Gregg Marshall letter to WSU students.

[AndShock]

I would rather not view anything we have or do with the limitations of being a commuter campus. If we gauged our success as compared to the limitation of being an MVC school we would be happy with a 12 seed once a decade.

[jdshock]

I would rather not view anything we have or do with the limitations of being a commuter campus. If we gauged our success as compared to the limitation of being an MVC school we would be happy with a 12 seed once a decade.

LOL.

That's not the point. The size of the institution is a structural limitation to the number of students that can physically exist. BY DEFINITION. It's like saying we're disappointed there aren't 16k fans in Koch each week. The MVC may be a limitation but it's not a BY DEFINITION physically impossible type of limitation.

[Rosewood]

I'll be honest, I still add balls to the end

[AndShock]

LOL.

That's not the point. The size of the institution is a structural limitation to the number of students that can physically exist. BY DEFINITION. It's like saying we're disappointed there aren't 16k fans in Koch each week. The MVC may be a limitation but it's not a BY DEFINITION physically impossible type of limitation.

The size of our institution tells me we should be able to have a full student section each week. Being a commuter school should help remove all the Thanksgiving Break excuse garbage.

[jdshock]

The size of our institution tells me we should be able to have a full student section each week.

Why? Much larger institutions are not filling their proportionally similar student sections.

Being a commuter school should help remove all the Thanksgiving Break excuse garbage.

Why? I worked full time while I was at WSU and lived off campus but I still visited my family over Thanksgiving.

It's not an insult to be a commuter campus and it's not an insult to be a smaller institution. I absolutely think WSU is the best opportunity in Kansas for many different degree areas. If you are studying engineering, business, or any other program that benefits from real world experience in the community, WSU is your best bet. Bar none. Being in the largest city in Kansas results in excellent opportunities for students it also has meant we have been historically a commuter campus. I'm not trying to insult anyone. I am just trying to defend our students. Like I said earlier. College athletics is ultimately about the students.

[AndShock]

Why? Much larger institutions are not filling their proportionally similar student sections.

Why aren't other schools filling their student section? I know I read some articles that said they were having trouble getting all the tickets out. That is not even close to the same issue we have at Wichita State.

I will give you the Thanksgiving Break and finals point. Even though I don't agree with it I can't really disprove it.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Duke has a smaller student body than WSU. They also reserve 1,100 student spaces, but they are notorious for crowding students together so more than that can fit in the given space. They have been reported to have had as many as 1,600 students at a game. I don't need to talk about how loud and organized they are.

Utah State has more undergrad than WSU (25,000), but their student section capacity is 4,000 students! As most on this board know, those 4,000 are amazingly well organized, loud, and just generally involved in the game.

My point being... there are large schools, and small schools, and medium schools, and private schools, and... there are schools of all types with better student sections that WSU.

[wu_shizzle]

I'll be honest, I still add balls to the end

[Cdizzle]

Utah State has more undergrad than WSU (25,000), but their student section capacity is 4,000 students! As most on this board know, those 4,000 are amazingly well organized, loud, and just generally involved in the game.

Are they? Or were they for a couple seasons 5 years ago when they had a good team?

I haven't seen them this year, but I saw a couple games over the past couple of years that wouldn't paint their student section in such a positive light.

Even so, WSU is in such a period now and the support isn't there. And there are most definitely a number of student sections that are better. But my guess is that number is more in the 30 range than the 50-75 range. Outside the top 15 or so, student support of basketball is pretty weak across the board.

[jdshock]

Duke has a smaller student body than WSU. They also reserve 1,100 student spaces, but they are notorious for crowding students together so more than that can fit in the given space. They have been reported to have had as many as 1,600 students at a game. I don't need to talk about how loud and organized they are.

Utah State has more undergrad than WSU (25,000), but their student section capacity is 4,000 students! As most on this board know, those 4,000 are amazingly well organized, loud, and just generally involved in the game.

My point being... there are large schools, and small schools, and medium schools, and private schools, and... there are schools of all types with better student sections that WSU.

This is my last post in this thread because it's clear I'm not winning anyone over. Is this how it feels every time you and Fever go back and forth? Sheesh.

I will say this: I looked at Utah State's seating chart and the student section is half of the arena. http://www.utahstateaggies.com/view.gal?id=169937 is a link to a bunch of photo galleries of their games. Other than the BYU game, I just see empty seats all over the arena. And some of the early games look like Volleyball games at Koch. Seriously, there just aren't people there. I actually just watched a clip of USU vs WSU like a week ago for some reason and they certainly seemed to get it rocking that day. But it was against a good team. There are a million factors that have to be taken into consideration. I've been the biggest proponent of the Thanksgiving and commuter campus "excuses" but if WSU were playing KU on Christmas day, I still think the student section would be full.

As for the Duke stuff: Duke, like UNC, is one of about five programs that have separated themselves historically in basketball. I don't think that's a fair comparison. The culture on Duke's campus is all about basketball. They camp out weeks ahead of time for UNC tickets. That said, they also recently faced problems with filling their small amount of student tickets: http://www.dukechronicle.com/article...s#.VIi1K6TF-pw

My whole point is that we should lighten up a bit. I think a few things are going on here: 1. People have a tendency to say, "back in my day" the students were way better or whatever. A similar discussion is happening elsewhere on this board about the loudest games of all time. 2. We should be proud of our students and the progress we have made. I think people sometimes have a tendency to forget that we are smaller than a lot of state schools and we are full of students that live off campus and have obligations other than school. Even if a particular student in question lives on campus the culture at WSU is much different than many other schools simply because so many live off of campus and do work. It's easy at a school like UNC full of kids that have nothing but free time in a crappy city to get people to prioritize the campus culture. It's harder in Wichita. Duke is in a bit better of a city than UNC, but it still is full of rich kids that wouldn't consider working while they're in school.

But like I said, this is my last post in this thread. I've made more enemies than converts, so I'll stop while I'm not significantly behind.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Are they? Or were they for a couple seasons 5 years ago when they had a good team?

Fair enough, although their "good" teams were barely top 25 material and yet they generated amazing student response. WSU has been better than Utah State ever was each of the last several years yet hasn't come close to the type of impressive student section that Utah State has/had.

Utah State may have since dropped off a bit but i bet their current student section would run circles around WSU's if WSU were to experience a similar fall-off in quality of basketball.

[newshock1234]

I guess things are going well if the biggest gripe we have is our student section

[WstateU]

Not to start another debate, but jeesh people; it's OK to put your frickin' cell phone away for a couple of hours... you're missing a great game. :)

[Kung Wu]

This is my last post in this thread because it's clear I'm not winning anyone over.
...
But like I said, this is my last post in this thread. I've made more enemies than converts, so I'll stop while I'm not significantly behind.

I appreciate your perspective and tend to agree with it. I think WSU is about to break out of the commuter school rep big time with the new living quarters and on campus lifestyle changes that Bardo is going full throttle on. In the meantime we need to be patient and love every second of what Marshall is doing for our fine school.

And by the way, back in @WstateU:'s day there were streakers and hippies ... so they weren't really better, just nuder and didn't bathe as much.

[WstateU]

"Here I come, Boogity, Boogity, There I go, Boogity, Boogity, And I ain't wearin' no clothes..."