First of all, kudos to Groce for having the kids ready to play.  Secondly, kudos to the Marietta faithful for putting so many fans in the seats.  While I'm happy that we took the game seriously and spanked them part of me would have liked to see a closer game so the crowd could have gotten into it.   But the blow out did serve a purpose. It enabled our bench to get some very valuable minutes and Groce a chance to do a lot of teaching.

As for the game, I'm still glad we did it.   As to whether this was worth traveling to see, apparently a lot of people thought it was worth it.  I don't think we'd want to do it every year because I think it would lose it's intrigue but every 3 years or so would be a good thing. 

I agree, Gman, that this is an important factor.  I can remember back in the Golden Era of the late 1960s we regularly attracted fans from Marietta for Ohio games.  I have a distinct recollection of talking to a group of Marietta folks who said they tried to make it to Athens for every weekend game and some weekday games.  My impression recently is that we have far fewer of these fans from other areas of SEO who attend our games regularly.  If last night helps a little in increasing interest in our games from the regional citizenry I think it was well worth it.  Now, I'm waiting for a B1G team in the Convo in the near future.  It's a matter of balance.   

Edit: For what it's worth, I agree that Marietta had a few more fans in the Convo than we did -- especially if you count the cheerleaders, JV cheerleaders and reserve JV cheerleaders who were constantly walking up and down the aisle beside me to replace the current group on the court.  I was expecting at any moment for an official to blow his whistle for an illegal cheerleader substitution penalty!   Seriously, I did think there were more Marietta fans, but they didn't have much to cheer about so the Ohio fans were louder most of the time.  So if you judged by your "ears" you might conclude that there were more Ohio fans, but if you used your eyeballs it was clear that Marietta won the butts in the seat battle.  There were also some fans there with ties to both schools who wore Marietta colors as kind of an underdog statement.  

This basketball game for Marietta was the equivalent of OHIO playing football up at the shoe. It was their superbowl. If we played them every year at home I don't know if they would travel as well. I would be comfortable rotating this game between Marietta, Shawnee State and Rio Grande. A local team better draw on the home schedule than a 250+ RPI MEAC or Southland Conference program.

I doubt they are fans of either WV team.  Probably a lot of A&M fans.

Then what you are saying lends credence to the idea that the general SEO basketball fan will turn out to see local universities at the Convo. If these games are important to the local community then I think we've got to keep playing them.

Since I always like to speak for the Love, I think he found Morgan St. "compelling" because of Todd Bozeman and Lamar "compelling" due to Pat Knight.  Not sure about Arkansas St. 

Huh? They get an auto bid to the same tournament as the ACC, Big 12, Big East, SEC, and MAC.

They're all considered Division I in basketball.

In football they're in a lower division. That's not compelling.

Ark State b/c of John Brady, btw.

Anyone want to point out Ark. State is NOT FCS?

The Ohio/Marietta split was fairly close to 50/50; Groce said it seemed like a road game when they came out of the locker room. Either way, thanks for coming and thanks for your money. Come again.

And did anyone feel a little bit like a power school fan? Seeing their fans, thinking they had no chance... I can see why they get so smug.

They're in the Sun Belt. They're playing NIU in Mobile.

Why?

Been to Marietta. Whilst I love history and gyms of all shapes and sizes there is no way parking, concessions, seating and locker room placement work for an OU invasion. That is just unacceptable even when filled with John Rhodes fans of OU origin wanting to see his ONU team let alone a Groce team that has some swagger.

I've got no problem playing Marietta...  At home.  If we are travelling to Marietta, I expect $1,000,000.  Think they're in?

NKU's arena seats 10K