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

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GopherBlood777 said:
After thinking the Gophers were flat out scared to schedule St. Thomas, the reason could be primarily financial. They may be commanding a higher buy game amount than other schools, and the U doesn't feel it's worth it to schedule at the price they are asking.
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If St. Thomas wants the good publicity they would get from playing the Gophers, they should be willing to do it for free. No payment.
 

upnorthkid said:
To me there is no overlap, recruiting, history or otherwise, with St Thomas. Maybe that will change over time and will grow, but right now it would equivalent to playing and beating or losing to Duluth. They’re in the same state but there’s nothing that moves the needle about it in terms of your season or history. If people are saying they want to try spark that as part of the future, sure. But if it’s to put people in the stands for one random game, that’s a big meh for me.
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There is overlap whether or we pretend to ignore it. They are a D1 basketball team and they are in Minnesota. If Duluth started playing D1 basketball, we should play them too. This stuff is precisely why the WCHA was such a fun hockey conference.
 

howeda7 said:
If St. Thomas wants the good publicity they would get from playing the Gophers, they should be willing to do it for free. No payment.
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There is no reason to believe that St Thomas wouldn't be willing to negotiate this at a fair market value. Every indication from Coach Tauer and Coach Johnson is that St Thomas is willing and the Gophers are not (under this regime), not that there is a difference in $$ demands or anything of that sort.

Edit: The athletic departments were able to work it out for hockey in a way that made sense for both. They've been playing in baseball also, so this isn't an impasse at the AD level.
 

CentralGopher said:
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.
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Ya but, if we played better competition we would likely lose. If we played St Thomas this year we'd likely win. And St Thomas is higher rated than the majority of our non conference opponents now.
So there are two advantages with greater attendance.

3rd advantage....gotta be more fun for the players to play St Thomas over UPIUPU especially with 500 people versus 10,000. But also the challenge of beating them because it matters more simulates conference games preparation better than vs Upstate anybody.

AND, with the hockey coach taking on the challenge...basketball looks like a weenie dodging St Thomas.
 

Gophers1992 said:
I'm not going to get into a debate over elite programs, but the point is I could name about 15 nonconference opponents that would excite me more than UST.
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Yeah, we can talk about how crappy our non-conference schedule is. This one should be an absolute no brainer. It's more fun than 90% of our other non-conference opponents every year, we should absolutely spank them. This should be a slam dunk.
 


i would like to see the Gophers play St. Thomas. Both coached have said they would let the players play in the TC Pro-am also, but then both didn't - or the Pro-Am didn't get NCAA sanctioned. Sell out the Barn for a couple of games and then move the game to Target Center and sell more tickets. When the Tommies are in the Big East and they demand a home game, have it at the X.

I would also like to see the Gophers play the Dakota schools- play all 4 of them. If paying for a team to come to Mpls to play, it should be cheaper due to less travel costs- or set it up like Wisconsin does with UW-Milwaukee and UW-Green Bay and play 3 times at home and go play there 1 time.
Throw Northern Iowa into a program like that also
 

MonikerSchmoniker45 said:
What's the chatter on the UST board... do they want the game as much as some of our fans do?
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As a founding member of the UST "board" (which is still non-public for various reasons, and I won't speak for all members there), I think the argument that "there is no reason to play the game" is silly and easily debunked from a number of directions. Reusse is a hack, but it's pure cowardice. Either you are going to stomp us and it's the equivalent of playing SC Upstate OR not.
 

jamtod said:
As a founding member of the UST "board" (which is still non-public for various reasons, and I won't speak for all members there), I think the argument that "there is no reason to play the game" is silly and easily debunked from a number of directions. Reusse is a hack, but it's pure cowardice. Either you are going to stomp us and it's the equivalent of playing SC Upstate OR not.
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I look forward to the day I get to hate you :).
 




Gophers1992 said:
I hate that we are probably going to play UST regularly in hockey, but for different reasons than people don't want to play them in hoops. We are an elite hockey program and play one of the top nonconference schedules year in and year out. There are a limited number of teams we can face each year and I'm sorry but St. Thomas doesn't make that cut in my eyes. There are probably 15-20 programs I'd rather we face than waste our time with UST. Now if they build up to a top program, that will change things in my eyes, but for now I hate the money grab.
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For me and I think most every one else it has little to do with a money grab. Better atmosphere, higher stakes are just more fun.
AND, if you want to become a better basketball program you play better teams ready or not....it is not going to happen playing horrible teams in the 340's 350's 360's. Bad habits, false expectations is all that creates.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yeah, we can talk about how crappy our non-conference schedule is. This one should be an absolute no brainer. It's more fun than 90% of our other non-conference opponents every year, we should absolutely spank them. This should be a slam dunk.
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In basketball yeah I'm all for playing UST. Not on the ice.
 

