If Rice can upgrade its arena, surely Houston can consider it
The Memphis newspaper has been discussing the sorry state of Conference USA as it relates to their hometown team (and whether/how much it brings them down). Here are some interesting snippets:
[Current UTEP coach and former Memphis assistant Tony] Barbee said the league has ''improved tremendously'' from a year ago.
''Now it has to keep advancing,'' Barbee said.
To continue making strides, Barbee said, it's the non-Memphis C-USA schools' responsibility to ''try and catch Memphis, not bring them back to the pack.''
''The biggest thing is coaches win games, administrations win championships,'' Barbee said. ''There's got to be a commitment from the administrations. And that's happening all around the league.
''Look at SMU and the improvements they are making to their facility. They also are in the process of building a new practice facility. We have a practice facility coming in a year. It takes those kinds of commitments, outside of the play on the court, which has to continue to improve.''
UCF is scheduled to open a 10,000-seat Convocation Center in the fall. SMU broke ground on its Crum Basketball Center -- a $13 million, 43,000-square-foot practice facility -- in December. UTEP is set to open The Foster & Steven Basketball Complex in the fall of 2008 and Rice recently announced a $23 million renovation of Autry Court, a nearly 60-year-old facility that will be gutted this summer.
And there's this:
In addition to being the league's most prominent coach, John Calipari also must serve as C-USA's loudest spokesman. At every opportunity, he's either talking about its improved RPI this season (from 13th to 11th among all leagues) or the investment schools like Rice (arena renovations), SMU (practice facility), Southern Miss (practice facility) and Central Florida (new arena) are making to improve their programs.
Note what school isn't mentioned -- Houston. In addition to the upgrades being mentioned in the stories, Tulsa has its lovely Reynolds Center, and of course Memphis plays in an NBA arena. Meanwhile, Houston plays in an arena that has been neglected for decades (which is unfortunate -- Hofheinz has some great sightlines and could be a super venue again), and desperately needs a multimillion dollar renovation effort so that Houston can compete in a pretty sorry league.
But hey, Dave Maggard has the workers upgrading the scoreboard at UH's baseball stadium. *shrug*
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/07 01:49 PM | Print | Comments (0)
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