Joel Joseph wrote:

Let's stop blaming the era of the NLI for our woes.
Teams like St Bonnies, Rhode Island, Vermont and Drake have lesser facilities and in much less desirable places than us yet seem to produce good competitive teams consistently. Looking at the current NET top 50 you will see teams like UCI, Bradley, George Mason and UC Santa Barbara. They all have the same NIL issues as we do.
We have become a lower level team in the A-10. Many reasons for this. Does the administration continue down this road or do we go to a better suited conference like the Patriot League?

Joel, NIL became a thing on July 1, 2021. So we've had just 3+ seasons to judge. How has the A-10 fared compared to the previous timeframe? Answer = worse. How many NCAA tournaments have the teams that you identified as currently in the top 50 NET been in during that time period? Answer = 6 out of 24 opportunities. It is easy to spot the one-offs. Vermont plays in a generally shitty one bid league (currently ranked 27th) that they dominate once Stony Brook fell off so that's three. URI until maybe this year hasn't been good in the NIL era. Bonnies no NCAA appearances in the NIL era. Drake is the only other one with multiple appearances in the NIL era. George Mason hasn't been in a NCAA tournament in 13 years. Bradley hasn't been in since 2020 technically although it as cancelled. UC-Santa Barbara made it once in 2022-23. UC Irvine not since 2019. So 8 teams and 24 opportunities  in the NIL era but only 25% of the time (6 bids total really as the result of 2 of those 8 teams in 1-2 bid leagues) did those 8 teams qualify. But I'm also glad you pointed out the Top 50 NET - as of now, 80% of the teams are P5 and that will likely increase once conference play starts. 

If you think all of that has nothing to do with NIL resources or that they have the same NIL woes we have when compared to their peer conference institutions, I don't know what to say to you except tell me which teams in America East, Missouri Valley, Big West have a NIL budget similar to 80% of the teams in the A-10. I'll wait for your answer.

Last edited by GWRising (12/06/2024 1:18 pm)

Joel Joseph wrote:

Rising, not saying NIL has nothing to do with our current situation - it is one of many factors impacting us.
Another factor is what Mayhem so eloquently stated earlier, the stench of 8 years ago is still with us and another factor that has impact. Some here would like to bury their heads of it and argue it was 8 years ago but it still impacts the program today.
We have had down periods before (not 8 continuous years in recent memory) and gotten through it. I just hope it's in our lifetime.

No doubt. What happened 8 years ago definitely affected the trajectory of the program and put us in a deep hole. But NIL is definitely affecting our ability to get out of the hole and that's my point. We can't go back and fix what happened 8 years ago as he result of bad judgment of previous GW administrators who are no longer here. We can only go forward from here and if we want to get out of this hole we've been in for 8 years, it will take a lot of NIL money so we can get enough talent. Right now, we have some talent but not enough at least if we want to compete for NCAA/NIT bids. You can only coach them up so far - at some point you need talent to win the day.
 

1) NIL (and the NCAA in general) screws us big time, no doubt. But it also does the same to many less struggling programs at or near our level, up or down.
2) Don't think we are at the bottom of A-10 NIL money. At lease some others in our league are also in a challenged or worse spot. 
3) Like Illinois State, we dug ourselves out of a deep hole because we had better players than AU.
But some real brain farts. One player seemed to launch a very long 3-pointer when we were ahead and should have milked the clock at that point. The fouling thing when up by 3 is also a question.
   It might not have made sense with 14 seconds to go, but aggressive defense and fouling a few seconds before that 3-point shot was taken was certainly warranted. You could almost feel this was going to happen to us, as it seems to often do.
   But put our strategy and our inability to put the ball in the basket for long stretches, aside.
  AU simply wanted it more than we did. It was pretty clear. That is problematic and shouldn't happen again.