Champaign determined to get IHSA basketball tournaments back

[wily coyote]

For years, the IBCA Hall of Fame was at the Holiday Inn in Bloomington/Normal, on Veterans Drive, just off I-55. I have no idea if it's still there. There wasn't much to it.

The IBCA H of F is now in Danville, Il not sure what building it's in but I know it's down there.

[Vent]

How did the attendance differ from the last year of two class compared to the first year of four class?

The attendance is less than half of what it was when it was two classes. They use to get 11,000 people per session, with two sessions per day. Now they get, if they are lucky 10,000 total per day (2 sessions). If you notice, the IHSA no longer allows the attendance to be announced.

The other problem is, teams that play on Saturday morning (1A/3A), check out of their hotel rooms before they leave for the civic center. They are playing for 3rd/4th place and 1st/2nd place. Before they would play during the day to determine what place they played for, later on Saturday night.
Now the 3rd/4th place game is played at 12:15 pm, and they get their trophies and metals at half time of the championship game that is played at 2:30 pm.

The result is people leave town in the afternoon instead of sticking around to watch their teams play later on Saturday night. If your team played the first game of the evening session (3rd/4th), you stuck around until at least half time of the championship game to watch them get their trophies and medals.

Many people would say, we might as well stay tonight (Saturday), because it's too late to drive home now. What was lost is all the money those people would spend between games at restaurants, motels, movies or whatever, not to mention maybe another night of hotels and breakfast the next morning.

Now those same people, and less of them, are out of town by 3:00 pm on Saturday, taking their money with them. The IHSA will never admit they made a mistake.

[bradleyfan124]

I was at the championship game Saturday night and there was not a bad crowd. I would say it was 75% full. Stevenson brought a huge crowd plus Normal was good size

[mrcoachdude]

I was at the championship game Saturday night and there was not a bad crowd. I would say it was 75% full. Stevenson brought a huge crowd plus Normal was good size

I was there too..great crowd.....

[Vent]

I was at the championship game Saturday night and there was not a bad crowd. I would say it was 75% full. Stevenson brought a huge crowd plus Normal was good size

Saturday night was one of the larger crowds since the tournament has gone to four classes. Stevenson and Normal did have good crowds. The Saturday crowds during the afternoon sessions, did not have a good attendance at all. The end of the arena that had Morgan Park and Rockford Lutheran, for the 3rd/4th place game had hardly anybody in their sections. The championship game of St. Joe and Belleville Althoff, had not even half the crowd of their school's games on Friday. I would guess the attendance for Saturday afternoon at around 4,000 at best.

[wily coyote]

Saturday night was one of the larger crowds since the tournament has gone to four classes. Stevenson and Normal did have good crowds. The Saturday crowds during the afternoon sessions, did not have a good attendance at all. The end of the arena that had Morgan Park and Rockford Lutheran, for the 3rd/4th place game had hardly anybody in their sections. The championship game of St. Joe and Belleville Althoff, had not even half the crowd of their school's games on Friday. I would guess the attendance for Saturday afternoon at around 4,000 at best.

You are absolutely right the crowds in 3A were pretty sparse but the 4A games were very well attended. I think this will be the norm as school size is obviously smaller in 3A than 4A . Just look at the 4 schools in 3A and it's obvious why the difference. I'm sure the state was very happy to see NC and Stevenson in the final 4. MP is an inner city school and doesn't travel well like almost all Public league schools. The other 3 schools were all private with a smaller number of students. RL had only 645 students in the whole school, hence not a huge following. The chips have to fall just right in 3A more than 4A to have big crowds. I'm not a big fan of 4 classes but that's the cards we're dealt so the IHSA will have to live with it. Even though I was fortunate to work the tournament in the Assembly hall , I'm very happy the IHSA had the foresight to keep it in Peoria.

[Vent]

The weekend of the 1A/2A (small schools), had better attendance than the 3A/4A (large schools).

What has killed the attendance is the format of the games. For example, during the 3A games on Friday afternoon, Belleville Althoff had one of the better crowds of the day. They lost the game and had to play for 3rd/4th place at 12:15pm on the next day (Saturday). Their crowd was not even half of what it was on Friday, a work day. People are not going to drive from Belleville or any place else to see a 3rd/4th place game at 12:15 pm on a Saturday.

The way it was set up before with a two class system, the team that played at 12:15 pm on Saturday, was playing to determine if they would play for 3rd/4th of the state championship later that night. Many more people would be at that game and then stick around town, since they were already here, to see them play later that night and get their trophies.

[wily coyote]

The weekend of the 1A/2A (small schools), had better attendance than the 3A/4A (large schools).

