Reusse: Foolish for Gophers to continue avoiding St. Thomas hoops rivalry

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Bob_Loblaw said:
This isn't directed at you personally, but I have no idea where this mindset comes from. We are afraid of our own shadow. UST is not going to go away, eventually we will need to play them every single year or it will be an absolute embarrassment.

Why don't we slap them around a little bit? Lets build up a 8-0 record against them. You seem to be worried that losing to them could embarrass us or somehow give them a spotlight to help them in recruiting? Lets smack them around and be able to tell recruits, it's just a completely different level of basketball.
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Adding another weak opponent to an already weak schedule does not benefit us if the goal is to make the tournament. Possibly in the future it might make sense but it’s dumb to suggest we should be playing them now.
 

CentralGopher said:
Adding another weak opponent to an already weak schedule does not benefit us if the goal is to make the tournament. Possibly in the future it might make sense but it’s dumb to suggest we should be playing them now.
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The benefit would not be from "adding another weak opponent" but instead "replacing a weak opponent" and reaping the financial implications from such a contest.

I'm glad Motzko didn't wuss out.
 

Reusse needs to get his 15 minutes of fame for this week.

I agree on the rivalry but lets focus on Golf, Cross Country, and Women's Soccer. That should give him some great material until Ben decides to move ahead. (...Your welcome Patrick)
 

Ope3 said:
The benefit would not be from "adding another weak opponent" but instead "replacing a weak opponent" and reaping the financial implications from such a contest.

I'm glad Motzko didn't wuss out.
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Depends on if it’s a gopher home game or not and if the attendance would really be that much higher than just scheduling a decent opponent. I have doubts it would be.
 



CentralGopher said:
Depends on if it’s a gopher home game or not and if the attendance would really be that much higher than just scheduling a decent opponent. I have doubts it would be.
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The premise of the article is that it would be a Gopher Home game.

I think it would have a good chance to hit the 10,000 mark for attendance, but granted the state of the program as a whole, it would not be a guarantied.
 

Unregistered User said:
What does that statement have to do with a game between the Gophers and St. Thomas?
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1. I don't know why I'm dignifying this with a response.
2. St Thomas has a campus in Minneapolis and Minnesota has campus in St. Paul.
 

CentralGopher said:
Depends on if it’s a gopher home game or not and if the attendance would really be that much higher than just scheduling a decent opponent. I have doubts it would be.
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Obviously it would be a gopher home game, and attendance would also be obviously higher than for the majority of our awful non-conference slate. It's just embarassing to refuse to play them.
 

NateDawgUM said:
1. I don't know why I'm dignifying this with a response.
2. St Thomas has a campus in Minneapolis and Minnesota has campus in St. Paul.
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Oh, of course.
Everyone associates The “U” with the St. Paul campus, and St. Thomas with the Minneapolis campus.
 



AO54 said:
Obviously it would be a gopher home game, and attendance would also be obviously higher than for the majority of our awful non-conference slate. It's just embarassing to refuse to play them.
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I’d hardly call it embarrassing if all we gain is a little better attendance. We could have better attendance with a better quality opponent for our non conference slate as well.
 

disco said:
On occasion? I've said it here before, unless something drastically changes at the U, St. Thomas will be a stronger basketball program than Minnesota in five years.
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Playing in the Summit? No.
Now, if they ever went to the Big East, then you have a possible argument, but not as long as they play in the Summit.
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
Might as well starting beating them up now before the Gophers are surpassed by UST.

How about try and generate some excitement locally? Its a good thing that these two play every year. Our program sucks right now. Change things up
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Perhaps the Gophers could play Chicago State. 🤔😏
 





FinnGopher said:
Playing in the Summit? No.
Now, if they ever went to the Big East, then you have a possible argument, but not as long as they play in the Summit.
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Even if they wouldn't be there yet, this is assuming the goal is to become another Butler or Marquette, yes. The main reason I think they will surpass the Gophers is money. UST has a wealthy alumni base that gives back to the school. They more or less are being given a new arena. And with basketball, it's relatively easy (compared to football) to build a really good team quickly if you're willing to pay guys enough.
 

Ope3 said:
What is lost is the opportunity to have 12,000 paying customers attend the game at Williams arena as opposed to the hundreds that were there to witness IUPUI.

It could be monetized even more by requiring fans to buy some sort of mini-package to go to the game.



Is it really that hard for you to understand that several more thousand of fans would be more interested in seeing the Gophers face the Tommies instead of IUPUI?
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A question for you or anyone else...how much do we pay smaller programs to fill our schedule with a home game? (I have no clue)

Let's say we sell an extra 5,000 tickets at an average of $20.00 a pop. After a presumed payout to STU, does the minimal financial windfall justify scheduling a team that does nothing to enhance our NCAA Tourney resume and potentially harms our local recruiting following a humiliating loss?

