They are functional though as they are acoustic block, hence the holes.

And I figured the bulk of this money will go to dorms. They have never had a real upgrade and their is still millions to be done on the Super structure of the building.

I wonder how many fans of other successful mid-major basketball programs are worried about the color and texture of the construction materials used in their 50-year-old arenas.

Is this why top big men are choosing the big bucks over the red bricks of athens?

Yes, of course this qualifies as nitpicking, but it also qualifies as a low hanging fruit opportunity to do something unique and fix one of the few aesthetic flaws in an otherwise beautiful building.

I can give you quite a few more examples of aesthetic flaws than acoustic block. Lets start with the water stains running down the asbestos tiles along the back walls of the interior.

I’d bet half of those are attributable to people having to look at grey block the whole game.

If a guy has a good year, he’ll go to a power five. If a guy doesn’t play, he’ll go somewhere where he gets minutes. The only guys you’ll keep are guys who play, but aren’t stars. There’s no experience of seeing a player start as a freshman, develop, and be the man as a senior. The big criticism of the pros, by college fans, has always been “you’re rooting for laundry.” This is rooting for laundry on steroids, when every player is a free agent every offseason. The connection to Ohio University is tenuous at best. What’s the point of it all?

Re: the gray bricks, I remember it catching my eye on TV before I even attended OU, and it makes me happy every time I see they’re still there. Yes, they’re weird, but they’re “our” weird. I say keep them.

More than half of the conference POTY winners across the nation who 1) still have eligibility and 2) come from a non-P6 conference transferred this year.

Our two best players this year were a guy in his final year of eligibility and a guy who had already transferred once. Going forward I'd be warry of anyone on our team who arrived as a freshman and earns a high MAC honor before they exhaust their eligibility.

Look at Grant Nelson who is leaving North Dakota State after three years for Alabama. If he stays at NDSU, he's a jersey in the rafters guy. In a year's time if he's drafted, Alabama gets all the credit and NDSU is the afterthought. I don't want Ohio to become the stepping stone or he afterthought.

The issue I have is that, as a fan, I don't hold Walter Offutt in the same high regard as DJ Cooper. Are we ever going to see an all time great who begins and completes his college journey entirely at Ohio? To be honest, I don't want to get my hopes up and get excited for three more years of AJ Brown, a guy who has the potential to be one of the top 10 scorers in school history, who is not from the region and has a younger brother committed to the big school in his home state. [/QUOTE]I mean, I hear you. But I just don't get how one justifies restricting transfers given what you're saying. I mean, basically you're saying that AJ Brown might want to go play basketball with his brother. Is it somehow consistent with the NCAAs mission to keep that from happening? How does one justify it?


100% agree. The sport loses something. But I think I disagree with the premise. Would Trent have transferred if he wouldn't have had to sit out a year? If so, that sort of sucks. It basically means that players only stay at Ohio because of a contractual obligation.

Which is kind of the core issue here. The root of people's issues here are really about the "fan experience." And we're fans, so that makes sense. But the problem is that this is amateur athletics and the NCAA claims their mission is to educate first. Where does the fan experience fit into that mission, exactly? Certainly it's not a legally justifiable reason to restrict the freedom of an individual to study where they'd like.

Pro sports has a solution to this: employment. And that employment's structured with set duration contracts. Without that, I don't think the NCAA's going to have much of a leg to stand on if they try and restrict student movement. There aren't restrictions on a Chemistry Major's ability to transfer from one school to another, even if they're on scholarship. Hard to treat basketball players differently.

[QUOTE=shabamon]
Look at Grant Nelson who is leaving North Dakota State after three years for Alabama. If he stays at NDSU, he's a jersey in the rafters guy. In a year's time if he's drafted, Alabama gets all the credit and NDSU is the afterthought. I don't want Ohio to become the stepping stone or he afterthought.