What has killed the attendance is the format of the games. For example, during the 3A games on Friday afternoon, Belleville Althoff had one of the better crowds of the day. They lost the game and had to play for 3rd/4th place at 12:15pm on the next day (Saturday). Their crowd was not even half of what it was on Friday, a work day. People are not going to drive from Belleville or any place else to see a 3rd/4th place game at 12:15 pm on a Saturday.

The way it was set up before with a two class system, the team that played at 12:15 pm on Saturday, was playing to determine if they would play for 3rd/4th of the state championship later that night. Many more people would be at that game and then stick around town, since they were already here, to see them play later that night and get their trophies.

Minor correction 1A & 2A did have good crowds but Althoff beat Morgan Park on Friday PM . None off those 4 schools had what I would call a very big crowd. 3 private schools and an Inner city school makes for poor attendance.

[Vent]

Minor correction 1A & 2A did have good crowds but Althoff beat Morgan Park on Friday PM . None off those 4 schools had what I would call a very big crowd. 3 private schools and an Inner city school makes for poor attendance.

Althoff beat Morgan Park in the 12:15 pm game on Friday. 3A games were in afternoon sessions and 4A games were in evening sessions.

3A: Friday - Morgan Park/Belleville Althoff 12:15 pm
Rockford Luteran/Westchester St. Joe 2:30 pm

4A:Friday - Stevenson/Bolingbrook 6:15 pm
Normal Comm./Geneva 8:30 pm

3A: Saturday - Morgan Park/Rockford Lutheran 12:15 pm
Belleville Althoff/Westchester St. Joe 2:30 pm

4A: Saturday - Bolingbrook/Geneva 6:15 pm
Stevenson/Normal Comm. 8:30 pm

[tornado]

I ran into a long-time Bradley fan this morning and chatted about old times - both of us felt the same about Bradley maybe being back on track & getting the fans back, but...
He is a fan who was intimately involved in the alumni & booster groups and he reminded me how important Bradley's assistant AD at the time, John Butler, was to landing the IHSA State Finals in Peoria...
I then searched and found this article on how Peoria "stole" the IHSA March Madness/State Finals from Champaign...

Interesting how much credit they give John Butler.... wonder if Butler would be interested in coming back and working for Bradley again.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-02-25/sports/9602250224_1_peoria-civic-center-full-court-press-flynn

http://www.echl.com/peoria-s-john-butler-named-echl-executive-of-the-year-p145539

http://chronicleillinois.com/news/mclean-county-news/peoria-rivermen-bloomington-blaze-join-southern-professional-hockey-league/

[Old Coach]

I ran into a long-time Bradley fan this morning and chatted about old times - both of us felt the same about Bradley maybe being back on track & getting the fans back, but...
He is a fan who was intimately involved in the alumni & booster groups and he reminded me how important Bradley's assistant AD at the time, John Butler, was to landing the IHSA State Finals in Peoria...
I then searched and found this article on how Peoria "stole" the IHSA March Madness/State Finals from Champaign...

Interesting how much credit they give John Butler.... wonder if Butler would be interested in coming back and working for Bradley again.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-02-25/sports/9602250224_1_peoria-civic-center-full-court-press-flynn

http://www.echl.com/peoria-s-john-butler-named-echl-executive-of-the-year-p145539

http://chronicleillinois.com/news/mc...hockey-league/

There isn't enough money in it for JB to go back to the college level, and he loves his gig over in Bloomington.

[tornado]

and that's fine & I am happy for him....
- but I thought I'd bring up his name as a lot of fans nowadays have probably never heard of him...
but he and Ron Ferguson were pretty instrumental in getting & keeping Bradley consistently at the top of the Valley...after a nice recovery from the departure of Versace & then the Albeck years.

Recall, after we ran Versace out & Hersey carried Albeck for two years - Bradley then had FIVE awful years of losing records & horribly low scoring output (hmmm..sounds pretty familiar...)

but the wins returned, and Bradley enjoyed pretty good success the rest of the decade..
I can only hope this time around with FIVE consecutive losing years and horrible offense - that we recover quickly

[Old Coach]

and that's fine & I am happy for him....
- but I thought I'd bring up his name as a lot of fans nowadays have probably never heard of him...
but he and Ron Ferguson were pretty instrumental in getting & keeping Bradley consistently at the top of the Valley...after a nice recovery from the departure of Versace & then the Albeck years.

Recall, after we ran Versace out & Hersey carried Albeck for two years - Bradley then had FIVE awful years of losing records & horribly low scoring output (hmmm..sounds pretty familiar...)

but the wins returned, and Bradley enjoyed pretty good success the rest of the decade..
I can only hope this time around with FIVE consecutive losing years and horrible offense - that we recover quickly

No doubt. John was great at Bradley, and with the Peoria Rivermen before he left to go Bloomington.