How to schedule the Mavericks and the Bluejays: PART I
Okay, so you may be asking yourself, what does profiling all of the Creighton fans have to do with scheduling the Mavericks and the Bluejays? That is a totally fair question, so let’s move on here.
You have to understand your enemy before going after them…
Richard Creighton Fan watches the second half of the game
So Dick goes on ignoring me while his version of the Justice League is trying to save the planet from a Big East team taking over. This is all after he established that Creighton and UNO have no room to be on the same basketball court playing against each other. A Creighton guard misses a wide open shot. I tell him that CJ Carter would have made that shot, Dick becomes agitated, not saying anything, he is just upset at the game and more and more at me.
An opposing player knocks down an uncontested shot in the lane, with the Creighton post player up near the free throw line for some reason, and not anywhere near the basket to protect it. I tell Dick that Mike Rostampour would have contested that shot, he would have either fouled him to make it difficult and force him to the line, or forced that player to pass out of the lane. Dick is now disgusted and takes a drink of his Bud Light to ease the pain.
An opposing player puts some pressure on a Creighton guard and strips the ball from the Creighton guard, so of course Dick calls the opposing player a homophobic slur. The opposing player takes the ball that is now in his possession and sprints down the court for an uncontested layup, with none of the dejected Creighton player in sight. I tell Dick that Devin Patterson would not have allowed himself to get in that position to give up the ball to the opposing player, and even if he did, he would sprinted down the court with the opposing player to contest the shot. Patterson would not have just laid down showing no competitive edge.
A Creighton post player attempts and rushes a real lazy hook shot which clanks off the front of the rim. I tell Dick that Tre’Shawn Thurman would not have done that, in fact no UNO player would have just gone for the lazy hook there. Since they had an opposing player with their hand up they would have tried a post move or passed out of it. Thurman has this vintage Kobe Bryant/Vince Carter post move, where he jukes to the left and then goes right for a turn around fade away, and it is a much higher percentage shot then whatever the hell we just watched that Creighton player try.
Creighton is now down by 20 at this point with not much time left, the players are somehow playing with less energy than they already have this entire soulless game of theirs. I tell Dick that UNO has not given up in a game like that all year, even when down by 15 or so with a few minutes to go, they still tried to make a game out of it. At this point, Dick wants to punch someone and I am in the front of the line. He slams down his drink and throws out some notes as to why the UNO-Creighton game will never happen, but now he hopes that it will happen just to shut people like me up.
By the way, a side note: The Creighton fan I have based Dick Creighton Fan off of looks exactly like Jake White. If Jake White got done with college and stopped working out and let himself go a bit, and was 7 inches shorter, but still looks exactly like Jake White in the face. He cannot stand Jake White because of his Wichita State past. Every time Jake White does something cool I will text Dick with “hey, your cousin had 10 and 8 tonight, good for the fam!” Then he will text mean things back about Jake White, would you expect anything less from a Dick Creighton Fan? Dick also has season tickets for Creighton basketball, the people in his section are the people that usually bring a book to read, so you know, the real supporters and the people that make you wonder why they even came. Dick also plays basketball like you would expect a Creighton fan would…selfishly. Takes 15 threes during a 40 minute game and only makes about 4 of them at best. Also does not recognize you sprinting down the court and hustling to get open, so just jacks up threes.
Why it may not be happening.
I have no absolutely positive reason as to why UNO-Creighton may not be happening as of right now. Maybe it is money, maybe McDermott and Hansen, or the two athletic administrations cannot agree on stuff, I am not sure why. Maybe McDermott is just a really really really nice guy and does not want to beat the Mavs and cause an inner city riot. I do not think McDermott has a mean bone in his entire body.
I find myself wondering this though, could the reason be because of the JaySkers? The JaySkers that just root for anyone local, they like the Mavericks enough to take notice, but maybe not enough to go to their games yet. If UNO-Creighton happens, the JaySkers will take a little more notice and be more aware of what the Mavericks have, and that they are at least entertaining.
If the Mavericks and Creighton play, and UNO comes close or even beats the Bluejays, what would the JaySkers do with their money? They will buy a UNO shirt or two, maybe some tickets to a few games, and maybe even classify themselves as JayMavSkers, or maybe they even sift through Bull Shit Mountain enough and just become MavSkers. If they spent 50 bucks from their annual Going Out Budget on UNO stuff, that is 50 bucks less that they will spend on beer and food at the CenturyLink Center.
