Nebraska Cornhuskers

2015-2016 Opponent Preview, Game 1: UC Santa Barbara

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So there are 13 weeks until the Mavs basketball season starts, so what is a better time to start previewing their 2015 fourteen non-conference opponents?  Probably last week actually if I wanted to take it one team at a time.  Crap.  Oh well.  Here we go.

The Mavs will open their season at the brand new Baxter Arena in Mavtown with the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos.   Don’t you love it how nicknames of California teams (pro and college) make no sense?  This will be after Mav hockey will already be 10 games into the season, but there will not be any hockey this weekend, so really it is a great weekend to open up the season for the Baxter Arena for basketball.  UNO Men’s soccer should be in Denver this weekend for the Summit League tournament and championship, and hopefully the women’s soccer team will have made some noise at this point and maybe have already made the Summit League tournament.  This will also be the final weekend of the regular season for the volleyball team.

I know some Mav fans were expecting a bit time opponent to open up the arena.  Some were thinking the likes of Nebraska or Creighton, but the Gauchos are not a small opponent by any means.  In fact, they actually finished the 2015-2016 season with an RPI of 98.  If case you forgot: Creighton finished at 157; and Nebraska finished at 155, but I know it is more about the name and prestige for most.  The Gauchos also finished the year with a winning record, tied for 2nd with UC Irvine in the Big West, and a trip to the CBI where they lost to Summit League team Oral Roberts.

In addition to all of this, Santa Barbara had one win over a power conference team, Washington State.  I know Washington State is someone to not take incredibly seriously right now as far as power conference teams ago, but the Gauchos beat them 71-43.

Side note:  My Northwest friends are mostly Washington State fans.  Last year, when I heard UNO was going to Seattle and looking to play Washington or Washington State while in the Northwest, I told my Northwest friends that they might have a Mavericks versus Cougars match up.  They laughed and said “there is an easy win for UNO.”

Speaking of Seattle, remember when UNO lost to them and we were incredibly shocked by it?  The Gauchos beat Seattle 87-46.  Looking at the rest of their 2014-2015 schedule, they had some close losses to some good teams.  As mentioned, they lost to Oral Roberts by 4 in the CBI.  The Gauchos also traveled to Lawrence early in the year to lose to Kansas by 10, the Jayhawks had a final RPI of 5.  The team did also split games with Florida Gulf Coast, losing to Dunk City by 6 in overtime before beating them by 13 later in the non-conference schedule.

I really wish UNO and Colorado State could meet every year, the Rams are a fun team to watch, and they are “sort of local” with a large number of UNO alumni (and former Omahans) in the state of Colorado.  Santa Barbara lost to the Rams by 2.  Colorado State had a final RPI of 37.

Speaking of other teams I would like to see UNO play, but this is because of my wife’s fan hood, Santa Barbara lost to Oregon by 4 points in overtime in Eugene.  Also, a team I hate discussing, SMU, beat Santa Barbara by 7.  Larry Brown’s final experiment finished with an RPI of 27.

The Gauchos are coached by Bob Williams, who has been with Santa Barbara since 1998 after winning a Division 2 championship with (then D-2) UC Davis.  Williams has made the NCAA tournament with the Gauchos 3 times, his last time was in 2010-2011.

Who did they lose?

The Gauchos lost a huge piece of their team.  6’8″ and 265lbs Alan Williams averaged a double double in his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons for Santa Barbara.  He was an All Big West player for all three of those seasons as well.  He is actually probably solely responsible for what kept Santa Barbara in the game against Kansas, as he showed to be too much for Perry Ellis, in which Williams had 22 points, 13 rebounds, and 4 blocks.

Williams averaged 17.3 ppg and 11.8 rpg his senior season, he also was not a terrible free throw shooter at 77%.  He had a 20 rebound performance in a 65-60 overtime win over Mercer.  Oh Williams also led the NCAA in rebounding in 2014 and in 2015.

Willaims did miss 6 games in 2014-2015 with the Gauchos going 4-2 in his absence, and those two losses were against UC Irvine and UC Davis, the two top teams in the Big West.

After finishing his career as a Gaucho, Williams played for the Houston Rockets and Charlotte Hornets in the NBA Summer League, where he was named All Summer League 2nd team after a 22 points and 21 rebound performance against the 76ers.  He has signed professionally with a Chinese team.

I feel like Mike Rostampour would have loved competing against this guy.

Who do they have coming back?

