DaneFan2k3

I'd bring my electronic abacus if and only if (math reference) the Syracuse women trot out Hakim Warrick in drag. Right or wrong, until women's hoops fans show they can pack the RACC, they're going to get duff on the board. That's all there is to it. PS - Damien being there makes 3. I can count to 21 on my freakish hands and feet. Just kidding. It's 19.

Considering its their home arena, I dont see any problem with that actually. It's not UAlbany's home arena now, and probably never will be. (Which is good in my opinion since it's too far from the campus). The real question should be, why wouldn't they ever play one at the RACC? Even if you have to go to Pepsi 2 or 3 times for every RACC game, it would be worth it. The simple answer is money, since the RACC can't hold what Pepsi can. --------------- If kids are bailing out to go home early, they can't really take that into account when scheduling the game. There are no guarantees that the students are going to go home or stay. And let's get real here for a second- if they were REAL college hoop fans, they would stay an extra day and go home Wednesday morning. They'd still be home in time to go out with all their high school friends the night before Thanksgiving, and they get to stay with the family all weekend. With classes Tuesday, they won't close the dorms until Wednesday. So maybe it's time for the UA student body to MAN UP and stick around to show their support. Get a BPF representative on campus to tell the student body to COWBOY UP BABY, GET OFF YOUR FAT DUFFS AND GET TO THE PEPSI, SCREW LONGISLAND FOR A DAY

I scanned all the schedules on the web site, and I say no. At least not in any of the "ball" sports. Volleyball, Field Hockey, Men's Lax, Men's Soccer, Men's Basketball all played them and lost. Didn't see them on softball, women's lax, women's soccer, baseball. Not on football obviously. Women's golf history page isn't complete, so unless they beat them last year, no. With our tennis team, I'm going no. I'm not looking through all the track and cross country results, but I'm fairly certain we have beaten them there a few times just going on memory. I scanned quickly, so maybe someone can confirm.

It doesn't take four months. Someone dropped the ball. Even if you post the job for 30 days (into December), then interview for 30 days (to January), the new coach is in place in early February. 30 days to interview and pare down candidates is a long time. That's not really how it works - as the applications are coming in, you're just waiting for the 30 days to start interviewing. You could really get it all done in a matter of 40 days. Not 120-ish days. Who's going to make the drive up to Union and tell us how the season is going?

Glad to see that UAlbany has once again reclaimed the title of Top Party School in the nation. That will really help people take my degree seriously! Good thing I'm not looking for a job right now. Off to shred my personnel file now ...

Here is the team: http://www.eurobasket.com/NEDteam.asp?Team=460 No one I recognize there. Here is the league: http://www.eurobasket.com/ned/d1.asp The league, Eredivisie looks like the higher of the two leagues, however as you'll read below the competition overall is pretty bad. If you look at the best player on his team (league MVP), he played at Campbell - same conference (Big South) as EJ's Coast Carolina team. So they must have an "in" there to get the Netherlands' scouts looking. An Introduction to the league from Eurobasket:

Exactly my point shown in the quote above. And my point was that you also had to build a press box, which requires removing seats or going higher. And my point was that going down the third base line there is the hill, which makes it difficult or impossible. And going down the right field line would require the relocation of the shed, or building less seats. And ultimately the point was that it won't fit 2,000 plus a press box behind home plate. I go back once again to the stands on soccer-lacrosse, which holds 500 by all accounts plus a press box. If you measure this setup, fitting even two of them behind home plate (for 1,000 seats) seems like it would barely fit or would be a big stretch. I continue to think there is not enough room behind home plate for two of those 500-seat setups.

Note the word "thought." But I'm glad to see you're spending valuable time defending yourself instead of being confident in your convications and assessments.

Unfortunately for the women they face some stiff tests, being that A-East women's lacrosse is a good conference with a few teams capable of being nationally-ranked. They need to capatalize now, with the SBU, Vermont and BingU teams being fairly new and inexperienced. Don't want another BU situation like what happened with the men- new team starting fresh gets good quickly. Hopefully they can take advantage now while these teams are still establishing themselves.

