Non-Logo Content: Walberg Resigns at Pepperdine

The Vance Walberg experiment has ended at Pepperdine. Walberg, the coach that jumped from high school to city college to Division I basketball, resigned today citing personal and family reasons for leaving.

It was a short, ugly tenure for Walberg, his 14-35 record speaks for itself and his final game as head coach was one of the worst Division I games I have ever watched. Gonzaga, who in fairness is hitting their stride and with Josh Heytvelt finally healthy might be good enough to beat anyone in the country, made Walberg’s Waves look downright silly in front of Pepperdine’s largest crowd of the season and the largest student crowd that I have seen in the threes years I’ve been going to their games.

It’s disappointing to see the experiment end this way. Walberg’s attack-attack-skip-attack-attack style of play – a style that emphasizes quick drives to the basket followed by a pass to outside shooters if the layup isn’t there - was supposed to, at the very least, make the Waves an interesting team to watch. As the originator of this style that has been partially implemented by many teams on all levels across the country including John Calipari at Memphis, Walberg was called on by Pepperdine to bring his style whole-heartedly to the Waves and take a team that had become dull and predictable under Paul Westphal and turn it into something exciting and completely crazy.

Unfortunately, the cupboard was left so bare by Westphal except for returning freshman Michael Gerrity and raw talent Kingsley Costain, Walberg never had the horses to make it work. Gerrity, a talented, gritty point guard, quickly transferred to Charlotte before the 2006-2007 season leaving just Costain to shoulder the load of a demanding style of play. He played admirably in a forgettable 8-23 season, but when he was mysteriously kicked out of school just before this season started, Pepperdine was left with a young, largely anonymous group of players that currently aren’t deep enough to make the system work. And except for occasional games against lower level teams like Division III Hope International earlier this month, we never got to see AASAA in all its glory.

Assistant coach Eric Bridgeland takes over for Walberg on an interim basis. If Pepperdine wants to continue working with and developing the AASAA style of play, Bridgeland is a good choice to take over for Walberg permanently. As a coach at Division III Puget Sound, his teams played a similar (if not the same) up-tempo style and were wildly successful. As Pepperdine’s recruiting coordinator, he has worked for two seasons to put together a team that eventually, with more experience and even more athletes on board, could make the system work. Their top three scorers are talented, athletic freshman. Crawford High School (San Diego) teammates Tyrone Shelley and Malcolm Thomas lead the way with 15.6 and 13.6 points per game respectively while Australian forward Daniel Johnson is chipping in 9.7 ppg.

I am of the opinion that this is the direction Pepperdine should take the program. It is unfair to these freshman and the recruits coming in next year that they recruited specifically to play this style to suddenly bring in someone that will totally change what they are doing. It’s a better option than completely throwing away the last two seasons and starting over, as tempting as that seems. It can’t get much worse than 14-35, but if they dump AASAA after just two seasons, I fear that it will get worse.

But I fully expect Pepperdine to go after a replacement with a bigger name than Bridgeland to make some, please excuse me, waves. They took a lot of heat for making such a bold decision to go after a gimmicky city college coach with no Divison I experience in Walberg and I have to think that they are wrongly excited to show the Pepperdine community that they are taking the losing very seriously and want to correct a mistake in judgement, whether it really is the right move or not.

This is Malibu after all, image is everything. Firestone Fieldhouse is not immune.

Cal State Northridge vs. Utah Valley State

I just posted my first Big West Conference Report for the college basketball blog Storming The Floor. After seeing Cal State Northridge handle Utah Valley State, I had to name the Matadors the Team of the First Month...

Team of the First Month: Cal State Northridge
UC Santa Barbara was picked to win the Big West by the media and they have lived up to the billing by going 9-1 in the first month. No surprise there. Cal State Northridge didn't get a lot of preseason love but the Matadors have taken care of business against lesser opponents. Led by senior forward Calvin Chitwood (13.3 ppg, 7.5 rpg) and senior guard Jonathan Heard (12.5 ppg, 5.9 rpg) and complemented by junior three point specialist Deon Tresvant (11.4 ppg) and junior rebounding force Tremaine Townesend (10.8 ppg, 9.5 rpg), Northridge has only been beaten by Duquesne and Gonzaga. Both were thumpings and their biggest win so far was against Cleveland State, so it's hard to get too excited. But it's better than expected and better than any other non-Gaucho Big West squads.

Here are a handful of pictures from the game...


Welcome to the Matadome, all 1,600 seats of it. What a dump. It's an embarrassment of a Division I facility. But it is home to the hardest working cheerleaders in the NCAA...



Seriously, I've never seen cheerleaders lead more cheers. They performed during every single timeout and did a solid job. Not bad for what is essentially a glorified community college. Oh yeah...don't forget the basketball...



