Dr Rooney was at the Thursday party at the Westin. She sure worked the room and interfaced with alums. She gets it and likes Porter and Steve.
Porter gave a great speech and the room rocked with applause when graduation rates for athletics were mentioned.
I think she senses how the fans want a better program and she will provide those resources.
Just short term impressions.

If this were Porter's first go-round, I would probably agree. But he was also the coach at ISU for four years, where they had average crowds of near 6000 at Redbird Arena, the North Gym practice facility, the Richard and Fran Owen Strength and Conditioning Center (opened during Moser's tenure as head coach), very engaged local sponsors, a substantial season ticket base, and marketing/promotion advantages that Loyola could only dream of at this point. And yet he never finished better than 6th, never earned a .500 conference record, went 1-4 at Arch Madness, etc. So I'm not buying the resources argument. Stallings succeeded before Moser came to ISU; Tom Richardson was a mixed bag, with 2 seasons over .500 in four years but was dismissed for not getting the job done; Jankovich and Muller succeeded after Moser left ISU. In the last 25 years (since 1991-92), Illinois State has had only six seasons with a losing record, and three of them came during the four years Moser was head coach.

Is he a great recruiter? I'd say yes. I would give him a 6 on a scale of 10 as a x's and o's guy. I'd give him a 6 on game plans; I think he's sometimes brilliantly insightful, sometimes too rigid to adapt. I think he's had some great player development success stories (Ingram, Montel James, Christian Thomas), and some big disappointments (almost every player over 6'7"). He's a better recruiter than Larry Farmer, because he seems to get a similar level of talent but better students/citizens.

I remain impressed by what he did with the 2014-15 team, which I believe would have earned an NIT bid if not for Doyle's injury. But the follow up in 2016 fell flat-- the team was 0-5 in conference before he figured out how to properly use Montel James without Christian Thomas. And I like some of the stylistic proclivities he has, like the aggressive help defense, the kinds of inbound defense he uses, ways of defending big men with smaller players, etc. He's a pretty smart basketball guy. But I think he needs stronger personalities in his assistants, or, alternatively, assistants to whom he can reliably delegate important aspects of the job (e.g. big man development, game plan development, scouting, scheduling, etc.).

In short, I wouldn't want to lose him just now, but he's got to take a step forward past the best he's ever done in his career, and I'm not confident he can do it. He's had three 8-10 conference finishes at two different schools over 8 years in the MVC, and that's his best. And he was 6-28 in conference in the Horizon. If he even had ONE 12-6 or 11-7 year in there, I'd have a lot more confidence that he's worthy of a longer term renewal.

Very interesting 25. Sounds like you are saying to look out for a home CBI or CIT game. My guess is the CIT. I would rather see the money used for next season as JCT mentioned previously.

http://www.collegeinsider.com/tournamen ... esults.php

Gentile is booked for the second round dates. First round would be Mon. Mar. 13th - Wed. Mar. 15th

I didn't see him play, but Osiris Eldridge does statistically compare a lot to Milton Doyle. Eldridge had around an assist less a game, but Doyle has about a rebound less per game.

This is what I'll say with scheduling: it's harder to do than we think.

We have to remember that it is a two way street. If we could schedule whoever we wanted, I think DePaul would be on the schedule. They don't want to play us, so we can't play them. With the way college basketball is going, big schools that will shell out money are more likely to buy lower-tier conferences or lower teams in power conferences. Duke hasn't played an MVC team since 2010. Kansas hasn't scheduled a Valley team this millennium. Clemson has 6 conference wins, but is under consideration because they won their non-conference schedule. They played 3 SEC teams (one was a rival), Nebraska, 2 MEAC teams, and one team from Big South, Southern, and CAA conferences, plus a tournament.

