Jon Kasper Interview...

[PBP]

Folks:

Saturday afternoon of the ISU-Weber State game in Ogden, Jon Kasper the associate commissioner of the Big Sky Conference will be joining me for an interview at halftime if you are interested in listening in.

Should be around 2:35 or so.

I'll ask Jon about the future of the Big Sky Conference's post season basketball tournaments, Sacramento State's gym situation in regards to potentially winning the league, the attendance issues overall for basketball in the conference and if there is anything the conference can do to help individual schools and this past football season.

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Had a very nice interview with Jon today. I'll post a transcript of it in the next few days so you can read what he had to say if you didn't catch the interview when it aired.

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[PBP]

Folks:

Here is the transcript of the interview I did with Jon on Saturday. It is very long so I'm dividing it up into four parts...each part dealing with a specific issue. Here is part 1 talking about the possible future for the Big Sky Conference men's and women's post season basketball tournaments:

ML: Jon we’re being told that the conference is supposed to decide by early March on the future of the post season tournaments for men’s and women’s basketball. Can you update us on where things stand right now?

JK: “We’ve gotten bids in from seven cities and there was a conference call on Friday where the committee that we put together reviewed them, kind of went through them to see what the next step is. We’ll be taking some site visits to at least some of the cities that have submitted bids, once we get through with that then I think we’ll be closer to having our decision. Our plan is to have a decision made by the time we have this year’s post season tournament in March.”

ML: You mention a committee Jon; can you tell us who is on it?

JK: “There are school presidents, there’s a faculty athletic representative, there are athletic directors and there are senior women’s administrators. I think the three things they are looking at are… what were the bids from the cities; the presidents are most concerned about the costs. Athletic directors are also concerned about the costs and the travel costs and coaches are worried about neutrality. So that’s basically the three areas that we’re looking at in trying to decide where we’d have it and if the men’s and women’s tournaments would be at the same place.”

ML: It goes to the school president’s for a final vote correct?

JK: “Yes and they can say, ‘you know what, we don’t like any of these so we’ll just leave it the way it is’ and everyone knows that Commissioner Fullerton is a big proponent of the way we do it now, however the costs of travel has become a major issue because you just can’t plan ahead of time. You look at Idaho State and last year they had to bus from Pocatello, Idaho to Grand Forks, North Dakota and those are things that just aren’t good for the student-athlete or the competitive nature of the tournament.”

ML: Well I know your associate at the conference office, Ron Loghry, was quoted in the Billings, Montana newspaper as saying that in some cases schools are spending 30 to 40 thousand dollars to try to get someplace as well as having to feed teams and get hotel rooms.

JK: “Absolutely, and it’s not just the hotels being an issue but when you talk about sending basketball teams to Missoula, Bozeman or Grand Forks on a week’s notice, they only have 50 seat jets to get into those cities and finding 20-25 seats for one team is difficult enough on a week’s notice but trying to find seats for eight teams to get there that can be very difficult.”

ML: Well I know Sacramento State ran into that problem last year at the women’s tournament in North Dakota. They were eliminated the first day Thursday and I was told by Andrew Tomsky, their sports information person that some of the team members couldn’t get out until Sunday.

JK: “Yes and that’s part of the problem of what we do. That’s one of the reasons that the athletic directors and coaches want us to take a look at a predetermined site.

ML: When the presidents’ vote Jon, for any kind of a decision, does it take a simple majority to pass the recommendation, or is it a two-thirds majority or a unanimous vote?

JK: “It’s not necessarily a unanimous vote; I think its two-thirds so it will be interesting to see what happens because obviously they are very concerned about the cost. This is something we haven’t done in a long time and there’s a concern about ticket sales. You know one of the good things when the tournaments were held in Pocatello or Missoula, you got good teams playing in those cities and the fans are interested and they come out. Are we going to get people to travel to Reno or Billings? Don’t know."

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Here is part 2 of the interview where we talk about the issues surrounding Sacramento State and the fact that if they win out in men's play they won't be able to host the post season tournament:

ML: Another issue and the Sacramento Bee has written extensively on this, if the Sacramento State men’s team hosts the Big Sky tournament this year the problem is, and to the conference’s credit, it’s not like you guys are trying to pull something over on them, you told them years ago and Portland State when they joined the conference that their gym isn’t adequate and if they won out they’d have to play it someplace else. And they are in the process of trying to find an alternate site in the event they do host. Any update on that? I’ve heard they are now talking to Stockton, California and Reno, Nevada.

JK: “That’s true. Ron Loghry our deputy commissioner just got back Friday night from viewing some sites and they went to Reno and they went to Stockton and I don’t know exactly how that trip went yet, I’m sure I’ll know more Monday where they stand, if they were to say we just can’t do this the costs is just going to be too much for us to afford if we go to Reno or go to Stockton then it would go to the number two team and they would have the right to host.”

