If you haven't been to Stegeman in the past few years (and judging by attendance the past few years you hadn't), Felton did away with the old stank looking banners. Particularly, the embarrassing NIT banners. I found a great pic of the new stuff over at SicemDawgs.com.
The new banners run along the wall above the old stage/students section. They also have them up for women's hoops and gymnastics.
You may also notice that the 2002 NCAA tourney and 2002 SEC East Co-Champs banners don't show up there. I'm pretty sure that because we had to vacate them due to ColeGate. (BTW -- GT still hangs their NIT banners; which is odd given that they have two final four banners.)
You can see more pics from Sunday's game vs. LSU in their photo library.
PWD
9 comments:
Love the new banners, but I have one issue with them. It seems to me that there should be a banner with NCAA appearances which lists all of the appearances, then a banner that lists the two sweet sixteen appearances, then one for the final four.
That would seem to make more sense, in my eyes.
Yours is a short term solution, and frankly it would work either way...if it were just Men's Hoops up there.
But look at the # of trips to the NCAAs that the women's team and gymnastics team has made. If you put all those trips on 1 banner per sport, you'd have such a tiny font that it would be unreadable. Or you'd need more banners.
They've already got as many banners up there as the wall will support.
Yours isn't a bad idea for men's hoops. It's just that it probably wouldn't work for all the sports.
FWIW - My reaction was the same as yours initially.
I suppose its either just a different perspective that I have, or an honest difference of opinion. But I was never embarrassed by the NIT banners. For one thing, an NIT bid used to mean something - especially to a program like UGA's. And lets say a team like last year's with everything working against them had made it to the NIT, I would've been glad to hang a banner for them. At some point I'd like for UGA to be one of the 10 or so programs "too good for the NIT." But some of UGA's NIT teams did well to get to that point.
With that said, the womens basketball and gymnastics banners were so abundant that I don't see how they couldn't have made a switch to something like this very soon. The new banners look great. And overall the facility looks a lot nicer than its generally given credit for. My only real gripes are the concessions, the hospital ward concourses, the bathrooms, and the fair weather fans. The inner arena looks like what it is - an old basketball fieldhouse.
We've had fairweather? Not much.
The NIT banners were a problem for recruiting. "We hang championship banners. UGA hangs NIT banners."
That was the message.
Personally, I think Steg looks solid inside. It has come light years since '95. But you're correct. The biggest problems are concessions, bathrooms, the concourse and the facade which doesn't match the new practice facility.
But I think all of that is slated for improvement in Phase II. Which doesn't have a start date yet.
pwd
At least part of the student section should be moved to the otherside of the court. I don't think it helps recruiting to have only alumni who are sitting on their tales making no noise in front of the cameras when we do get televised games.
Maybe we just need new alumni, Lee.
Yeah, I'll give ya the recruiting angle - particularly if the other schools aren't hanging their NIT banners. The only other SEC arena I've been to in the last 3 or 4 years is Auburn, and they had their NIT banners out. But if I were picking a program to emulate, it wouldn't be the Aubies.
It's no biggie. I would much rather clutter up the wall with "Sweet 16" or other similar type banner anyway.
;-)
Yep. Auburn doesn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of in terms of facilities or tradition in hoops.
Only Ole Miss has less.
There are new Alumni everyyear Dante and nothing changes. The students fill the seats behind goal on the home teams bench everygame every year. You don't have to to be smart about it.
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