I think scheduling isn't just a problem with us. Wichita wants to schedule tougher games, but bigger teams don't necessarily want to play them, especially at Koch Arena. I think the hardest thing for us is we have shown that we can come close to winning or win "big games" (Creighton and SDSU), but we haven't shown that we can be a good win, or at least a not bad loss. It can almost be a no-win situation for a bigger school to schedule us. Part of getting teams can also be connections. I like Steve Watson, but I don't know what his connections are for cash games in the Midwest. When at St. Bonaventure, he normally had one ACC team on the schedule and a bunch of mid-major schools. We had Michigan St., but I think that went out with Calhoun. That said, I hope he can call some A-10 schools to give us a decent school.

The hardest thing for the contract situation is next year is a big year for recruiting. We could have somewhere between 5 and 8 scholarships to replace in the next class. Players that will definitely be out are Richardson and Ingram. I know that we can still go higher, and didn't finish this year like we would've hoped, but if a one year contract is going to affect recruiting a lot, I would give Moser an extension. I would rather see us middle of the pack for another 3 years, than in the same situation of Bradley, where you have potential, but don't know if you can get out of the basement.

Super.....I agree....I would love to see us take some big paychecks or going on the road to play some good teams....I think it helps recruiting as well as rpi and budget.

JCT...Correct me if I am wrong but Coach had 3 years at ISU and did not get a 4th year with his recruits correct? Did they improve each of the 3 years? and then ISU did well with his recruits?
You know we played with all 4 teams in the Valley Semis....I noticed maybe other than SIU those teams played above the rim.

Tank beat me to it.... It's not quite as easy as going around selling yourself to big teams. Northwestern and DePaul in some ways fear us as a team. Their fanbases think they're better, and a loss is embarrassing for the program. While we won't with this (and especially in Northwesterns case), headlines if we beat them would be "Northwestern LOSES to Loyola," not "Loyola beats Northwestern." They have a lot more at stake then us given their curret profile... In DePaul's case i think we all know we probably have them beat at the moment in terms of where our programs at.

I think we're currently in this weird dead-zone where we need to become a "quality win" for other teams, while also not being a "bad loss". In the past 3 years we've shown time and again that we're not an easy out for anyone. We are a team that can destroy someones chances at an off season tournament due to being a "bad loss." I really can't recall many blowouts the past 3 seasons. New Mexico State and Michigan State yes.... Notre Dame sure but we hung around for a bit, ISUr once this season and WSU last season...other than that i can't recall any that were too crazy. But we've shown we can compete time and again, and there's a lot more at stake for bigger schools. We scared the crap out of NC State this year, beat Creighton last year, seemingly broke SDS spirits this season. This could all be completely wrong, but just how i see it; why pay to put your season on the line with a team you really can't be sure of? I suppose home and homes with upper mid major teams, I'd love home and homes with teams like Valpo, Oakland, Akron, Winthrop. Just a gauntlet of upper tier mid major teams; I think keeping the UIC series will pay dividends as they're rapidly improving as well.

In regards to the contract I'm conflicted. But the thing is it's undoubtedly better than it was; but i also don't want to settle as a fan. One thing I come back to is we had 3 winning seasons from 88-2014. 3. We have 2 in the last 3 years period.

As someone who really follows the recruiting trail and who we're looking at and who's looking at us... For both this next class in 2018 we're getting local players in bulk considering us that I wouldn't have dreamed of considering us after our first year in the valley. Losing 7 of 9 sucks. Two were to the top 2 dogs in the valley. 3 to southern. The MSU overtime loss as well as the Evansville game. That luck metric is crazy and there's some merit to some of the just freakishly strange things that happened to us this year. Look at O'brien catching a rebound on the ground and somehow swinging it to a 3 pt play.

Our team never once quit. They're getting their degrees. They're staying out of trouble. There's no major drama, the team really seemed to love each other this season. The expectations as a fanbase really seemed to have gone from "winning season" to "lets make the tourney." I think that's a massive change from what i saw as a freshmen 7 years ago and looked at the schools team as nothing but a mess. Just my 2 (more like 22) cents