Williams is obviously a huge loss, but he was not the only Big West 1st Team player that the Gauchos had.  6’4″ senior Michael Bryson also made the all conference team after averaging 14 points and nearly 5 rebounds a game.  Bryson loves taking threes, he made about 2 threes per game in 2014-2015 with a total of 68 on the year.  In comparison, CJ Carter, who led the Mavericks, made 48 on the season.  Bryson also shot 85% from the free throw line.

The Gauchos return two more wing players that averaged over 10 per game last season.  6’5″ senior John Green averaged 11 points and 4 rebounds per game, though Green was mostly used at the 4 position last season since, other than Williams, the Gauchos did not have much of a post game.  The team also return 6’3″ sophomore Gabe Vincent who averaged 10 per game, but did face inconsistencies throughout the year, as most freshman do.  Vincent shot 41% on threes on the year, and had a total of 57.

So you’re telling me there is a chance?

Probably the Mavericks biggest weakness last season was their perimeter defense, so you get a little scared when you hear they are facing a team with their strength being their group of returning wing players.  The Gauchos will be trying to adjust to life without a walking double double, and after Williams, the Gauchos did not have a reliable post game.

So the keys to the game could be how much the Mavs can work the ball into Jake White and Tre’Shawn Thurman, as well as how good of a perimeter defender new Mavericks Tra-Deon Hollins can be in the game…who sounds to be a pretty stellar defender.

This is not going to be as easy of a game as playing Central Arkansas to open up the year, but to get better the Mavs have to play the best, this is great competition.  As of right now, it does sound as if Santa Barbara has the edge, but hopefully opening up the new arena (to basketball) can create a great atmosphere to give the Mavs a great home court advantage in this game.

 

 

 

I do not get why you still got beef on Trev

acroth86 College Sports , , , , , ,

The UNO Mavericks hockey team made their first Frozen Four appearance.  UNO Men’s soccer tied for a regular season Summit League championship.  UNO baseball won a pair of regular season Summit League championships.  UNO volleyball has improved their record each season in the transition period.  UNO softball can compete with just about any team in the NCAA.  UNO men’s and women’s basketball are both still growing and gearing up to be at the top of the Summit League.  A brand new arena in Aksarben is being built to be the centerpiece of a strong foundation of the UNO athletics program.  Also, a few of the UNO teams are competing nationally with ranking their teams with some of the highest team GPAs in the NCAA.  With all of this, there are still people who claim they will never support UNO athletics as long as Trev Alberts is involved.

The transition to a higher status in athletics came with a great price, the price of UNO’s football and wrestling programs, and this did not sit well with many Omahans and it still does not sit well with many.  Much of the controversy surrounds around the fact that he cut the wrestling program after three straight national championships, and I totally agree that one is a hard one to still process.  Still, the overall decision to make the transition to division one came with several mixed emotions.

The feelings of the Omaha community thinking that the Mavericks should go division one started long ago.  When I was in high school we would always talk about it.  Imagine if they did it, what would it be like?  The basketball team could play in the Civic (we were so young and naive).  The baseball team could definitely take recruits away from Nebraska and Creighton, those guys that want to play right away would come to UNO.  How fun would it be to add a third team to the instate rivalry?  Oh, and what if Kear…never mind.  We were high school kids, we just thought of the positives if it were to happen, we never thought of the negative consequences.

The same thing happened while I was in college.  My friends and I would ask ourselves, will they ever become division one?  The Mavericks certainly have the resources to do it.  Obviously though we were not looking at any of the financial aspects of it, we were mainly looking at it in terms of a fine sports culture in the Omaha metro.  If the North Dakota and South Dakota schools could make the transition, then why could the Mavericks not do it?  Those were the questions we really sat around and debated as young college studs.  I mean young college students…students.  My sophomore year I was in an English course, and one of the assignments was an argumentative paper that you would eventually have to present to the class.  There were two softball players that wrote about the possibility of UNO becoming division one and what impacts that would have on the university.  Those girls knew that it would mean UNO would have to sacrifice post season play, and they were completely for it.  It was a five page paper, so it is not like those girls put together a bunch of financial charts and did as much investigation as a professional staff would have put together, so they did not really think that cutting a program or two would have been a part of the conversation.

After the university lost an Athletic Director, who you could sum up his tenure at UNO as “did not give a shit” after trying to get the program back in the green after a scandal that embarrassed the athletics department, the search for a new person in charge started.  There were some names thrown around, nothing really all that exciting, but how exciting could a Division 2 Athletic Director search get?  When Husker legend Trev Alberts’ name came up as a possibility, interest grew around that.

