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We could compete in FCS if we were willing to put enough into it. Wofford is smaller than DC, is roughly 50-50 male-female, and has been to the playoffs a bunch.

We put our eggs in the basketball basket. They chose FB. Their "minor" sports, and most women's sports, suffer. As we well know decisions have consequences.

To repeat a Wofford story: 2 college presidents ago Joe Lesesne retired at Wofford. He didn't return to the classroom part time, he returned to the FB team as tight ends coach.

Just interesting - look at what Houston is doing with football and basketball. Granted it has a very wealthy alum willing to pour tens of millions of dollars into both programs to get them competitive enough to matriculate into a P5 conference. I am just curious what would make us get into the Gonzaga relevance. Gonzaga has a small endowment but its basketball school is a powerhouse. We are a small institution with a larger and hopefully growing endowment. Focused on basketball. How much further could we go? I am sure Chris Clunie has outlined this further.

wildforthecats wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 07, 2019 12:22 pm

BDL wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 01, 2019 12:45 pm

DCA06 wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 01, 2019 1:31 am

2) in recent years we’ve been close to a couple high profile bigs but haven’t converted: guys have gone to Northwestern, Clemson and other schools like Harvard or Penn. what gets us over the hump? I want to see more upfront and wing talent leverage off of Kellan. And future guards.

We will never land a high profile big every recruiting cycle but we seem to land at least one per 4 years.... Cohen, Peyton, and Luka were all really good gets and we beat out multiple P5 schools for them. Other than that, recruiting has seemingly picked up recently and while getting a 4 star every year will not happen I like where we’re heading.

Who is the Clemson big that we "lost?"

Catalin "Bobo" Baciu?

I believe we were one of the schools in Hunter Tyson's final few before he selected Clemson. Hes was rated as a four star recruit and a 6'7 forward/small forward, but from the few games ive watched so far it seems like Clemson uses him more as a guard than a big when hes on the floor.

DCA06 wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 07, 2019 2:01 pm

Just interesting - look at what Houston is doing with football and basketball. Granted it has a very wealthy alum willing to pour tens of millions of dollars into both programs to get them competitive enough to matriculate into a P5 conference. I am just curious what would make us get into the Gonzaga relevance. Gonzaga has a small endowment but its basketball school is a powerhouse. We are a small institution with a larger and hopefully growing endowment. Focused on basketball. How much further could we go? I am sure Chris Clunie has outlined this further.

I would venture to say that we will never have scholarship football at Davidson again. Never, say never, but it's so far from the realm of possibility it's not worth discussing.

bvgerd wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 07, 2019 3:14 pm

I believe we were one of the schools in Hunter Tyson's final few before he selected Clemson. Hes was rated as a four star recruit and a 6'7 forward/small forward, but from the few games ive watched so far it seems like Clemson uses him more as a guard than a big when hes on the floor.

Yeah, if Tyson is the guy if he's considered a big, well then so am I.

Maybe the poster was referring to Hunter as a "big" recruit, i.e., a highly regarded recruit, regardless of height.

Clemson's basketball history is not stellar. Usually a coach does well there for a few years, the team starts trending down, then he's carried out on his shield. Rick Barnes is one of the few guys who figured that out and left voluntarily. Brad Brownell is doing a very good job at Clemson.

We beat Clemson in '93-'94 and no one was shocked. That would be viewed as a big upset now.

How big is Wofford's athletic budget? Their tuition and fees are much lower than Davidson's, so funding 63 scholarships for football does not cost them as much it would Davidson.

True, but they should have 76 schollies for women to match FB and BB. I don’t think they give that many. One can keep out of Title IX trouble by trending in the right direction. I guess they are slowly adding scholarships for women to avoid that pitfall.

Anecdotally I was told Woffie gave 48 FB schollies and only 10 BB schollies when they joined the SoCon. They phased in the rest over a few years.

I googled "Wofford Athletic Budget" and found a site that reported Wofford awards 40% more scholarship aid to men than women. It said Wofford's athletic budget was $12,800,000. I did not see what year that was. Davidson's budget is around $13,000,000.

As long as Davidson was in the Southern Conference, Wofford fans would tell us Mike Young had 11 scholarships, not the 13 allowed by the NCAA. I don't know if that has changed.

Maybe the poster means Bad Bernard.

It’s gotta be Baciu, right?

In the class of '99, there was a recruit named Lavell Blanchard. He was the 6th rated recruit in that class. He always listed Davidson as a school of interest. He ended up at Michigan. He never played in the NBA. He was 6'6".

I’d rather put more money into basketball and ironically I bet our endowment would grow exponentially if we engendered a men’s lacrosse team. I think the return on investment to get football to a level like basketball is too great. I just though it would be interesting to engage group to gauge interest or thoughts on how you keep evolving Davidson athletics that by any extension improves reputation and funding for basketball

Why would adding a men's lacrosse team add to the athletic department's donations?

I once asked a member of the women's lacrosse team what could be done to improve the team and promote the sport. She said it would help to add a men's team. The only fans of the women's team were guys who had played in high school. Women might come watch the men's team and become fans of the game. The men and women fans would go the home matches of both teams. The women's team discussed this on road trips and this was their best solution short of fully funding women's lacrosse. (This conversation was in the late 1990s.)

men’s lacrosse has a large pull from certain demographics that can be additive with respect to giving. Further more future alums giving to program and school helps - just like football.