godanesgo99

You tell me? I haven't followed Villanova much in the past, but I know many people did. I will say that the situation isnt comparable really. Paschall redshirted his first season with Villanova, sitting out that championship year. He wasn't on the floor at all, and thus his connection to Fordham really wasn't mentioned much. Then his Junior year Fordham wasn't mentioned much at all as he had been on the team for 2 years. He played for 1 season at Fordham. The situations aren't at all similar. Cremo and Nichols will both step into their respective new teams and play immediately. UAlbany is mentioned in multiple articles about both of those teams already. The name is getting out there. An example is the article that I posted a few hours ago.

LOL. I still remember $3.99 large Cheese Pies from DC's delivered to campus ($4.50 if you wanted pepperoni) We ordered about 15 pies a week to my suite on Colonial...

When I was at UA, Mild Wallies gave away a free pizza to a student for every UA 3-pointer. We were only D2 at the time, but it got me to the games.

Be negative all you want, and no we didn't win any chips with them on the roster, but both represented the university well winning all conference awards and all academic awards. Now they will both be providing the program with untold amounts of free advertising every time someone does a story on their new teams, every time they get into a game. I read somewhere that the free advertising value of a trip to the final for a school is measured in 10 figures. UA wont get close to that if either Villanova or Florida State makes it to the final 4 in marketing value, but would definitely get a piece of that as UA would be mentioned dozens, if not hundreds of times during the tournament. Let's look at the positives.

Noticed this today on the NCAA site while reading the article on the new NET standings.... https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2018-07-23/64-fearless-predictions-2018-19-college-basketball-season It sucks that we lose David and Joe to transfer, but if they both do well at their new schools, that is a lot of free advertising for the UA program, and could potentially help with recruiting in the future if the coaches use it to their advantage. 59. Transfer Joe Cremo quickly becomes a household name at Villanova The former Albany guard averaged 17.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists last year. He can do a little of everything, and Villanova loves versatility.

I see ads for tickets every so often as well, but I am already following the team and I have renewed my seats already. I am not talking about a post saying that tickets are available. That does little to nothing except potentially remind people to renew or maybe grab the attention of someone who was thinking about buying tickets already. The whole point is trying to find new butts to put in the seats. Obviously the school wants to renew everyone that is already a ticket holder, but without adding new people (people who may not be on twitter at all, much less following UA twitter accounts) then the attendance will shrink instead of grow.

Unless you are suggesting that the school decides to punt attendance this year because they wont be good.

You are spot on. The team is nothing but ??????? for this season. There are no stars to hype. There are no local players to push attendance. There can be no expectations of a huge season. No LCC at SEFCU. This is exactly why the program needs marketing now more than ever. I placed my comments in the "Butts in the seats" thread because attendance and season ticket sales are going to be down this year. SEFCU is way better when it's packed. Will Brown should be starting his weekly appearances on 104.5 now talking about the new guys. There should be press releases weekly to the papers about story lines. We aren't Syracuse, but google shows over a dozen articles on Syracuse.com alone being written in just the last week, much less all the other media outlets. I'm not talking about a release on twitter that only people already following will see. I'm talking about finding ways to get the casual fans involved. Why not promote that you can get 2 season tickets in great purple level seats for under $400, and that includes a parking pass for the season. Compare the value of the 15 games to other things you could spend those 4 bills on? I brought my son to Colonie Center for a movie and it cost $60 after a popcorn and a soda. The last concert we attended at SPAC was over $100 a head after parking. I just get the feeling that the school is promoting football and ignoring basketball. Yes football is about to start, but now is when they need to push the basketball program. Football needs to be pushed during Lacrosse and the early summer.

If true that really sucks for him. He looked talented. I wish him the best in recovery. He still has UA on his twitter feed. As far as Jerotic goes, he was previously signed by Southern Miss, and they were very high on him. Might be a great 'filler' signing. Wonder what happened there and why that didn't work out for him.

https://southernmiss.com/news/2017/11/14/Men_s_Basketball_signs_Jerotic_Watson_in_early_period.aspx

Also, it's possible someone is playing as a walk-on as well I guess. Who is on the team from NYS that might get the free SUNY tuition? I believe that while a team can only have 13 scholarships, they can have 15 players.

I did post above that they left Starks out of the 'meet the players' videos. I wonder if he is no longer with the team for some reason.

