KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

I tweeted Donaldson a rebuttal that playing in the state capital against ranked teams may have something to do with it, along with 4 straight NCAAs and a conference full of brand name programs. Also told him that attendance increased 20% and any business will take that year over year growth.
He then BLOCKED me on twitter. I see that as a compliment, what a turd.

wow.. turd is right

my goodness

Regarding the attendance for the UMASS game, I think you have to consider the fact that it is a down year for UMASS
so i think most fans didn't really expect them to be competitive in the game and they weren't . If you wre going to
choose a game to attend between the Bonnies and UMASS especially on a cold weekday night versus a weekend 11 Am
game you would choose the Bonnies game . However, If I didn't live in NJ and lived anywhere within an hour of URI I would
be at every game because they are just awesome to watch including their coach. and I'm not even an alumni . I can see
donaldson's point to some extent, but URI is beginning to build the type of program and attendance that may result in 100%
sellouts at some time in the future . I think it is unfortunate that Donaldson cannot see that the program is on a major
upswing . If the team continues to win, season tickets will increase annually until there are sellouts every game . Pre season
sales is where you pick up the large increases and successful seasons will breed more success the same way that constant failure
breeds failure. They have turned it around already donalson . you need to recognize that fact and should have at least mentioned
that if you are in fact aware that this the case.

bigappleram wrote:I tweeted Donaldson a rebuttal that playing in the state capital against ranked teams may have something to do with it, along with 4 straight NCAAs and a conference full of brand name programs. Also told him that attendance increased 20% and any business will take that year over year growth.
He then BLOCKED me on twitter. I see that as a compliment, what a turd.

Send me a screenshot of you being blocked. I will take it to him.

I'm in the minority here.....I like Donaldson......I too want all our games to be sellouts with people struggling to get tickets.....I want our fans to be excited enough to come to the games....

I have a friend who would rather stay home in Cranston and watch the game on TV than come to Ryan to watch in person. That bothers me.

Donaldson is challenging our alumni base......he is not looking down his nose at us......he only really likes his alma mater Notre Dame....he is brutally honest about every other team, pro or college.....

If we continue to win and get to the tournament....and if Hurley stays....and we continue to recruit....and the conference bounces back from its bad year this year (and I think it will next year in a big way)...then I think in two years all games will have attendance at 90% capacity....

[/quote]

It's not just us...

The only home games PC has had attendance over 6k this year are #14 Minnesota, BC, #5 X, Butler, Marquette[/quote]

Actually, the only game Providence has drawn under 6000 was the game against Stony Brook on Sunday, December 17.

Most of us here don't like the friars.....

Unfortunately, it takes time to build the brand, and URI was hurt by the lack of interest in the program by the end of the Baron years. Hurley has done a very good job at URI, but the fan growth usually lags a little. The spike in attendance this year should continue as long as Hurley stays, which will hopefully be a while.

At Providence, the last year of the Keno Davis era saw attendance drop to about 7000 fans per game. AddinG the Friars started making the NCAA tournament again, attendance has averaged between 8,300 and 9,700 per game over the past four years, and will be over 9,000 this year (despite playing a game at Alumni).

This year's URI team will reinforce the notion that the basketball team should be a consistent contender, and attendance will continue to grow as casual fans become willing to invest in the team.

Ramulous wrote:I'm in the minority here.....I like Donaldson......I too want all our games to be sellouts with people struggling to get tickets.....I want our fans to be excited enough to come to the games....

I have a friend who would rather stay home in Cranston and watch the game on TV than come to Ryan to watch in person. That bothers me.

Donaldson is challenging our alumni base......he is not looking down his nose at us......he only really likes his alma mater Notre Dame....he is brutally honest about every other team, pro or college.....

If we continue to win and get to the tournament....and if Hurley stays....and we continue to recruit....and the conference bounces back from its bad year this year (and I think it will next year in a big way)...then I think in two years all games will have attendance at 90% capacity....

I agree with this.
URI Fans should be filling the Ryan Center and I truly think they will sell out the Ryan Center the rest of the way - ESPECIALLY if we beat Dayton tomorrow.
If URI wins tomorrow all better buy their Tickets to the Ryan Center fast, especially for the last game recognizing the Seniors.
Baron did a lot of damage to the fan base over a lot of years - 11 to be exact. So takes some time to get the fans back and recover a lost generatin

But I can't argue with Donaldson, and this is not the first time Donaldson has challenged URI fandom and Alumni for their attendance.

Chill, all is good in Rhody Land.

I am not a Donaldson fan by any means, but the crowd vs. UMass was weak. We can try to make all the excuses we want (mid-week, poor weather, no students, blah blah blah). Bottom line is it is disconcerting that we have a fringe top 25 team and we can’t get 6k vs UMass.

