"Weekends At The Well" (Dec. 14, Jan. 11, Feb. 22)

[DungeonRealm]

Instead of Complaining about minute things, how about we use this as a rallying point to work together to make this venture a major success for the program and University, that can lead to even bigger things down the road for our Basketball program!

[DungeonRealm]

[gman]

[DungeonRealm]

It will be very important that we coordinate a huge effort to get a very large student turnout at all 3 of these games.

The Wofford game will be easy to get tons of students to, but we need to put forth the extra effort on the Winthrop and UNCG games to make sure they are a success with students.
The December Winthrop game falls during exam week, but hopefully with it being a Saturday game it will serve as an outlet for students during that week.
The UNCG game falls right before classes start back in January, so we are going to need to do something special to get students there for that one somehow.

[DungeonRealm]

If we want to land P5 games at the Well in seasons to come, which I am sure we would all love, we will absolutely need to make this a major success, if we can prove that we can draw support for these games the financial investment needed to lure P5 opponents to the Well downtown will be there in the future.

This is a crossroads, we are taking a chance in hopes of growing the Program exponentially in the future, need everyone on board!

[DungeonRealm]

A Furman basketball program that is successful in downtown Greenville at the Well is a VERY STRONG program!

That is a program that has space to draw big crowds, that is a program that can lure P5 opponents to Greenville, that is a program that can afford to give Bob Richey the raises he will be deserving to stay at Furman, that is a program that can recruit big time prospects, that is a program that can dominate the SoCon!

[DungeonRealm]

Pass this information along to anyone connected to Furman and Greenville that you know:
https://furmanpaladins.com/feature/WeekendsAtTheWell

[Affirm]

This is a nice start for the next step forward for Furman basketball.
I hope that everyone can get behind this and be as supportive and as positive as possible.
It can potentially lead to bigger and better things.

And I appreciate that there must have been a great amount of extra planning and arranging work performed in a short amount of time by various people to get to the point of making this announcement; as well as that there will be, upcoming, in the next 2 months, a lot more extra worked necessary for numerous people to make these 3 Saturdays come off smoothly, whether the Furman teams win or lose.

NOTE:
According to Sagarin, Furman's men's team, as of the end of the 2018-2019 season, was better than 274 of the 353 Division I men's teams in the entire nation. We were better than all but 78 of the 353 teams in the entire nation.

We were better than Notre Dame, Southern Cal, Georgetown, Davidson, UConn, SMU, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Georgia, Boston College, Stanford, Utah, Harvard, Yale, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Richmond, College of Charleston, Army, Navy, Air Force, etc., etc., etc.

We were better than 17 of the Power 6 teams (ACC, SEC, BIG10, Big 12, PAC 12, Big East).
We were better than ALL of the teams in ALL of the following conferences:
Big Sky
Big South
CAA
CUSA
Horizon
Ivy League
Metro Atlantic
MEAC
MVC
Northeast
Patriot
Southland
Southwestern
Summit
Sun Belt.
We were better than all but 1 of the teams in each of the following conferences:
America East
MAC (east)
MAC (west)
Atlantic Sun
Southern (yes, that 1 was Wofford College of Spartanburg, SC)
Western Athletic.
We were better than all but 2 of the teams in each of the following conferences:
OVC
West Coast.
And we were better than all but 3 of the teams in Mountain West.

Furman can potentially move up by the end of the 2019-2020 to a rating even higher than the rating that we had at the end of the 2018-2019 season.

So yes, the Greenville community (whether in the County or in Travelers Rest or Fountain Inn or Greer or Five Forks or Simpsonville or Mauldin or Greenville city or anywhere else) should support Furman basketball, and the Furman community certainly should support Furman basketball, and the local media such as WYFF and Greenville News, etc., should SUPPORT Furman basketball. That applies to whether the games are on campus or downtown or away, wherever and whenever and versus whomever.

I am glad this arrangement for these 3 Saturdays has been made. Kudos to those who have made this happen, and thanks to all involved for the work that has been done and will be done. And I hope that the next HUGE announcement for Furman basketball, whenever that is, will be even more HUGE than this one is.

[FurmAlum]

I was just getting ready to complain about not having our home court advantage for Wofford and UNCG and then I read Dungeon Realm's comments about being supportive and I changed my mind and think this is a great positive step for Furman BB.

I was very fortunate to be able to attend a school like Furman and I was there in the early to mid 70's when we hosted USC, Clemson, Illinois, and several other majors and mid-majors I can't remember in Memorial Auditorium, as well as beating USC in the NCAA Tournament and then beating UNC and N.C. State back to back in Charlotte a few years later. It's a risk, but it's worth taking and I commend our new AD for getting it done.

And I think Coach Ritchie is a better coach than Joe Williams and we are destined for future greatness if we can keep him!

[Flagman]

If Furman will bus the student body downtown, and season ticket holders can get priority parking, but still, even 5,000 in a 16,000 seat arena will suck. We did used to fill the brown box, but it had a capacity of 5,500.

At $75 per ticket, per game, don't count on non-season ticket holders to buy into this. That's $300 for a family of 4 per game. Who thinks that's a good idea?

[DungeonRealm]

If Furman will bus the student body downtown, and season ticket holders can get priority parking, but still, even 5,000 in a 16,000 seat arena will suck. We did used to fill the brown box, but it had a capacity of 5,500.

At $75 per ticket, per game, don't count on non-season ticket holders to buy into this. That's $300 for a family of 4 per game. Who thinks that's a good idea?

Full Capacity for Basketball is 14,200 (that is what saw USC beat Duke in a sellout during the NCAA tourney)

If we have a great season I see no reason why we could not get close to around 8k for the Wofford game if we promote it correctly

These are stepping stones towards having even bigger games at the Well in future seasons

You are incorrect on your ticket prices, here are the correct ticket prices:

Weekends at the Well games will be sold as 4-game packages. The 4-game packages offered are Courtside Seating ($300), Prime Reserved ($90), and Reserved ($60)

That means you can get a ticket for all 4 games for $60 total, even if you don't count the women's game that is a ticket for $20 each for 3 men's games. Individual tickets will go on sale closer to each game.

So let me do the math correctly for you, that's $80 per game for a family of 4 to see 3 men's games if they bought 4 packs at $60 each for reserved seating.

[apaladin]

The Well will seat more than 14,200 for basketball. The figure you quoted was for an NCAA game. The floor seating was not fully utilized and there was a huge press that had to be accommodated. Plus NCAA peeps, comps for teams, freebies etc. Regardless they will curtain off the upper bowl so if we can just come close to filling up the seats on both side of the court I will be happy.

[DungeonRealm]

The Well will seat more than 14,200 for basketball. The figure you quoted was for an NCAA game. The floor seating was not fully utilized and there was a huge press that had to be accommodated. Plus NCAA peeps, comps for teams, freebies etc. Regardless they will curtain off the upper bowl so if we can just come close to filling up the seats on both side of the court I will be happy.

Correct that was the seating for the NCAA tourney configuration, and yes all we need to do is focus on filling as much of the lower bowl as we can. I feel confident that with a great season, and the right FU student/Greenville community promotion we can possibly completely fill the lower bowl for the Wofford game.

[Affirm]

Yesterday’s CollegeAD The Night Cap has the Furman announcement as their headline article. Good publicity nationally, at least in that outlet.

[Horse]

All 3 weekends will be doubleheaders