If a JaySker were more aware of the Mavericks and entertained by them, would they be more inclined to go to a UNO event over a Creighton event? If they could go to Aksarben, which is more centrally located than the CenturyLink Center (and Ralston Arena), pay less for parking, and walk just a little bit closer to DJs Dugout and other restaurants, do you think they would go for it? Would they rather see UNO have a shot against Oral Roberts over seeing Creighton getting dominated by a overrated Georgetown team? Seriously, Georgetown has been overrated for the past 10 years.
When the JaySker goes to a UNO hockey game, they see the Creighton University advertisement on the scoreboard, they still get that Bluejay taste in their mouth. Typically the JaySkers will make it out to UNO-North Dakota hockey, or UNO-Ohio State in the old days, the JaySkers just like the events they can brag about seeing really. There is no University of Nebraska at Omaha advertisement when the JaySker goes to a Creighton Basketball game, not even sure if it is allowed. So if UNO men’s basketball was put right in front of their faces, could the JaySker sway a little bit?
UNO and Creighton have played in a few sports, and when you go the atmosphere is a little weird. Creighton fans always have this feeling of We Will Beat the Crap Out of Our Opponent, but they have been a little more quiet when Creighton plays the inner city rival. Their attitude changes to Oh Crap We Better Not Lose to This Team. When I moved back to Omaha from Utah, one of the first things I did was get tickets UNO vs. Creighton baseball, I was pretty damn pumped for the game. I think I was scared that game was going to be a sell out, being away from Omaha for about a year I just kind of imagined that everyone in Omaha would be jacked for that match up. What a perfect gift for my return to Omaha though. The game was a little slow, Creighton players seemed to lack a little energy and it was almost as if the Bluejay fans did not want to do smack talk, especially since the people in red and black out numbered the people in blue and white. It is also hard to smack talk when your baseball team in the last few years has just become a team of Hey Let’s Just Hit the Ball to the Outfield and Hope for the Best. UNO won the game 3-2, the Creighton players looked like they were on suicide watch after the game, they did not appear to want to come out and shake the UNO players hands, and they probably knew that Ed Servais was going to have them run a marathon after losing to that reclassifying team. The Creighton fans walked out of there confused and as quiet as you exit a funeral.
How would you rank Creighton sports teams in terms of how prideful their fans are toward the team. 1. Men’s Basketball, 2. Men’s Soccer, 3. Baseball? That is their fans’ third favorite sport, and UNO showed that they can hang with them. Men’s Soccer showed that they can hang in exhibition play as well. Women’s soccer needed two overtimes to beat UNO this last season. Oh this reminds me, UNO-Creighton softball happening any time soon is probably less likely than men’s basketball happening anytime soon, but hey, that is another conversation.
When UNO can make the big dance and possibly pull of an upset, the JaySkers will come crawling. The 14 seed beating the 3 seed prestige is far more powerful then the BIG EAST team beating a SWAC team in the first/second round or whatever the hell it is anymore. That is when the prestige factor will come into play for Creighton to play UNO, the game will need to be played after that. That will make UNO men’s basketball the even that they will want to go see and Creighton will have the need to play at beat the Mavericks to show everyone who is still the boss of this town. And it is not like UNO is wanting Creighton every single season, although that would be swell, it is not necessary, UNO fans just want the acknowledgement from the Creighton fans, so once in a few years is fine. City rivalries do not necessarily happen every season, especially when the schools are not at the same level. UNO fans understand that The BIG EAST is on a different level than the Summit League, they are not psychotic.