I would say that although I agree with the above post and Dane Pound in terms of local interest, I don't think that Siena fans as a whole are generally interested in UAlbany and whether they win or lose. That could be wrong on a case-by-case basis though. (They would, however, sit up and take notice if UAlbany could win a game vs. Siena one of the next couple years.) To me, though, a true "rival" is someone that the athletes and coaches would also consider a rival. I'm sure that Will Brown and Trina Patterson might list Siena for the reasons given above. But I think you'd be hard pressed to find a coach of a non-basketball sport who would list Siena ahead of Binghamton or Stony Brook. And that would probably be the same for the athletes. Clearly, Scott Marr and the men's lacrosse team is not going to list Siena, probably not even in their top five rivals. I don't think that would change even if they met once a year in a non-conference game. I think that goes for some other sports as well (softball has had some heated conference games recently and would probably pick one of those teams, baseball doesn't play Siena, field hockey owns Siena, volleyball ditto the softball situation, etc.) I also think a true rivalry means that you play the opposition on a consistent basis. If Siena discontinues the basketball contract with UAlbany, as they already have with the women, then a rivalry cannot develop. I think that the series was discontinued for so long while UAlbany was left behind in DIII, that for many fans they did not grow up watching UAlbany play Siena (as some posters on this board did). So for the younger crowd of Siena alums and fans, and ditto for UA, they probably don't care about the rivalry at all. And visa versa with the SBU and BingU rivalries, which skews to the younger alums and current players. It really all depends on your definition of the term rivalry. I like to go with the schools you play in everyone, or as much as you can, as often as you can.

Those are all fine, but again not you're either skewing facts or ignoring them completely. ----------- BASKETBALL 1.) Comparing the RACC to any of the venues you have named is like comparing Apples to Roach bait, but I'll continue along since there are still inaccuracies in what you've posted so far along these lines. 2.) The Cameron Indoor photo clearly shows about 10-12 feet of room between the behind-the-basket student section and the actual court. UAlbany has about 2-3 feet of room at most. Their most prominent student section is opposite the benches, so that the fans are clearly on display for the cameras, which face that side of the court. The side sections don't matter, becuase you have benches or a scorer's table in between the fans and the game action. The end lines have ample room for the players to maneuver on the baseline, and the crowd is not in the way at all. 3.) Sarge spouts off about security not being needed at a UAlbany game ... which is true. There are not enough fans. But for a confernece tournament, that's another story. And of course the point about the fan running rampant was made up, but the point is that it could happen with little or no resistance. All it takes is one crazy person. I'm just making points, whether you think they apply or not, the confernce doesn't totally ignore security and potential problems like that. -------------- BASEBALL 4.) The photos you posted of all the baseball stadiums are nice, except that they have probably 50% more room (that's being generous) behind the backstop between the dugouts. Also, the dugouts are sunk into the ground, which allows for better sightlines for the seats close to the dugouts looking down the lines. At UAlbany, the dugouts are closer together, there isn't as much room behind home plate, and they are not sunk in at all. 5.) "Again, this is 4,000 seats." Actually, no its not. Mahaney Diamond added seats down the lines to get capacity up to 4,000, which wouldn't be possible at UAlbany due to the hill down left field line and the shed currently in the way down the right field line. So the photo provided is not 4,000 seats, it's roughly half of that behind home plate. Their bleachers also reach significantly higher than the Hofstra photo ... details of this can be found in the TEXT on the Maine page, rather than just posting the photo and not reading. 6.) The Hofstra softball complex pictured on that page doesn't have chairbacks. (Quote: "Bleacher seating behind home plate, from dugout to dugout, accommodates nearly 1,000 spectators"). Again, that pesky text comes into play. 7.) That 2,500 total for McCarthy Field includes bleacher seats down both foul lines, which, again, isn't likely possible at UAlbany. Words to go with photos. What a bore. ---------------- If they could add the 1,000 bleacher seats shown on the Hofstra page, that would be great. But it's a far cry from 2,500 .... 2,000 ... and 4,000 ... the numbers that were talked about in previous posts. Also, again, you talked about ease of construction and cost. You've said nothing to the point that it cost about $50,000 for 500 seats at lacrosse-soccer. I don't know that the department has $100-150,000 laying around for a baseball-only facility. And finally, as with any construciton project on campus, it can't be thrown together. You saw how long it has taken to get the scoreboard in place at baseball. The ground freeze in the northeast limits what time can be spent constructing the blachers, so I don't think they can be "thrown up in a couple of weeks" as you suggested. I also find it funny that while you can take the time to post photos, you don't analyze the photo at all, you quote seating numbers that include bleachers not in the photo, and you have to resort to name-calling and insults to get your point across, rather than being realistic, presenting plans and, to be frank, being a man about it. It's fine to believe you're right, but I find it comical at best that the only retorts you can come up with are personal insults (and not even good ones at that: "wanna be" and "asswipe", are two terms I haven't heard, for good reason, in a long time). Then you remove them so "the other board members don't have to see them". Or is it that you regret posting something that might make you out to be the classless individual that you actually are, where you have to anonymously resort to name-calling over something that doesn't even matter?

