Ok, I'm really getting tired of this. Florida, Ohio State, Texas and many other schools are making it embarrassingly obvious how well a school can succeed in both sports.

The worst kept secret on the globe is that Michigan needs a practice facility for their basketball team and serious updates and rennovations for Chrisler.

So the announcement today that on top of the 226 million dollar expansion of The Big House they will also be dropping $26.1 million on a new 104,000 square foot indoor practice facility for the football team.

This is from the same guy that has jerked people around about funding the changes for basketball. He has hired two new coaches for the mens and womens programs, who were just formally introduced to the public in a big kick-off, overusing the line A2 welcomes B2 (Beilein and Borseth - the new women's coach).

Yeah, the coaching needed to change but DO NOT KEEP IGNORING THE OTHER OBVIOUS PROBLEMS! He brings in two coaches who are overly apologetic of the facilities situation while feeding us lines.

Like I've said before, for $200,000 I COULD MAKE A PRACITCE FACILITY AND IMPROVE CHRISLER! It wouldn't be much, but I would certainly get a building with a floor and more hoops to practice in, while adding lighting, paint and some incredible photos to Chrisler. Seriously, that much would start to make an immediate difference.

But no, we just keep hearing about how good the "bones" of the building are and getting put off. Well I'm sick of it. I'll still support the program but I will not rest until Martin and his pathetic excuses for accepting mediocrity are gone.

Why support it? It's obvious they have different intentions and desires than you do (and alot of other people do also, myself included).
When Lloyd retires, they're just gonna hire another mediocre shmuck to replace him, and the overall deterioration of the program will continue.
I wouldn't support them, I'd write them letters of protest, petitions, and maybe you can even join this club I'm in where we went to the Penn State game a couple years ago and wore kevlar army helmets and carried signs of protest and handed out flyers to help get rid of Lloyd The Grump.
We drink alot of beer too.

Now let me make one thing clear about all this. I'm not against the construction of the new practice facility for football. I think it could be helpful for the team. Apparently it's safer because it's wider - there's about 25 feet from the edge of the sidelines so players have more room to stop, about twice as much as Oosterban. It's also taller (up to 30 feet taller) so they can practice punting situations - coverage and returns - much better. So it will help the team. Plus it belongs exclusively to the team. Other teams will now share Oosterban without scheduling conflicts with football. It's a good move for the football team.

My beef is that they say on the one hand that facility issues are not a major concern and you can win without the top facilities, then they hypocritically give the football team new facilities when they already had them.

Just be honest. Just come out and say, "Look, under my watch we're football first and foremost and all our money will go toward that. I like basketball and it would be nice if we could win, but we won't be investing in the program until it can bring in it's own money to pay for it. Even then we may not make it a top priority."

The whole we are football first crap is so played out and makes no sense whatsoever. By putting money into a program, you'll get so much more out of it. Unless, you don't believe it'll make a difference because of Izzo and Thad being around. You put some millions into facilities, you turn things around, then you start selling all kinds of tickets, luxury boxes, concessions, fan gear in and out of the arena. All that money would come back to you.

I'm glad Michigan doesn't get it.

yea, its strange. seeing how michigan saw probably the greatest return ever from a b-ball program, you'd think theyd have a little respect for the benefits.

The interesting thing is that Michigan only has to look over at East Lansing to see the impact a new building can have on a program. After State won the NCAA championship with Magic, the next decade was a borderline disaster. Only one 20 win season in which they finished 3rd in the Big Ten. The rest of the decade was spent in the bottom of the Big Ten and, including that 23-8 season, the cumulative W/L total was 151-138. Enter Breslin Center. The first year in the Bres they won 28 games and were Big Ten champs. One decade later they're National Champs again and any Spartan fan will tell you the rest. They have not been below .500 EVER since the Breslin opened. You can credit a number of things, but I've heard multiple MSU beat writers credit the Breslin. Yes, by all means, give Izzo credit for the job he did, but Jud was able to do an aweful lot before he was done in his 6 years at the Breslin.
So, like I said, you don't have to look far to see the impact a new facility can begin to have.

But you don't have to look far to see a school that doesn't give a shit about basketball either.

This makes me sick. We spend 26 million to make another "better" practice facility for football, when basketball doesn't even have ONE. On top of that, the actual arena where they play their games is a dingy, dark, piece of shit. I should be excited on a day like this, but it just pisses me off. Like Tre said, Michigan just doesn't get it.

fact is, you just do as your told. um's b-school had the nicest facilities on campus 3 years ago, then a wealthy alum donates $100 million to the school to rebuild the b-school (even though just about anyother school had a much greater need for an upgrade), and thus, a new b-school.

just gotta get that ball rolling, something amaker didnt do as well as we all hoped. it seems like beilien is different. i guessed he's been present to the media, and he's written letters to the alumni.

practice facilites cost more than 200 k. that wouldnt go far at all. but the money is out there, and a relatively small investment could be all the program needs to get back to where we want. i have no doubt within 5 years this program will be up several levels.

For 200k I could put up a pole bard with a sport court and 6 crappy hoops. That's infinitely better than their current practice facilities. I'm obviously being sarcastic, but simply giving them a surface to run plays and drills on is better than nothing.