Upgraded basketball facilities

[ysuindy]

Joe Scalzo with a story in today's Vindicator about the new basketball weight room and video room, among other facility improvements.

Some interesting discussion from Strollo about how the perception of Youngstown as an unsafe city hampered not only recruiting efforts, but the women's hoops coaching search.

Also some discussion from Slocum about how financial needs impact the schedule, both home and away - need to make $80k or $90k on the road, need people to come here on the cheap.

I have no doubt the facility upgrades will help recruiting.  These kind of things matter to kids, even more than the gameday arena itself.

Kudos to those who stepped up financially to make this come through.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2014/jan/26/facilitating/

[guinpen]

Read the article earlier and thought it was an eye openner. I have picked on Strollo in the past but it seems that in the facilities area of his job he is spot on.

[ysufan0505]

Yep. Facilities have really grown!! Awesome job strollo

[Pita]

I better sit down....someone paid Ron Strollo a compliment, that is other than myself.

[Penguin Nation]

The MBB team has improved.  The WBB has improved.  FB has improved.  Our AD deserves credit for these accomplishments.  Barnes, and Bolden were very good hires.  The Wolf is an improvement over what was there, although the bar was set incredibly low.  The FB and WBB programs seem to be progressing, but I am concerned that MBB will plateau as a ~0.500 HL team.

Regarding facility upgrades, all ADs do this.  The WATTS was made possible by our former AD.  Some campuses in FCS/mid-majors have immensely more upgrades than ours.  JMUs campus is unrecognizable to those who went there 10 years ago.  When I went to a YSU MBB last season, I was surprised at the broken concrete steps as I entered Beeghly.

The renewal of Heacock's contract and the decline of the signature sport at YSU, Tisha Hill, and Cindy Martin must also be considered when evaluating the Strollo record.

Dividing up the Strollo record into two semesters, one early in his tenure and one later, Strollo gets an F for his first semester (actually should get a G or lower).  For the later semester, I'd give him a B-.

[IAA Fan]

So do you evaluate him as a whole, or ..."what have you done for me lately"? Smart $$$ chooses the latter. Same thing with Slocum. There were many reasons his early years did not pan out as well as recent ...mainly the lack of money available put in the program.  He could only recruit 1 (maybe 2 at most) true DI players. Now Slocum can recruit. The same applies to Heacock. I mean Tress coached a team that was independent ...not in the Gateway. Outside of his first-year Tress was not very effective in the OVC either. Why? Because the cost of being in the OVC was too much to maintain. We went independent and recruited "the state of Youngstown". Honestly, in the 5 years Tress was in the Gateway he had 3 poor years. The first 5 years of the 90's (as an independent) Tress had 5 post-seasons, 4 finals, 3 Sears Trophies. Big difference. His replacement was in the Gateway from day-1, lost all of his coaching staff, which includes the teams best recruiter (Tress). I remember when the football team went out to the spot where WATTS was going to be. Now does that recruit as much as having the facility built? The quality of staff is not as cut and dry as their record. Same with players.