Lil Jimbo is a loser he has to resort to blocking BAR cuz he doesn't like what he says

Five-foot-one Donaldson seems to think that because he got in to Notre Dame by some miracle he's better than those of us associated with our little cow college. In reality, he's a smug little has-been with a Napoleon complex who doesn't want anyone to know he's just another working-class kid from The Bucket. Screw Five-foot-one Donaldson and his pink sweater.

Donaldson used to claim he was a college basketball expert because he covered the University of Virginia for a couple of years for the Richmond News Leader, a paper famous for being openly pro-segregation during the civil rights movement. I stopped reading him after he wrote a racist column about Abdul Abdullah, but did get a laugh when the Baylor basketball player embarrassed him during a postgame press conference at the Dunk during the NCAA tournament a few years ago.

Bigsnoop wrote:Donaldson used to claim he was a college basketball expert because he covered the University of Virginia for a couple of years for the Richmond News Leader, a paper famous for being openly pro-segregation during the civil rights movement. I stopped reading him after he wrote a racist column about Abdul Abdullah, but did get a laugh when the Baylor basketball player embarrassed him during a postgame press conference at the Dunk during the NCAA tournament a few years ago.

Was that when the Baylor player described how to grab a rebound?

Bigsnoop wrote:Donaldson used to claim he was a college basketball expert because he covered the University of Virginia for a couple of years for the Richmond News Leader, a paper famous for being openly pro-segregation during the civil rights movement. I stopped reading him after he wrote a racist column about Abdul Abdullah, but did get a laugh when the Baylor basketball player embarrassed him during a postgame press conference at the Dunk during the NCAA tournament a few years ago.

Haha that was him with the Baylor kid? I never knew that. Hilarious.

Now that's funny

That's awesome...didn't know that was him...too funny....

Love it. I did not realize that was Donaldson asking the question. Love how serious Prince is with the response too - classic

That's fantastic!!!!!

Is he really 5'1?

To Donaldson’s credit he responded to RhodyTickets’ tweet:

Another data point, FWIW: I went on gorhody last night to buy 2 more tickets for the Dayton game (a full month from now), and there is basically nothing left in the lower bowl and not a ton to pick from upstairs.

steviep123 wrote:To Donaldson’s credit he responded to RhodyTickets’ tweet:

You mean the tweet from Rhody Tickets that basically discredited his entire thesis about our fans not showing up for this team? He gets zero credit, he intentionally trolled and then got called out and ran and hid like the pond scum he is.

On a more positive note great 90 second piece on ESPN last night/this AM about our Rhody Rams.

Donaldson stated that he thinks crowds for URI should be bigger and do do several of us here.

The 4549 for the LaSalle game was very disappointing on January 3.

Looks like now with the winning streak extended that tickets are being bought up. Would not surprise me if ticket agencies don’t get involved when they sense sell outs coming. Then sell them on stubhub etc

He blocked me as well. Invites the debate, then when one doesn’t agree with him he goes fetal position. He and McNamara are vile dogs.

Fear the Ram

Several years ago had a friend who was an actual rare PC graduate member of Friartown.

He managed to get tix to the Infamous snow game at the RC.

The following Monday AM he quietly admitted to me that he had just lived thru the ultimate nightmare and was dumbstruck that URI has actually been able to get a 7k seat arena built on campus.

He said he was afraid that Rhody could put it all together and become a national power.

His fearful prediction is coming true albeit a few years late.

Rams will rule Rhode Island.

Be afraid friartown Jim, Bill and kMac.

Think big is now going big.

Go Rhody.

bigappleram wrote:

steviep123 wrote:To Donaldson’s credit he responded to RhodyTickets’ tweet:

You mean the tweet from Rhody Tickets that basically discredited his entire thesis about our fans not showing up for this team? He gets zero credit, he intentionally trolled and then got called out and ran and hid like the pond scum he is.

On a more positive note great 90 second piece on ESPN last night/this AM about our Rhody Rams.

I'm going to put a different spin. I'd rather him say positive things when we do sell out, than nothing. Otherwise he's just being a troll for sure. RhodyTickets responded to my response. I said something like, "Jim, did you also retweet the low ticket alert for the SBU game a week ago? There is also only single seats in the 100 and 200 levels for the Duquesne game and the 300 is also pretty sparse. @RhodyTickets should be able to confirm" My handle on twitter is @softballscifi - take a look. If Donaldson only busts on us when attendance is low, but doesn't see a peep when we have a near sell out (SBU with no students and 3 of the 5 remaining homegames looking good), then he's trolling. But acknowledging that next Sats game will be close to a sell out if not an actual sellout is a good thing in my opinion.

Also, do you have a link of the sportscenter clip?

Donaldson can’t handle the fact that URI is the better team two years in a row. Last year, although they beat us at the Dunk, URI ended up ranked higher, better RPI, and actually won a game in the tourney while PC LOST in a play-in game, which shouldn’t count as making the tournament. This year we won the head to head game rather easily, are ranked higher and have much better RPI. So Mr. Irrelevent Donaldson, had to find something that PC has the advantage- attendance. I’m happy being the better team.