It's essentially a rip-off of a Jay Leno bit (Jaywalking), which is itself a parody of the longstanding form of man on the street interviews.

The thought process behind the bit was to: 1) appeal to a sense of superiority from the high level of support for Wichita State athletics, and 2) underscore that Loyola is not a big sports school, which was one of the objections to Loyola being added to the MVC.

On the first count, there is no doubt, particularly in the wake of a Final Four appearance by the only Division I school in Central Kansas, that there is high awareness of Wichita State athletics. I've lived in college towns (Charlottesville, Normal), and in several mid-sized cities without professional major league sports teams (Oklahoma City before the NBA, Little Rock, Richmond). In every case, the local college sports team becomes the equivalent of a major league franchise in terms of local media coverage. There are four NCAA Division I basketball teams in the city limits of Chicago (plus Northwestern, just outside the city limits). Notre Dame, Valparaiso, and Northern Illinois are also within the Chicago media market. Then there's the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Wolves, and Fire on top of that. As a Midwestern megolopolis, Chicago also attracts literally hundreds of thousands of people from other markets, which leads to phenomena like specialty bars and restaurants that cater to fans of individual Big 10 and out of market NFL teams. So comparing Wichita to Chicago is not just an apples and oranges comparison, it's blueberries and watermelons.

On the second point, Loyola was not added to the MVC to specifically replace Creighton as a turn-key addition. It was added on the basis of its unique strengths, its potential, and to help diversify and improve the market mix of the MVC. The hope and expectation is that Loyola will grow in significance, prominence, and awareness of its athletics while allowing other MVC schools to benefit from its strategic location. The jury is still out on whether Loyola can achieve all those goals, but what it can potentially add as an MVC member has already been hinted at by the fairly strong performance of the fall sports teams and the very successful basketball media day event last week. By all accounts, the media day was much more lively and achieved more simply by being held in Chicago. I don't have any numbers or basis for comparison, but I have the impression that having a Chicago member in the league has already strengthened the relationship with ComcastSportsNet, which may well carry over to ESPN and other outlets. As for Loyola growing into a school with a much higher-profile athletics program, some of that will come simply by being a member of the MVC (as it did previously for Missouri State, Evansville, and Northern Iowa). Having watched Loyola athletics very closely for more than two decades and having had close relationships with other schools, I'm impressed by the progress and committment that's been shown so far.

So yeah, it was either a little bit of a cheap shot out of smug homerism, or shows a profound lack of understanding of reality and market conditions. Maybe a bit of both.

Did Wichita ever get a people train to come through town, or do you still have to trek to Stubville to catch one?

Somewhere, John Hughes is smiling.

Those aren't pillows!

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I like Jenn Bates.
I don't think Jenn Bates would use "gotcha journalism." I also don't think you could find a single student at Wichita State that doesn't know about the Wichita State basketball team.
LuC and WSU have about the same enrollment. Chicagoland has about 9.5m in population, while the greater Wichita metro area is only about 720,000. Yet Gentile Arena only holds around 4,486.

If the Ramblers sell out their entire MVC season (which they should), I might think that Jenn played "Gotcha journalism." Otherwise, it seems LuC has some marketing to do regarding their basketball team and the rich history of the program. For instance, how many in Chicago know that LuC is the ONLY basketball program in the state of Illinois to win the NCAA National Championship?

Good luck in the MVC, and sell out that arena! It will better support your argument. Should be pretty easy with 15,000 students and a metro population of over 9m in Chicagoland.

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I guess it was a pure coincidence the way the set up the aforementioned shots...

My physical evidence trumps your speculation.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Subjective.
But what isn't subjective is that while standing in the arena, they didn't know as much as they should about the storied basketball program at LuC.
You can spin it as "Gotcha Journalism" if it makes you feel better. It does appear that the school has some work to do to market the program and the new conference (Div III ???)
What won't be subjective is the sell out crowds you should have at every MVC game this year. Anything less, and you own Jenn Bates an apology, and a pretty big nudge given to your AD to start marketing the incredible program that exists at LuC.

Welcome to the MVC.

I think it's pretty obvious that no one appreciates another city's media coming into their school and showing how their students aren't knowledgeable about the schools program. I don't like someone pointing it out...but unfortunately, I think the overall student isn't very knowledgeable about our Ramblers. I graduated over 10 years ago (went to quite a few games), and it doesn't appear that much has changed from than. I vividly remember walking through campus on my way to the game with friends and running into other friends.... And it went something like this: "Where are you guys going?", "To the basketball game!, you wanna come?", "Ohhhh...that's okay I have to study" I just don't see how changing conferences is going to change that much when it comes to getting the students involved. I sure hope that I'm wrong!!! Does anyone know if the school is doing anything differently in order to promote/market the games to students???

I guess we have different dictionaries.

You don't have to agree about who has knowledge. That would be subjective. But if you can't see that setting up a shot to have a sign visible the entire time...and then zooming in on the sign...is a gotcha moment. Well...I've got nothing for you.

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Cigarboy sucks!

I think Loyola should take a cue from how Kansas State is promoting their women's basketball team:

http://tracking.si.com/2013/11/06/kansa ... =si_latest