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Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

Re: Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

Yuppie Scum said:
Any chance Dennehy gets a look at BU? I know he is a BC alum and his win loss record hasn’t been great, but I think there’s a compelling argument for him to take on a larger program.

Big men’s lax game tonight. I’m making some tentative plans to go to Gillette next weekend for the national championship game if they get thru this round.
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He is a BC guy so no way he gets the BU job.

I am hoping to go to the lax game at Gillette too. Went last year with a few friends from my class. Unbelievable time. Sucks that we lost but what a party. I watched the game last night on my ipad and they looked dominating. This is their year.
 
 
MCWarrior1011 said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jim Tortorella is headed to Merrimack to join Scott Borek’s staff, I’m told. St. A’s players were informed tonight. Tortorella has a great reputation as a coach and teacher. He’ll have a role on a staff that already includes Curtis Carr, Josh Ciocco and Matt Lamalfa.</p>— Mike McMahon (@MikeMcMahonCHN) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeMcMahonCHN/status/998758158947573762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 22, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Not sure how I feel about this. Anyone know more about him??
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He is a good coach of the game - excelled at Colby as an HC and UNH had a lot of goal prevention success when he was at UNH. How much of that was actually him versus UNH having its best (and deepest) group of puck moving defensemen of (arguably) its entire history is up for debate.

Peace and TVR are NHL regulars, while Kostolansky, Agosta, Knoedel, Cleland, Hardowa and Kipp all moved pucks quickly (and contributed a lot of offense). He also benefitted from a now NHL goaltender in DeSmith. All that said he likely deserves a lot of credit for how they played. UNHs defense has not been the same since (although that is likely due more to recruiting, ahem ahem)...

He's not going to offer much else - but (for better or worse) recruiting will be Borek's baby. With Ciocco as his right hand man. For what Tortorella will likely be asked to do, I'm not sure you could have done better. Good hire...
 
Re: Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

19-4 in the 4th quarter, I think it's safe to call it. Dominant performance, pretty entertaining. I hope this helps the cause to go to D1. I'll have to try and make it up to the stadium sometime.
 
Re: Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

Great win! Hopefully will help with the quest to make the D1 leap. It certainly seems like they are above D2 level talent.
 
Yuppie Scum said:
19-4 in the 4th quarter, I think it's safe to call it. Dominant performance, pretty entertaining. I hope this helps the cause to go to D1. I'll have to try and make it up to the stadium sometime.
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NATIONAL CHAMPS!!!

Can't wait to see that banner up on the new stadium.

P.S. Football and hockey are the only men's sports that did not make the NCAA tournament this year.. hope all the smaller sports get the love (financially) they deserve.
 
Yuppie Scum said:
Great win! Hopefully will help with the quest to make the D1 leap. It certainly seems like they are above D2 level talent.
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The jump from D2 to D1 is a huge leap in terms of talent and resources. What is wrong with being the big fish in a small lake?
 
Re: Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

joecct said:
The jump from D2 to D1 is a huge leap in terms of talent and resources. What is wrong with being the big fish in a small lake?
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McMahon had a pretty good podcast about this topic one time. There is the kind of “Go big or go home” thing going on in college athletics these days. The investment to be successful at the D2 level is not worth the returns. Might as well go D3 unless you are going to spend what it takes to be in D1 and get that kind of exposure.
 
joecct said:
The jump from D2 to D1 is a huge leap in terms of talent and resources. What is wrong with being the big fish in a small lake?
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Have to disagree.. with major sports like football.. yes, definitely. Sports like baseball, soccer, lacrosse, really are not that way. The only difference is $$$. Merrimack can afford to get a few top notch players for Lax or Baseball- players just as good as D1 talent.. the difference is a D1 school has the resources and scholarships to field their entire team with those players... where we can only offer a few full scholarships.

Basketball competed with UCONN, Lax competed with Yale.. the gulf isn't strictly in talent, it's in $ and resources.

By the way - the lacrosse team doesn't even have a full time assistant - or graduate assistant because the school doesn't allocate the funds to anyone but hockey. To become D1 you MUST have a minimum of 2 full time assistants.. as well as many other things.

I don't have a problem being the big fish in a small pond - but we all want to grow.. we're proud of our programs and want to see them on the big stage.. I think it's only natural. I also do not think we can sustain success like this at the D2 level because of what I jist mentioned.. the teams need more from the school. The money is there -- going D1 would force them to give lacrosse and all the other programs the additional resources they've been crying for for years. Right now success is primarily on the shoulders of 1 coach for each program. Very fragile. Again, the money is there.. they just raised $55million for athletics..
 
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Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

They didn’t raise 55 million dollars for athletics. They’ve raised 48 out of the targeted 50 million capital campaign for the entire college. Academics, facilities like the new business building, new housing and the stadium are all covered by that. It looks like athletics gets about 6 mil of the pie.

