HEY GUYS
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@JayHawkFanToo You really think KU would’ve picked Texas to play at? Hell playing in Omaha would be better for KU. Think about it a bit, KU wouldn’t choose to go to Texas. Anywhere, but an opponents home would be better. I know what you’ve been told you’ve repeated/restated it several times.
Also if Texas loses and KU wins KU gets to pick the site…per Tait’s earlier article. So your argument that KU couldn’t hold the tournament is moot as that is what they could have to do. I realize it won’t be in Allen or Horejsi, but it shouldn’t be in Texas either.
Kansas volleyball happy to be playing at home sweet Horejsi
@mayjay We are complaining about a perceived injustice forced upon us by a committee that doesn’t have to answer to anyone. The team is soldiering on. Not all complaints are whiny, hope I’m not coming across as so. I know exactly how annoying some of my friends are on facebook right now whining about the election.
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@dylans Sorry! Not at you at all! My comment about whining was only about hoping the team doesn’t fall into that trap. Focusing on injustices can become a built-in excuse for losing.
Dissatisfaction institutionally with the NCAA–to try to effect change–is entirely different.
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Oh brother! They ARE NOT WHINERS! Far from it. I could care less about where they play. Think Stanford last year. Best game ever! It would be sweet to continue on at home, but I’m only talking about they deserved to be seated 4 period! It’s very subjective. The program took a huge jump this year winning the big 12! I can’t tell you what a super accomplishment this was for the program. I have watched every game that was on tv or streamed. I followed the others online.
Drop!
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@Crimsonorblue22 Oh, for crying out loud! I said I hope they don’t whine because it would be distracting, not that they are whiners!
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Once again…
KU made a bid along with many other programs to host tournament games. The NCAA has requirements for the venues that will host the games; early round games can be played pretty much anywhere but the regionals have a 3,000 minimum capacity and the court must be available at certain times for practice and so the teams acclimate to the venue. Horenjsi worked fine for the early games but did not meet the requirements for the regionals, so, a different venue was required.
KU is hosting Nebraska that day at AFH and the game is nationally televised and was contracted well in advance and cannot be changed.
KU checked the convention Center in Topeka, where they played before, but it was booked and not available. They also checked Municipal Auditorium and Sprint Center in Kansas City and both were booked and unavailable. By NCAA rule, if KU could not provide a venue, like in this case, the games are played at the venue provided by the next lower seed in the region, in this case Texas.
If KU was seeded #4 instead of #5, we would have the exact same situation where the regionals would have been played at the venue provided by the next lower seed which would have been Texas. KU does not get to pick a neutral venue, it must follow the rules that are in place. If KU would have been able to find a venue that would meet the NCAA requirements, it would have been different but since it could not, it ended up being a moot point, right?
A few weeks ago, before the Texas game, I mentioned that KU needed to start thinking about building a volleyball venue with a 3,000 to 5,000 capacity and it was taken by some posters as blasphemy, look it up. It seems that a larger facility will now be considered in view of the success of the program. The advantage of a small venue disappeares when you cannot play NCAA regional games there, wouldn’t you agree?
Again, I have nothing against the volleyball program; in fact, it is my favorite program after men’s basketball and I have mentioned this before and long before it became popular. I understand that the team would have preferred to be seeded higher and I would have too, but in this particular case it turned out to be irrelevant.
Now, back to basketball.
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We know that already. Have heard there are plans in place. They do Not want to build AFH 2. A few in our conference have to play in their bb gyms, loses the whole home advantage.
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@Crimsonorblue22 How big would be ideal? Do tickets cost much? I assume a new place would charge more.
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@mayjay probably enough to host. I heard adding on. I’ll know more after this weekend.
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Tickets for the Texas game were going for well over $100 although they are usually a lot less. Obviously no one advocating building AFH 2; however increasing the capacity to 3,000-4,000 can be done by enlarging the current facility. I looked at the satellite images of Horesji and I believe it is doable. The original facility was built for $3.8M and I would think the mods can be made for around $2M which with another deep run can be easily raised…I would think…
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@JayHawkFanToo Yes, they said you have to have at least a 3,000 capacity to host a regional. Also better to do so now while the VB is hot and gotten the attention that they have, it also could help in recruiting. Sad thing to me is that our 2a highschool gym in the middle of BFE holds as much as Horejsi.
