It is pretty shocking that Orville and Wilbur U have better hoops facilities than us. When I was a kid, that school was a JUCO.
Edit: I was close to right here. But wrong. Started out life as a satellite campus to MU and OSU. Started sports life as D2. That’s why I was pretty sure they were not originally D1. I think I got them confused with Sinclair when I said JC. Anyhow, impressive ride for Orville and Wilbur U either way.
The Convo is not multi-purpose, It was built for basketball and that’s why it still works.
Let me make 3 points here:
Perhaps we can rephrase what Jive said from “Millett is a dump” to “Millett as a basketball facility is a dump”. And I agree with my rephrased assessment of Millett.
Just because the building is still standing and doesn’t have bricks falling off it doesn’t mean it isn’t a basketball facility dump.
Millett is going to impress absolutely no recruit we bring in. Not one. I would like those who think it isn’t a negative to go talk to players and recruits and ask them what they think of it. The fact we are landing players says more about Miami University as a whole and perhaps the coaching staff than it does about the abysmal basketball facilities.
P.S. I have mentioned more than once since it opened, Miami should build a facility like Elon. And for those not familiar with the Schar Center at Elon, max capacity of 5100, dual practice courts, suites, weight room you can find it here: Schar Center - Facilities - Elon University Athletics
Blues - I can live with your description limiting the reference to it being a “dump” to its continued use for basketball. I have been to the Elon arena. It’s fantastic. I also attend games at UNCW, whose arena truly meets the definition of an outdated arena sans amenities. Yet they’ve had far more success than Miami the past 20 years.
Which leads me to Yellow’s point. Nobody is interested in spending a crapload of money for a new arena for a team that routinely draws 1,900 fans, loses twice as much as it wins and fails to qualify for the tournament in a one-bid league.
Start winning and maybe things will change. Until then I have the following comment for anyone insisting on a new arena right now: Show me the money!”
That might be a vicious cycle though. We need to win to attract fans to then get to a new arena, but in order to win to attract fans to get a new arena we need to have quality players and coaching. The question is can we get those latter two things, especially the players continuing to play in Millett? Yes, Steele seems to be off to a good start, but we have lost a couple players, to other mid majors we at least reportedly were recruiting (perhaps we stopped recruiting them and prioritized others-I have no idea). But to me, it would at least make Steele’s job (or whoever is coaching) easier with an attractive arena to sell to potential recruits.
I would love to hear what those other projects should be. I am not judging you btw. Honestly curious.
Fiduciary Delusion: There is an interesting assumption being thrown around that Miami is sitting on piles of cash and can easily build whatever it wants to build. Let’s look at a comparison between Miami and the NESCAC college my son attended: Hamilton College (Division III).
Hamilton’s target enrollment is about 1,812 students on a single campus. Its endowment is $1.27 Billion.
Miami’s enrollment is more that 21,000 on three campuses. Its endowment is $687 million.
We are not nearly as wealthy as we think we are.
Public universities don’t usually have as large of endowments as private unless major flagship public U with med school affiliations receiving large grants. They overall have less need since “backed” by their state. Miami having 687m is not too bad without a med school. While Wikipedia might not be a great fact source, LSU has about what we have in endowment.
They were D1 back in the Day.including football.
Who are the one or two schools with worse facilities?
Miami sports have a tendency for cyclical attendance based on the “hot ticket” du jour.Bandwagon fans!
The students are UpTown or watching sports online or attend home games until prizes are drawn at the game.
You see them bail from Football and hockey after prizes drawn. Unless it’s a whale of a game.
When was Millet last sold out (6,400 for bball)? What’s the math for a new arena even assuming sellouts? Baylor’s bball arena opening on 2024 seats 7,000 and cost $185 MILLION.
When An occasional big opponent that rolls in to Oxford (Tn,Indiana) or “rival” like UC, and the Wally Ball era there were sell outs.
Just sayin.
Not true! I confirmed my suspicion but I was also wrong. I’ll update my post. See above:
Can’t answer for Jive, but from what I know about the Akron JAR and Kent State MAC they’re both in lousy shape as well. The fact that they’ve have solid mid major programs for awhile when with a few MAC schools with nice arenas like NIU and EMU have been mostly lousy goes to show that facilities aren’t everything, but it’s way harder to rebuild like Miami when we’re playing at Millett instead of the new Elon arena. It’s a shame we didn’t get the renovation (or Yager club/suites) off the ground before COVID when the cost would have been much lower than now.
Just thinking simple economics here.
Let’s say a new stadium is going to cost $100 million. Each year we bring in about 4 basketball recruits.
So let’s say that for the next 25 years, we allocated $1 million in NIL money to each incoming freshman. ($250,000 per year - if you leave early, you don’t get your $ for the next years.)
Would we have more basketball success with a fancy stadium and little NIL money? Or would we have more success with Millett and the recruiting enticement where each freshman basketball player gets $1 million for choosing to be a RedHawk?
I’m not sure anyone has said or implied Miami is sitting on “piles of cash”. I just re-read this thread and didn’t see anyone who said that.
Here is an article on the Schar Center at Elon. In 2016, they said the cost was 20 million. I don’t know the actual cost, but lets assume a few cost overruns. No one thinks in 2023 we can build a new facility for 20 million. But could it be done for 3 times that? 60 million? I don’t know, but I bet it could. By the way, the Schar family donated 13 million of the build cost. Construction begins for Schar Center - Elon News Network.
We had over 7,000 for UC two years ago.
Wright State has never had football. Maybe you are mixing it up with UD who used to be D1 in football.
Millett Hall:
TOP-10 ATTENDANCES
Attendance Opponent Date
10,634 Cincinnati 12-15-76
10,091 Xavier 12-6-95
10,085 W. Michigan 3-3-76
9,989 Ohio 2-5-94
9,896 Cincinnati 2-1-93
9,881 Indiana 11-29-88
9,842 Ohio 3-2-85
9,411 Ohio 2-19-86
9,306 Ohio 2-3-96
9,183 Xavier 12-9-97
7000+ attended the UC game in 2021. Largest crowd in a long time.