Alberts is a bit of a household name in the state of Nebraska, he is kind of a big deal.  When he took interest in being the Athletic Director at UNO, the people around here listened, and they thought he was trying to gear up to be the next Athletic Director at Nebraska.  From what I heard from other employees at UNO, Alberts was the only one who actually got an official interview for the job, it was just his if he wanted it from the second he took interest.  When he officially took the job at UNO, there was buzz around the athletics department for the first time in a long time.

When Alberts made the announcement that the Mavericks were headed to division one, some were in shock and others thought it was about freaking time.  When those people heard that the football program and the back to back to back championship wrestling program would be cut though, more came to be in shock than anything.  Many of positive feelings for Alberts turned negative.  How dare he?  Where does he get off?  Who does he think he is?  Not only were people critical of the decision to cut wrestling and football, when people heard the programs were being cut they automatically tried to turn him into the emperor and claim he must have forced Mike Kemp out.  Basically, Trev could do no right in the eyes of some.  If you think Trev was a just a prick 24/7, he is not.  He engages with students when he has the time, he engages with fans and boosters, which is something you will see from any Athletic Director.  He has a little fun with all the negative things people say about him too.  When there was a career fair for student employees in the newly renovated HPER building, he jokingly came in and asked for an application because he may be out of a job soon.

There were some people that wanted Trev’s head.  They claimed he always had it out for wrestling, that he had an agenda from the second he walked on campus, and he does not actually care about the UNO Mavericks, he just cares about his giant ego.  That concept of being upset with someone for that should irritate you.  Of course Trev had an agenda, but just because he cut two programs does not mean that was his intention from day one.  His agenda was to be a successful Athletic Director and to have an athletic department that the university could be proud of for their on the field achievements as well as their off the field achievements.  If you ever take a business class at UNO, one of the first things a professor will ask is “what is the number one goal of a business?”  Many students throw out an easy answer of “to make money.”  But the answer is to survive.

Trev took over an Athletic Department that was in trouble thanks to the past.  Other than hockey, there was little support from the community.  People just genuinely did not care a great deal about the UNO Mavericks.  In his first year, when the Mavericks were still in division two, I was on Student Government, Trev came and asked us all for our opinions on a few matters.  He never once asked how to get the Omaha community behind the Mavericks, he wanted to know how to get the student population to come out to UNO games.  He spoke of how when the university would try to recruit a professional to be a member of the administration, they would take the recruit to a sporting event, and the professionals would ask where the students were.  He talked about in his first meeting with the UNO athletics department staff that he asked the staff how many Division 2 national championships the program had, and no one knew the answer.  Even people in the athletic department were not completely engaged.  Now from what I have heard, everyone is engaged, and they appear to be proud members of the Maverick family (from the sound of it at least).

I remember walking to class before a football game, and Trev hosted a mini pep rally outside the student center and trying to promote a football game for the upcoming week.  Students walked by him like he was one of the crazy people on campus telling you…well crazy things.  That is just a couple of examples, about a total of 30 minutes that I viewed in my last year at UNO.  Do you really think he did not care about the UNO Mavericks and it was just all about him?  Or do you think he was doing what many adult professionals fail to do, he was actually trying to do his job.

It was difficult to lose the football and the wrestling programs, I agree.  I knew a few guys from each of the teams.  Some of them were genuinely nice guys, and some others were absolute dicks, but that is probably something that you could say about any social group of dudes.  I always felt awkward about the football program.  Pat Berhens was kind of a weird guy to begin with, but aside from that, the scheduling was always weird in my opinion.  A decent number of their games always seemed to mix right in with a Husker game, so you know those games would have a low turnout.  I remember one year they tried to have their spring game the exact same day as the Huskers’ spring game.  I was there for the start of it for an event that took place before the game, and I can tell you that literally no one showed up.  The wrestling program was a big shock, and pretty much why there was and still is so much animosity toward Trev.  Mike Denney was and is a great solid guy, he brought some impressive guys to UNO, and his accomplishments were obviously extraordinary.

Even with the great accomplishments of the wrestling program, the program was not greatly contributing to the longevity of the athletic department’s survival.  Even growing up for several years around rumors that UNO would make the jump to division one, there were, at some points, also many rumors that UNO would just cut a few athletic programs or even the entire thing.  If you get into a conversation with anyone who claims to have loved the UNO wrestling program, you will learn that they did not actually have a dying love for the UNO wrestling program.  They liked wrestling, and successful wrestling, but they did not actually like UNO so much to where they supported it by going to matches or keeping up with it unless they heard the UNO name in the national championship.  They regularly cannot name one wrestler, or clearly identify what years the program won a championship.  Yet, these are the same people who say they will never support UNO athletics as long as Trev Alberts is involved.

