TONIGHT

[AppDawg]

Do we have no one who can penetrate? All shots coming from behind the arc, and they aren't falling. We had a 3 on 1 break and couldn't score. No rebounding, offensively or defensively

Talking about the one where our guy threw a pass behind his back? I would have stopped the game, even with a technical, and escorted him to the bus. we're down 12 to 2, cant throw it in the ocean and he pulls that mess? I thought Fox had some discipline.

Not only that, but surprised he didn't get T'd up at the foul situation. State attempted 41 FT's.... making 34. Forty freakin' 1! We couldn't throw it in the ocean, but the magnitude if the defeat was at the FT line.

[EastHallApp]

We are not a good basketball team. Trying to remain patient...

[HighlandsApp]

Should we just drop men's bb?

I had high hopes for Fox and I really like him. We have worst record in Sunbelt and only ULM and Coastal join us under .500. Houston Fancher is just down the road in Charlotte. Firing him in 2009 sure has been painful.

[/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09]

Good news is...Sun Belt is allowing all schools a chance at the tournament. Bad and likely news...we get bounced first round.

[The Rock]

Do we have no one who can penetrate? All shots coming from behind the arc, and they aren't falling. We had a 3 on 1 break and couldn't score. No rebounding, offensively or defensively

Talking about the one where our guy threw a pass behind his back? I would have stopped the game, even with a technical, and escorted him to the bus. we're down 12 to 2, cant throw it in the ocean and he pulls that mess? I thought Fox had some discipline.

Yup. 3 on 1 and he went way too deep in the lane, they thought he was shooting, them as he went up, passed it behind his back when they were looking for the rebound. Poor job of handling fast breaks

[ah59396]

We are an exceptionally bad basketball team. What can be done to improve the quality of this program long term??

[Rekdiver]

Good news is...Sun Belt is allowing all schools a chance at the tournament. Bad and likely news...we get bounced first round.

Well at least one team gets to go to New Orleans!

[AppDawg]

We are an exceptionally bad basketball team. What can be done to improve the quality of this program long term??

The optimist in me says Experience. We are an exceptionally young basketball team. I view this team like our 2014 football team. A year away.

The realist in me says the trend of streaky App shooters continues. Until we have 2 or 3 players we can count on to consistently score in double digit figures night in and night out, we will always be mediocre to bad. Historically (going back to HF days) we don't know game to game who will have the "hot-hand". Like playing on a prayer.

[MAD Doctor]

The eye test shows we are not a good basketball team, but just how bad is often not easy to tell because of our schedule; beating up a bum by 50 one night and losing to a Tobacco Road team by 50 the next. I think the tell-tale games so far have been UNCC at Concord and Western- and they were both very disappointing.
Pulling hard for Fox, but give us something, anything. The bar is low (on the ground) but this stuff is hard to watch. Kind of reminds me when my son was learning to play "Hot Cross Buns" on the saxophone in the 4th grade- painful and seemingly unending. However, in time, he got pretty good, and actually played in the Jazz Ensemble at ASU...so maybe there is hope.

[QueencityApp]

We are an exceptionally bad basketball team. What can be done to improve the quality of this program long term??

The optimist in me says Experience. We are an exceptionally young basketball team. I view this team like our 2014 football team. A year away.

The realist in me says the trend of streaky App shooters continues. Until we have 2 or 3 players we can count on to consistently score in double digit figures night in and night out, we will always be mediocre to bad. Historically (going back to HF days) we don't know game to game who will have the "hot-hand". Like playing on a prayer.

I keep asking myself, how would you get really good basketball players to come play in Boone. What do you even tell them to promote App as an "emerging" Mid major team. Long gone are the days of Shawn Hall and DJ Thompson where you were practically guaranteed 15-20 points a game out of those guys. The players I saw last night looked so raw and lacking the most basic fundamentals that I could literally go to the Dowd YMCA in uptown Charlotte at 6pm any day of the week and pick out 5 guys that could play against them.

When Fox was at Davidson there were always some good foreign players on their team. I'm hopeful he has some connections to where we could land a few at App in the near future. Just a tough spot to be in right now as it didn't look like we did anything well last night, literally nothing. State is going to be a middle of the pack ACC team this year and we got beat by 30, come on man.