I'm on twitter and facebook, and I haven't seen "pimping". If you think that they are advertising enough, then I don't know what to say. The meet the players videos were great, but what else is out there?

I stand corrected. Not sure why I thought that was August. Either way, I haven't seen any real push for Basketball season tickets or getting people excited early this season. I am afraid that the loss of Stire and Cremo might lose some local fans and ticket sales. They should be out pimping the team and the program now. Becker has had multiple radio interviews in Burlington already. Brown should be doing a media tour here. Anything that gets the program in front of potential local fans will help. The region needs to know that the team has promise even though we lost most of what we had last year.

The twitter posts introducing the team were a great move, but beyond that I havent seen much marketing yet. Season tickets are on sale. The team should be out there. In past years, hasn't Will Brown already done radio appearances talking about the team by now? The team is almost all new, but isn't this about when the captain(s) get announced and do some media appearances?

I am betting that he splits backup duty with Brunson this season behind Testaverde, and starts for his Junior and Senior years.

Looks like they added French today, but they state that this is "rounding out the team"? Did they forget to post Starks, or is it possible he isn't with the team? Also no Fruscio, but that is potentially because he is a walk-on? Both are still listed on the roster on the ualbanysports page. French:

Here you go: Clark was one of the first done. I haven't seen Starks, Fruscio, or French yet. I think they are doing 1 per day. The women's team was done last week. Here are the intro's so far: Lulka: Clark: Rizzuto: Hank: Campbell: Healy: Lauderdale: de Sousa: Miller: Brooks: Flory:

I'm curious to see what Sasha French looks like. I can't seem to find any recent video of him. If 6'11" is true, we could have a solid big man lineup. Have we had someone that close to being a 7 footer since Zoellner? Big Rich, John Puk, and Brent Hank are all 6'10". Am I forgetting someone? Plenty of size on the team this season: SF: Campbell (6-6), de Sousa (6-6) PF: Lulka (6-8), Lauderdale (6-8) C: French (6-11), Hank (6-10) Brown can even throw some other big bodies out there as well. I don't know if we have seen this much size in the AE in a while. SG: Flory (6-5), Rizzuto (6-3) PG: Healy (6-3), Starks (6-2) (leaving Clark and Miller at 6-1, Fruscio at 5-10, and Brooks at 5-9) With the smaller guys, could probably run a small line up as well with 1. Brooks, 2. Clark, 3. Flory, 4. Campbell, 5. Lulka or something like that. Gotta temper those expectations lol.

No doubt they could be suspect, and that is an advertisement for a personal trainer, but the bigger thing is that he appears to be able to handle the ball well for a big man. This year is going to be a crapshoot, but I am really excited to see the team play. I know it's sad to admit this, but I actually had a dream about the team a few weeks ago. Cremo and Nichols had left because Will Brown had gone all "Blue Chips" bringing in ringers and they left to get playing time elsewhere. Funny to think Villanova and Florida State meant more playing time. LOL. But Brown went 10 deep, all 10 were on an all AE team in some capacity (1st, 2nd, third, defensive, or rookie) and the team made it to the final four. Obviously pipe dream, gotta keep expectations in check, and I'll be happy with a top 3 finish in the league. Being an obsessed fan is great. ?

Saw this on YouTube...

This year's game isn't happening. Time to move on. $iena only cared about the $ and didn't care about the community. I already showed how the best solution for the community was home and home. Their AD wanted to save his job by not appearing to give in to the crosstown team. He stared UA down and ended up losing a money maker for his school. Good riddance. No reason to discuss that low-major program any longer. Let's move on to the games and team we have.

With the team being mostly new this year they are working on introducing everyone... https://twitter.com/UAlbanySports/status/1028989715930742786?s=19

I'm fine with 2 games a year with home and home, that works mostly great. It ends the "Albany Cup" though. What if there is a split? Do we really want to play them twice and have twice the affect on RPI and SOS playing that junk? Does twice a year reduce the hype?

My message above really should be what Benson shares with the media. In years that Siena gets the game they gain 4k in attendance In years that UA gets the game they gain 2k in attendance. Over a 2 year period that's only an average of 1000 extra tickets sold per year with it downtown both times vs. home and home at the expense of the uptown economy, future growth of UA athletics, it's sponsors, and fairness in basketball. The community solution is actually home and home, not pandering to the LCC community. Want to win the media war? Go on offense.