The House of Blue

I don't follow UK baseball very much but I do like to watch a game here and there. I believe Henderson will get one more year and if things don't change Mitch will make a change.

College baseball has really been gaining popularity in recent years. My soon to be brother-in-law is an Ole Miss alum. They have a beautiful stadium and baseball is more popular there than mens basketball. Probably the same at LSU. UofL and WKU have had recent success and are drawing bigger and bigger crowds (with Western drawing an impressive 6k for the UK game last year).

Excitement was building under Cohen, but unfortunately, that excitement has died with the program regressing under Henderson. Will be interesting to see what UK's administration does. Doubt they want to pull the trigger, but there are legitimate concerns re the direction of the program.

Giving him one more year will set us back 5.

Move him now while we still have talent on the roster.

We allowed 201 runs vs SEC competition. 11th in the league (UT 210)

South Carolina and Vandy COMBINED allowed 181.

We scored 145 runs.

So, on average we were outscored 2 runs a ballgame.

Time for a change.

Give the ladies the baseball stadium for softball (because it's just a glorified softball field anyway...afterthought). Hire a proven coach and build a new stadium...and ask that the Legends move out of town so we are not competing with them for attendance.

Barnhart says a lot. Cohen also had a clause in his contract that said he could walk if a new stadium had not been started by a certain date. I'm not sure we could have kept Cohen but we didn't try very hard to do the things he was wanting. Just like Brooks.

Not so sure I agree. UK has always been able to raise money for basketball, but not the other sports. I don't think Barnhart has mismanaged anything....JMO.

I'm tired of all the talk Matt. We've been hearing way too much talk since 2007.

Basically I'm talking about the IMG deal and how we've been round and around about "I've got big plans, this needs to be done." When that plan is not shared with the average fan and the average fan can't see how his K-fund contribution is going to help build that plan.

I think Barnhart has done a good job up to about 3 years ago and then I think he let some opportunities pass him by when we had the success we did in 2006 and 2007 in football. The UKAA should have made a concentrated effort to do what facility upgrades to Commonwealth we needed at that time. Instead, we got sidetracked by this IMG pie in the sky deal and we did not pursue other avenues to get it done. We are basically 4-5 years behind now because of that mis-step. In the meantime we have a major increase in TV revenue from the SEC tv package and NOTHING is said about using that money to improve football facilities.

A certain portion of the fanbase is going to complain about anything. If the UKAA would provide better feedback as to where that increase is going, then you won't have near the complaints. However, when you announce you are raising football parking fees by $100 and football K-fund contributions up $50 and ticket prices up, and then say there's $300k trip to Canada for the basketball team that needs to be approved and there is NOTHING in the release about football improvements, the fans have a right to be pissed.

I was a big Barnhart supporter until he started down the IMG path and it's cost us. I think Barnhart is a good person and tries to do the best he can. I just think he made a big mistake and I blame the UKAA as a whole more than him. And I blame previous regimes more than the current ones. I just want to hear a master plan and how the fans can make it happen instead of "we'd like to do this". How hard is that?

I agree the mismanagement I was speaking about is Ivy and CM. (and this is all for the minor sports)

And the IMG deal was a "piein the sky" attempt to get things done quickly (remember the plan was for renovations to Commonwealth, a new baseball stadium, moving softball to the Cliff and a brand new Rupp). This was the only way things were going to get done because the bonding capacity of UK was shot (and still is) because of the hospital project.

^^^again because of the over one billion dollars in bonding tied up due to the hospital project.

Mitch's next magic trick is to try and funnel some of the excess dollars from the bond for the hospital to (in the small scale) build the recruiting room or (in the big scale) to start renovations to commonwealth that would include the recruiting room.

Again this is another "pie in the sky" approach that will probably never work. Until a big name booster comes forward (boy to I miss the Nutter family now) these are the tricks Mitch is stuck using to move these capital projects forward. And this is the reason Mitch came out a couple of months ago stating that the city needed to build a new arena for basketball.

The sad point (and what brings back to topic) is due to attendance the new baseball stadium has now moved down the list.

No, he was spending that cash on higher tuition, smaller dollar projects that didn't need bonding (renovations of the practice fields, meeting rooms, lockers at Commonwealth, etc) leftovers from the Craft center, head coaches (basketball), more money for other coaches ( M.Mitchel, Joker's staff and the like).

Even if (and iI am sure they do) the UKAA had cash on hand to build anything they wanted they could not go out and break ground tomorrow on that project. Because they are affiliated with the University they fall under the Commonwealth of Kentucky public works guidelines and Prevailing Wage laws. This is the start of the 50 pound anchor that is keeping things from happening (the other part is Dr. Todd idea that it sends a bad message to fund these kind of projects in a down economy).