[bigdaddyg]

Hard to fathom that we can be this bad and ranked in the 300's among D1 teams. That means that we are not signing kids capable of playing D1 basketball. Even marginal talent should put us at 200 at least and that is unacceptable. It's not like App is some obscure school with 1,000 students. I don't think anyone is delusional to expect a top 50 squad but come on! I can only accept the young and inexperienced excuse to a point. Freshman everywhere come in ready to go. Kids are playing AAU at a high level. Again, not over expecting but dang this is bad.

[/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09]

You won't get decent D1 talent playing in front of the crowds we have for basketball games. There is little to no support for the basketball team, even from the athletic office. I might be out of touch since I live 6 hours away, but I remember there being all kinds of promotions to attract people for basketball games when I was in school. And that was under Cobb, which is shocking. I know that larger crowds won't bring success, but when I see what we have for "talent" these players are just simply not good enough.

[WVAPPeer]

Getting a couple of wins early in conference play will be huge - if not, I believe it will be a tough season ---

[MAD Doctor]

Hard to fathom that we can be this bad and ranked in the 300's among D1 teams. That means that we are not signing kids capable of playing D1 basketball. Even marginal talent should put us at 200 at least and that is unacceptable. It's not like App is some obscure school with 1,000 students. I don't think anyone is delusional to expect a top 50 squad but come on! I can only accept the young and inexperienced excuse to a point. Freshman everywhere come in ready to go. Kids are playing AAU at a high level. Again, not over expecting but dang this is bad.

Completely agree. Being this bad is a sign of neglect. Capel was horrible, but at some point sports programs recover and move on, and up. I realize that we've never been a perennial hoops powerhouse, but an incredible university like ours shouldn't be a wasteland either. Buzz wasn't Adolph Rupp, but he won here-twice, albeit the wife kept the car engine running. The fact is that our students, alumni, and fan base have every right to expect a quality team on the floor night in and night out, and will then support one.

[WVAPPeer]

I am not here to judge Capel's ability as a coach but he had at least 2 guys signed/committed which would have been difference makers - Graham now at Kansas and the Spike kid who went to Michigan - those are the kind of personnel losses that a fledging program have a hard time recouping ---

[8993]

I have a lot of thoughts after watching that game and reading through the comments on this post:

1. This team is bad to the core. There are so many things that we couldn't do right and so many things that we did do wrong. This team has played 10 games to learn from their mistakes and work to improve, yet I see no improvement. While NC State is no Duke or Methodist, I expected to be somewhat competitive and keep the score within 20 points. We couldn't do that, as we lost by 30+ points. This team needs to be stripped down to its barebones to learn the fundamentals of the game, as they are severely lacking in that area.

2. I need to see some improvement from the coaching staff soon. This is Fox's third year in Boone, so I haven't given up hope on him and his abilities to recruit a strong and winning team, but I need to see those improvements to keep that hope. A lot of blame could be put on Capel during Fox's first and second years, but as we move further away from those days, it's going to lose its validity. As a whole, I think we need to see this coaching staff work together as one to improve the team and work with these kids to build from the ground up, as that's where we need to start right now.

3. Yes, home attendance is important, but can you really blame students, alumni, or locals for not wanting to go to these games at HCC? Right now, Appalachian is 77-115 since 2010, when Jason Capel first started. Since Jim Fox started in 2014, Appalachian is 24-45. Should there still be stronger attendance numbers? Of course, but I think a majority of students and alumni alike are waiting to see success to cheer for before they show up in stronger numbers. It's not an excuse, but it's a valid opinion. Nobody goes to any sporting event to continuously watch a team lose and lose badly. If nothing else, the Athletic Department needs to be promoting the hell out of these games with free merchandise, not just discount sodas and a bag of popcorn.

[bigdaddyg]

I think back to how athletics looked 30 years ago when I was at App and how they are now.

Football- attendance was well below 20k and we were a pretty good FCS team. Of course we are well beyond that period and have advanced leaps and bounds- no brainer.

Baseball- we had fairly good teams if memory serves but the field was down below the administration building and was just ordinary.
Now we have a sweet facility and hopefully there will be marked improvement since we have dropped way off from about 5 years ago.

Soccer- played on the football field and now we have a complex but I have no feel for how that program has done historically.

Wrestling- top 20 program now. Looks good.