Details here: https://www.merrimack.edu/together-for-good/

You can blow thru 50 mil pretty fast. Let’s just hope they are spending it in the best way to meet the sustained long term goals of the college.
 
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MC Alumni said:
Have to disagree.. with major sports like football.. yes, definitely. Sports like baseball, soccer, lacrosse, really are not that way. The only difference is $$$. Merrimack can afford to get a few top notch players for Lax or Baseball- players just as good as D1 talent.. the difference is a D1 school has the resources and scholarships to field their entire team with those players... where we can only offer a few full scholarships.

Basketball competed with UCONN, Lax competed with Yale.. the gulf isn't strictly in talent, it's in $ and resources.

By the way - the lacrosse team doesn't even have a full time assistant - or graduate assistant because the school doesn't allocate the funds to anyone but hockey. To become D1 you MUST have a minimum of 2 full time assistants.. as well as many other things.

I don't have a problem being the big fish in a small pond - but we all want to grow.. we're proud of our programs and want to see them on the big stage.. I think it's only natural. I also do not think we can sustain success like this at the D2 level because of what I jist mentioned.. the teams need more from the school. The money is there -- going D1 would force them to give lacrosse and all the other programs the additional resources they've been crying for for years. Right now success is primarily on the shoulders of 1 coach for each program. Very fragile. Again, the money is there.. they just raised $55million for athletics..
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As a D2, you are grandfathered into the 1 sport for each gender exception to play up at D1. Since 2010, new playups are forbidden.

If you want lacrosse or baseball to move to D1, you have to move the whole athletic department to D1. That's expensive.
 
Re: Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

MC Alumni said:
Again, the money is there.. they just raised $55million for athletics..
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Yuppie Scum said:
They didn’t raise 55 million dollars for athletics. They’ve raised 48 out of the targeted 50 million capital campaign for the entire college. Academics, facilities like the new business building, new housing and the stadium are all covered by that. It looks like athletics gets about 6 mil of the pie.

Details here: https://www.merrimack.edu/together-for-good/

You can blow thru 50 mil pretty fast. Let’s just hope they are spending it in the best way to meet the sustained long term goals of the college.
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Actually, even if Merrimack had raised $55 million just for athletics that is not much money at all for running a full DI athletic department. If you look at my NCAA Financials workbook you will see that Merrimack spent $6.9 million in 2010 to $16.4 million in 2016 on their athletic programs (men's hockey spent from just under $1.4 million in 2010 to just under $2 million in 2016). For full Division I schools the lowest annual athletic department expenditure was $9.1 million by Canisius in 2010 and in 2016 it was just $10.4 million by Niagara. Only Niagara and Canisius spent less than Merrimack in 2016, neither which has football. Robert Morris spent the least among schools with football, $17.6 million. So Merrimack currently does support athletics at the lower end of sustainable DI programs with hockey, but $5 million is a drop in the bucket.

Sean
 
Re: Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

Sean Pickett said:
Actually, even if Merrimack had raised $55 million just for athletics that is not much money at all for running a full DI athletic department. If you look at my NCAA Financials workbook you will see that Merrimack spent $6.9 million in 2010 to $16.4 million in 2016 on their athletic programs (men's hockey spent from just under $1.4 million in 2010 to just under $2 million in 2016). For full Division I schools the lowest annual athletic department expenditure was $9.1 million by Canisius in 2010 and in 2016 it was just $10.4 million by Niagara. Only Niagara and Canisius spent less than Merrimack in 2016, neither which has football. Robert Morris spent the least among schools with football, $17.6 million. So Merrimack currently does support athletics at the lower end of sustainable DI programs with hockey, but $5 million is a drop in the bucket.

Sean
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I don't think anyone is suggesting they are going to be Alabama. They are going to be a small D1 at the NEC level like Wagner, Bryant and other similar schools. D2 is stupid in reality. Either be D1 or completely take money out of sports and go D3. Also, people are forgetting the money opportunities at D1 so yeah, they will spend more, but I guarantee you that you will see football and both basketball take "paid games" to help make up for it.
 
Re: Merrimack 2018-19: It's Time For The Scotty Bo Show

MCWarrior1011 said:
I don't think anyone is suggesting they are going to be Alabama. They are going to be a small D1 at the NEC level like Wagner, Bryant and other similar schools. D2 is stupid in reality. Either be D1 or completely take money out of sports and go D3. Also, people are forgetting the money opportunities at D1 so yeah, they will spend more, but I guarantee you that you will see football and both basketball take "paid games" to help make up for it.
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Well, there are 305 or so D2 schools and I doubt most would think playing D2 is stupid. However, as far as Merrimack goes they have the highest expenditure on athletics of the D2 schools that play DI hockey and are not far behind UML (which was in year 3 of transitioning to DI in 2016). So it is apparent that the current Merrimack administration is committed to athletics and appears to be positioning the teams for a move to DI when the opportunity presents itself. I was just pointing out that you need that type of commitment as donations to athletics cover just a small piece of the pie for most schools.

Sean
 
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