Auburn basketball

#126
#126
VolGee4 said:
I presented the facts, and you chose to ignore them. I don't care how you want to spin it. Tennessee hasn't won an SECT title since 1979 (not even under Pearl), yet still has 4 to Auburn's 1. Tennessee has 8 regular season titles while Auburn has 2. That is 12 total to 3 total. Believe whatever the hell you want, but that doesn't equate to the same.

"Each a handful of tournament appearances?" Tennessee has played in twice as many NCAAT games! How is that even close?

I can't argue with someone who ignores the facts. I would hate to see how you ignore them in the courtroom.
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Tennessee's conference tournament "championships" are from 36, 41, 43 and 79. How many of those tourneys were you personally around to enjoy?

Since 1980, Tennessee has had only 3 regular season titles, one of which was under Pearl.

By my count, pre-Pearl, UT has gone to the dance 13 times? Auburn has been 8. No huge difference there.

UT had 3 Sweet 16s and no Elite 8s pre-Pearl, Auburn has 4 sweet 16s and no Elite 8s. No huge difference there.

Out of UT's 40 NCAA games, how many were pre-Pearl? 25 or so? Auburn has 20, no huge difference there.

You're couching your argument on titles from the 40s, 50s and 60s plus the fact that you play in Pat Summitt's arena to support the fact that, before Pearl, you were a much better program than Auburn. The rest of the country just didn't see it that way. Were you the better program, once you disect everything? Probably. Were UT and Auburn still on the same tier, program wise? Yes, there was not a material difference between the two.


Pearl changed things for UT, obviously, but that's my entire point.
 
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#127
#127
MemphisCanes said:
No offense to the reasonable UT fans on this board, but pre-Bruce Pearl, I think the UNreasonable UT fans would be the only people on Earth arguing that UT basketball was on a different plane than Auburn basketball.
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The point is support, remember? At Tennessee, Pearl walked into a situation where they had sometimes drawn well enough to build that huge arena, where they had a large season-ticket holder base of bluehairs who had been around since the Ernie and Bernie days, and therefore where the donors were eager to open their wallets for basketball facilities. It was no problem at all for him to get the Pratt Pavilion built and TBA renovated.

There's no history of that at Auburn. I don't know if it's a geographic thing and it's just that the further south you go, the less people care about basketball, but Auburn basketball's a lot like Georgia -- even in the years when they've been good, nobody goes to their games. They don't even get good bandwagon support. Which means there's probably not a pre-installed base of boosters frustrated about basketball at Auburn like he had at Tennessee. Pearl's a hell of a salesman, but if he wants to get the facilities upgraded he's going to have to build that support from scratch.
 
#128
#128
Vercingetorix said:
The point is support, remember? At Tennessee, Pearl walked into a situation where they had sometimes drawn well enough to build that huge arena, where they had a large season-ticket holder base of bluehairs who had been around since the Ernie and Bernie days, and therefore where the donors were eager to open their wallets for basketball facilities. It was no problem at all for him to get the Pratt Pavilion built and TBA renovated.

There's no history of that at Auburn. I don't know if it's a geographic thing and it's just that the further south you go, the less people care about basketball, but Auburn basketball's a lot like Georgia -- even in the years when they've been good, nobody goes to their games. They don't even get good bandwagon support. Which means there's probably not a pre-installed base of boosters frustrated about basketball at Auburn like he had at Tennessee. Pearl's a hell of a salesman, but if he wants to get the facilities upgraded he's going to have to build that support from scratch.
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We all know that Pearl will not have trouble finding support wherever he goes. Auburn just built a new $90 million dollar basketball arena. If Pearl wins at Auburn (which he most certainly will) he won't have to ask for anything. Couple that with the success of Auburn's football program, and the Auburn AD has more $$$ than it knows what to do with. It's not hamstrung with buyouts for the Fulmers and Dooleys of the world, like UT just thankfully got over.

Pearl drew more fans with his announcement as HC than Barbee averaged in his last year as coach. The support will be there.
 
#129
#129
MemphisCanes said:
Tennessee's conference tournament "championships" are from 36, 41, 43 and 79. How many of those tourneys were you personally around to enjoy?

Since 1980, Tennessee has had only 3 regular season titles, one of which was under Pearl.

By my count, pre-Pearl, UT has gone to the dance 13 times? Auburn has been 8. No huge difference there.

UT had 3 Sweet 16s and no Elite 8s pre-Pearl, Auburn has 4 sweet 16s and no Elite 8s. No huge difference there.

Out of UT's 40 NCAA games, how many were pre-Pearl? 25 or so? Auburn has 20, no huge difference there.