Creighton fans also do not like to share attention. For 12 years they got to share a market with Barry Collier and Doc Sadler coached Nebraska teams that would bore and frustrate the hell out of Husker basketball fans in Omaha, so many of those fans would go watch Creighton. Even the end of the Danny Nee era at Nebraska was painful to watch. Now, the kid up the street thinks they can join the party. They are building a new arena, new dorms, new buildings on campus, but they still have shitty parking. None of this can make the Creighton fan happy. Greg McDermott is not an attention grabbing coach, his press conferences will put you right to sleep**. If you throw him Dana Altman, Tim Miles, Derrin Hansen, and Doc Sadler into a charity poker event, you are going to forget he is there. Miles would be the guy that never shuts up and annoys all the other players, but the crowd wants to keep watching. Hansen will do the same, but not as many jokes, he will feed off of the Miles jokes a little bit. Sadler would be the one accusing Miles and Hansen of having too much fun, probably folding his cards every single time. Altman would be the guy who never says anything, still betting on what he thought was a good bet, everything would be a calculated decision. You root for those guys in poker tournaments, mainly because you are dying to see what their hand is as 99% of the time they are in a hand, it is because they have a good hand. McDermott would just there, drinking his water, you would forget McDermott was even in the poker tournament, he would never grab your attention to make you wonder what he is scheming. You would just expect him to be out at some point, but not as quickly as Sadler who you assume would just get frustrated and make a bad bet so he could go home.
**That is not to say that McDermott is a bad coach. Attention Grabbing ability does not make one a good or bad coach. Nor does poker playing ability. I am now curious though if anyone has done a qualitative study of this.
Why do we want it to happen?
So the hardcore UNO fans do not really like Creighton fans, they want the opportunity to beat Creighton. They do not necessarily expect a win, but they want the chance to go to the game and maybe talk a little trash, poke fun at Creighton, and hopefully be on the winning side. UNO fans have to live in the shadow of Creighton, which is fair since Creighton has been fully division one much longer. In a way, UNO fans feel disrespected by Creighton fans. Bluejay nation still does not see UNO as division one, this is partially because a majority of Creighton fans do not know what is happening outside of Creighton basketball. A while back when Creighton was in the NIT, I had a few friends that wanted to go their game against Bowling Green, so I went down to the Qwest Center to buy the tickets, and the guy in front of me who was decked out in all Creighton gear like he was a life long fan asked as many questions as he could possible ask:
- So this is the NIT?
- What is the NIT?
- What would have Creighton had to do to make the NCAA tournament?
- Who are they playing?
- Bowling Green is in what conference?
- What was Bowling Green’s record this year?
- What was Creighton’s record this year?
- Is it a white out?
- Is it a blue out?
- How many fans do you expect to come?
- Will Lawlor’s be selling any gear centered around the NIT?
- Who does Creighton play after they win this game?
- When is the next game?
- Who leads the team in scoring?
- They sell beer for the NIT, right?
I am pretty sure the ticket person wanted to just scream out “IT’S ON THE FREAKING INTERNET” the whole time. But that is Creighton fan hood, they want to support Creighton, and they want the event. For some reason they do not think Creighton-UNO is an event. So we need to make it an event for them.
Would inviting Tim Miles make it an event? Like, he could do the starting lineups. He could come out in a tuxedo and grab the microphone and read off the starting lineups like he is doing the intros for a famous boxing match, he could read off each player’s name with some Will Ferrell like jokes, and then he could ring the starting bell. Since there is apparently some rule that college coaches cannot attend games of their opponents, he will have to leave, and all the Creighton fans can boo him out of the building. It might be better than Christmas for Tim Miles, and Creighton fans.
How about we shoot a few things down
Dick brought up the points that any Creighton fan that thinks they pay attention will bring up, so let’s take a look at these things.
- It is tough enough to schedule in college basketball as is…
Yeah, okay, I can agree with that. With the non-conference schedule taken up by early season tournaments, a rivalry game (Nebraska in this case), return games, and maybe a conference versus conference challenge, it can be a little difficult to fit a few more games in there for some teams.
It also has to be super stressful and challenging to set something up when your coaches and athletic admin attend the same charity events, local organization’s outings, AAU tournaments, and high school games. That could require talking to each other in person. Much more simple to get back and forth emails and phone calls with Tulsa and North Texas. Creighton and UNO baseball, women’s basketball, women’s soccer, men’s soccer (in exhibitions), and other sports meeting up was defying all the odds in the last few years.
- Playing UNO would not do much for Creighton
North Carolina A & T, Chicago State (3 times), Campbell, Houston Baptist, Presbyterian, Longwood, Alcorn State, UMKC, Long Beach State, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Central Arkansas, North Carolina Central, Eastern Illinois, South Dakota, and Texas Pan-American have all played Creigthon since UNO’s transition.
Screw you.
