Wednesday, March 01, 2006

CSU Hoops is a Joke

God Hates Cleveland Sports fires a well-deserved broadside into the Cleveland State basketball program. Last night's 92-58 season-ending bitch-slapping at the hands of Detroit Mercy exemplifies the ineptitude that the Vikings have displayed for the past five years.

How can a Division I team not score a point for the first eight minutes of a game?

I don't want to hear about how hard it is to recruit, although I will point out that one of the big reasons Garland was hired was that he was supposedly a whiz at it. I know that CSU plays in the crappy Horizon League and they have no campus, but other schools face those obstacles too, and don't have the first rate athletic facilities that CSU enjoys. In fact, the Convocation Center is as a nice a facility as any mid-major basketball program could hope to play in, and one that the infinitely more successful Kent State and Akron U programs would give their eye-teeth to have.

There's just no excuse for the track record of futility that the basketball program has built over the years. Sure, there's been some improvement during Garland's tenure, but going from 4-25 to 10-18 over a three year stretch doesn't exactly put your turnaround in the same category as the 1999 St. Louis Rams. Next year, Garland will have three full recruiting classes under his belt. Fans have a right to expect a little more than another sub .500 season and the annual beating by Detroit Mercy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They can't even throw us long term season ticket holders a bone and win at home (1-7 in conference this year - although we did witness the BIG win vs Div3 John Carroll). They have had no coaching charisma since Mackey (what little Rollie had quickly evaporated when it became clear the game had passed him by) and no player charisma since the Cleveland Hts. boys left 5 years ago. My fellow masochist and I are considering giving up our tickets next year, which is a shame, as if they are even mildly entertaining it is the best live sports value in town.

Regarding the "crappy" Horizon League - they do get teams to the Sweet 16 (UWM last year) and several years ago had 3 teams make the Big Dance in one year. It is not a major conference, to be sure, but when it's teams are good, they do get respect.

Hornless Rhino said...

Good point about the Horizon League.

Anonymous said...

I'm Diamond Dave's fellow CSU season ticket holder, have been for 15 years, and am amazed at how poorly CSU has done over the past decade or so. Nevertheless, I'm inclined to re-up year after year for 3 reasons: 1. the price is pretty good for a second row seat in a very nice facility for Division I basketball (especially compared to the ridiculous costs of attending a Cavs, Indians or Browns game); 2. I'm convinced that the only Division I team in a large city, with a very nice facility, has to get good at some point; and, 3. it's nice to get dibs on good tickets for the NCAA men's and women's tournament games when they're in town.