Too bad the students have forgotten. Despite a good team, students don't turn out that for games in any meaningful way and the ones that do sit on their hands. The loudest group of students was a bunch of deaf kids. Seriously.

Now, about that logo. It's a solid logo when you just quickly glance at it or see it in a much smaller form. But now that I've found a larger version and really looked at it, it's a bit rough. What is with the big thick black line on the nose and chin? I suppose it's supposed to be a shadow, but it's really unnecessary. And how big can one man's hands be?

Team: Cal State Northridge Matadors
Conference: Big West
Location: Northridge, California
Arena: The Matadome

Fresno Grizzlies / Yakima Bears

One week. Two teams. Two bears. One design firm. One idea.

Cheers to the Silverman Design Group on this one - I'm very impressed with their ingenuity. Why develop two completely different team identities for your clients when you can first basically copy the Brown University and UC Riverside logos and then pass that template off on two different baseball teams? And cheers to the Grizzlies and the Bears for letting this happen. They really did their homework choosing these logos.

Taking both logos on their own and without factoring in their lack of originality, both of these logos are at least minor improvements over their previous sets of logos (Fresno's - a unique and interesting look that I kind of liked but understandably never caught on - and Yakima's). On it's own, I think the Yakima logo is very nice and the alternates are also interesting - I could actually see myself purchasing one of their caps (Ballpark Digest has a PDF of the entire identity package here). The Fresno one I don't like as well, especially the dead white space around the ball. But they will both definitely outsell the previous designs and I'm sure that's all the owners were considering when they approved these logos.

I just think it shows an alarming lack of imagination and judgement by all parties involved, especially Silverman. It would be one thing if the teams were affiliated in some way. If they had a parent company that wanted a standard template, I could understand. But these are two different teams with two different owners. How a design firm can look themselves in the eye after allowing what are essentially the same logos to be released in the span of a week is beyond me. You would think that pride in original, well designed logos would've topped the desire to take the easy way out. But it's also possible that they gave each team original, well designed logos in addition to these retreads and the teams just wanted the status quo.

Either way, those of us that love logos and really look forward to the time of the year when baseball teams start releasing new logos were left scratching our heads. Combine these with tomorrow's review (again, thanks to Ballpark Digest for this PDF), and you can call me utterly confused. What in the world is going on around here?


Team: Fresno Grizzlies
League: Pacific Coast League
Location: Fresno, California
Ballpark: Chukchansi Park
Merchandise: The new caps are really dull.

Team: Yakima Bears
League: Northwest League
Location: Yakima, Washington
Ballpark: Yakima County Stadium
Merchandise: I like the cap, but $31.99?

UCSB Beats UNLV In Last Second - PICTURES ADDED!

Wow, what an incredible game. That's my video of James Powell's three pointer with .4 seconds left that gave UCSB the victory over UNLV.

UPDATE 10/28: Here are a handful of pictures from the game. I love the Thunderdome, it's so warm with all of the wood and when there are a ton of people in the gym like there were on Tuesday night, it's a great place to see a game. Click on the images to bigify...





It was a great game as UCSB came from 12 points down two different times setting up the Powell heroics. I wish I would've let the video keep running and captured the storming the court scene, but here are a couple pictures that hopefully illustrate the aftermath. There are times that I wish my camera did a better job at capturing quick motion, but then I wouldn't get these strange, watercolor-like images that almost capture the joy and the craziness better than higher quality pictures could...





Back tomorrow with, *gasp*, an actual logo review. Say it ain't so!

Fresno Pacific Sunbirds

After a week of flashbacks and game reviews, I think I'll end the week on a high note and present you with a great logo that I just came across.

While doing some research on Southern California college basketball, I came across Fresno Pacific University and their absolutely gorgeous Sunbirds logo. I have a hard time believing that there is any NAIA school with a more attractive logo than Fresno Pacific's. There are a bunch of NCAA Division-I schools that should be jealous and all 1,200 of FPU's students should be very proud.


School: Fresno Pacific University Sunbirds
League: Golden State Athletic Conference
Location: Fresno, California
Merchandise: Sadly, the Sunbird logo isn't available anywhere online.

UC Santa Barbara Soccer vs. Cal Poly

Last year I saw the video on YouTube of the UCSB students marching through Isla Vista with a soccer goal after the Gauchos won the NCAA National Championship and thought to myself, "gee, I guess I should've gone to a game this season". But despite the fact I knew that their team was good, I didn't understand the level of student support that Gauchos soccer received. Soccer at most schools, even if the team is really good, doesn't get much student support and usually isn't something to go out of your way to attend. That isn't the case at UCSB, as I heard one student say on Saturday night "we don't have football, our basketball team usually sucks....this is kind of our thing."