Although I don't doubt it happens at every school, somehow I doubt that even if anyone on the board knew of anything directly that they would post it and risk getting certain teams or students in trouble. Your big-time hazing goes on at big-time football schools, although again, it probably does happen everywhere.

For the record, no pun intended, if you look in the NCAA Recordbook online they do distinguish between the 30-point and 15-point games. So someone must think there is a difference, even if only anecdotal.

'04 is right. I'm not sure about the total number of serves. I imagine it's about the same... but someone would have to look it up. The matches are definitely shorter, because whereas before you could have five sideouts in a row, no points given, now there is a point on every play, whether its your service or not. The serve is the most important weapon in rally scoring, because if you go for the ace and get it, great, but if you miss it, point for the other team. Bad servers are a huge liability now. It was wrong to say there are no sideouts; rather it's not your granddaddy's sideout like you got taught in gym class. Getting a point on the opponent's serve would be a sideout now, as opposed to earning the serve back. It would be interesting for someone to do an assessment of the pre- and post-rule changes. I just found it interesting that it appears that aces have risen dramatically on an individual level since the rules change. It could be just coincidental, or that having Rodriguez at UAlbany has made it seem like its risen, when it hasn't across the board.

It depends what type of Bigs you're talking about. If you're solely talking about projects or gambles, then I could see someone arguing against your point. However, if you're talking about just big men in general, then you should always have two, maybe more. The main point should be that of the 13 players you're going to have on scholarship, most coaches are going to use a 7-9 man rotation. Most go 7-8 deep, if that. So if you're even going 8 deep, that is five basically unused scholarship players. Of those five, you have to assume that 2-3 are freshmen skill players on a yearly basis, who may or may not see time. So one or two big men taking up those final scholarship spots is a reasonable number, even if they don't pan out or see limited action at best. Also, stashing away 1-2 big men still gives your larger skill players something to practice against. You can't learn to post up and rebound by practicing against guards all day. (At least not effectively). If you have a very basic 8-man rotation (G-G-F-F-C, G-F-G/F), your final five players could be two "Bigs" (C-C) and three young skill players (G-F-G/F). The big plus to having a big man is that at this level you are going to play a team that doesn't, and if they're not good enough to press, trap and run you out of the gym, even a stiff big man can make a contribution against a small team. And at best he could dominate a small team.

