Off-season topic: Caring about winning

[tsull]

Goods always poses some good questions and thoughts and below in the thread regarding the WOU search, which had me thinking: How much does your school really care about winning, or at least being competitive?

I would put CWU at an A grade, and the rest of the conference at B or much lower. I would put WOU at a C-. If we win great, if we don't, oh well. The fact that our men's hoop search is dragging into mid-April and our women's basketball coach still has a job shows me it's "oh well" right now from the WOU admin.

CWU had great advantages: large enrollment for D2, no competing D1 school within driving distance, quality facilities, admin and fans who want to win.

I won't speak for others, I know UAF has geographical challenges, but in turn they'll bring some track athletes to the conference meet who will kick our a$$, same with UAA.

My take on UAA is basketball-wise, underachieving. Good-size city, decent in-state prep talent, nice arena. Should be better, IMO.

Thoughts?

[Anchorage]

I think that if UAA administration cared about winning, a change for a coach who understands modern players would have been made some time ago. I think maintaining the status quo, the good old boys is what is most important. UAA has a history of being very successful before they built their modern complex. But since, ithat previous level of success has been very spotty, at best.

[Goods]

I believe CWU has put the money into facilities and has coaches who find a balance of X's and O's, while also being able to relate to Gen Z. Football, men's bball and women's bball are proving that. Volleyball is always a factor in the west region. Our CC and T&F programs have done well (new coach installed 2 (?) years ago after former coach was here for 25+ years.

[Goods]

IDK if this falls under football, basketball or general athletics, but I was hanging out with a handful of friends last week and the conversation turned to CWU getting rid of rugby (of the 8 of us there, 7 of us either graduated from CWU, work there, all of us still in Ellensburg, etc.). Except for me, a self described Rain Man when it comes to CWU/GNAC/LSC/D2, none of them understood the difference between Eastern Washington U and Central Washington U athletics. These are well educated dudes, who have kids playing a variety of local sports (elem through college), and who will casually attend multiple sports throughout the year and support other campus activities. I would say they're well-connected alumns and/or employees of CWU and even they didn't know that EWU competes against UW, UCLA, Penn State and Kentucky for the same 68 spots in March Madness, but aren't at the same level of football. They didn't realize that rugby wasn't a true NCAA sport. I'm not dogging out my good friends, I'm only bringing this up that most fans are casual who want a good value for their time/money. They're not going to stress over the fact that CWU lost to Angelo State and UT-Permian Basin by less than a FG apiece this fall, but that the game is entertaining. They don't care about the strategy of playing CCAA and PacWest teams in all other sports for strength of schedule dominance. While I want CWU to dominate, most fans want CWU to look good. That's probably the same with most D2 schools.

[tsull]

IDK if this falls under football, basketball or general athletics, but I was hanging out with a handful of friends last week and the conversation turned to CWU getting rid of rugby (of the 8 of us there, 7 of us either graduated from CWU, work there, all of us still in Ellensburg, etc.). Except for me, a self described Rain Man when it comes to CWU/GNAC/LSC/D2, none of them understood the difference between Eastern Washington U and Central Washington U athletics. These are well educated dudes, who have kids playing a variety of local sports (elem through college), and who will casually attend multiple sports throughout the year and support other campus activities. I would say they're well-connected alumns and/or employees of CWU and even they didn't know that EWU competes against UW, UCLA, Penn State and Kentucky for the same 68 spots in March Madness, but aren't at the same level of football. They didn't realize that rugby wasn't a true NCAA sport. I'm not dogging out my good friends, I'm only bringing this up that most fans are casual who want a good value for their time/money. They're not going to stress over the fact that CWU lost to Angelo State and UT-Permian Basin by less than a FG apiece this fall, but that the game is entertaining. They don't care about the strategy of playing CCAA and PacWest teams in all other sports for strength of schedule dominance. While I want CWU to dominate, most fans want CWU to look good. That's probably the same with most D2 schools.

This is spot on. I try to tell some of my friends that most people don't know the difference between division 2 and division 3, and like you said, some are confused on fcs, too. Some of my die-hard alumni friends don't understand why we're not playing Willamette and Linfield anymore. I try to explain to them that it was the private schools who dismissed the state schools and they had no option but to go division 2 or play with bible colleges and schools in Montana for NAIA. It's exhausting trying to explain all these things.

I enjoy D2 athletics, it's been a lot of fun at times. Other times it's been massively frustrating such as the last few men's basketball seasons at Western Oregon, and pretty much a few decades of women's basketball being poorly played with the couple of decent seasons.

College administrators greatly over value small college divisions when it comes to things like publicity and enrollment. Western Oregon is always saying it separates themselves from Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon by being D2. If that's the case why does Southern Oregon have a bigger enrollment and why does Eastern Oregon have more football scholarships?

The main issue I think administrators have isn't which division they are in, it's getting more interest. After we went through the attendance figures for men's basketball, it's rather obvious that schools don't promote their programs one iota. They ought to do something more than just turn on the lights in the heat for basketball games.

But you're right on everything. The average Joe's athletic expertise hits zero after the University of Washington and University of Oregon.

[D2Rover]

If you're talking across the board (not just MBB), I'd give WWU an A as well. We send a team sport deep into the national tournament almost every year. Soccer national champions in '16 and '22, plus other Final Four appearances. Volleyball Final Fours in '07, '15, and '21. WBB Final Fours in '13 and '22. Softball in the championship game last year. A bunch of Rowing championships if those count. I think it's fair to say winning matters for Western.

As far as fans not knowing the differences between FCS/D2/D3, it feels like I hear that here on the board more than I do in real life. But I've been in a D2 college town in Kansas for almost 3 years, so my circles might be unique.

[tsull]

If you're talking across the board (not just MBB), I'd give WWU an A as well. We send a team sport deep into the national tournament almost every year. Soccer national champions in '16 and '22, plus other Final Four appearances. Volleyball Final Fours in '07, '15, and '21. WBB Final Fours in '13 and '22. Softball in the championship game last year. A bunch of Rowing championships if those count. I think it's fair to say winning matters for Western.

As far as fans not knowing the differences between FCS/D2/D3, it feels like I hear that here on the board more than I do in real life. But I've been in a D2 college town in Kansas for almost 3 years, so my circles might be unique.

I've lived all over the Northwest, Idaho, Oregon, Washington; the knowledge of small college sports by the average fan and even the students attending those colleges, is pretty low. We're talking about a large geographic area that has one NBA team, one NFL team, one MLB team, and one NHL team. Only 4 major college sports programs, and two (OSU and WSU) have been to put it bluntly, castrated.

I think one could walk down the street in even a small college stronghold like McMinnville, and ask them what division Linfield plays in and I'd guess many couldn't name the division. I could be wrong there. Certainly Linfield football fans know the drill, but I don't think everyone does. Goods' story was interesting, CWU is a good D2 powerhouse, regionally and sometimes nationally.

Small colleges do a horrific job defining themselves academically, athletically, socially. Many (not all) in the Northwest think if we just turn on the lights, heat, and open the doors, we're good. I've seen what an active president and admissions staff can do. WOU was dying when I was in school, they hired an enrollment-first president, who doubled the enrollment in 7 years. Today? Not even close to that effort is going on.