So I finally took in my first Gauchos soccer game this past weekend when they took on Central Coast rival Cal Poly. Earlier this season, the Mustangs beat the Gauchos 2-1 in front of a crowd of over 7,000 up in San Luis Obispo. Even though both teams are good and it's a pretty fierce rivalry, if Poly wouldn't have won that game, Saturday's game might have just been a little better than average crowd-wise. But that game really fired up the faithful on both sides and despite cold, foggy conditions, 8,100 rabid soccer fans packed into Harder Stadium and created an atmosphere for collegiate soccer that I had never experienced or ever expected.


My first inkling of what I was in for was when I arrived to campus and found that there wasn't a parking spot anywhere near the stadium. I had to drive around for a while and finally found a parking garage where most people had retreated to park. After a much longer walk than I expected, I finally arrived at the stadium a few minutes after the listed game time only to find a ticket line that stretched all the way across the south side of the stadium. I really didn't think I'd make it in before halftime when I first lined up, but I've got to give credit where credit is due and compliment the ticket booth for making that line move very quickly. I only ended up missing a couple of minutes. It helped that all seating is general admission so people couldn't stand there and mull over their seating options.


Once inside, I took a seat behind the Cal Poly student section only because it was at the end of the field that the Gauchos were on offense. The Mustangs dominated the first half and scored a beautiful goal that silenced the Gaucho crowd and let the Poly students puff out their chests and have their moment of superiority for at least a few minutes.


During halftime I moved around to the other end of the stadium, again to be close to the goal that UCSB was shooting and to be much closer to the Gauchos student section. I'm sure glad that I did because not too long into the second half the Guachos scored their first goal and the place went absolutely crazy. Then, minutes later, they took the lead and Harder Stadium exploded into joyous celebration. I've been to a lot of sporting events. I have seen touchdowns, I have seen last second shots, I have seen a lot. But I don't know if I've ever seen a crowd collectively lose their minds the way they did after that second goal. It was incredible, serious goose bump kind of stuff. Not too long after that, the Gauchos added their third goal and I found myself jumping up and down and high-fiving strangers.


At the end of the game, the students rushed the field...at a soccer game. That was a first for me and was a very impressive showing of how important soccer is to this university.


Best seven dollar sports ticket I ever purchased.

SLO is Where College Gameday Should Be

If I asked you "what's the hardest college football ticket to come by this weekend", what would you guess? Cal vs. USC? Florida vs. South Carolina? Michigan vs. Wisconsin? Williams vs. Amherst?

Well, you'd be wrong. The hardest ticket to come by this weekend is the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs - North Dakota State University Bison Division I-AA (or FCS) game at Cal Poly. I was planning on going, it's about a two hour drive from here but I love SLO and it would be worth the trip to see the #1 ranked Bison come to the Central Coast for a game in front of a Homecoming/Parent's Day crowd.

But I'm starting to get a little anxious since I don't have a ticket. The game is completely sold out - Alex Spanos Stadium seats only a little over 11,000 - and there aren't any tickets available on Craigslist and neither RazorGator nor StubHub even have the game listed. I've put out some feelers on the various sites, but haven't had any luck yet.

I'm sure that if I show up outside the stadium before the game, I can find myself one ticket. But that's a pretty long drive to risk not getting in. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

Lancaster JetHawks

As I mentioned last night, the Lancaster JetHawks introduced their new logos and identity package yesterday.

One of the basic criteria I use when I judge a redesigned logo is simply, is it an improvement over their previous logo? And in the JetHawk's case, the answer is a resounding yes. Actually, I really liked one of their logos, but when it was stripped down and turned into a cap or a jacket, it was pretty pitiful, bordering on horrible.

The new logos have some problems. In particular, the hawk itself and that funky eye. Because of the eye and the aggressive angles, the hawk doesn't have any life. It looks more like a statue than anything, maybe taxidermy. But at the same time, it goes great with all of the other elements of the logo because of how aggressive and sharp everything is.


But I don't see why they need to put different versions of basically the same thing on the caps other than to cash in on people who can't decide between the two logos. I'm sure I just answered my own question, but I think it would've been much more cohesive had they chose between one or the other for both of made one of them totally and completely different than the others.

At times, I think that these new packages give too many alternate options (see the Lehigh Valley IronPigs) and I think this is a case where it would've been better to stick with a primary logo, one cap logo and maybe a sleeve patch.

But again, anything over this is an improvement. Despite my quibbles with the logos, overall it's a very successful redesign that the JetHawks and the Antelope Valley can certainly be proud of. Now let's get out there and start selling some tickets and improve that game day experience.


Team: Lancaster JetHawks
League: California League
Location: Lancaster, California
Stadium: Clear Channel Stadium
Mascot: KaBoom - Although I'm assuming there will be a new KaBoom
Merchandise: Old and New

SBCC vs. VC - La Playa Stadium

I took in a community college football game this weekend up in Santa Barbara. The reason? Because I've wanted to see a game at La Playa Stadium on the campus of Santa Barbara City College, a stadium that probably has one of the most beautiful views in all of college football.

