Wrapping up Trip to Hot Springs and a Week of Firsts (Jason Plotkin,Oct. 15)
Back from Hot Springs, Arkansas! It was a quick 36 hour
trip, but we got back to New Orleans last night. Amongst the
individuals in attendance representing the University of New Orleans at
the Sun Belt basketball media days event, in addition to conference
meetings that were held in-conjunction were Chancellor Tim Ryan,
Athletic Director Jim Miller, Senior Woman Administrator Lauri Mondschein, Privateer Athletic Foundation President Mike Sapera, two
representatives from the UNO Alumni office, both of our head basketball
coaches and myself. The Chancellor, AD and SWA all stuck behind today
for another day of conference meetings after we had left.
The Summit Arena is a very beautiful facility. It is an intimate
basketball venue which will bring the fans pretty close to the action.
Associate Commissioner Rick Mello told Coach Champion that they made
the seats Privateer blue, just for us. It does have a bit of a familiar
feel, though I guess you could say it also is a Blue Raider blue for
our rivals from Murfreesboro, Tenn.
The host committee actually had the tournament floor laid out and that
is where SBC Extra, the web cast of the event which was available
through the SBC web site occurred. The arena is attached to the
convention center. Our hotel for this particular stay, actually had a
walkway which connected it to the arena. There is also a hotel on the
opposite side of the convention center. So, for those making their way
to the conference tournament, everything is right there as far as hotel
accommodations.
Our coaches went through the bulk of their interviews on Monday.
Conducting the interview for the DVD was none other than Ro Brown, a
name familiar with those in the New Orleans area from his days on
WDSU-TV. Ro is heavily involved with the Sun Belt from a production
standpoint and in the next few weeks, will be stopping by the Lakefront
Arena to put together a feature story for a conference production.
Coach Pasternack was excited to see Ro, having grown up watching him on
TV. I was also excited to see him, as this was the first time I had
seen him since former UNO basketball player (and current Univ of
Cincinnati Assoc AD) Robin Martin introduced us just a few weeks
pre-Katrina in 2005 when we were both at Dillard University, just
around the corner from UNO. Ro was with the Greater New Orleans Sports
Foundation then and has some long-standing friendships with several
members of our department including his former WDSU colleague and our
present Associate AD, Mike Bujol.
From talking to a local at lunch on Monday, the Sun Belt Conference
tournament will be the kickoff to the tourist season. The heavy tourist
season is from mid-March through Labor Day weekend with some off-season
peaks due to various festivals and events that occur in the area. The
city itself is an easy and beautiful drive from Little Rock, Ark. It
did not seem to take us too long to make the trek from Little Rock
National Airport, think we made two or three turns the whole way. For
those amongst the UNO contingent who drove, the drive from the Crescent
City was somewhere near seven and a half hours.
As far as I can tell, the city has embraced the conference. As
Commissioner Waters said on Monday night, he is really excited about
how the conference has been received by the city and they are very
critical to the business model for success in having a neutral site
event. Hard not to agree that the red carpet has been thrown out there
by the city of Hot Springs. All of the people were very friendly and
want to make this event special. They talked about taking care of all
of our needs when we get to town, which I am sure our Director of
Operations -- Bobby Seigle and Angela Marin -- will appreciate.
The goal now is to make two visits there every year, once in November
for conference media day and March for the tournament itself. Not sure
about you, but upon my next visit, I'd personally prefer to spend long
enough in the city to see one, if not both of our teams clinch
automatic berths into the NCAA tournament. When complete SBC ticket
information becomes available through the UNO athletics office, we'll
do a release and put you in touch with Kevin Breen in our ticket office.
For more on the SBC preseason polls and teams, you can read the release on our site.
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Amongst the things announced while in Hot Springs, was that we will
have four televised games this coming year as part of the SBC
television package. One of the four games is a Jan. 10 home contest
against UALR for the men. The other men's game is a Jan. 31 trip to
South Alabama. The women play two games on television, a Jan. 4 contest
at Arkansas State and a Feb. 22 game against Louisiana-Lafayette. The
games will be aired on CST and CSS. As always, check your local
listings. Throw in all the UNO Vision contests that will become
available, you are looking at a nice slate of contests within reach of
your remote or keyboard. Please know that games that are on CST and CSS
are not allowed to be streamed online due to contractual obligations
related to the TV contract.
