2017-18 Media Love Thread

[shockmonster]

That is really good stuff.

[Dan]

This guy gets it. At the 04:00 mark "we all knew the possibility for Wichita St. to be a player nationally, but the right person just had to get control..."

True Wichita St. fans, the ones who weren't rooting for the Chickens in the 90's when we really sucked, are wondering why it took this long. Turgeon doesn't count because we weren't a player nationally, as we had all hoped, when he was here.

The reality is that it all started with Jim Schaus. The roundhouse renovation was needed to recruit better players and his hiring of Mark Turgeon got us back to winning games and playing post season tournaments.

[Wild Heiny]

I don't get why people discount the contributions made by Turgeon? Is it because of the way he left? Bottom line is that he put us back on the map and 3G has taken it to a completely different level. Without M.T. there is no 3G.

[pogo]

Does coach Adams have the same access to a plane for recruiting that HCGM has?

Even Charles Koch doesn't have that kind of access:)

[pogo]

As Dan stated it all goes back to the hiring of MT. Without that hiring there is no Roundhouse Renaissance and without that there is not near the success MT garnered. Without that success there is not Gregg Marshall. MT leaving as he did left many with a "Oh crap here we go again" feeling of we weren't good enough to keep a promising young coach from leaving for of all places aTm. Football we could see but aTm was hardly a brand name in the annals of college basketball. Anyway I belive most people can see where we were and where we are now and what transpired from point a to point b. If not then you just can't fix some things.

[1972Shocker]

As Dan stated it all goes back to the hiring of MT. Without that hiring there is no Roundhouse Renaissance.

My take is that we may not have hired Mark Turgeon if there was no Roundhouse Rennaissance. Mark was hired in May 2000. The initial large gifts totaling $12.5 million from Charles Koch ($6 million) and several other boosters was announced on October 31, 2000. My guess is the the Roundhouse Rennaissance was well into the planning and fund raising stages at the time MT was hired and no doubt used as a major selling point in his hiring. The RR was badly, badly needed and it was the key.

[ShockingButTrue]

My take is that we may not have hired Mark Turgeon if there was no Roundhouse Rennaissance. Mark was hired in May 2000. The initial large gifts totaling $12.5 million from Charles Koch ($6 million) and several other boosters was announced on October 31, 2000. My guess is the the Roundhouse Rennaissance was well into the planning and fund raising stages at the time MT was hired and no doubt used as a major selling point in his hiring. The RR was badly, badly needed and it was the key.

I don't think he would have stayed at Jacksonville St. if not for the renaissance. Would he have held out for a better offer to satisfy his -ahem- ambition?

It has nothing to do with an inferiority complex, but rather more in line with what the sportscaster referenced in the report. I cited it several post's up. Turgeon, on the other hand, gave the impression he didn't feel at all that way... "At this level."

[1972Shocker]

I don't think he would have stayed at Jacksonville St. if not for the renaissance. Would he have held out for a better offer to satisfy his -ahem- ambition?

It has nothing to do with an inferiority complex, but rather more in line with what the sportscaster referenced in the report. I cited it several post's up. Turgeon, on the other hand, gave the impression he didn't feel at all that way... "At this level."

Yeah, he may have taken the Wichita State job anyway. My point is that I don't think hiring Mark Turgeon had much, if anything, to do with the Roundhouse Rennaissance as @pogo: suggested. I think the Roundhouse Rennassance made pursuing and hiring Mark Turgeon easier than it otherwise would have been. This would have been true of any coach we pursued at that time. Whether it was the difference between getting him or not getting him I couldn't say.

[calfan]

When I think about MT, I can't forget his record his last year at WSU after a sweet sixteen run the year before as well as leaving Marshall with not much of a team to work with when MT left.

[Dan]

Our arena was a complete dump before the renovation. It was hard to attract good athletes or coaches. People weren't coming to games and booster activity was low. I was a student from the end of Fogler through Cohen, Thompson, and maybe the beginning of Smithson. In other words, the absolute worst times in our history. We were bottom of the barrel in the MVC. We were Thursday night losers in St. Louis, nobody went to those games. Jim Schaus, with large donations from Charles Koch, turned this whole thing around. They created a vision and found the right young coach that was willing to risk his career on a vision. Turgeon may have seen this as a stepping stone and left the cupboard dry when he bailed, but he showed that you can win at WSU. Without all this becoming reality, there is no 3G. 3G will have his name on banners, and rightly so, but we don't get a chance to hire 3G without all this other stuff that laid the foundation.

[WSUwatcher]

Turgeon has long since been superseded by 3G, but there's absolutely no question that he was a stepping stone on the way to getting there. It's unlikely that Cohen, Thompson, and Smithson would have led to Marshall (and, of course, in 2000 Marshall hadn't yet fully established himself either).

So it seems only fair: Turgeon treated WSU as a stepping stone, and in turn he himself was a stepping stone.

[xazshox]

More on the Roundhouse Rennaisance

You folks forgot to mention former WSU Prez, Don Beggs. He & Jim Schaus worked together on the fund raising for CKA.

[WuShock Reaper]

"UConn basketball desperately needs something good to happen in 2017-18" - SB*Nation

These are dangerous times for one of college basketball’s ultimate super powers.

by Mike Rutherford@CardChronicle
Aug 24, 2017, 2:00pm EDT

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/8/24/16189880/uconn-basketball-2017-18-preview-kevin-ollie-jalen-adams

"Since their initial breakthrough in 1999, no team in college basketball has won more national championships than Connecticut. The Huskies have cut down the nets four times in the past 18 years, once more than both the Duke team they defeated in that ‘99 title game and the Blue Devils’ famous arch-rival North Carolina....

But even that buoyancy comes with a caveat, and the caveat is that the AAC might be the strongest its ever been this season. Wichita State joins the fray for the first time and does so as a consensus preseason top 10 team. Mick Cronin has arguably his best collection of talent in more than a decade as the head coach of Cincinnati. SMU still has Shake Milton and a host of talented transfers. Even the bottom of the conference is shaping up to be less of a pushover than its been since the birth of the league in 2013. That’s not the greatest setup for a Connecticut team with a number of question marks and a collective shaken confidence..."

[AZ Shocker]

Wow! Can this season start already or what!!!! This AAC is gonna be FUN!!! As good as we are...we now have some "equals" to contend with!!!

I kinda almost wish we were slotted as 3rd or 4th in preseason AAC predictions as we WILL be a hunted team this upcoming season.

[1972Shocker]

You folks forgot to mention former WSU Prez, Don Beggs. He & Jim Schaus worked together on the fund raising for CKA.

And Men's Basketball isn't the only sport that benefitted from the Roundhouse Rennaissance. I don't think it was totally and accident that WSU starting dominating the Valley All-Sports Award about the time the Roundhouse Rennaissace was finished up.

Chris Lamb was also hired in 2000 (about the same time as Mark Turgeon) and he has done fairly well. The Volleyball locker rooms and faciliites are pretty damn nice.

While Dr. Bardo deserves a lot of credit getting us into the AAC we don't sniff that without the efforts of Jim Schaus and Don Beggs.