• The KillerFrogs

The Jamie Dixon MBB Recruiting Thread

GuardianFrog

GuardianFrog

Tier 1
Daniel Giddens, the player transferring from Ohio St. Would be worth a call. Highly rated concensus Top 100 player with offers from Kansas, Arizona, Florida, and several other big names. Kid was stuck in a log jam at OSU. Downside is that he would have to sit a year, but he is a player with a lot of potential.

The Mitchell transfer I am less excited about.
 
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ECoastFrog

Active Member
Boomhauer said:
Haha, it seems impossible now but I once sat in a sold out and rocking DMC watching a TCU team play that would eventually hear it's name called on selection Sunday.
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I wonder if I'm losing my mind. I went to multiple MBB games between 1974-1978, and I remember DMC being crowded-- maybe not sold out, but definitely big, impressive crowds. Am I wrong?
 
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froginaustin

Active Member
ECoastFrog said:
I wonder if I'm losing my mind. I went to multiple MBB games between 1974-1978, and I remember DMC being crowded-- maybe not sold out, but definitely big, impressive crowds. Am I wrong?
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Earlier in the '70's, too.
 
Typical Southwest Conference game in the late '60's, early '70's, maybe 4,000-4500 TCU fans and 700-1000 visitors.
 
The TCU band usually sent 20-30 musicians, more for games Vs. A'nM or UTx or any other opponent perceived by the student body as too full of themselves.
 
DMC had a well-earned reputation for being a NOISY venue, in olden times.
 
The reason I am very happy that TCU didn't build a bunch more seating when the basketball house was re-done is that games there will be a GREAT experience if it's reasonably full of TCU fans, with only a small number of visitors from B12 schools (and SMU, although they sort of hold down their attendance no matter what the venues they visit do).
 
Gregory Gym in Austin was noisy as hell, too.  Then UTx built what is now called the Irwin Center, and it is a good place for a nap with a crowd of only 7-8000 (or would be, except for the constant adds screaming over the p.a. system, but that's a complaint for another thread).
 
TCUdirtbag

TCUdirtbag

Active Member
froginaustin said:
Gregory Gym in Austin was noisy as hell, too.  Then UTx built what is now called the Irwin Center, and it is a good place for a nap with a crowd of only 7-8000 (or would be, except for the constant adds screaming over the p.a. system, but that's a complaint for another thread).
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Irwin Center will be gone soon. Bet they do a much better job this time. 
 
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froginaustin

Active Member
TCUdirtbag said:
 
Irwin Center will be gone soon. Bet they do a much better job this time. 
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I doubt it.  UTx (or Powers/Dodds, anyway) is/was trying to sell a partnership to the City of Austin for a multi-events center.  The present City government wants to spend a TON of money, some of it local as opposed to State or federal, on transportation upgrades (thank God), and the City has already signed on for expensive upgrades to the Convention Center.  The first feelers by UTx were discouraged by City government.
 
Judging from the failure of the last bond election to pay for more commuter/light rail, the taxpayers may be about tapped out for the next few years at least.  We are already paying a property tax to fund the Dell Medical School, and I think that property tax was a lot easier sell, politically, than building a gold-plated basketball facility will be.
 
UTx has several problems building the basketball house of their dreams, with perhaps the biggest one, besides construction cost, being the unavailability of a suitable tract of land anywhere near the UTx campus.
 
I think the med school students may be walking past the Irwin Center for quite some time.  Just guessing.
 
TCUdirtbag

TCUdirtbag

Active Member
Fenves has confirmed and reconfirmed since the departure of Steve Patterson that the Erwin Center will go. The Powers, Dodds, Patterson era is long gone in Austin.
 
A new arena in Austin will be good for the Big 12 because the EC sucks. But i'm glad we got ours 6-8 years ahead of them so maybe we can gain some recruiting and respect ground before their next facility opens. 
 
rifram09

rifram09

Active Member
Limp Lizard said:
Yes, again.  Big optimism, well-earned optimism in the late '90s.  
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I was just making a joke.

But to be fair, we don't have THAT much history to rely upon. This isn't football where we have a very rich history with multiple national championships, a Heisman, a national award named after one of our players, etc.
 
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froginaustin

Active Member
TCUdirtbag said:
Fenves has confirmed and reconfirmed since the departure of Steve Patterson that the Erwin Center will go. The Powers, Dodds, Patterson era is long gone in Austin.  It's an academic move, not an athletic one. It's not if but when (though by 2023). Academics will win the day on this one because the Erwin Center sucks and UT can afford a new arena. This is an academics/rankings/respect thing for UT. It's among the reasons Patterson was shown the door by the new bosses. 
 
You have to remember UT has zero med school infrastructure. It's not like the TCU-UNTHSC where we're starting a med school on a huge health science center campus. 
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^^^^ This is all true, but the 2023 part may be wishful thinking.
 
Or maybe Joe Jamail left them a billion or so, and UTx can spend whatever it takes-- and it will take a hell of a lot-- to assemble a parcel either in or near downtown Austin or on the edge of the present UTx campus for a new basketball facility.  If they try to build east, UTx will run into ferocious opposition from neighborhood associations**, as well as stunning land costs.  This is not a "so let it be written; so let it be done" project.
 
 
** In many cities, opposition from neighborhood associations would be like opposition from the indoor house cat to a proposal to rearrange the furniture.  Not so in Austin.  Neighborhood associations here are very well funded, and they have killed or delayed for years/decades major infrastructure projects pushed by powerful development interests (and pushed by TxDOT).
 
Maybe UTx will settle for a new basketball facility way off campus.  It wouldn't be their first, second, or third choice or should it be.  Their offering to let the City help them pay for a new "special events facility" went nowhere.
 
Limp Lizard

Limp Lizard

Full Member
froginaustin said:
DMC had a well-earned reputation for being a NOISY venue, in olden times.
 
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During the Killer and Tubbs eras, too.  Glad they did not mess up those great acoustics.  It was an awful place for music concerts (I remember Peter, Paul and Mary had a hard time).  But wow how loud can it get with a big crowd.  I remember Majerus saying it was one of the toughest venues he had coached in, after Utah won by 4 points at DMC.
 

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