You ever watch a city rivalry game? You can not give two craps about either team and still enjoy the hell out of it. A few years ago I watched Cincinnatti-Xavier on television, and this was post Sean Miller. I do not care for either team and I do not even know any player on either team. The rivalry was so intense, you could just feel the energy in the crowd and in the players in how important that game was to everyone there.
The UNO-Creighton men’s soccer exhibition last year was incredibly intense. I thought someone was going to get killed. It was an exhibition game…exhibition… I said exhibition, right?
- Creighton would have beaten UNO by 50 (last year)
Prove it…
I think what Creighton (and Iowa) fans hate more than anything are the personality-less Nebraska football fans who think at the beginning of the every year that the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team will win the national championship solely based on the fact that the 94 and 95 ‘skers were the greatest college football teams ever. Those teams were then, and they were great, but this now. So just because Creighton had Doug McDermott a couple years ago, it does not mean that the Bluejays are still at that level of greatness. The Bluejays also do not have the same perimeter defense without Grant Gibbs. Their team has changed greatly. Yes there are a few years that Creighton would have beaten UNO by 30+, but that is not an every year thing, there are a few years that UNO could upset Creighton, and this year could have been one of them…maybe depending on when the game was played, Creighton was doing pretty well until they played North Texas. Hell I am pretty sure there were years in the D2 era that UNO could have upset the Huskers in basketball.
We are now at a point where UNO beat a team that beat Creighton (Marquette) and Creighton beat a team that beat UNO (Chicago State), so we can have these arguments, which if the two teams do not meet, it is going to add to some frustration for the few that want the game to happen. Creighton’s skill level is not as high as it was a few years ago.
I have a friend, he is a JaySker, the good kind of JaySker though, he wants them to both win, and he even roots for UNO a little bit (though he has yet to attend a basketball game). He is really just one of those guys who roots for anything local, but he owns more Creighton stuff then he does Husker and UNO stuff. He admits one thing, even though in the past they were exhibition games, UNO always played Creighton (and Nebraska) tough and close. It was the Mavericks’ one chance for a showcase back then. They watch more Creighton and Nebraska games on local television all year then they do any of their opponents, so the Mavericks have a constant recruiting tape loop on watch. They get to sit in their dorms and watch Creighton play and think to themselves, if I had to stop that guy, this is what I would do.
So this whole Creighton would beat UNO by 50 BS can stop. I am not saying it is an automatic close game, or even a win by UNO, I am just saying that it would at least be entertaining. Was Nebraska-UNO early in the season not entertaining? When it is a local rivalry, the game is more about the intangibles, not about who looks better on paper, and honestly Creighton did not look all that great on paper this season.
Tim Miles: The Inspiration
Whether it was on accident or not, Tim Miles proved something. He was interviewed on the sideline at what I think was his first Husker football game, and he answered questions with a few jokes as his charismatic self, and he finished with an infamous line, only show in the state.
Miles claims he meant that there is no Nebraska State, as he was involved in the Colorado State to Colorado relationship. He claimed to not be thinking of Creighton at this juncture, and we will never know if it was intentional not, but this caused so many Creighton fans to just lose their freaking minds. Tim Miles had not even been involved with a Nebraska-Creighton game yet and the Creighton fan base wanted his head. Creighton fans get pumped up for that Nebraska-Creighton game each and every year. In the Missouri Valley days, it was their chance to show they were better than “the big boys.” Now, beating that Tim Miles jerk is the motivation.
Now Tim Miles just loves poking fun at Creighton. He does it every chance he gets. He scheduled UNO and he took some jabs at Creighton for not doing the same thing. Creighton fans want that win over Nebraska more and more now. With Doc Sadler, Creighton lived in local basketball bliss. Sadler did not really care too much for the local thing, he held not merit to winning or losing to Creighton. He did not even really go after too many local recruits, I know someone related to Iowa’s Mike Gesell, and they told me that Sadler and Nebraska never once contacted him. Sadler did not bring much media hype to Nebraska basketball, and they were as boring to watch as it was to listen to him talk. Miles, with the help of a new arena, practice facilities, and commitment from the university has turned all of that around. Neighboring Creighton is cranky that Tim Miles is now the main character in all of this and Creighton needs a bottle of juice.
