Pics of the player development center up on facebook

Submitted by CaliUMfan on

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=250603161655461&set=a.250602438322200.58211.113453778703734&type=1&theater

 

Michigan Basketball facebook put up some pics of the new pdc.... Looks amazing and the players look more than a little excited about their locker room. This is going to be huge for recruiting.

HermosaBlue

October 31st, 2011 at 11:56 PM ^

Presume that's sarcasm, but if it isn't, you should know that the money flows from the AD to the university, not the other way around.

Bill Martin's construction binge was all funded with donations and bonds that will be repaid with cash flows generated by the athletic department.  There is no net subsidy of the AD from the university.

tdcarl

October 31st, 2011 at 11:52 PM ^

From what I can tell the locker room looks to be up to the level, if not a bit better than MSU's. I've been in their locker room a few times since my high school coach used to be on the coaching staff at MSU so we got invited to a few tournaments there.

ak47

November 1st, 2011 at 12:09 AM ^

the only word for that is wow, its so nice i just want to be there, gonna be huge with recruits plus the current players look really excited, im excited for this year, think we get at least one upset in maui 

The Barwis Effect

November 1st, 2011 at 12:10 AM ^

Is there any chance of getting the MHSAA BB Finals back at Crisler any time soon? Certainly wouldn't hurt U-M's recruiting efforts if they were able expose Michigan HS BB players/coaches to all the great, new amenities/facilities while playing host to the state championships. It's probably been at least 15 years since Crisler last hosted a HS championship game.

StephenRKass

November 1st, 2011 at 12:34 AM ^

So, how far are the lockers from Crisler? I mean, I know they're just through the tunnel, but will Michigan players use the same lockers for both practice and games? Obviously, the lockers will be used for the PDC and practice, but I'm assuming they'll also be used for games. Does this mean that the women's team has about the same lockers elsewhere in the PDC?

Where will visiting teams have locker facilities? Same as before, or will they now use the former home team locker room at Crisler?

ClearEyesFullHart

November 1st, 2011 at 8:49 AM ^

That the first exhibition is in 3 days, and tickets for the non-conference schedule start at $5?

 

*takes broken record needle off skip*

chelseaanimal

November 1st, 2011 at 11:15 AM ^

love the pics and see the whole project as a much needed boost to MMB's status in comparison to "like" programs (gotta keep up with the Joneses).

Big but time ...

I can't start a new thread here and this seemed like the best place to insert this information. My daughter just finished her freshman season as a D1 soccer player (partial athletic and partial academic scholarship leading to a full ride). As a parent of a second-tier-sport athlete, I do not begrudge the iPad hook-up locker to the bball players. Dollar bills follow the interest garnered by the sport and the participants should get to share in some of the spoils. But here is an excerpt from an email my daughter just got as this season was winding down:

As has been communicated in previous messages, NCAA President Work Groups are making recommendations to transform intercollegiate athletics. Among the Work Groups from which numerous recommendations will be made, the Resource Allocation Work Group is preparing to recommend three changes that will impact Division I College Soccer. Following are the recommendations.

 

                                    1. Elimination of non-championship season competition.

                                    2. Reduction of regular season competition by 10 %.

                                    3. Elimination of all foreign tours for all sports.

End excerpt.

Further digging reveals that item 1 applies only to soccer, volleyball, softball, field hockey, women's lacrosse, cross country. While I do not find any sport-specific limitation for item 2, I find it difficult to imagine they are thinking of applying this change to football and basketball. Item 3 also does not call out a limitation to particular sports but football does not do this type of thing and basketball seems to be going to more of a conference-team travel format (the elimination of foreign travel also applies to both institution supported or privately funded trips ... my daughters team is traveling abroad in the spring, an every-four-years thing that is funded by the players themselves).

All of these proposals seem intended to cut costs in parts of athletic budgets while other parts of these budgets are seeing proposed or in-progress increases in expenditures. These cuts, at the expense of the "little-guys" sports.

Again, not trying to start a sports equivalent of "class-warfare", but these other sports are  a source of great pride to the fanbases of universitys (M softball and last years M men's soccer run, for examples). Just throwing this info out there to see if it generates a more in depth discussion of the financial side of intercollegiate athletics (new student center for basketball team, $2k stipend for athletes, addition of varsity sports, cuts in sports, cuts in expenditures for certain sports, etc.).

jmblue

November 1st, 2011 at 12:20 PM ^

If you're hinting at a "robbing Peter (soccer) to pay Paul (basketball)" argument, that's really not what's going on.  It's more like Paul is using his own money instead of constantly loaning his to Peter.  The funds raised for the Player Development Center were specifically earmarked for that purpose. 

chelseaanimal

November 1st, 2011 at 1:10 PM ^

just using this thread as a leaping off point since I can't start a new thread.