I hope we schedule them in the future just for the local interest angle, but it seems to me that such a game would do a lot more to promote the STU program than any potential gain accrued by the U.
 

Unregistered User said:
Oh, of course.
Everyone associates The “U” with the St. Paul campus, and St. Thomas with the Minneapolis campus.
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Very obtuse response. Same media market which for me alone would qualify as being the "same city" just as Northwestern and DePaul are, even though one is in Evanston and the other Chicago.

The University of Minnesota and University of St Thomas are Twin Cities schools, campuses in both Minneapolis & St Paul whose basketball arenas are 4.0 miles apart per Mapquest.
 

it's a pretty simple equation.

--Gophers pay no-name school to come here for game.
--Fans not excited about playing no-name school.
--poor attendance for home game.
--Gophers could schedule St. Thomas - or one of the Dakota schools - for home game and draw more fans, but they would rather pay a no-name school to come here and play in front of empty seats.

personally, I would much rather see the Gophers play St. Thomas and all the Dakota schools instead of playing South Carolina Upstate, Florida Gulf Coast and IUPUI.

if the Gophers are afraid to play St. Thomas, what the bleep do they think will happen when they play B1G teams?

If Mark Coyle had a spine, he would tell the coach "you are playing St. Thomas." but that will not happen because Mark Coyle does not have a spine.

could say the same about football. a Gopher game against NDSU, SDSU or USD would be a sellout.
 

I have nothing against the St Thomas vs Gophers matchup. However, I am against how Reusse tries to make this argument.

Reusse certainly mails in his arguments; Straight from the playground.

Talks about tradition of smaller schools; then does nothing to establish St Thomas meets this standard tradition, other than enrollment.

He also has to bash IUPUI with ooey- pooey well, Pat Oooey Poooey has 29k and is bigger than NE and NW, while being 600 less than IA.

If That’s the way its argued, I’d always answer no. Build yourself up and we’ll consider it in 10 years.

He’d have done well to post here first. Some posters actually give reason that’d move the needle for me.
 

Slim Tubby said:
A question for you or anyone else...how much do we pay smaller programs to fill our schedule with a home game? (I have no clue)

Let's say we sell an extra 5,000 tickets at an average of $20.00 a pop. After a presumed payout to STU, does the minimal financial windfall justify scheduling a team that does nothing to enhance our NCAA Tourney resume and potentially harms our local recruiting following a humiliating loss?

I hope we schedule them in the future just for the local interest angle, but it seems to me that such a game would do a lot more to promote the STU program than any potential gain accrued by the U.
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Florida Gulf Coast was just paid $110,000 per the Strib. I think St Thomas would take much less as there would be no travel costs associated with the game.

As for 5,000 at $20 a pop, just my opinion is that's underestimating both the number or tickets and average price. Could also make it part of a mini-package to drive up attendance for other games.

www.startribune.com

Gophers scheduling harder than ever because 'nobody tells you the truth'

Coach Ben Johnson and director of basketball Ryan Livingston have found scheduling even more difficult with the changes in the nonconference slate.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com
 

Wisconsin vs Marquette
Nebraska vs Creighton
Iowa/Iowa St vs Drake

Good? Bad? Indifferent? Irrelevant?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I don't believe you.
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Can you explain to me why I should care about St Thomas basketball? Or NDSU, SDSU etc? There’s no rivalry or excitement there. Maybe yall work in an industry where the tommie fans are psycho and hang on every game like it’s all they have, but all it’s going to mean is a loss to a bad team if so, not add some additional existential thing like I’m going to get razzed about a sport we suck at
 

Slim Tubby said:
A question for you or anyone else...how much do we pay smaller programs to fill our schedule with a home game? (I have no clue)
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did a little checking.

for the Gophers - I found an MN Daily article from 2012 - (that's 11 years ago). The Gophers paid 8 opponents a total of $645,000. that's an average of $80,000 a game, which - according to the article, was one of the lowest in the B1G. and that was 11 years ago.

more recently, Nebraska paid $110,000 for a buy game with UC-Riverside - and Nebraska lost the game.

