MNORM wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 9:37 am
Paladin91 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 8:35 pm
If DIv 2 players are our best route, then we should seriously consider dropping to DIv 2 if we can’t compete for quality D1 athletes among the big boys out there. Assuming we stay D1, any measure of success in terms of player development will be pilfered away by bigger schools with the larger checkbook. Hate to say it, but that’s not a winning formula long-term.
...so you're ok with
ALL Furman sports moving down to Division II? Unless you've been living in a cave since 1993 you should know by now that Furman cannot have basketball and football play at different "levels".
Just over a year ago our basketball program, under the leadership of CBR (who is still our coach), took Furman to the NCAA tournament and beat ACC Virginia in the first round. We've won 20+ games in 4 of the past 6 seasons. We have four players enter the portal and now people are talking about dropping down to DII. Have we not exhausted this ridiculous argument/take over the last 20 years on here?
To quote Jim Collins, "
The old adage ‘People are your most important asset’ is wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are." Maybe this is addition by subtraction. Maybe this outflow of transfers will result in an additional "rebuilding year". We will all have to sit back and see how this plays out.
We have the right leader driving the bus in CBR. In '22-'23 CBR clearly had the right people in the right seats on the bus. This past season, IMHO, we had a player leadership void in the locker room and
ON the court. Maybe too many players were playing for the name on the back of the jersey and not the front. Whatever it was...it didn't work.
The program is in good hands. Furman administration, alumni, students are all behind this program continuing to grow into a perennial mid-major power. The sky is
NOT falling.
For the sake of this discussion, FUBeAR doesn’t believe there is any point to even mentioning “D2.”
Of course FUBeAR could be wrong, but a move to D2 would be primarily a financial decision (which isn’t entirely or even primarily the issue in FUBeAR’s eyes), whereas a move to D3 would be more of a philosophical decision that would also result in significant financial changes in athletics. And, as mentioned here previously, FU doesn’t really ‘fit’ with many D2 schools, but fits well with many D3 schools.
So, to respond to your question to Paladin91, FUBeAR is perfectly OK with any of the following 3 options listed in order of preference with a preference tie between the 2 options below Option #1 …
1) Remain D1 and find the ‘secret sauce’ (if such a condiment exists) to being competitive without renting casual labor Professional Players. FUBeAR wants any student athletes wearing the purple emblazoned with “Furman” to have come to Furman intending to be a Furman student and, eventually, a Furman Alum. He wants them to want to be amateur intercollegiate student athletes that are not paid cash in order to originally be induced to attend and play for Furman, and then more cash to be induced to remain at Furman each year (even if that cash is couched as some sort of sham NIL ‘deal’ that is paid via booster funds collected and paid by a “collective”).
2a) Remain D1. Refuse to participate in sponsoring professional sports teams. Accept that we will seldom compete for championships and relish every win we do achieve while maintaining some semblance of the original intent of intercollegiate athletics (call it the Vanderbilt model).
2b) Refuse to participate in sponsoring professional sports teams. Move all sports to D3. Compete for D3 National Championships on a regular basis.
NOTE1: Related to this model, FUBeAR would not advocate for remaining D1 and moving Football to the (non-scholarship) PFL. That doesn’t ‘solve the problem’ for Hoops. If 2b is the right choice for FU, FUBeAR prefers going D3 full-bore and maintaining institutional integrity.
NOTE2: D3’s, FUBeAR believes, are just as ‘NIL-eligible’ as D1’s … so … Collectives and ‘Pay-to-Attend’ and ‘Pay-to-Stay’ (without athletics scholarships) could arise and become even more impactful as a differentiator at this level. If that happens, it’s time for good ol’ FU to really focus on our intramural sports programs!