You've clearly not been on campus since UAlbany went to the Division I level, yet I'm the asswipe? There is no media room. There are no visiting locker rooms. There is lax security. About 20 University Police Officers sit upstairs during the games. There are about two down near the court. If you don't think that a separate section for corporate sponsors of a league-sponrsored tournament is important, you've got another thing coming. They pay for the event. You say "yes, I do know what I'm talking about," yet your statement was that teams DO NOT have to walk down to the court. Well, they do. So doesn't that mean that NO you DO NOT CURRENTLY KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT? Just because something USED to be one way, doesn't mean you know what you're talking about. Quite the opposite. As posted on another thread, there IS a Doc Sauers banner. There IS a banner listing the years the men's team made the NCAAs. You're clearly not even around. Why do you give a flying crap? "It's called taking out the first row." Sounds simple, except that the thing rolls out, so if you remove a row, now you've got a step-up from the ground that is probably too high, and the thing might not roll correctly. The students at Duke sit along the side of the court, opposite the benches. So have YOU ever been there? You can see it on TV. They are not along the baseline as we are talking about. The student section there is also closed off until halftime. You can't leave your seats. I just checked on this with their message board. It's not hard to find! Before you were talking about 4,000 seats, then 2,000, now you're saying 1,500 ... but you still haven't talked to the point that the 500 seats currently at lacrosse would take up 95% of the room at baseball. So where do the rest go? You have no answer, you're more interested in a pissing match on points you can't articulate! You have no plan! If you think 2,000 seats can work in 10 rows, then you don't have any concept of what 200 people sitting across one row looks like! The space behind home plate cannot accomodate it! Get real. And two weeks and not a lot of money to build? Ask anyone who was around here for the lacrosse-soccer stands and press box to go up. It took about two months as I recall, and the price tag was definitely a "lot" of money. Define "not a lot". When your department is going to have to fundraise it all, and 500 seats costs an estimated $50,000 (as I saw here on the board), that's a lot! Especially when you want three or four times that many seats for your proposed baseball-only stadium! It's been fun pissing on each other, but really, you're just spouting off. You're not really grounded in reality. It's not worth debating unless you can articulate a plan. There isn't adequate space at baseball for 2,000 seats. That's a fact right now. And the RACC isn't suitable for a top-notch Division I basketball tournament. Maybe we can host the D-II's for St. Rose. Nah, they built their own new gym.

Dane96, when WAS the last time you were on campus? The RACC has one of the biggest banners I've ever seen with Doc Sauers and his 702 victories on it. Right when you walk in the door to the arena.