How freaking dumb is that?  So if he stepped down today, you will all of a sudden support the program again?  You are going to take your hate of Trev Alberts out on student athletes involved in the UNO athletics program?  It is not like the current athletes at UNO banned together as underclassmen in high school and held a gun against Trev’s head until he made them go division one.

Consider this you rummy…  Downtown Omaha became a vibrant atmosphere after the city of Omaha was able to build the CenturyLink Center from the popularity of the Creighton men’s basketball program.  That little area where TD Ameritrade Park is was once a step above a ghetto.  I do not know the appropriate unit of measure to use for the number of restaurants and bars that have moved in near the CenturyLink and TD Ameritrade Park since the two have been introduced to Omaha.  I will just say a crap ton.  Real estate in downtown has become more valuable, the recreation in downtown has become more attractive.  The rest of the state benefits off of purchases from the two arenas to build more arenas and recreation where it is suitable.  Much of downtown’s success could be contributed to Creighton basketball, as much as some people would hate to admit that, it is true.

Now look at the Aksarben area.  In 2010, the area was basically empty, it was an area that had UNO faithful asking what the hell was ever going to happen with the area.  A few things were being put up, but nothing anyone was bragging about.  Now look at it, the area is becoming a hot commodity.  You could probably contribute about 90% of that off of what UNO as a whole and what UNO athletics has brought to the area, and Aksarben is just getting started (again).  So in turn, because much of that area has been reborn thanks to the future of UNO athletics, are you going to not support Aksarben?  Or are you too proud to say you do not like Trev just because of his unsuccessful NFL career and it embarrasses you somehow as a Husker fan?  By the way, I never hear anyone whine about UNO cutting football.  Everyone seems okay with it.  They want to cry about how it was such a travesty to take away the opportunities for the wrestlers to wrestle and get an education, but then they easily forget that UNO had a football program.

The athletics program may have cut football and wrestling, but it is not like Trev got up on a microphone on a stage and pulled a Half Baked moment and pointed at Wrestling and said “F you” then pointed at football and said “F you” and then pointed at basketball and said “you’re cool.”  The athletics program and the university helped the student athletes move on, find new colleges, or finish their education at UNO.  By the way, I am pretty sure Northwest Missouri State and UNK bitch the least about UNO cutting the programs.

Look around as we are finally nearing the end of this transition.  Look at how many students and Mav fans made it to Boston for the Frozen Four. Look at how the attendances are gradually rising each year for all sports.  Do you see how many UNO students actually care about athletics right now, and we are not even at a status of being fully division one yet?  Look at the facilities that have been renovated and the ones that are about to come, and the ones that are still being imagined.  You may dislike Trev for whatever reason, but are you going to sit there and say he does a poor job?

 

How to schedule the Mavericks and the Bluejays: Part I

acroth86 College Basketball , , , , , , ,

Richard Creighton Fan walks into a bar

Okay, his name is actually Dick Creighton Fan*, but he walks into a bar about a half hour before the tip off of a men’s Creighton basketball game.  The first thing you need to know is that the bar belongs to him.  He will spend about 40 dollars on beer and food throughout the duration of this basketball game, and that is the most important 40 dollars that this bar will ever receive.  Dick grabs his seat at the end of the bar, right next to the tv, and so when you walk in you will have to walk by him and acknowledge his fan hood to the Creighton Bluejays.  For crying out loud, he has the new Bluejays logo on his shirt and the old logo on his hat, so you know he is freaking serious, super serious, he is Batman Taking Down the Joker serious.  It is a Saturday, so there are other basketball games on, and other sports on television, but none of those matter while Dick is ready to spend 40 bucks.  Dick is incapable of watching the game at home, no one is entirely sure of the reason, but does it really count as watching a sports match if you do not spend at least 20 bucks on beer?  If you went to a Creighton game with Dick, you would see how many trips he makes to the concession stand for a 8 dollar beer, it is a minimum of 3 times.

*Dick Creighton Fan is a pseudonym for a combination of every fair weathered Creighton fan you have ever met.  We all know a Dick Creighton Fan, they are all over Omaha, you have had several interactions with many of them, and you are even close friends with a few of them.  Most of this is based on an actual Dick Creighton Fan that I am good friends with.  Please do not take me poking fun at Creighton basketball as me not respecting the program, I have a good deal of respect for the actual program itself.

