I've seen a lot of "Well this guy isn't gonna fill the arena" stuff since the Gates news.
I got bad news: Nobody was going to.
Could they have hired someone who might have bumped the attendance by a few hundred, maybe even a thousand or two? Maybe. If they'd hired Sean Miller or Kim English that might have happened.
But I'm not sure. We just saw two straight years of elite recruiting from Eli Drinkwitz that had Mizzou fans messing themselves online every day. And they never drew 50,000 for a football game.
If he wins, people will come back. If he doesn't, they won't. Very, very, very few were making the decision on who the head coach was. I wish there was a scientific way to find out how many of the people who said "If they don't fire Cuonzo I'm not going to renew because they don't care about basketball" will suddenly just say "They hired Dennis Gates so I'm not going to renew because they don't care about basketball."
I'm not saying Mizzou fans suck or blaming the fans for the team not being good. I'm simply saying if the team is good, the fans will come. If it isn't they won't. Regardless of who the coach is. It was never about the guy on the sidelines. It's always about the record.
I got bad news: Nobody was going to.
Could they have hired someone who might have bumped the attendance by a few hundred, maybe even a thousand or two? Maybe. If they'd hired Sean Miller or Kim English that might have happened.
But I'm not sure. We just saw two straight years of elite recruiting from Eli Drinkwitz that had Mizzou fans messing themselves online every day. And they never drew 50,000 for a football game.
If he wins, people will come back. If he doesn't, they won't. Very, very, very few were making the decision on who the head coach was. I wish there was a scientific way to find out how many of the people who said "If they don't fire Cuonzo I'm not going to renew because they don't care about basketball" will suddenly just say "They hired Dennis Gates so I'm not going to renew because they don't care about basketball."
I'm not saying Mizzou fans suck or blaming the fans for the team not being good. I'm simply saying if the team is good, the fans will come. If it isn't they won't. Regardless of who the coach is. It was never about the guy on the sidelines. It's always about the record.
