reef wrote: ↑6 months ago
How are UMass hoop fans reacting on their board about the move to the MAC mens hoop
It is the men's basketball fans that seem most disappointed. Their football fans seem happy to finally have a conference home. I do not think they even care which conference it is. Many of them had recently been all in on CUSA membership and they don't seem upset that it is now another league.
I do not think this is a good sign for the men's basketball program. I stated previously that this move was in part due to the A-10's diminished status. I however also think the weak status of the UMass men's basketball program played a part as well. UMass has been in the A-10 for close to 50 years. Its only real success came during the decade when John Calipari was the coach and the program rose to the very top of college basketball. They built the 9,493 seat Mullins Center back then and regularly filled it for games. Calipari was however the only coach in its entire history to ever win an NCAA game. Assistant Coach Bruiser Flint did get the team back to the NCAA Tournament but was never able to win a game and the program started to fall off. In the last 25 years, the program has a single NCAA bid (via an at large invite) under Derek Kellogg where they got blown out in the first round.
UMass men's basketball attendance has tanked in recent years. They have only had three seasons in the last fifteen years where they averaged over 4k in a 9,493 seat venue. Overall interest in the program has been in a decline for the last 25 years.
It may be that the administration at UMass has come to the realization that the Calipari years were an aberration and the program was unlikely to ever achieve a high level of success again save for a breakout year here or there. It is spending a lot of money on the program with little to show for it. The operating expenses of the MAC are far lower than the A-10. The AD may have thought the path to the NCAA via the occasional MAC Tourney auto-bid while spending less was a better option. The steady decline of the A-10 and recent status and future prospects of its men's basketball program may have been such that it no longer made sense to center most of the department's conference emphasis on that sport.
Men's hockey today seems to be the most popular fan sport in Amherst. Perhaps, more focus and investment will be put on that. It can be further embraced as the feature winter athletics program at the Mullins Center where it will host familiar local opponents in a sport that is popular in this region.
Membership in the MAC will provide a stable conference home for many UMass sports. Membership in it however is not likely to significantly elevate any of its programs and may in fact hurt several of them. None of the teams in the MAC will much excite people in MA and fan interest will be lacking.