Fans of other teams begin to pile into the bar, none of them have a Creighton shirt on, but that does not matter to Dick, because you are the one who is a douche, and you need to respect what he brings to the world of sports, you came to his bar, he did not come to your bar.  A fan with a Nebraska Cornhuskers shirt walks in to watch a game, Dick tells him he is an idiot, Nebraska is stupid.  Dick loves the Huskers from late August to the beginning of January, but damn it, this is the winter, and Dick is 99% positive that the other sports at the University of Nebraska folded about 15 years ago.  A UNO hockey fan walks into the bar in hopes of catching the team’s away game, Dick does not care for UNO, you see in Dick’s mind, Creighton is in the Big East and has never been in a mid major.  Creighton has been a part of the big boys since the beginning of sports, so liking UNO is for the poor.  It is amazing how Creighton fans have already forgotten that they were actually in the Missouri Valley, and it can also be amazing that the ones who do remember that they played in the Valley forget that Wichita State and Northern Iowa were not always powerhouses.  An Iowa fan walks into the bar, what a loser, get creative, Creighton is all about innovation, Dick wants to ask the Iowa fan what it is like living in a trailer park.  A Kansas basketball fan walks into the bar, and this just enrages Dick.  Dick cannot handle it, this will cause Dick’s budget of 40 dollars at the bar go up to 50 dollars.  Who the hell does this Kansas fan think he is?  He is a punk, Kansas will not schedule Creighton, and the only logical reason is because Kansas is just afraid of Creighton, too scared to schedule them.

I walk into the bar right before tip off to watch the Creighton game with Dick.  Dick chastises me for showing up late, five minutes before the tip for a Creighton game is late to Dick.  The tip comes, Dick is so into it that he can only talk to me during commercials, and even then it is mostly about how the fifteen steps he has to take to the bathroom are completely stupid.  The referees make a legit call against the Bluejays and Dick calls the referees a bunch of (homophobic slurs), because Dick is super classy if you cannot tell.  An opposing player hits a wide open shot because the Bluejays are pretty terrible at defense, and that opposing player according to Dick is the biggest thug that ever existed in Dick’s mind.  That player belongs behind bars for hitting that shot.  A Creighton post player misses an uncontested layup and the opposing team grabs the rebound and runs down the court to score a transition basket.  “He was fouled!  These are the worst refs I have ever seen,” Dick screams out.  That player comes out of the game because he just a layup missed with no one or a ghost in the arena hit him on the arm, and another post player comes into the game.  The new post player gets the ball deep in the post, and with his awful footwork travels and turns over the ball.  “What kind of call is that?!  These refs are out to get us,” Dick objectively examines.  He claps hard for everything the Creighton starters do, as if they are the 5 greatest human beings on the face of the planet.  Essentially, Dick thinks of the Creighton starting 5 as the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers.

So half time comes and Dick can finally talk to me, and thank God!  Dick graduated from Creighton, but is now working toward his Master’s degree at UNO, as that is becoming the typical route for Creighton grads that stay in Omaha.  So the UNO fan in me is curious, I ask Dick if and when the Bluejays and the Mavericks ever play, who will he root for since he is now a part of the UNO family (though I already know the answer).  Dick sets down his Bud Light (Dick ALWAYS has Bud Light, it is the classy man beer after all), he then looks at me in disapproval as if I had just admitted to him that I slept with his mother, AND ON MOTHER’S DAY!

“I will never root for that dog shit program,” he says in my direction with a soul less Terminator-like expression on his face.  Dick then goes on to tell me the history of the Creighton basketball program, which I am already familiar with, and points out reasons how the two will never ever be on the same playing field.  To bring them into the same arena is a disgrace to the fine culture and the existence of a basketball program with such excellence.

What is that you say?

So the transition for UNO athletics is over for all but the Spring sports at this point, and while many UNO fans are looking forward to the added respect of the glory that comes with being fully division one, they want to know if the UNO Mavericks will ever play the Creighton Bluejays in men’s basketball.