I wish there was a way to hit Creighton where it really hurts and convince Tim Miles to stop the annual Nebraska-Creighton game and start a Nebraska-UNO annual game, but I highly doubt that is an option. Creighton fans would riot in the streets of downtown Omaha. To hurt them even more, the game could be played at the CenturyLink Center, both teams could wear one of those In Memory patches during the games, and no blue would be allowed in the arena. Nebraska could even bring their floor, like they did when they played Oregon in Omaha. After the games, Tim Miles and Derrin Hansen could go out downtown to all the Creighton hang outs, put as much money as they can into the juke boxes and play the worst music possible, and just be laughing the whole time. They can even go to The Blue Jay Bar & Grill (is that place still open), and call out the bar for letting in a bunch of 19 year olds and letting them drink. Again though, highly unlikely, but I feel like Tim Miles could still jokingly bring it up as an idle threat once in a while.
So anyway, Tim Miles and his Only Show in the State comment, it charged things up for Creighton against Nebraska. With Sadler, Creighton was getting into this Oh La La attitude toward Nebraska basketball. They wanted the victory over Nebraska for sure, but they were not getting pumped for it like they used to. After Miles said that, all hell broke out, Creighton fans were pumped, they circled the game on their calendar, the ticket prices on Ticketmaster jumped up to almost $300. Creighton fans needed new shirts from Lawlor’s to show their dominance and commitment. So Tim Miles showed us one thing, to build up demand for Creighton fans, you just piss them right off.
Yes, let’s just piss off Creighton fans
It sounds so simple, and so fun. At this point you have to assume that Greg McDermott (and probably Derrin Hansen) has some objections about this game happening, and McDermott is definitely not going to do it without demand from the fans. So let’s just piss off the Creighton fans and force them to demand the game to happen. Let’s make the Creighton fans the one calling the athletic admin to ask why it is not happening.
The Senseless, The Attitude, The Coast, and the Entitled all have one thing in common. Their presentation of self suggests that they are incredibly confident and have high self esteems. In reality, their confident persona and self esteem is the front stage, in the back stage, they realize they have not proven anything and need validation, they are actually quite insecure and defensive. After all, the typical Omaha born Creighton student is the kid that you went to high school with a $30,000 car, no job, and presented it as if he bought the car on his own from all the hard work he has done. If you ever called that kid out though, he would so make sure that dumb high school girls did not think you were hot. Creighton men’s basketball somehow validates that they made the right choice in life. The basketball team is really good, so I must have picked the right school! With these people we need to attack and break down that confidence, until they want to see Creighton-UNO happen to in some way prove their oddly placed dominance.
Here are a few buttons to push:
- Your school lacks innovation and looks like a sick Mongolian Hun coughed it up
When I went to school and worked at UNO they were constructing the new HPER building. I was also on student government and sat through a bunch of presentations on ways to grow the University of Nebraska of Omaha. Most of these presentations centered around facilities. The same thing happened while I was working at Weber State, consultants would come in and discuss how prospective students care most about facilities and work out facilities were always the most important. Where else are the homeboys supposed to pick up chicks other than the gym?
Anyway, UNO reconstructs HPER, and HPER is freaking awesome. It has everything a student could ask for. The student population grows from it, and continues to grow. HPER has been rated one of the top gyms in the country, the Outdoor Venture Center is also nationally ranked, and believe me, considering its location, that is a huge accomplishment. A few months after the student numbers get a jump, Nebraska-Lincoln gets a new Outdoor Venture Center, so who tilts their head like a confused puppy? Creighton opens up the Rasmussen Fitness and Sports Center a few years later, which is similar to UNO’s HPER, but considering Creighton’s student population versus UNOs, it is completely ridiculous. Creighton did not want to believe the facilities argument at first, I mean it was probably based on studies from MSNBC or something anyway. The younger cousin got a new shiny toy and they had to have one. They do not even have their own logo, they had to steal it from the Toronto Bluejays. The first thing you see in the About Us section of their website is the phrase There’s No Place Like Creighton. I feel like I have heard There Is No Place Like…but I cannot remember how the rest of it goes.
You drive by campus on Cuming Street and you look at it. While you look at it, do you see the resemblance to the exterior to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, or is that just me? Can you guys not hire a cleaning lady for that thing?
