Few Rips WCC's Cellar Dwellars

[Norwester]

“Our league needs to really step back and take notice,” he said. “It’s time for some of these other institutions to start picking it up. They’re really dragging the top three down.”

“We need to talk long and hard about (NCAA Tournament) money distribution that we’re making for the league,” Few said, “and if they’re not spending it on basketball, we don’t need to be sponsoring swimming at those schools or whatever they’ve got going. They’re not all in.”

Amen. There is no reason why Gonzaga should be subsidizing Santa Clara, USF, Portland and the other "participation trophy" programs in the WCC.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/mar/13/blanchette-chilling-lesson-for-wcc/

[hooter73]

Holy crap, someone, let alone Few, actually said it. Publicly. Wow.

[23dpg]

Wow is right. Wow.

[ProVeeZag]

Bravo, Coach Few! The "feedback" from the rest of the WCC should make for interesting reading.

[ProjectMKUltra5]

So, so glad he came out and said this. I don't think it's a lot to ask of a school to simply care about it's basketball team and actually try

[jpn17]

So, so glad he came out and said this. I don't think it's a lot to ask of a school to simply care about it's basketball team and actually try

Indeed. However as usual the fans of the bottom dwellers will fire back with the same tired argument of if you don't like it then leave (don't they wish) while they continue to watch mediocre at best basketball in gyms with sub 1K crowds unless they're playing Gonzaga.

[Zagceo]

Indeed. However as usual the fans of the bottom dwellers will fire back with the same tired argument of if you don't like it then leave (don't they wish) while they continue to watch mediocre at best basketball in gyms with sub 1K crowds unless they're playing Gonzaga.

and sell tickets at a premium to every GU game.

[jazzdelmar]

About f-ing time. The big question is: Is this a Few solo, one off or does it rep the thinking of the GU admin? Still, nothing but the darn truth. Go Coach!!! Now let's see Rose and RB echo it...

[ZagsGoZags]

and sell tickets at a premium to every GU game.

This is what happened to me in the Portland game at Chiles.
The day the box office opened for tickets I was told the only way to get a ticket to the one zags game was to buy their
premium package of four home games (some of the better teams in the WCC) for over 80 dollars, probably about a hundred after fees. This was not a good deal for me because the zag game was the only game I wanted to see.
Instead I took the only other option, which was to wait until 11:00 a.m. on Jan 11 [over two months later] at ticketmaster to compete for the 200 remaining seats on zag night. I would not be surprised if other WCC schools also play their zag card to maximum financial advantage.

[TexasZagFan]

About f-ing time. The big question is: Is this a Few solo, one off or does it rep the thinking of the GU admin? Still, nothing but the darn truth. Go Coach!!! Now let's see Rose and RB echo it...

Proof positive that Few lurks on the board, I posted this at 7:27 PM CDT yesterday:

I think it's past time for the WCC Commish to lay down the law on the weak sisters of the WCC. Doesn't she have some discretion on allocation of tournament money? There is no reason why all ten teams can't be better than top 200.

Or are the weak sisters content to just cash their checks?

What can I say, I was also deemed a "legend" by referee extraordinare Jimmy Clark...

[A to Zags]

Bravo, Coach Few! The "feedback" from the rest of the WCC should make for interesting reading.

I for one am not glad Few said this. While I agree that our conference is being hurt by poor performance of the league as a whole, criticizing those not doing well just doesn't feel right. Do you re ally think they are not trying? I think Keating, Walters, Wilson et al are doing the best they can under the rules to bring in the best they can. Is this really a matter of diverting gift money from the powerful to less popular sports? Maybe they aren't being "successful but this attitude that they aren't giving it the old college try bothers me.

[LongIslandZagFan]

Go to the method that the big boys use... conference doles out tourney money to team that earned it... period.

[DZ]

I for one am not glad Few said this. While I agree that our conference is being hurt by poor performance of the league as a whole, criticizing those not doing well just doesn't feel right. Do you re ally think they are not trying? I think Keating, Walters, Wilson et al are doing the best they can under the rules to bring in the best they can. Is this really a matter of diverting gift money from the powerful to less popular sports? Maybe they aren't being "successful but this attitude that they aren't giving it the old college try bothers me.

Of course the head coaches are trying to win, where the question comes in is what is that coach's recruiting budget, what do the locker rooms, weight rooms, arena look like? Those things matter to good athletes and though you may think it is misplaced priorities, every other place is doing it and you can't compete against them if you have sub-standard Division 1 resources.. His point was to money invested back into basketball, - are they paying assistants enough to stay? Things like that. He's not saying that having bad seasons is the problem. It's not having a commitment toward the future.

[TrueLiz]

If I was another WCC coach, I would be happy about anything that might kick the leadership in the backside a but. I think the players and coaches are doing the best they can with what they have, but the administration needs to be on board for each school. Replacing coaches won't matter much if the program doesn't get support from higher up. Obviously GU & BYU have bigger budgets, but SMC has done a lot without a big budget (& if they only scheduled a good team or two out of state once in awhile...). I wouldn't be surprised if other coaches have said something to Mark Few about allocation of money coming in from basketball.

[TexasZagFan]

I for one am not glad Few said this. While I agree that our conference is being hurt by poor performance of the league as a whole, criticizing those not doing well just doesn't feel right. Do you re ally think they are not trying? I think Keating, Walters, Wilson et al are doing the best they can under the rules to bring in the best they can. Is this really a matter of diverting gift money from the powerful to less popular sports? Maybe they aren't being "successful but this attitude that they aren't giving it the old college try bothers me.

It's more the school administrations than the coaches. Whereas Keating and Walters coached for nine and eight years, respectively, TCU pulled the plug on Trent Johnson after four.

There is no reason why every WCC school cannot be at least within the top-200.