As an Omaha kid, I grew up really liking Creighton basketball.  A majority of the games were on KMTV and I watched every single one that I could, I had to mute the games due to the anger that would be inflicted on myself at the sound of Travis Justice’s voice, but I did watch most of the games.  Kyle Korver, Larry House, Nate Funk, Anthony Tolliver, those are names you can throw at any Omahan and they will have some sort of respect for them as athletes.  I grew up liking Nebraska as well, but it was a little more difficult to find their games on television.  They were so awful, they would never get picked up anywhere, but once in a while you might get lucky with one of the Big 12 games on KXVO.  I rooted for Nebraska, and I still do, but Creighton, I do not root for anymore really.

You know what achieved status I did not have as a child?  I was not a college student or graduate yet, and I had never been to a college party that involved Creighton students.  UNO and UNL students can get along on the basis of At Least You Do Not Go To Creighton bond, and I am pretty sure that a bulk of UNO students wanted to go to UNL at some point in their life, but for whatever reason they ended up at UNO.  I had friends in high school that ended up at Creighton (and UNL), and their parties always involved a bunch of dill holes.  Every UNO student has had this happen to them, they get to a party and mingle around a little bit, they start a conversation with a Creighton student and the CU student brings something up about campus, and you inform them that you do not go to Creighton.  They find out that you go to UNO and all of a sudden, the conversation is basically over.  How the hell did this peasant get into this royal gathering?  The royal court cannot be seen with the UNO jesters, so this person who seemed decent enough suddenly vanishes and relocates to a new group that is worthy of their commentary on life.

So after a number of run ins with Creighton students like this, the love of their athletics program died.  I cheered for them for a while, I watched their games on television, but I do not care the same way I did as a child.  Even with Doug McDermott, I never really cared if they won or lost, the Creighton students ruined it for me, and I am sure they have ruined it for many non-Creighton students all around the eastern part of the state of Nebraska.  If Creighton athletics wins at this point, good for them, if they lose, oh well, it does not affect my life in any way.

Not all Creighton students are bad though.  There are a few different types of Creighton students and fans that you should be made aware of.

The Entitled:

This is quite possibly the worst kind of Creighton student.  The Entitled Creighton Fan did not have a job in high school, their daddy has a good job, a great job that most of us are jealous of.  Daddy does not make The Entitled work too hard for anything.  Those “Why go to Creighton ads” should be followed with “because Daddy did not make you get a job in high school and you have no useful skills” if they need to get The Entitled to pick them over…okay The Entitled are going to go there no matter what if they are from Omaha.

The Entitled worked hard enough to be okay in high school, they got decent grades, stayed out of trouble, and did okay on the ACT.  Daddy makes enough money for The Entitled to get into Creighton with no serious issues.  Daddy pays the way for The Entitled to go to Creighton, so they will not have $100,000+ dollars of student loan debt by the end of college.  Daddy just wants to be sure that The Entitled can get into a fraternity so he has some students to study with (or cheat off of).  I know Creighton is supposed to be really hard to get into, but as Omahans we have all heard the stories of some entitled asshole getting through high school with a 2.2 GPA and a “26” on their ACT, but somehow they got into Creighton.  Daddy figured out a way.

Daddy will get The Entitled a job right away out of college no matter what, they just need a degree, and they need the Creighton name on the degree, not because it will help in the job market really, but for the glory of it.  The Entitled goes to every home game, because it is not like they need to work anyway, the Entitled goes to each and every game and pretends he goes to Duke, oh and if the Entitled does not get a free t-shirt at the game, it was a shitty game.  The Entitled will also be a total dick about a Creighton win over Nebraska, UNO, or any opponent.  The Entitled has not had a bunch of personal success as far as awards and accomplishments or what have you, so they have to ride the shit out of the athletics team that they started following when they were 18 years old.

The Entitled does not get disciplined by Daddy, just supported.  It is surprisingly easy to skate through life with your parents having the resources.  I know a Creighton grad, we went to high school together, let’s just say that Daddy and Mommy both have a ton of money.  The Entitled got some bad grades in their first semester at Creighton, and they printed off a bogus report card to give to their parents.  Somehow Mommy and Daddy found out, they got mad for five entire minutes, and The Entitled cried.  Mommy and Daddy felt bad for the tears, and for their actions of being the shittiest of parents in the world so Mommy and Daddy bought The Entitled a brand new $25,000 car.  Tough life, right?  The Entitled could have gone to college just about anywhere, they could have just gotten an online degree really, because if Mommy and Daddy can get them a $25,000 car for existing, they can get them a full time job just about anywhere in Omaha.  Creighton on the degree was just for Mommy and Daddy to have something to brag about.