I know the money for the MBB center and the other renovations to Crisler and the stadium were specifically raised for those projects. Simply juxtaposing these large ticket items with cuts elsewhere, given the bigger picture of the economics of collegiate sports. To use your analogy, I fear that we are looking at borrowing from Peter (cuts to season length, cuts to off-season training, etc., for some sports) to pay Paul (that $2k per athlete stipend money has to come from somewhere).

Just looking for other perspectives on where the balance of the big budget in athletics departments is going to end up.

StephenRKass

November 1st, 2011 at 1:06 PM ^

Yes, this is a worthwhile discussion. But to the best of my knowledge, football funds most other sports, basketball to a lesser degree. Someone else will have to pull the stats to show you the numbers. There is a huge cost for so called "non-revenue" sports. To what degree is it the responsibility of the football and basketball programs to fund other sports.

Using soccer as an example, who foots the bill for flights to play ooc games beyond driving range? Hotel costs? Etc.? I suppose it makes sense for Michigan to play soccer games ooc vs. Oakland, Eastern, Adrian, Western, Toledo, Detroit. But I'm not sure how much football and basketball should be responsible to fund trips out of state for non-revenue teams.

There are relatively few schools that have athletic departments in the black. If the economy is doing well, schools can justify having general funds go toward sports trips. But with the economy in the tank, and funds from the State of Michigan drying up, I could sure understand that for non-revenue sports in a non-profitable school (Eastern? Adrian? Oakland?) there would be severe pressure to cut out costs like this.

wolpherine2000

November 1st, 2011 at 1:16 PM ^

...this will be an unpopular opinion so let me first say that these facilities are obviously a huge improvement and give the program facilities that were desperately needed, and I'm glad the kids like it. That said, I'm still disappointed by the outcome.  Michigan has one of the best architecture programs in the country, and this facility is indistinguishable from any middle market athletic club or conference center.  The exterior massing and interior veneer, patterned carpets and granite counters already look dated.  TMP, the firm that designed this project as well as the football practice facility, is competent at delivering functional institutional projects, but they are not much of a design firm, presiding over a $23M missed opportunity.

I'd love it if Michigan would emulate successful facillities programs like those at Cincinnati, Cranbrook or Minnesota, who have discovered that there's little cost difference between the design of a great building and one that is merely good enough.  Our projects should be winning awards more prestigious than those offered by the Masonry Institute.

 

laxalum

November 1st, 2011 at 2:02 PM ^

Wolpherine - do you have links to athletic facilities that qualify for your architectural ideal?  I tend to agree, but I also think you walk a fine line when you try to get too creative.  Architects created the Halo and Schembechler Hall after all (fail), and both designs were supposed to be highly conceptual.  To me, these facilities are supposed to stay classic, functional and economical.  The designs used in all of the recent athletic department structures have been low-risk, but certainly designed to make an impact with recruits and the average fan (me).  Lee Bollinger would disagree.

 

wolpherine2000

November 1st, 2011 at 4:17 PM ^

...good architecture is a response to a location and a culture, I'm not sure that I can point to a project that could be transplanted to Ann Arbor, but here are some links to projects that were successful both architecturally and for the folks that they were meant to serve:

These are two different approaches in terms of dealing with historical context- the Cincinnati facility is obviously contemporary but with enough commitment and novelty that it is probably going to age gracefully; the Cranbrook project is more subtle about blending into the context of a very elegant, architecturally significant and historic campus.  Even if this kind of modernism doesn't suit everyone, corporate work like HOK Sport's Camden Yards shows that historicism can be well done - not making a statement doesn't have to mean being mediocre.  My greatest fear about projects like the new PDC is that in carefully avoiding controversy, they end up being so undistinguished and reflective of tastes of the time in which they are built that they are almost immediately dated, and in ten years, embarrassing.

With respect to the halo, that project wasn't a surprise failure to anyone within the architecture community.  Architects Venturi/Scott, have always had a winking and somewhat dismissive attitude towards popular culture and were never a good fit for Michigan Football, a culture which is nearly religious. I'd love to hear the inside story on the original design of Schembechler - that has to be Birkerts worst building, even when one considers that his best work was decades old when he got the project.  As a professional, I think it is amazing how ill-informed the architect selection process can be on major public projects - a little research and sophistication on the selection commitee could prevent a lot of inevitable disasters before the project even begins the design phase.