We are getting very close to this right now. Just got home from the womens game tonight. I wish there was an actual attendance count of people in the seats, not paid attendence, but people in the seats. The women had a great crowd tonight. I bet it was very close to the actual attendance for the Nebraska game last week.
This point wins on so many levels.
Iowa State fans will show and support teams. Even with train wreck of a season, there are still 8000-8500 people showing up.
Bill wins games, and that is the reason people go to the games. But, even the years when we weren't all that good, people had been trained to support the team. They showed up because Bill had bought their good will because he had been damn successful.
The problem with the men's team is that there has been no success since hiring this coach. After this season, there is no real way to sell hope at this point. Look at the team that was coming in this year, read back through the posts. Greg put all of his eggs in this season's basket to either buy time, or get a better offer somewhere.
How do you lose CB and MG, and sell hope for next year? Take it a step further, what is even positive in this program now? He has done a great job politicking the big basketball donors, and they all follow ONE person's lead anyway, and Greg has endeared himself to that person enough to keep him around. Plus Pollard has kept him and Greg close.
The problem is that Greg has painted himself into the unenviable corner of having to win games to bring people back. The loss of revenue will be grinned and beared by Pollard. He will do everything he can not to pull the trigger.