Trust me when I say the words Creighton University do not really matter once you actually hit the job market.  The words may help them get a job straight out of college a few months faster, but after time the degree does not really matter to the employer.  What matters is what you did in your last job and how you did it.  The Entitled can use Creighton to get them into the door, but advancement is an entirely different story.

The West/East Coasting Douche:

So did you know that Creighton has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Hawaiian student populations in the US, on the mainland?  I found this out a few years ago, and it $urprised me.  There are a decent number of people that come from one of the coasts, it is usually the third school on their list, but they came to Omaha to visit the campus and “fell in love” with the campus.  They did not actually fall in love with the campus though, they fell in love with the Midwest feel of it being five years behind in terms of culture for where they are from.  They feel a little more cultured by coming here.  Downtown Omaha provides a bigger city feel, but with a small town splash mixed in for a little flavor, but not too much flavor.

The West/East Coasting Douche comes to Omaha, they like it, but they never really leave downtown for a few years.  Do not go to Dundee, that is where crime happens.  They come with the intention of coming to Omaha and getting the hell out after 4 years, which most of them are successful with.  This type of fan can be a bit of a prick.  To them, all of the locals are fools, you can never be as cool as someone from some a small town in California wine country after all.  They go to the sporting events and raise hell, because with a plan of getting out after 4 years, who cares what people around here think of them?

The West/East Coasting Douche more than likely comes from a similar economic class as The Entitled, but they have a different attitude and usually are not much of a factor after they graduate because they skip town immediately after graduation.  They go back home after Creighton life and just pay attention to the pro sports in the end.  They typically do not educate themselves on Creighton’s opponents, because it is just about a Creighton win, which is respectable in a way, but they do not care if it is Georgetown that Creighton beats of it is Arkansas State.  All Creighton wins are cool to these people, which is also respectable in a way, but when they talk up beating Arkansas State like it was the game of the century, you kind of want to smack them around a little bit.

So I grew up liking Creighton, right?  I have a Creighton Bluejays rain jacket, if I could find a Huskers rain jacket or a Mavericks rain jacket that fit as comfortably in the rain when it is warmer out, I would replace it.  Anyway, my wife and I went to Portland for her 10 year high school reunion.  Have you ever been to the Pacific Northwest?  It rains a lot, so I brought the rain jacket.  I worked out of my company’s Portland office for a few days, and my wife met me in downtown Portland after work for her to go shopping for a dress for the reunion, and to torture me with boredom.  Anyway, while sitting there in pain for an hour or two waiting for her to try on dresses, a guy comes up to me and asks me about my Creighton jacket.  He is clearly pumped to find a fellow Creighton buddy so far away from Creighton, he treats me like we are about to be best friends, but then he asks me what year I graduated from Creighton.  I disappoint him with telling him that I went to UNO, then his head drops and the conversation just turns into one word exchanges.

I did not live up to par with him, I was a local Nebraskan, not a fellow West/East Coasting Douche.  The West/East Coasting Douche is never overly mean or anything (other than at sporting events), they just simply do not care about the locals.  They are in college to get their education, which is important and honorable, the sports thing is cool to them, but not typically hugely important.  These are usually the students that you will look down into the student section and see them sitting down, drinking a beer, and playing games on their phones.  So the people that want to make you shout WHY DID YOU EVEN COME TO THIS GAME!?  They usually leave with about 10 minutes to go in the game though, no matter the score, because who really cares?  You cannot buy a beer at that point in the game, so that is when it stops being fun to the coaster.

The Attitude:

With similar backgrounds to The Entitled and The West/East Coasting Douche, The Attitude is just a prick for the sake of being a prick.  The Attitude cares about Creighton athletics winning, because they need to be better than you, and apparently their sports team beating your sports team is what confirms that.  Maybe the fundamental difference between The Attitude and The Entitled is that Daddy made The Attitude get a job in high school, maybe even one in college, just to teach The Attitude to please for the love of God just do not have an attitude.  The Attitude gets to Creighton though, and they have to deal with the Entitled and the West/East Coast Doucher, they need to compete for spoiled bitch hood.

Usually The Attitude is nothing physically great.  Their life has been spent with Daddy trying to give them life lessons by making them work and try to be a little hard on them to get them to grow up, but damn it, they went to a high school where all the kids got BMWs and The Attitude was stuck with a newer, but still slightly used, Honda Accord.  Why is life so freaking unfair?!?!  So The Attitude has let themselves go just a little bit to test Daddy’s love.