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I am surprised they did not check with Johnson County Community College, their gym hold 3,500 and has held numerous national tournaments in various disciplines…less than 30 minutes from the KU campus.
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Still don’t think expanding Horejsi shoupd a priority right now simply because it’s not a revenue sport.
All fundraising efforts right now need to be focused on Memorial Stadium because football is a revenue sport and the Big 12 is on its deathbed right now. Keep building football up amd renovating Memorial and put expanding Horejsi as the next priority after Memorial Stadium gets the renovations it desperately needs.
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The cost of enlarging Horejsi is very minor compared to upgrading the stadium. Like I indicated, a deep run in the tournament would allow the expansion to pay itself, as long as the program stays successful. The increased income from, say an additional 1,500 seats, would easily pay a bond issue in 10 years, but I think the money could be raised without the need of a bond and with no negative effect on the fund raising for the stadium.
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@JayHawkFanToo Looks like JCCC has men’s bb home games both Thurs evening and Saturday afternoon if I read their schedule correctly.
Maybe might have required too much compensation?
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The scheduled times of JuCo games should not be that complicated to change…with some compensation, of course. KU’s men’s basketball game, on the other hand, is on national TV on ESPN and changing the time would affect the entire ESPN schedule for that day that was set up months ago…not doable.
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At this point I’m more likely to go to a volleyball game than football. (Slim and none are the odds) Why wouldn’t you take care of the winners? It’ll take $2-5 million for renovations or a new facility. You can’t do anything for $5 million for the football team that will matter. They will still have sub-par facilitiies and a team that is years away from relevance. At this point WSU’s football team has the same odds to make the playoffs as KU.
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If 5th ranked Texas, who got 2 in big 12 vs big 12 winner and 4th ranked KU wins, its a moot pt
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@dylans Duh WSU is undefeated since 84, they are a CFP team no doubt. lmao
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@JayHawkFanToo You cannot enlargen Horejsi because their physically isn’t the space to do so. There’s Allen Fieldhouse one side and the student. Getting volleyball a facility that seats at least 3,000 would require a new building which means either a completely new facility or razing Horejsi and rebuilding it. Neither option is cheap enough to put ahead of Memorial Stadium.
The Big 12 is going to die when the current TV deal is done, doing everything possible to get into the B10 absolutely has to be tge top priority right now which means focusing on football and getting Memorial renovated.
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This is not correct. All the mechanical equipment is located East of the building between Horejsi and AFH and it can easily be moved and the arena expanded East to that location and seats added at the end and the sides also expanded. It can also expand to the West where the access road is ( it can be relocated to the north end) and seats added to the end and sides; both options would increase the capacity by 50% to 100%… Finally, it can also be expanded to the south where the existing street is and expand the number of rows on both side above the existing; currently there seem to be about 15 rows of seats on each side, by adding and extra 8 rows on each side you are well over 3,000 capacity. Obviously these options would require modifications of the surrounding structures/roads.
Horejsi is just a big steel structure that can be easily raised and moved using hydraulic jacks, a fairly common procedure; I will guess that if an expansion is considered, one of the scenarios above will likely be selected…and yes, I am a Civil Engineer and I know it is doable.
Like I said, a good run in the NCAA might create enough interest to raise enough $ to fund the expansion without affecting whatever effort is in place to raise money to renovate/enlarge Memorial Stadium.
Looking at the Big 10 reminds me of all the pool players that paid for most of my beer in college, they were always looking to the leave for the next shot and missing the ball at hand; I always played the ball at hand and won the great majority of the time. We are in the Big 12 for the foreseeable future so let’s deal with it now and worry about the Big 10 when the time comes. The Big 10 recently expanded to 14 teams and it is highly unlikely they will expand further and dilute payouts to the current programs. The only conference with more than 14 members is the ACC with 15 and Notre Dame does not compete in football but does it as an independent.
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@JayHawkFanToo It would be much simpler and cheaper to build a new building than to relocate a bunch of mechanical equipment and move Horejsi.
