I am referring to men’s and women’s basketball. Hockey has maintained pre and postgame interviews, but it is probably a much easier thing for them. They play the same team on both Friday and Saturday nights, no midweek games and only one opponent.
Earlier in the season you could almost always count on pre and postgame interviews for both our men’s and women’s coaches. At this point, we seem to be fortunate if we get one of the two most of the time. I find them very valuable into what the coaches are thinking and where we are going. I realize that it is not a pleasant thing to talk about another loss, but I do think that goes with the job. The answer is not to stop interviews, it is too start winning more. I miss them.
I agree Dick. I had a work dinner on Tuesday so I missed the game and was looking forward to some discussion
It seems like we are missing a lot of people now. I have 2 emails and a text out to Lindsay Sparks that havent been returned. Maybe the SIDs office is down to just Dave Meyer?
It has been a terrible winter for Miami sports. Imagine how fun it would be if the men were tied for first at 6-1, the women tied for second at 5-2 and hockey first by 8 points at 11-2-1…….we are the opposite of that
We’ve typically only had a single reporter, sometimes also someone from the Miami Student. Hard hitting questions are rarely asked and I’d venture to say most of the time the same questions are reused. I always thought it might be a fun money maker to have a “pay $10 to ask a post game question” type thing. It would give the interviews a bit of life and unpredictability. Maybe even a tiered level where as long as it’s on topic, the coach can’t skirt around it if you donate at the premium $100 tier. Imagine some of the questions we’d get for both basketball and football! “Why did a very experienced offense finish last in the MAC in offense when other MAC programs were also on their backup and didn’t experience a similar absence of production?”
The late Bill Ford asked plenty of searing questions. With pen in hand, and often a cigar in the other, press conferences were very entertaining. And the rooms weren’t empty either!
They should think outside the box and ditch the traditional press conference setup. Just have the coaches and a player or two break down the game and put it out on social media, be creative with it.
All this discussion is simply reflective of the sad truth that there is very little interest in Miami’s athletics programs in 2023 - be that interest from students, the press, the general public, Miami faculty and administrators, and even from Miami’s alumni base. We’re no longer the symbolic story of MAC overachievement that we once were. Our most productive and newsworthy programs are softball, field hockey and synchronized swimming. I never in my long life imagined we’d be here, but here we are.
I always have and always will support any sport that represents MY university. Sadly it is true that I now have to learn field hockey rules and find out how to get softball tickets to see the Oklahoma game as opposed to memorizing the football roster. I simply mean that although I support all sports, the world has been turned upside down. Cue the Revolutionary War music. Come on football and basketball, get back to the top.
At the same time, it might be worth pointing out that basketball and football both set records in 2022 with their levels of engagement. Football’s social media growth was in the top 25 among FBS programs. And basketball has actually had press from Cincinnati drive up multiple times as well (a first in recent history).
Interesting post. The increased “levels of engagement” apparently don’t translate into butts in seats from any of the newly engaged. I also doubt that there has been a run on licensed Miami football or basketball merchandise either in the past year, although I did buy both a Myaamia shirt and a Bahamas Bowl shirt online.