I found an article from Indiana where the Hoosiers reportedly paid an average of $95,000 per game for guarantee games in a recent season.

so it looks like a lot of guarantee games paid out by P5 schools are close to $100,000 per game these days.
 

disco said:
On occasion? I've said it here before, unless something drastically changes at the U, St. Thomas will be a stronger basketball program than Minnesota in five years.
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The level of hubris some folks have over St. Thomas is so over the top. Sure they're going to go from DIII to dominant program in the state and Big East member all within 7-10 years. Book it.
 

upnorthkid said:
fill the barn with opposing fans with a total ticket revenue of what like 300-500k (if it was a sellout) depending on what they charged for tickets? until the team is better and people want to see them, scheduling this game just puts opposing fans butts in the seats for a small payday that changes nothing in the grand scheme fiscally while giving the local media a chance to dunk on you if you lose. I can absolutely see why they aren't scheduling this game now. Seems like it would be an easy one to make an open gym exhibition to start the season though.
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The only thing I would say is that the local media dunking on them if they lose might be less annoying than hearing them whine about not playing this game after every other non-conference game. Gophers vs Buthune Cookman: "Boo. Why don't they play St. Thomas?" Gophers vs UTSA: "Who cares, why don't they play St. Thomas?". Gophers vs IUPUI: "I guess they won. But why won't they play St. Thomas?"
 
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disco said:
Even if they wouldn't be there yet, this is assuming the goal is to become another Butler or Marquette, yes. The main reason I think they will surpass the Gophers is money. UST has a wealthy alumni base that gives back to the school. They more or less are being given a new arena. And with basketball, it's relatively easy (compared to football) to build a really good team quickly if you're willing to pay guys enough.
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The U has significantly more rich alumni who make more on average and donate more to the school.
 

Ope3 said:
They would have gained the benefit of 5,000-7000 paying customers at the Barn and one less game being relegated to BTN+ thus getting more eyeballs watching their product.

Instead I followed the Gopher-IUPUI game by getting a notification from my Gopher Sports app that simply told me what the Final score was.
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I'm not sure why you would assume a Gopher-St. Thomas game wouldn't end up on BTN +. If anything the potential TV audience is smaller than Gophers-IUPUI because both teams are in the same market and more of the potential viewers will actually be at the game.
 

Ope3 said:
Very obtuse response. Same media market which for me alone would qualify as being the "same city" just as Northwestern and DePaul are, even though one is in Evanston and the other Chicago.

The University of Minnesota and University of St Thomas are Twin Cities schools, campuses in both Minneapolis & St Paul whose basketball arenas are 4.0 miles apart per Mapquest.
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Not obtuse, it was pedantic.

I love St. Thomas. My father went there, taught there and spent the majority of his professional career there in administration (also spent a significant amount of time at St. John's). I have 4 siblings that went there either for undergrad or grad school, and one of those did undergrad at SJU, so I like both of those schools.

My mother went to The "U", as did I, and my son is a current student there.

But to the point of the article, I just don't see any need to play St. Thomas just because they are close. There is almost zero association between the two schools.

Since Fatprick brought this up for the IUPUI game, why doesn't he write an article railing against Illinois or Purdue not playing IUPUI on an annual basis? The "IU" and "PU" stand for The University of Illinois, and Purdue University, the "I" is for Indianapolis, where the campus is located. IUPUI is a collaboration between IU and PU, so those three schools clearly have closer association with each other than The "U" and St. Thomas.
 

howeda7 said:
I'm not sure why you would assume a Gopher-St. Thomas game wouldn't end up on BTN +. If anything the potential TV audience is smaller than Gophers-IUPUI because both teams are in the same market and more of the potential viewers will actually be at the game.
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The market for St. Thomas vs. Minnesota is much larger than IUPUI.

The growth in the Twin Cities market for that game would generate more views than whatever you think IUPUI would be pulling out of Indy.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
it's a pretty simple equation.

--Gophers pay no-name school to come here for game.
--Fans not excited about playing no-name school.
--poor attendance for home game.
--Gophers could schedule St. Thomas - or one of the Dakota schools - for home game and draw more fans, but they would rather pay a no-name school to come here and play in front of empty seats.

personally, I would much rather see the Gophers play St. Thomas and all the Dakota schools instead of playing South Carolina Upstate, Florida Gulf Coast and IUPUI.

if the Gophers are afraid to play St. Thomas, what the bleep do they think will happen when they play B1G teams?

If Mark Coyle had a spine, he would tell the coach "you are playing St. Thomas." but that will not happen because Mark Coyle does not have a spine.

could say the same about football. a Gopher game against NDSU, SDSU or USD would be a sellout.
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Serious question. Does recruiting play a role? I don't mind having potential Indiana and Chicago recruits see us via the likes of IUPUI, South Carolina Upstate, and Florida Gulf Coast. I don't see us playing UST helping with local recruiting.

I know it's different than football. Maybe it makes no difference whatsoever.

Just a thought.
 

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