Random Thoughts

[ORU82]

I apologize upfront if this seems to ramble, but here goes.

First, congrats to the Men for a great season. Even with the Tourney and NIT losses, the team still generated a lot of buzz on the national scene and in the end, this should help to continue to elevate our program/university in the future. The more attention we receive on the national scene in a positive way, the better. It should eventually translate into more $$$ flowing into the program/university which in turn will make it easier for us to move up the "food chain" in sports. By the way, I also want to congratulate the team/coaches/cheerleaders/fans/students/administration for coming across as classy on national tv each time we were televised.

We now head to the Southland Conference and I realize the following may be a little too late, but I believe we should view our stay there as temporary at best. By that I mean to say that the more we win and make an appearance on the national scene, the better our chances of moving on to a better conference, even if it is still a mid-major. Someone pointed out that this year's winner of the Southland had to "play-in" to make the Big Dance. That alone speaks volumes about the respect a conference has on the national level. Therefore, on an immediate basis I hope our OOC schedule is beefed-up because apparently conference play may not get us too far, even if we run the tables. Our time spent in the Southland should be with an attitude that we will elevate the conference's national footprint by our level of play. Gonzaga/St. Mary's are classic examples of teams in a small mid-major conference that elevated their conference by their level of play. You could also add VCU/GMU in the Colonial, Butler in the Horizon or the A-10 and MoValley in general. I know we don't play football and actually that is a good thing, especially with the arms race in D-I/FBS today. We can shine in basketball, baseball, track. golf, etc. on the national scene and that is what we shoud aspire to do. This is a special/unique University who has a reputation of offering and producing a quality product. Keep up the good work.

GO GOLDEN EAGLES!