- You do not actually care about the education
Nebraska basketball gets a brand new practice facility, so the Creighton moneybaggers and Monopoly players get all whiny and throw down some money for the Creighton Championship Center. That is the thing, Nebraska gets an advantage and that is all those people want to fix. This whole foundation of We Support the Jesuit Education from the boosters with more money than God is BS. If the education is what they really valued, then their students would not be sitting in the UNO library studying because it is a superior library. I am sure that The Entitled and The Attitude could not even tell you where the Creighton library is located, or what the purpose of it is. The Creighton senior days, when the players make speeches, how many of those players have you questioned if they could read or not? Have the boosters sat through those?
- Your student section sucks
Oh they will show up big for Nebraska, Georgetown, or Villanova, they will come get in the front rows for the games on national television, but other than that they suck. It is after all pretty difficult to pretend that you go to Duke when your team is in 2nd to last place in something. You go to the games and you see that a majority of the student section is disinterested, they might as well be at a Rob Schneider film. Yes your team sucks at times, but that is still your team, and it is free for you, so why not go?
The UNO student section is far superior, yes I am a homer here, but it is true. The main figure for Creighton sports is men’s basketball, the main character for UNO sports is hockey, and if you go to both of these events then you already know. Even when UNO hockey is not as strong of a team as the students want to be, they still show up, because it is their team and they support it. The Creighton students do not go if the Bluejays suck in their minds.
When I was on Student Government at UNO, this was in the Division 2 days, Trev Alberts came and talked to us and asked how to engage the students into athletics. Alberts said one of the challenges was to get people to support UNO with one of the biggest athletic programs in the country just 45 minutes down the road, and while UNO was getting support for hockey there were not a lot of people there to support the Mavericks, there were more people who were just there for their love of hockey. Alberts wanted to figure out how to get people behind UNO, not just the sport of hockey. He also had the general feel that for other sports, students did not want to come to division 2 events because of the “high school” feel that it gave. I think the high school feel is gone, students are there to support UNO now, the momentum is building, and the support is growing. When the Mavs can play for post season, the crowd will become more supportive too, and the support was pretty high this last season of transition.
The Nebraska basketball student section did not want to go for a number of years, there was not much excitement in that program. Tim Miles and a new arena rejuvenated them, now they are loud and crazy, no matter the opponent. They are there to support the team now, good record or bad record, Big Ten opponent or Sun Belt opponent, they are there now. They do not even need beer.
It is not just Tre’Shawn Thurman, but any current and future Maverick that in an Omaha guy. A marketing campaign we really need to start to take over JaySkers market. You can assume most JaySkers are from Omaha and support the city of Omaha in one way or another. With none of the Big East opponents really that close, and no Nebraska born scholarship players for Creighton (next year they will have Omaha North’s Justin Patton and Benson’s Khyri Thomas), it will be more difficult for these people to really connect with the Creighton program. They wont have that Omaha supportive feel as they did with 8 years of Josh Dotzler-Antoine Young-Josh Jones Local From the Area back courts leading as the faces of the program and as that connection to the Omaha fans.
UNO has that connection now with Tre’Shawn Thurman, the player that the JaySkers will recognize. We can get in Creighton’s front yard and throw a University of Nebraska at Omaha advertisement in a media timeout of a Creighton basketball game, and the video can end with the best Thurman dunk we can find. It will get the Jayskers to think, We Need to Go See That Kid. The guy they will want to see and sit around talking about his play at UNO and debating what he could have been at Creighton or Nebraska. Can we post a bunch of Tre’Shawn Knows Omaha posters all around town, even on Creighton’s campus? Is that against some rule? Can we post a picture of him standing over an aerial portrait of Omaha, with his foot over the Creighton campus? A subliminal message of, Everyone Will Get Behind This Guy and Not See You Anymore!
I am not even sure if this is totally legit. I do see a bunch of women’s athletics programs just using girls that they see as the most attractive girl on the roster for their advertisements, even if they are not that much of an athlete in comparison to their teammates, so why not this? It will not do much to anger The Attitude or The Coast, they barely care about Omaha as is. The Entitled and The Senseless though, this will screw them up a bit. The Entitled has a weird love of Omaha, mainly because they know they cannot leave it without Daddy’s permission, but they love it as if they are Batman loving Gotham City. You know if Bruce Wayne’s parents did not die, and they just spoiled the crap out of him to the point of making him a waste of talent.
