A Final Four team agreeing to play them in our city at a neutral site? I’m not a fan of that.
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Ok, so instead let’s play UT in Dallas at the American Airlines Arena of Ft Worth at the Dickies Center, with a minimal UH student presence and fewer UH fans in the stands, versus here at the Toyota Center? Of course, a home and away at the FC and a game on UT campus is the best scenario; however, the “next best thing” would be a one-and-done with the Horns at a neutral playing site, preferably here in Houston.
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Yeah, Fertitta or no deal. We don’t NEED to play them. Now if this were football and we’re negotiating NRG, then I can see that.
I’d be fine with playing them in a 1 off at Toyota. I just don’t want us to agree to play in their arena without the promise of a return trip. I’m also out on 2 for 1’s.
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Return trip should be “to” Austin . . . . . Fertitta Arena game FIRST . . . . .
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I did. It was great. ACU made em cry in Austin.
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Doesn’t really matter to me how its set up. I’ll take a H&H with any T-25 program.
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We could open their new arena but those games seems like automatic Ls.
Got to think twice now about hiring high major assistants now seeing how many are actually recruiting well or just throwing NIL deals
True. But we can try and schedule ANY of those 24 schools. It doesn’t have to be Texas. Our basketball program has some clout now. This isn’t Pender’s Cougars. If they want to play us, it should be on our home court, not Toyota Center.
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No I totally agree. No need to bend the knee to add UT to the schedule. I’m just not in the camp that says we should never play them. If they’re ever feeling brave and want to schedule a H&H with us I’m all for it. And I’d even be up for a 1 off game at Toyota center but there’s zero reason to schedule an imbalanced series with them.
I guess that is where we disagree then. I feel like in this hypothetical scenario that we actually play them, playing at Toyota Center would be “Bending the Knee”. It would say that they are superior and have the leverage in negotiations. In football they definitely do. But I don’t think it’s that way for basketball, at this current juncture of our program.
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If it were a series I wouldn’t want to play our home games at Toyota. However if we just wanted to schedule a single neutral site game with them like we did with Tech this year and Providence a couple years ago, I’d have no problem playing the game at Toyota. Keeps the game in city, adds a Q1 game to the schedule, and gives Tilman a little extra business.
But the Tech game was in neither teams home cities, so you had a true neutral site game (although they outnumbered us in fan support). In this scenario, you’re still “bending the knee” to UT because you’re giving into them by taking your players out of their home comforts and taking away our home court advantage in our home city. I don’t think UT would agree to us playing at the HEB Center in Cedar Park (where the Austin Spurs play). There is no point to making that concession for UT in basketball. In football, yes, maybe. But we don’t have to accommodate them for a game. We could just schedule another power program. (Like Virginia).
I’m not sure I’m following. Getting UT to agree to play us at a “neutral” site location in our home city would be a coup. It’d be like the football team getting that game with OU in 2016 minus the return trip.
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I disagree. But moving on.
I feel like I exhausted every possible way that I could explain this.
How is it different? NRG is the pro football stadium in Houston. Toyota center is the pro basketball arena in Houston. A neutral site game at either of those locations is effectively the same for us. Getting UT to agree to a one off neutral site game in our city would be a coup for us. Its also something they’d probably never agree to so maybe its not worth discussing anyway.
This is literally all you said: “In this scenario, you’re still “bending the knee” to UT because you’re giving into them by taking your players out of their home comforts and taking away our home court advantage in our home city.”
You’re acting like that’s some big concession when its not. You’re literally just describing playing at a neutral site. Neither team should be in their “home comforts”. That said a neutral site game at Toyota center would be as much of a home game for us as a neutral site game would ever be. It’d certainly be more of a home game for us than for UT even if the crowd is fairly split.
That’s absolutely correct. It would be a major coup, and it could even help out Tillman Fertitta a wee bit.
Of course most folks on here don’t recall attending UH games during the PSJ era at Hofheinz where it was a 10,060+ SRO sell-out crowd and the scalpers were getting ~$100/ticket nearly 40 years ago. That would be equivalent to scalping today at ~$300/ticket. [NOTE: That’s what a game between a Top 10 ranked UH vs a Top 10 ranked UT might bring today.]