Your math is also way off. Adding 8 rows doesn’t double the capacity when the rows are the same length. 8 rows makes the capacity still less than 2,000.
Your pool analogy also doesn’t work in this case. KU’s atheltic department is a corporation that exists to make money. Not planning for the long term is just poor business practice. ESPN and Fox actively telling the B12 to not expand should make KU absolutely want to look elsewher because there is more money in a 16 team B10 which is where this is headed.
This is headed to an 8 team playoff with the conference title games being the quarterfinals. ESPN has deals with the SEC and ACC and Fox has deals with the B10 and Pac 12. Planning for that future is why KU needs to focus on Memorial far more than a volleyball program that doesn’t generate revenue for KU.
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Moving the mechanical equipment is a relatively simple procedure that is done all the time.
My math is not wrong. there are current;y 15 rows on each side or 30 total that account for 2,000+ seats, or roughly 66+ seats per row. adding 8 rows per side or 16 rows total of 66 seat each (same total width) adds 1,056 seat for a grand total of just over 3,000 seats.
Again planning ahead before dealing with the condition at hand is a worse business practice…ask Hillary how well it worked out for her; she thought she had the election won and it came back to bite her in the arse. Newsweek apparently printed 1M magazines with the cover “Madam President” before the election and had to recall the entire batch. The football team needs to show it can win at least 6 games before any work is done on the stadium and any other conference feels it is worth courting. There is a better chance of the Big 12 expanding than KU going to the B1G…in my opinion, of course and I could be wrong.
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@JayHawkFanToo I know how all that stuff works because I was in that industry for 7 years. It’s not logistically complicated, it’s time consuming and time=money. Horejsi is connected to Allen Fieldhouse and the student athlete training facility which does complicate all of the mechanical systems . It takes time to plan that logistics of it out. Moving roads, not a simple process and it means shutting down the parking lot for McCarthy, Hoglund, and Oliver while that process is going on. It’s a logistical pain in the butt which means it costs more money to do all that stuff than the volleyball program is worth right now.
Your math is also wrong about the current capacity of Horejsi. It only has a 1300 capacity right now. With 30 rows currently, that means a little over 40 people per row. Each row has pretty much the same capacity. Adding 16 rows doesn’t even come close to putting Horejsi at 3,000. It gets Horejsi to 2,000 at best. To get Horejsi’s capacity to 3,000, it has to be about 130% larger. There flat out is not space to do so in its current location.
So again, the cheapest way to get KU volleyball their own facility with 3,000 capacity is to build a bramd new facility which should not be the priority right now. It’s awesome that volleyball is having the run they are right now, but they don’t generate revenue for KUAC which is a corporation designed to fund the KU athletics department. ESPN and Fox’s decision to not support Big 12 expansion means the Big 12 is on its last legs and that KU needs to be looking out for best interests of KUAC in the long run. Once again, ESPN and Fox literally paid the Big 12 not expand so tell how is going to expand when their TV partners are paying not to expand. The B12 is on its last legs because ESPN and Fox made a decision they would rather have 4 major conferences than 5.
Do you know why Chicago became much more of an important city than St. Louis? It’s because Chicago embraced rail transportation in tge mid 1800’s way before St. Louis did. Railways were built to Chicago and Chicago became the most important city in the Midwest because of that. Failing to be proactive instead of reactive will doom any business in any industry. KUAC is no different. Focusing 10, 15, 20 years down the road should always be priority and getting into a conference that will still be around in 20 years versus taking a chance on the B12 being around in 20 years is simply foolish. Focusing on football amd improving all aspects, including the stadium is a way to make this happen.
There’s simply no argument you can make that will convince me that any KUAC project should take priorty over Memorial Stadium right now.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 does it matter that the vb program doesn’t lose us money?
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@Crimsonorblue22 Volleyball does lose money though. Only football and men’s basketball operate in the black at KU and that’s because of the TV contract. All the other sports at KU operate in the red and are subsidized by football and basketball. There are some schools where women’s basketball and baseball operate in the black, but not many of them do and KU isn’t among those schools.
