two 100-plus-point showings in wins over non-NCAA Division opponents factored in, UL is averaging 85.4 points per game this season, which ranks 20th nationally. “When you look at the risk-reward,” Murphy said, “it makes it very difficult — because we don’t have money to buy people to bring them in. “The more success your program has, the harder it is to schedule anybody — even if you’re trying to be bought, let alone trying to buy somebody. And if you’re gonna buy somebody, it’s gonna take the going rate.” All that goes to why UL has just four non-conference home games this season (plus two exhibitions, including one Dec. 30 vs. NCAA Division II-member Spring Hill College). It also goes to why some fans grumble. “There’s no way to balance the number of home games with the number of road games without bringing in some people that you don’t have to return the visit (to),” said Jay Walker, UL’s longtime radio play-by-play announcer. “Well, the cost of Division I games now that you have to buy is upward of $60,000, $70,000 just to get some of the fringe teams in. So, you’re stuck if you don’t have that kind of money. “You’re stuck paying Loyola or Louisiana College $2,500, $3,500, to come in in order to get a couple of home games that you’re gonna win by 40 (and) that aren’t gonna count in your RPI but count in your standings,” Walker added, “but fans, at the same time, a lot of them say, ‘Look, those don’t count.’ ” Except they do, for UL. “But that’s the only way to balance your home and road schedule,” Walker said. “You’re not gonna get the balance if you can’t buy games.” Not doing so, as Walker sees it, must be addressed if UL tries to move to a higher-profile conference than the Sun Belt. UL (3-6) vs. NEW ORLEANS (3-6) WHAT: Non-conference game WHERE: Cajundome (11,500) WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday RADIO: KHXT 107.9 FM and KPEL 1420 AM with Jay Walker TV: None
ABOUT THE OPPONENT: The University of New Orleans has dropped four of its last five, including a 103-95 overtime loss Wednesday night at UMass and decisions at Northwestern, to Tulane and at Ball State. … The Southland Conference-member Privateers’ wins are over Pensacola Christian College, Bradley and Blue Mountain College. … G Christavious Gill averages a team-high 14.1 points per game and G Nate Frye 10.3 ppg. … Coach Mark Slessinger is in his fourth season at UNO. … The Privateers have not played the Cajuns since January 2010, when UL won 70-53 at home. ABOUT THE CAJUNS: This is the first home game after three in a row on the road for UL, which lost 79-59 at Pepperdine on Friday night and 89-80 at No. 22 UCLA last Saturday night. … C/PF Shawn Long leads the Cajuns in scoring (18.8 ppg), rebounds (12.3 per game) and blocks (1.7 per game). … SF Johnathan Stove averages 12.0 ppg; G Kasey Shepherd and PG Jay Wright 11.2 each. … UL leads the all-time series 37-30, including wins in five of the last meetings.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