Basketball- we played in Varsity Gym. I'm not talking 1956 it was 1986 but we still had great crowds even with Kevin Cantwell at the helm. Teams were not great but folks still came to watch. Now we have a genuine arena and the team is horrible and nobody comes to watch? When will the Caple effect stop being an excuse?

Track- still on the same track around our FBS level football field but the program remains pretty strong.

Softball- have we ever really done anything?

[/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09]

I have a lot of thoughts after watching that game and reading through the comments on this post:

1. This team is bad to the core. There are so many things that we couldn't do right and so many things that we did do wrong. This team has played 10 games to learn from their mistakes and work to improve, yet I see no improvement. While NC State is no Duke or Methodist, I expected to be somewhat competitive and keep the score within 20 points. We couldn't do that, as we lost by 30+ points. This team needs to be stripped down to its barebones to learn the fundamentals of the game, as they are severely lacking in that area.

2. I need to see some improvement from the coaching staff soon. This is Fox's third year in Boone, so I haven't given up hope on him and his abilities to recruit a strong and winning team, but I need to see those improvements to keep that hope. A lot of blame could be put on Capel during Fox's first and second years, but as we move further away from those days, it's going to lose its validity. As a whole, I think we need to see this coaching staff work together as one to improve the team and work with these kids to build from the ground up, as that's where we need to start right now.

3. Yes, home attendance is important, but can you really blame students, alumni, or locals for not wanting to go to these games at HCC? Right now, Appalachian is 77-115 since 2010, when Jason Capel first started. Since Jim Fox started in 2014, Appalachian is 24-45. Should there still be stronger attendance numbers? Of course, but I think a majority of students and alumni alike are waiting to see success to cheer for before they show up in stronger numbers. It's not an excuse, but it's a valid opinion. Nobody goes to any sporting event to continuously watch a team lose and lose badly. If nothing else, the Athletic Department needs to be promoting the hell out of these games with free merchandise, not just discount sodas and a bag of popcorn.

Very valid...The team was good not great, but good while I was in school. Much more entertaining to watch. We had better attendance then, so winning will help. As you pointed out at the end, that isn't happening anytime soon, so some marketing needs to be done to attract more interest via free merchandise, food, etc. Basketball schedule comes out after the football, so try to schedule home games on the same day and offer the deal they used to...Take your ticket stub and get in free. I knew a good amount of people that took advantage of that offer.

[app97]

I know that it's not a great idea to make excuses , but honestly the freshmen who have carried this team (outside of shabazz) did not do much of anything last night, although Ike Johnson had decent stats. Good can shoot and has been one of our leading scorers. He was 0 for last night. Robinson did not have production either. I didn't see the game, but reality is that we are going to have rely on freshmen to be a big part of the production of this team, and freshmen will have off nights and make freshmen mistakes. That's our predicament and honestly it is still lingering from the chapel era. Fox just implemented his system 2 years ago. He's gotten rid of all of the capel recruits and is forced to play with his very young recruits. We're still starting a post player who was one of the last ditch late recruits that Jason Allison knew from VMI. His only offers were VMI and Presbyterian. As some others have mentioned in the past, I believe it could take the entire 5 year length of foxs contract to see the results that some of us want. But I would hope that we can at least see a few more wins each season.

[AppDawg]

You won't get decent D1 talent playing in front of the crowds we have for basketball games. There is little to no support for the basketball team, even from the athletic office. I might be out of touch since I live 6 hours away, but I remember there being all kinds of promotions to attract people for basketball games when I was in school. And that was under Cobb, which is shocking. I know that larger crowds won't bring success, but when I see what we have for "talent" these players are just simply not good enough.

Losing games in the manner we did last night in my opinion is the biggest detractor. Had we played last night like we played against Davidson I think folks would have started to take notice. It however is going to take winning several of these games for it to take hold.

Another deterrent is Winter break seems to be longer and longer each year. By the time students are back on campus and we have a home game, the fate of our basketball season is pretty much sealed. Typically, our non-conference record by mid-January is not good and we have already lost a game or two in-conference. I hate even mentioning it, but the mindset seems to be "why bother?" Our next home game and 1st home conference game this year with students back isn't until January 28th.

To furher my point, we are 0-fer the state of North Carolina against D-1 basketball teams and we have played our fair share of those games this year. That doesn't make folks want to come out and support the team in person.

These are the things that matter. We can promo the heck out of the games, but until the fanbase at-large starts seeing a shift in the above things, fan attendance will continue to lag.