| on why the highlanders have flopped
last year riverside lost to DIII puget sound at home. how sad to schedule a patsy at home, two divisions lower, and lose.
this year, one player was killed, two big men out with injuries, and the coach who had no head coaching experience of note, left the team in midseason on a medical leave of absence. they would not finish .500 in the CCAA and would need to slip to the GSAC to be competitive.
lots of reasons why the program has failed. among them:
1. underfunded from the launch back in 1999. lowest budget of any in the big west conference.
2. poor location. given a choice where would a star athlete play? santa barbara, irvine, long beach, or....riverside?
3. horrible facilities. their "arena" is almost 2,000 seats smaller than ours. real big league feel to that.
4. shared facilities. highlanders cannot practice on their own home floor. yep, it's true.
5. highly suspect administration. when the athletic director hires his pal down the hall, a guy unconnected with basketball and is rather an academic advisor, and then calls that a national search you know the fix is in.
if these broncos had not developed a penchant for dramatic finishes i'd say the men in green and gold whup those so called division one highlanders by ten, and even four or five on their floor. the column was harsh, but the poor riverside fans have seen six years of pain called highlander basketball as a DI wannabe. as the column says, a DI program, with DII facilities, and DIII crowds.
yep, they are averaging about 400 a game. wow. that's big time. |