UCR's athletic department is 91.7% funded by student fees according to Jim Alexander....highest percentage reported to the NCAA. Wow. Link is to Fansmanship podcast with Alexander.

http://www.fansmanship.com/podcast-episode-177-jim-alexander-on-the-dennis-cutts-firing/

Her last few tweets...yikes. She is doubling down on all of this. @tjsports23 is her twitter handle.

Alexander's article did not paint a pretty picture of UCR athletics.

Apparently Cutts was fired in the parking lot...

https://www.pe.com/2018/01/02/alexander-cutts-firing-at-ucr-still-baffling-and-underexplained/amp/

It looks pretty slick.

UC Merced is NAIA.

And I know, first year coach. Cupboard was left bare after Martin bolted for "greener" pastures...but losing to Chaminade by 30ish...yikes.

Which makes you wonder why Kal hasn't fired their coach...

Timing is strange and they weren't that far from .500. Three days before Big West play starts...yikes...

I really hope we don't go to a 20 game schedule. We'll probably jump to 18 but play a few teams once, similar to what the PAC 12 does.

Our attendance tonight...996. Granted it is the day before New Years against a D26 team while the students are gone.

Pacific is averaging about 2100 fans per home game this year against our almost 1600. Pacific also gets an attendance bounce because they play in the WCC, especially now that the conference isn't always a one-bid-wonder. Their RPI will drop because they play Gonzaga, Saint Mary's, and BYU a total of six times a year.

We don't have that...yet.

As for the home/home deals, I would hope we at least offer it. There are 8 teams within a 3 hour drive of UCD (San Francisco, Stanford, San Jose State, Santa Clara, Saint Mary's, Cal, Pacific, Slac, and Nevada). You could even add Fresno State.

Money absolutely plays a role in it. Look at the situation surrounding LBSU and Monson. He gets paid a portion of what the team makes. That's why I'm saying we have to play and win games on the road against mid-tier or top-tier teams. We're not going to get a big name to waltz into the Pavilion unless we establish ourselves as a consistently good program.

We have to schedule up and start winning the majority of those games. They'll show us what kind of team we really have, give the guys experience in playing in a hostile setting, and prepare us for conference play.

But, it all starts with winning. If that doesn't happen, nothing else matters and we'll keep seeing home and home series with Northern Colorado, Pacific, Slac, etc.

Time to rest and reload before UC Irvine!

@69aggie And a team that is used to 20 degree weather! I know the game wasn't played outside but the cold gets to you, especially if you aren't used to it!

@BlueGoldAg But of those 6 wins we only beat 3 teams.

Wazzu's RPI is 152. If that is one of our best wins ever we need to reevaluate things. It was a good win but since we beat them on the road they dropped two games. They play at UCLA tonight at 8 pm on ESPN2. If they are one of our best wins ever we need them to win A LOT of PAC 12 games.

RPI:
Northern Colorado - 125
Slac - 307
Pacific - 218

If next year's road schedule looks similar to what we have (hopefully better) and we pull out a few road W's we are headed in the riggt direction.

Versus West Coast competition the Ags are:

3-0 vs Big Sky (UNC x 2, Slac)
2-1 vs WCC (Pacific x 2, USF - L)
1-1 vs PAC 12 (Washington - L, Wazzu)
0-1 vs MWC (Nevada - L)
0-1 vs WAC (Utah Valley)

Saint Mary's I'm almost certain has said they will not come up here. USF and Santa Clara I'm not sure about. My point is that we have to establish a winning culture and then we become the team that answers the phone instead of the one making the call.

To do that we have to A.) Schedule road games against decent competition and progressively increasing the level of competition (this year was a step in the right direction) and B.) Win those games (didn't happen this year).

Tough one to lose. Time to focus on conference play!

That's really nice that Les wants to give local schools a chance to play at the Pavilion but it takes away a home game against a quality opponent.

Are we scheduling OOC games in advance or on a yearly basis? There is no reason to have a home and home with anyone (Pacific this year, Seattle and Slac in year's past). Schedule two-for-one games with opponents and try to book in advance. This isn't like football where we are limited in who we can play on the West Coast. There are decent Mountain West, WAC, WCC, PAC 12, and Big Sky teams we can play.

The thing we have to stay away from is falling into the trap of scheduling a lower tier team on the road and think it will help. At some point we need to play the big boys (UCLA, USC, Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, Gonzaga, Saint Mary's) and accept the fact that they will be on the road.

Women's hoops is a whole different story. The lack of parity in women's hoops is staggering and is why you never see a small school rise to the elite level.

Yes. We don't have to play every team on Tobacco Road or make a trip up the Atlantic seaboard and play Georgetown, Maryland, Seton Hall, and Syracuse. But a schedule that doesn't include Holy Names AND William Jessup is a good start. We're going to have to play road games and we have this year (@ Washington, Wazzu, USF, Nevada, Utah Valley) but we went 1-4 against those teams.