Dane96 talks a lot of smack for knowing nothing about the RACC: 1.) Both the men's and women's opponent locker rooms are located one floor above the arena, forcing the teams to walk down a two-level flight of stairs to get to the arena floor. GET A CLUE! This isn't the Division III level anymore. Walking down a level is BUSH LEAGUE. Have you ever walked around during a game? The RACC is totally UNSECURED and you can walk right past an opponent's locker room while their coaches are outside talking. I've done it many times! PS, just to reiterate- if you want to do this, YOU'LL HAVE TO WALK UP A FLIGHT OF STAIRS! You know what locker rooms they use? You call them "sport-specific" and "fantastic." If by that you REALLY mean "general use men's and women's locker rooms" and "dirty and smelly from the recreational people who keep their stuff in there," then YES, you're right! FANTASTIC! WAY TO SPOUT OFF ABOUT A SUBJECT YOU CLEARLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT! ------------- 2.) You mention the Division III tournament, obviously one of the higher profile events the RACC has had. You could equally have mentioned the Section II game between Columbia and Schenectady a few years back, where it was standing room only. For either of those events, you don't need luxury seats for sponsors, you don't need Division I-level locker room or media facilities, the list goes on and on. The Hall of Fame room would be inadequate in size for a conference tournament event in terms of hosting pre- and post-game functions. ITS DIVISION III. Expectations are a LOT lower. Have you never seen the reporters doing interviews IN THE HALLWAY after a game, or typing up their stories after the game sitting on press row? All you need to do it stick around for about 20 minutes after the game and you'll see this. BUSH! As for SECURITY, the RACC is one of the more unsecure venues I would imagine in all of college sports. There are a handful of state troopers and/or campus security guards in the corners of the arena, but if some idiot wanted to start throwing things or go out onto the court, he would be mostly unfettered. A comical routine of the officers chasing him while he ran around on the court would ensue. There is no security on either baseline for the most part during the game. It's just not suitable for that type of big-time atmosphere. (Although you could argue that the A-East tournament isn't a big-time atmosphere and you wouldn't get too much of a fight). ------------------- 3.) I've been to TONS of large Division I hoops arenas. The fan sections don't TOUCH the actual backboard systems, which is illegal. UAlbany's does. It's a flaw in the design of the bleacher system; it comes out too far. Check it out next time you're at a game. If the stands actually got rocking behind one of the hoops, you could literally shake the baskets - illegal! Also illegal is not having a buffer between the stands and the players on the endlines. Again, if you got a rowdy crowd and they touched an opposing player on the baseline, you're risking a forfeit or at the least a technical foul. You're such a homer you're not thinking logically! Name another big-time arena (since you so callously mentioned the arenas you mentioned) where you can actually walk down ON the baseline during the game. Go on, name one. ------------------------ 4.) A parking lot at Indian Quad, which no one knows about, for baseball. If you aren't from around here, the chances of finding the Indian Quad parking lot are about zero. The point is that most people would park at the RACC and walk to baseball, not knowing about Indian Quad. And that is classLESS. PS - the locker room facilities are in the PE Building or RACC. SO THE PLAYERS HAVE TO WALK BACK AND FORTH. Another classLESS feature of our baseball field. -------------------------- 5.) I know all about the plans for the press boxes and stands at the baseball and softball diamonds. But as I said, if they throw something up, it's not likely to be large enough. I have talked to people, and the "plans" don't include bleachers adequate enough. Check around before you go railing on a subject you have no clue about. We're not going to have 2,000 seats at either venue. And the press box isn't going to be large enough to host a conference tournament. Where did you think 2,000 seats were going to fit at our baseball stadium? I mean really, give me an honest answer. With the hill there, and the dugouts, there are really only two spots to put bleachers - behind home plate, and to the right of the home dugout. And ditto for the press box, which you can presume would go behind home plate, thus taking up half of your seating capacity (if you want something of adequate size). If you think 2,000 seats are going in to the right of the dugout and in the remaining space around the press box, I've got some land I'd like to sell you beyond the left field fence in foul territory. It's only slightly damp ... You point out Maheney Diamond's seating, like we could do something akin to that. Point one, their dugouts are significantly farther apart than ours are, leaving them much more room behind home plate for stands. Point two, the seating at the lacrosse-soccer field is about 500 people. That type of bleacher going in behind home plate would take up the entire area behind home plate. WHERE ARE THE OTHER 1,500 SEATS??? You can't put something lacrosse-soccer-like in next to the dugout, because it would extend too far back and cover the emergency vehicle access road. Point three - NO LIGHTS. How are you going to host a baseball championship with no lights? The UA-Maine game started at 8:15 last year. They had games at noon, 3:30 and 8:15. The 3:30 game ended at 5:34 (times on A-East website). Even if you started warming up immediately and played at 6:00, you're not likely to get the entire game in before nightfall. And that presumes no games going into extra innings or running long. That's a fairly-brisk 2 hour game. So you're playing games at 10 or 11 am for a conference tournament. No one's going for that if they can help it. ------------- Please check your facts before you go slamming other posters. Just because you don't share my viewpoint, doesn't mean I'm not right. Reality bites sometimes. It's possible to be optimistic (about the proposed new facility plans) while still being realistic (about the current situation and some of the plans that you have details about).

Million? I thought it was at least two, and I thought more.

What was wrong with the floor last season? It looked fine. I don't think the state outline has been there since the move to Division I, at least. So it's quite a few years back then.

To be fair on a couple of things: 1.) Money talks, so people will come to the Capital Region if you offer them full scholarships, as volleyball probably does. 2.) Volleyball changed their rules so that there are no side outs anymore, and you play up to 30. So although in theory it's the same number of points, aces across the board have ramped up since the rules changes. Not to diminsh her record, but if you look at the numbers pre- and post-change, it's striking.

Please don't kid yourself. The tournament will not be at the RACC anytime soon. The department has to prove it can handle that type of event first. The fans are practically on the court, the bleachers but up against the basketball supports, there is no designated luxury seating (and really no way to create it), the locker room facilities are small and mostly inadequate (ever see a team at another arena coming down STAIRS to get to the court?). They would have to do it at Pepsi Arena, in an off-year for the MAAC. As for baseball, I wouldn't hold your breath there either. Inadequate parking close to the venue, inadequate stands (even if they threw up some bleachers), no press box (even if they threw one up, it's not going to be like at these other places). Playing at The Joe wouldn't be beneficial to anyone. "Hey, look at this great facility. ON THE CAMPUS OF A COMMUNITY COLLEGE. Great."

Yeah you're off man. It's all three courts, padded. It's going into the season. Don't fool yourself.

Who wrote that?

I believe that is why when people repeatedly post our OOC schedule, it's a bunch of @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ and not very many home games.