PS.
1. How many of you donated to help get the team to Spain?
2. Brot you sound really down about this situation.....but this was a good group of kids who played hard, I for one was proud to see them in the maroon and gold. And how quick we forget that we were #1 in graduation rate...I wonder where we finished if we combine RPI and GRP ?

The IMAP grants were 10M if I remember correctly for the University. There is no way that is responsible for a 6% budget cut across the entire university.
Rooney said herself she needs to raise 500M for operations, not the easiest thing to fundraise for.
So is this why it took so long to find a President? This is what I find frustrating, Father Mike says the schools in great shape then a new president cuts budgets and put a 500M target out there. When will there be transparency.
I would expect that we will see how she is going to rearrange fiscal priorities inside LU very soon and that should scare the crap out of hoops fans.
Rooney has a zero background in sports of any kind.
Kelly will blame the lack of fundraising on Watson but in reality he planted those seeds years ago. Athletics has been responsible for the two biggest black eyes in school history. There is no white knight coming to the rescue with a checkbook. No corporation is going to partner with LU anytime soon after the Swoopes and Holm disasters. Businesses tend to stay away from abusers and rapists. Whether we like or not that is what most people think of our university now. Quite frankly Watson doesn't know many LU grads or Chicago businesses and if he did find some with a check don't think LU wouldn't try to funnel that into the general fund.
Rooney needs to clean house and hold people responsible for the financial and administrative mess. Unfortunately that might mean bad news for sports.

Aren't the graduation rates for the 08-09 season? I don't know the year is correct, I'm sure someone knows the time frame.

Graduation rates are measured over six years. So the current graduation numbers from the end of last school year would have been for incoming freshmen from 2010-11.

IMO we should do one of 2 things: scrap big time athletics altogether and go D2 or D3 in a league with some really good schools like U of C (we already play a slightly better than average D2 non conference schedule) or go all-in.

Obviously I think option 2 is far better. The facilities are sunk costs. They're already built and paid for and would be wasted on a D2 team. So why not go the extra mile with the budget? A 20% increase, coupled with some guaranteed games would virtually make up the shortfall in terms of what we're lacking now. Just playing those games plus an uptick in advertising will help generate some interest among our alums. I don't think the white knight comes right away, but making an effort to elevate whatever pedestal our team is on will at least bring in some nominal interest, which in turn usually means an uptick in money.

Then it's a matter of leadership and personnel. Hopefully someone steps up.

The most recent Division I Graduation Success Rates are based on the four entering classes from 2006-09. The NCAA began compiling these figures with the entering freshman class of 1995.

got this from the loyolaramblers website
http://www.loyolaramblers.com/genrel/111516aaa.html

i dont trust that LU got the right time frame. I would go with JCT's numbers first

I think this is along with going D2 without any more funding is extreme... given the current state the basketball team has had it's best 3 year stretch in 30 years. Our Men's Volleyball team is consistently a top 10-15 program. Our men's soccer team got an at large bid this season for the first time and won a game in the first round. We want more of course, but when you look at a macro level there's been a ton of recent success. Furthermore the stories I see about Women's Basketball this season are ones like this, i haven't seen or heard anything about Swoopes at Loyola in probably over 6 months:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/co ... story.html

Also regarding fundraising Rooney wants to raise $500 million to increase the restricted endowment to 750 million from the current restricted endowment of 250 million(Noted here, I assume this is where you got the number 86, correct me if I'm wrong!: http://loyolaphoenix.com/2016/09/a-day- ... president/). This is different than money being spent on operations. From reading the annual Loyola budget report you can see that alumni historically don't give back most of the money the university makes is through tuition costs. Our enrollment has been very healthy the past 5 years and next year i believe will yet again be "the largest class yet." That said no University wants to be this reliant on tuition given that there's plenty of competition, birth rates affect student pools etc.

Everywhere Rooney has gone she's been a fundraiser. I'm sure that's a big reason why she got the job. The new campus buildings are great but they also are still being paid off. Loyola as a fiscally conservative university and is trying to pay them off aggressively. Which is good, you don't want those debts to hang around, but obviously your shelling out a lot of money. I completely agree more funding is necessary. I've seen Rooney at a lot of games and hopefully it results in more funding to athletics as time goes on. Obviously i do understand the frustrations, i just try and have a more optimistic view of it.

I think you're right Blers. There are lots of indications of positive direction. We're always comparing our program leadership to perfection. We don't know all the internal problems, structural issues, institutional barriers and weaknesses at other programs.

Would you rather be UIC right now? DePaul? Bradley? Northern Illinois? Would you want to trade places, right now, with Valpo? Milwaukee? Eastern, Western, or Southern Illinois? I wouldn't. Six or eight years ago, you might have said yes to an offer of trading places with all those schools except Eastern and Western.

Its apples and oranges JCT !! I for one want to see us on the X GTN and Gonzaga level--I do NOT even wish to consider UIC DEPEWL E and W Ill and those others ! The aforementioned three MUST have similar problems as do we, BUT they have overcome or at least handled them--We do nothing it seems but alibi , blame others or other things for our NOT being where those three Jesuit Universities are.--
Shame on those who even think about sinking to the levels of John Carroll. Spring Hill Rockhurst et al

The D2 stuff was more threat than an actual desire, but I'd rather see us not half-ass athletics if they really think big time athletics is hamstringing the school. A D2 league with solid private schools would be better than going back down to the Horizon League or dropping to the Summit League or the WAC, which is around where our budget is right now. Quite frankly, I think it would help if whatever powers-that-be who aren't on board with going all-in on athletics float that idea. I have a feeling that enough alums will come out of the woodwork to shoot it down and force the administration to direct a few more bucks in the budget back towards the basketball team.

When it comes to comparable schools, I do envy DePaul mainly for the yearly Fox Sports check they get for their Big East membership and the Rahm Emanuel Welfare Arena opening up. Also, Valpo at least is reaching their ceiling, which I don't think LU is.

Another comparable Catholic school in the dance is Dayton, who is now looking for a head coach. I think if we had gone even 11-7 in conference play, this would be the type of job that would take a hard look at Porter and Porter would do probably likewise. Alas, things didn't really work out that way.

I would have no interest in Loyola basketball if they ever went D2.