60's Guy said:
For me and I think most every one else it has little to do with a money grab. Better atmosphere, higher stakes are just more fun.
AND, if you want to become a better basketball program you play better teams ready or not....it is not going to happen playing horrible teams in the 340's 350's 360's. Bad habits, false expectations is all that creates.
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I just know I had fun between the 2nd and 3rd periods (with my 11 year old son tagging along), going to find the kid in the Gopher student section with the "Still D3" sign. Just to say hi, banter a little, and get a picture just in case... The atmosphere was excellent and my kids were not big into hockey, but that double header really was a spark for them.
 

AO54 said:
How about our non-conferene opponents this year? Can anyone of the cowards in this thread name even 3 of those teams they'd rather see than St. Thomas?
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Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about hockey, not basketball.
 



60's Guy said:
Ya but, if we played better competition we would likely lose. If we played St Thomas this year we'd likely win. And St Thomas is higher rated than the majority of our non conference opponents now.
So there are two advantages with greater attendance.

3rd advantage....gotta be more fun for the players to play St Thomas over UPIUPU especially with 500 people versus 10,000. But also the challenge of beating them because it matters more simulates conference games preparation better than vs Upstate anybody.

AND, with the hockey coach taking on the challenge...basketball looks like a weenie dodging St Thomas.
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Even for the people who seem afraid of competing for attention in Twin Cities market with UST, it doesn't make sense.

If you want to put gasoline on their attempts to take local attention away from our basketball program, refuse to play them. That's a story. That's almost as big of a story as losing to them. I know people who don't follow either program who said "UST is better than the Gophers" last year. Do you know what extinguishes that spotlight? Smashing them.
 

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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lol could be....but i highly doubt it
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
lol. I meant good friendly hate :).

I don't think it'll work for me and St. Thomas. I went to Nativity and Johnny Tauer went to Highland Catholic. That's just something you don't get over.
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Don't all y'all St Paulites get over that when you end up at CDH together?

I did have Dr Tauer for 2/5 of my Psychology minor courses back when he was an assistant and teaching a full courseload. One of those classes was Motivation and Emotion, so we should probably post some good BB material in advance of the Marquette game tonight for somebody to send him, eh?
 

Gophers1992 said:
I'm not going to get into a debate over elite programs, but the point is I could name about 15 nonconference opponents that would excite me more than UST.
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only 15? I get it. But playing the pine bluffs and the IUPUIABCDE schools bring zero excitement. At least the Tommies matchup would have people talking
 

jamtod said:
There is no reason to believe that St Thomas wouldn't be willing to negotiate this at a fair market value. Every indication from Coach Tauer and Coach Johnson is that St Thomas is willing and the Gophers are not (under this regime), not that there is a difference in $$ demands or anything of that sort.
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If I'm Ben Johnson and Mark Coyle, I offer up to St. Thomas that we will play them every year under two basic conditions....

1) The game will always be at Williams Arena
2) St. Thomas will not get any money as a "buy" game

Agree to that, and I would play them. Save the $100k that you would pay an IUPUI for the same date, instead get the Tommies for free, and use the saved money (plus additional ticket revenue) for something else you need.

If St. Thomas says no, then at least you've offered and they've turned you down.
 

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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Since UST @ Marquette is going to be on FS1 tonight, I have a hard time believing that UST @ Minnesota would not at least be on regular BTN if not also FS1, especially if they were able to work with the TV partners to find an available window for the broadcast.

If the scheduling was restricted to a certain date/time and there was better programming options, then sure, it might also get relegated to BTN+.
 

Robe
Gophers1992 said:
Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about hockey, not basketball.
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Robert Morris, Bemidji State, Colorado College and St Thomas. All the others were in conference or required. Mind you there are only 63 other teams to choose from. Hockey is a bad comparison because so few teams plus our conference is loaded.
 

tjgopher said:
If I'm Ben Johnson and Mark Coyle, I offer up to St. Thomas that we will play them every year under two basic conditions....

1) The game will always be at Williams Arena
2) St. Thomas will not get any money as a "buy" game

Agree to that, and I would play them. Save the $100k that you would pay an IUPUI for the same date, instead get the Tommies for free, and use the saved money (plus additional ticket revenue) for something else you need.