You're couching your argument on titles from the 40s, 50s and 60s plus the fact that you play in Pat Summitt's arena to support the fact that, before Pearl, you were a much better program than Auburn. The rest of the country just didn't see it that way. Were you the better program, once you disect everything? Probably. Were UT and Auburn still on the same tier, program wise? Yes, there was not a material difference between the two.


Pearl changed things for UT, obviously, but that's my entire point.
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From a die hard Vfl you are right as bad as it pains me to say it
 
#131
#131
MemphisCanes said:
We all know that Pearl will not have trouble finding support wherever he goes. Auburn just built a new $90 million dollar basketball arena. If Pearl wins at Auburn (which he most certainly will) he won't have to ask for anything. Couple that with the success of Auburn's football program, and the Auburn AD has more $$$ than it knows what to do with. It's not hamstrung with buyouts for the Fulmers and Dooleys of the world, like UT just thankfully got over.

Pearl drew more fans with his announcement as HC than Barbee averaged in his last year as coach. The support will be there.
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We'll see how it goes, but I don't think you appreciate the degree to which they do not give a **** about college basketball in this part of the south. I have met many Auburn and Georgia and Alabama fans who don't have any idea how good or bad their basketball team is, don't know the name of the coach, etc. If anything they're more interested in college baseball. I'm highly skeptical that even Bruce Pearl can build a sustained interest in basketball there out of nothing. He'll improve the team considerably, of course, because he's a good coach and the conference is horrible. But they'll probably still draw like crap, and once his buyout drops to a manageable amount, I expect that he'll be angling to move up to a better job. Just like he did the entire time he was here.
 
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#132
#132
MemphisCanes said:
We all know that Pearl will not have trouble finding support wherever he goes. Auburn just built a new $90 million dollar basketball arena. If Pearl wins at Auburn (which he most certainly will) he won't have to ask for anything. Couple that with the success of Auburn's football program, and the Auburn AD has more $$$ than it knows what to do with. It's not hamstrung with buyouts for the Fulmers and Dooleys of the world, like UT just thankfully got over.

Pearl drew more fans with his announcement as HC than Barbee averaged in his last year as coach. The support will be there.
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Yes a brand new arena....that seats 9600 people. Which is 3000k less than the arena UT played in 25 years ago and had never had a problem filling.
 
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#134
#134
Vercingetorix said:
We'll see how it goes, but I don't think you appreciate the degree to which they do not give a **** about college basketball in this part of the south. I have met many Auburn and Georgia and Alabama fans who don't have any idea how good or bad their basketball team is, don't know the name of the coach, etc. If anything they're more interested in college baseball. I'm highly skeptical that even Bruce Pearl can build a sustained interest in basketball there out of nothing. He'll improve the team considerably, of course, because he's a good coach and the conference is horrible. But they'll probably still draw like crap, and once his buyout drops to a manageable amount, I expect that he'll be angling to move up to a better job. Just like he did the entire time he was here.
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You see, before Bruce Pearl, I knew dozens of UT fans that spoke the same way.
 
#136
#136
MemphisCanes said:
You see, before Bruce Pearl, I knew dozens of UT fans that spoke the same way.
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Then you spoke to the wrong fans- like the ones who root for UK or Memphis in basketball and UT in football. Tennessee basketball has had great support for a long time, but like anything else, they want to support a winner. The fringe fans attend when it is successful.
 
#137
#137
MemphisCanes said:
You see, before Bruce Pearl, I knew dozens of UT fans that spoke the same way.
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I grew up in Knoxville; I was a UT student during the Wade Houston years. I know a lot more than "dozens" of UT fans. Basketball's obviously second fiddle at Tennessee, but compared to Georgia/Auburn/Alabama we're like Indiana fans. Basketball is not on their radar at all.

This idea that Bruce Pearl created interest in Tennessee basketball by himself is just silly. I was sitting in basketball crowds of over 20,000 people in Knoxville while Pearl was up in Iowa, washing jockstraps and wiretapping Deon Thomas.
 
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#139
#139
Pearl won't be at Auburn long enough to make them a consistent winner. The first good year he has, he will get snagged by a much better job looking for a new coach. Auburn is his stepping stone to getting back into real college coaching (or pros) and he is not buying real estate at Auburn but merely renting.
 
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#142
#142
Horrible 2nd half against Colorado. I don't see them making the tourney this year. He's got 2 top 100 players coming in next year though.
 
#144
#144
LittleCat said:
Not sure about powerhouse, but a very competitive team.
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If Patrick Patterson hadn't been injured when UK played UT in Knoxville in 2008, Pearl would've gone winless against Billy Gillispie. You guys almost won the game even without him.
 
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