Okay, so this can get to Creighton fans just a little bit, and they will typically come back with the You Lost to Chicago State argument, and that is fair. But this still gets in their head enough to get them thinking. If you keep poking at The Attitude, they are going to get pissy, they will absolutely need Creighton-UNO basketball to happen just to shut you up. Remember, the idea is to get the fans to demand the game to happen, you want to get their reasons as to why the game is not happening out of their heads.
- You are afraid to schedule us
I do not think this will work, but if you want to try it, what the the hell. The fans are not afraid to schedule UNO, they just fall into the game of We Would Beat You by 50 and Playing UNO Would Do Nothing For Creighton. The coaches and admin might be afraid, not in terms of picking up a loss on the schedule, but more so for losing the fair weathered fans that they know “support” their program.
A mass of their fans care more about the beer at the arena, and the last time I checked the new UNO arena will sell beer. My brother got me tickets to a Creighton game this year. I went to the game, sat in literally the very back row, and I sat behind these three dudes who may have been the dumbest dudes I have ever found. They hardly paid attention to the game, drank more beer than I have drank in the last 6 months, and talked about going to the casino the whole time, but this is after they discussed how dedicated they were as Creighton fans when they first sat down. If UNO had a casino near campus, those fans would come and “support” UNO too, but I do not think these were people Trev Alberts was trying to recruit to be the supporters of UNO.
Creighton though, they love these people, and they cannot possibly take the risk of scheduling UNO for these idiots. If Creighton-UNO plays, they may actually do a little more than pretend to care about the game. They may stay seated, watch, be into it, and they may spend a few less dollars on beer. OH NO! Admit it though, you love going to their games or watching them on television and seeing 1/5 of the arena not into it, just in the hallways or at the concessions not actually rooting on the team. Creighton might actually be afraid of scheduling UNO for the sake of these people. So much integrity and excellence.
Have you ever heard a Creighton fan talk about Kansas basketball? That is the team they want to play more than any but it wont get scheduled. They want Kansas to come to Omaha and slap some dumb boring tag line of Come See the Bird Fight! They want to show they belong with Kansas for some reason. Kansas is on their own scale of good. Creighton fans love to sit around and say “Kansas is afraid to schedule us”. No, Kansas is not afraid to schedule you. From what I could gather over years of listening to Creighton assistant coaches on the radio, it was Dana Altman who was afraid to schedule Kansas, for whatever reason.
Creighton fans love their shiny things, and they love the downtown bars. Apparently the Jesuit foundation means sneak into every bar in the Old Market and drink so much until you pass out in the back of a 5 minute cab ride. Aksarben is now growing and it growing because of UNO, downtown does not NEED Creighton. Aksarben also does not have that 42 year old dudes hitting on 22 year old chicks feel to it, bragging up his 36k a year lifestyle to some girl in college who has never worked more than 15 hours a week. The restaurants in Aksarben are newer, the buildings are newer, and it has Amato’s. Aksarben is not even close to being done either, not that downtown ever will be, but this has to enrage the from Omaha Creightoners. I have not been to Aksarben much, just to DJs Dugout to catch a UNO hockey game or two, and a few other places, but I did notice that there are also not any douche bags that want to start a fight just for the sake of feeling tough like the Old Market. Insecure people needing validation, that is the Creighton way.
- I cannot stop laughing when you tell me that Creighton is as athletic as Georgetown or Villanova
Just stop saying it! You are killing me! I cannot even feel my side anymore! Oh my God, you really think that?! You really are that delusional! How many beers did you have before half time?!?! Is there a country for people like you to get deported to?!?!?! Is it called the Republic of Dumb Shits?!?!
I had Archer on in the back ground during that…
So pissing off Creighton will be fun, and most of UNO fans probably already try it anyway, but at least now they should know that it can be productive too. It is important to know that UNO fans need the Creighton fans to want this as much as the UNO fans. As the JaySkers catch on, the UNO fans need to be welcoming of them, welcome them into a few watch parties for games at DJs Dugout maybe, let them see that Mavnation is not filled up with a bunch of arrogance like its neighbor. Go to the Creighton-UNO and Nebraska-UNO events that are happening, which I am sure you already do, and find the good kind of JaySkers, friend them up and work on getting them to be MavSkers.
Omaha Mavericks Blog 