This same trip I spoke of for going to Portland for my wife’s 10 year reunion, before leaving Omaha we were sitting in the airport, and of freaking course I accidentally put my headphones in my checked baggage.  We were sitting next to The Attitude and a future Creighton student who could possibly turn into the West/East Coast Douche, but she seemed like a decent person really.  The Attitude knew everything there was to know about life, she had all of the right answers to everything.  She tried to teach the future Creighton student what real student life was going to be like.  The Attitude made fun of the locals and taught real import stuff like what professors you should take based on how hot they were or how easy they were as a teacher.  Do not even try to challenge The Attitude into adulthood, you will get nowhere.  The Attitude then talked about which fraternity had the hotter boys and where they hung out, who had the better parties, and which one you would definitely get lucky at…The Attitude was about 30 pounds over weight and wore glasses that made it look like she was trying to crack a safe, there was nothing really attractive about her on the outside or the inside, and you could tell that she never really had anyone in her life tell her “you know, you are not really God’s gift to man, you should try to nicen up just a little bit.”

The entire time she talked, my wife and I just had our heads down wishing it would just stop.  We both wanted to tell her off, but we both knew and probably just hoped that five years down the road she would grow up and look back at everything and realize her stupidity.

The Attitude is usually the one at Creighton games who do not know what a foul or a travel is.  How could Creighton make infractions in the game, they are too smart to not know the rules?   The Attitude is typically in college for the ride and to say that they went to college, not to actually get anything out of it.

The Senseless:

No one knows how The Senseless got into college, and in fairness they are at every college.  I am pretty sure they are just created like cartoon characters and never truly age.  They live the Van Wilder experience and have been a Senior a semester away from graduating for the last couple of years.

The Senseless loves Nebraska football probably more than anything, but hates Nebraska in everything else, especially basketball.  I believe the term for that is JaySker.  My friends and I think there are couple different types of JaySkers.  The acceptable ones who love the Bluejays, but also love the Huskers as well.  They support both programs equally as they the two biggest and local products, and they probably have ties to both of them.  These JaySkers can also love the Mavericks, even the Lopers, and whatever the hell else is out there in Nebraska.  Then there is the other type of JaySker, the ones who love Nebraska football as if it is their first born child, but hate Nebraska in everything else and just support the hell out of Creighton.  These people make up The Senseless.

The PA in the CenturyLink Center may announce the Nebraska basketball score from time to time, and The Senseless will boo the crap out of that.  They hate Tim Miles so damn much, probably because he is a coach with a personality, and he could threaten the ideal that Creighton has a dominating advantage over a Big 10 school on the court and in recruiting.  Tim Miles and Nebraska will beat Creighton someday, and it will be the worst day in the life of The Senseless.

The Senseless supports Creighton athletics no matter what, which is good for them, but to them the athletes walk on water.  The stories of students getting into Creighton with bad grades is impossible for them to understand.  To The Senseless ALL Creighton students got a 4.0 or better in high school and a perfect score on the ACT or SAT.

The Good Ole Folks:

The Good Ole Folks are good people.  They go to Creighton, because they want the quality education, and they want the challenge that is supposed to come along with Creighton.  They do not get to every Creighton event, just the ones they have time for.  These folks cheer on the Bluejays because it is their school, you can respect these people, you want to hang out with these people.

The Folks usually have taken out a decent number of student loans to take on the Creighton challenge.  They hear The Attitude talk about taking classes with the easy professors and they thank them for letting them know what classes to not take.  The Folks may have a father that works three jobs just to help their child go to school, and I really do not think there is anything more respectable than that.  You may meet the Folks at a party and they can carry a conversation with you most of the time, unless some peer pressures come from their Creighton associates, but later in life they will hold a small amount of regret for that.

The Folks can typically get along with anyone who is a good decent person, as they are a good decent person themselves.  They realize that sports are just an escape vehicle for most people.  Something to get away from the normal pressures and stresses of life.  The Folks do not need to wish the deaths of college kids of opposing schools, in order to take some form of comfort in a Creighton loss.  The Folks are at every school, and they are needed in to keep the rest of fans fair and balanced.

 

Where are you going with this?

So that is the main core of Creighton fans/students, when you get to know them, you hate them.  They have taken something that you could once enjoy and they make you borderline hate the athletic program.   Dick Creighton Fan, he takes on the characteristics of all the main core except for The Folks. but Dick is going to be essential for the success of the UNO men’s basketball team.

What does profiling Creighton athletics fans into something as if they are marketing profiles have to do with scheduling Creighton and UNO men’s basketball?  Just wait, I will explain that…

To be continued…