ML: Right and I know that’s not a situation that you’re happy about, the conference isn’t happy about and certainly Sacramento State isn’t happy about but when you only have 12-hundred seats and ESPN is trying to televise your championship game the space just is not there.

JK: “Yea. And remember you have to guarantee a hundred tickets to each participating school that’s in the tournament and it’s just, they’ve known for 20 years that they couldn’t host in that facility. Like you said Portland State, it’s happened to them twice where they had to move it to the Rose Garden and Memorial Coliseum. It’s unfortunate that things like this happen. The arena where the Sacramento Kings play is booked that week, we even looked at UC-Davis’ arena and that’s booked so I’ll know more Monday when I talk to Ron about the situation.”

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In part 3 of the conversation, Jon and I discussed the attendance issues the league is having particularly for men's basketball:

ML: Another thing Jon and my partner on home broadcasts Brad Bugger, who has been covering the Big Sky Conference since he was a reporter for the Idaho State Journal in the early 80’s posted about the attendance issues the conference is going through. They are averaging for men’s play 1,764 fans. If that holds for the rest of the season that will be the lowest average attendance since the conference started keeping records back in 1975-76. I know a few years ago Doug Fullerton, the commissioner sent out a request to all schools to try to upgrade their overall schedules for both men’s and women’s basketball and to try to get more home games. That seems to have not worked. Is there anything the conference can do to try to help individual schools get more and better home games?

JK: “Yea we’ve been trying to work with some other conferences like a consortium agreement but we’re finding that a lot of other schools just will not travel to Bozeman, Missoula and other places. The cost to travel is just too much and I think if you look at those numbers it’s true but I also think that if you look at other conferences our size, basketball attendance around the country is down. It’s not just the Big Sky Conference that is facing these problems but it is a big issue especially with men’s basketball. All the big schools, they play their home games and they won’t leave. They are going to buy as many home games as they can and we understand that we are going to have to be the guy that has to go somewhere to play those games for money but yes we did also say (to the Big Sky Conference schools)that ’you know you guys are willing to spend x amount of money on the conference tournament and you’re willing to try this with the conference tournament but if you’re telling me you have that kind of money just to basically spend on that, then why don’t you spend it and buy some games to get some quality opponents to come to your place yourselves?”

“It’s just very hard at our level to schedule for men’s basketball. Even here at Weber State in a place Salt Lake City that is easy to get to; teams just don’t want to come here to play because they’ve been so good here over time. It’s really hard and then there’s things like how long the breaks are, like Christmas break is at some schools, the students just don’t get involved until around this time of year, we always see the attendance rise this time of year. If Sac (Sacramento State) had three thousand seats, they’d be selling out three thousand seats right now. Weber’s doing OK, Montana’s doing OK but we just have some small gyms. It is an issue and it’s something we look at. ”

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In the final part of the interview, (which lasted about 10 minutes total in discussing the four areas), we switch gears and talk about ISU football and the successful season from last year:

ML: Switching gears to football, I know the conference can’t root for one school but I know you guys had to be very happy with what went on at Idaho State this past season because the more good schools you have the better it reflects on the conference.

JK: “Oh absolutely…I mean it was so fun to see…we all knew what Coach Kramer could bring to Idaho State. Doug (Fullerton – Big Sky commissioner) was a big backer of Coach Kramer getting that job and it was just like, ‘give him some time…give him some time’ and it took four years but man was that fun. That Cal Poly game was that fun up there? And you look at next year when, how exciting is this…Idaho State has Eastern Washington, Montana and Montana State all at Holt Arena next year! That place better be sold out for all those games.”

ML: Well they had 85-hundred, nine thousand by the end of the year for home games that was the best attendance in a decade since those good teams around 2002.

JK: “Absolutely, we would have loved to seen them get into the playoffs but obviously I think, playing the two non-division one teams was very hard and not having the seven division one wins but I think Coach Kramer understand that and sees this as a building process and the next step is to get there (in the playoffs.)”

I posted this section here instead of in football because it was all part of the same interview.

I want to thank Jon for taking the time to come out Saturday and talk about some of the issues that fans are talking about here on the boards. Always appreciate the Big Sky Conference sending someone out to talk with me every season!

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[Skippy]

Good job, Mark, it will be interesting to see what the presidents decide to do.

 

[Spudhead]

Awesome stuff. Thanks! No wonder the Lady Griz like you so much! :clap:

https://twitter.com/UMGRIZZLIES_LG/status/564191873699303424" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[PBP]

Always appreciate the kind words. That was a very nice compliment from whomever posted that.

We try very hard to be as good as we can be...much like Seton's teams!

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