If St. Thomas says no, then at least you've offered and they've turned you down.
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Ben would pay 100k out of his own pocket to avoid having to play the Tommies. Look at the schedule this year, it's absolutely ridiculous. He had lower expectations for this team than almost any of the haters here.
 

Ope3 said:
Since UST @ Marquette is going to be on FS1 tonight, I have a hard time believing that UST @ Minnesota would not at least be on regular BTN if not also FS1, especially if they were able to work with the TV partners to find an available window for the broadcast.

If the scheduling was restricted to a certain date/time and there was better programming options, then sure, it might also get relegated to BTN+.
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FS1 is the Big East's primary TV partner and there aren't any other Big East games tonight. The college basketball schedule in general is brutal this week. FS1 has also televised Coppin State-Georgetown and Monmouth-Seton Hall. I don't think the appeal of St. Thomas has any impact.

On Tuesday, BTN chose the Maryland game over the Gophers game. I don't know that swapping IUPUI for St. Thomas would change that decision.
 

jamtod said:
As a founding member of the UST "board" (which is still non-public for various reasons, and I won't speak for all members there), I think the argument that "there is no reason to play the game" is silly and easily debunked from a number of directions. Reusse is a hack, but it's pure cowardice. Either you are going to stomp us and it's the equivalent of playing SC Upstate OR not.
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What would you consider the best win in your program's history?
 

jamtod said:
There is no reason to believe that St Thomas wouldn't be willing to negotiate this at a fair market value. Every indication from Coach Tauer and Coach Johnson is that St Thomas is willing and the Gophers are not (under this regime), not that there is a difference in $$ demands or anything of that sort.

Edit: The athletic departments were able to work it out for hockey in a way that made sense for both. They've been playing in baseball also, so this isn't an impasse at the AD level.
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That's fine. But since UST is incurring no costs, and gets at least as much exposure benefit from the game as the Gophers do from the ticket sales, my fair market offer would be $0.
 

howeda7 said:
FS1 is the Big East's primary TV partner and there aren't any other Big East games tonight. The college basketball schedule in general is brutal this week. FS1 has also televised Coppin State-Georgetown and Monmouth-Seton Hall. I don't think the appeal of St. Thomas has any impact.

On Tuesday, BTN chose the Maryland game over the Gophers game. I don't know that swapping IUPUI for St. Thomas would change that decision.
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I think UST-Minn would be more attractive than Alcorn St-Maryland, but admittedly that's just a hunch.

Other options would be to either move the Game Time or find a date that would suit BTN (or FS1s) schedule. I'm sure one of the reason's the Fla Gulf Coast was televised was because playing it at 11am on Saturday worked for both schools and BTN's programming.
 

Ope3 said:
I think UST-Minn would be more attractive than Alcorn St-Maryland, but admittedly that's just a hunch.

Other options would be to either move the Game Time or find a date that would suit BTN (or FS1s) schedule. I'm sure one of the reason's the Fla Gulf Coast was televised was because playing it at 11am on Saturday worked for both schools and BTN's programming.
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I think for these buy games against small conferences they pretty much base it on the average viewership of the B1G school and not much on the opponent. Indiana games get the best ratings so they will always pick them. I'm guessing Maryland has badly outpaced us in viewers the last couple years, even though they're not good this year.

That game was at 6:00, so I'm not sure why they didn't just have the Gophers game at 8:00 and televise both, but perhaps Minnesota said no to that? Or BTN didn't care enough about having a second game to bother with the extra costs (more likely.)
 


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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You seem to think one game at the Barn is going to make a huge difference on the athletic department. It wont.
 

Big Dawg said:
Gophers hockey is not ELITE. 21 years since we have won a Natty. With only 64 teams an elite program would be winning more often. And the jump to 64 has been recent. Traditionally has been fewer teams. Yes, I was in Tampa for the melt down in March.

If I was Ben, I would totally schedule the Tommies. Every year for 10 straight. Advertise the crap out of it. I would give 1/2 price tickets to gophers games if you had a ticket stub from a Tommie game. Could be a money maker for both teams. 2 D 1 teams in the state is better than 1. Helps the whole state basketball situation. This could be a marketing HR for both schools. Even sell the rivalry with a trophy. Kicker is you have to win the basketball AND the hockey series to get the trophy. Where are my PR people?
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Of all the asinine things said in this thread...this is easily the most asinine. Good lord this take is so bad I expect it on the Strib comment section or Facebook.
 

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