On that note, while we are talking about games and times, there have
been several minor changes to times of games on the road, some of which
are related to the TV changes. If you are planning road trips to any
games, please keep an eye on the schedule. We should be pretty set at
this point, but all the schedule cards and schedule posters will have
incorrect times. Good thing is that we note said changes are possible,
but we've had a few fans rely too heavily on these promotional
materials. The web site is always the best place to check.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And with SBC Media Day now behind us, official basketball practice
starts this week. I say official, because as you may or may not know,
the teams have had limited practices per the NCAA rules. The men had a
few full team practices prior to the Cancun trip, which was called off
due to Hurricane Gustav. Since they returned to campus following the
storm, they have done practices as is mandated by the NCAA as far as
limits on players paricitipating and various time restrictions. The
women have done the same. The men will hit the court on Thursday.
The women will start practice on Saturday. Coach Champion gave her team
off last weekend, which afforded many of them a chance to return home,
some for the last time until the end of March. As we can all imagine,
there's really not much time off at any time and Christmas break is
relatively short. As far as keeping tabs on the women, my goal is to do
weekly notebooks each week until that opening week of the season. Our
Times Picayune women's basketball beat writer Michael Arvites will be
here a bit later today to meet with coach Champion as well as our three
Midwest girls -- Rachele Monroe, Ashley Gorsh and Nicole Holmes for a
women's hoops preview. All three have nice JUCO accolades to their
resume and are all eagerly anticipating the start of full practice. The
other two newcomers this year is freshman Tylah Black from Duncanville,
Texas and Keaundra Augustus, who played JUCO ball in Mississippi before
returning home to Louisiana to join our squad this year.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Plenty of firsts in the last week. The first of the firsts was when
Mike Wagenheim did play by play for the UNO volleyball wins over South
Alabama on Thursday night and Troy on Sunday afternoon. On the bright
side, those who submitted feedback told me they thought it added a lot
to the game. It also allowed our camera person to break away from the
scoreboard and show other things going on at the HPC as we had no other
way to relay the score to the viewers previously. The initial reviews
from those who send in feedback were of praise, so credit to Wags for
adding some more to the product that we are able to put out.
Volleyball will be at home this coming weekend for matches against
Arkansas State on Thursday at 7 p.m followed by UALR on Friday. Wags
will again provide the 'call of the action' in these two matches that
are very crucial to the team's standing in the SBC West. UNO beat ASU
3-0 last go around while falling in five to UALR when these teams met
in Arkansas a few weeks ago.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The second of our first came at the Reilly Center where our Privateer
men's swimming and diving team picked up their first-ever dual win
winning the last three events to defeat Incarnate Word. They had a
rough go of things the first time we had a program with the closest
loss being a 47-45 victory for Florida A&M sometime during the
1989-90 season. Nine school records for the men, including blasting a
few from the original program. The women also claimed victory over UIW though doing so a bit more convincingly.
I had a chance to serve as a public address announcer for a swimming
and diving meet. This was a bit outside of my normal duties at UNO.
Thanks to Colleen McReynolds for helping me with the basics, to Paige Chauvin for assisting with the diving scoring and to the coaching staff, for helping me navigate my way through the role.
Of note, I did learn that to successfully not get disqualified after
the event, you do not go over to the ladder to exit the pool,
especially not after going into someone's lane. Unfortunately for one
of our foreign athletes, that is what they had always been taught. That
mishap led to a disqualification and took away a school record in a
relay event. The next meet will be between UNO's women and North Texas
in a conference dual on Oct. 24. The men will also compete, but in an
intrasquad exhibition. The men are on the road along with the women
after that until Nov. 8 when both teams return home to face off against
Alabama.
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We'll see you at the HPC this weekend at volleyball this weekend and do
not forget, the match against UALR doubles as the Dig for the Cure!
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