It just so happened that when I finally had a chance to go to La Playa Stadium, my hometown Ventura College Pirates were playing. I'm glad that there was an incredible view because a 7-3 game isn't exactly riveting football. But the Pirates did pick up the victory, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Anyway, here are some pictures from La Playa Stadium. Try to tell me that there is a stadium with a better view than this...





This was taken during halftime. The VC team didn't go back to a locker room, I'm not sure that there is a visitor's locker room, so they just went on the other side of the track and spread out on the grass. That's the first time I ever saw that. You gotta love community college football.




Aww...Only at a college football game in Santa Barbara. Purse dogs love football!

Bakersfield Blaze - Sam Lynn Ballpark

Welcome to Sam Lynn Ballpark, home of the Bakersfield Blaze. Doesn't that picture stink? It's because Sam Lynn is the only ballpark left in Minor League Baseball that faces west meaning that the sun sets directly over center field creating the very unique sun delayed start time.

What I find interesting from a logo standpoint is that despite changing their logo in 2001, they have yet to really embrace it at Sam Lynn. See the Blaze logo on the front of the ballpark? That's their last logo and it appears more often throughout the ballpark than the new one does, which for me is fine, because their new logo is really quite terrible.

What exists even more are Dodgers logos, this is a Dodgers town. In fact, I was under the impression while at the ballpark and from talking to a few people that Bakersfield was a Dodgers affiliate for most of their existence. But a little bit of research says that it's just not true. They were a Dodgers affiliate from 1968-1975 and then again from 1984-1994. It seems that Bakersfield just longs for the Dodgers and has no interest in any of the other teams they have been affiliated (say what you will about Tampa Bay, but they did bring some solid prospect through town).

Anyway, back to the ballpark. The listed game time wasn't until 7:30 and still they had to delay the game by at least 20 minutes while they waited for the sun to hide itself behind the giant center field fence. The sun setting over center is something to be seen and might be the only reason that you should make a special trip to Sam Lynn. There was something about waiting for the sun to set before the game could start that was very charming, I don't even know why.

Even when the sun set and the game finally began, it still wreaked some havoc poking through an opening between the smaller fence, the trees and the huge fence that must be on stilts.

The other advantage to a west facing field is that you get to enjoy the colors created by the sunset. Usually you don't get to see it because it's behind you, but here it's right in front of you to enjoy...

Sam Lynn is a very unique ballpark, but not in a good way. It's a dump, plain and simple. But again, it's an oddly charming dump.

The first four rows of the seating are great. They are sunk below the field so when you sit in the front row, which is where I sat, your head is basically level with the playing field making for a very intimate experience. And these rows stretch from base to base, meaning that there is no room for dugouts. Take a look at the above picture and notice that under the party tent in right field foul territory are both the bullpens and the dugout, combined. I've never been to a ballpark where the teams were that far away from the action.

And if you think that center field looks pretty close, that's because it's only 354 feet away. It's a tiny place that's surrounded by trees making it a very cozy ballpark.

My advice to you if you're going to Sam Lynn Ballpark in Bakersfield is to shell out a couple extra dollars to sit close and let yourself forget just how ugly and mismatched the rest of the stadium is. The view, the field and the entertaining show that the Blaze management puts on make it worth a trip even if the rest of the stadium leaves a lot to be desired.

Team: Bakersfield Blaze
League: California League
Location: Bakersfield, California
Stadium: Sam Lynn Ballpark
Mascot: Heater - I can't prove this, but I bet you anything they got Heater from the Chico Heat when they folded
Merchandise: From MLB.com shop

Chupacabras Team Shop is Now Open!

My nerdiness is in full swing. From my fake/fantasy football team the Oxnard Chupacabras website...

The Oxnard Chupacabras team shop is now open and ready to take your orders. Men's and Women's t-shirts, hoodies, long sleeve t-shirts, caps, buttons and even dog clothes and thong underwear featuring the Chupacabras logo will turn heads and leave you the envy of all of your friends. And no back-to-school wardrobe is complete without a sweatshirt or baseball jersey.

Get your all Chupacabras merchandise today by clicking here.

Viva Las Chupacabras!

Saint Mary's College Gaels

I've been sitting here trying to figure out some way of cleverly describing why I like the new Saint Mary's College logo, but it's just not coming to me. Darn you serious lack of creativity! Actually, I'm still thinking about this. So here's a boring, one paragraph review...

I just simply like it. It's classic but unique and does a nice job of illustrating Celtic traditions (they describe a Gael as a Celtic warrior). And it is a huge improvement over the previous generic "SMC" logo.

Thoughts anybody?

Team: Saint Mary's College Gaels
Conference: West Coast Conference
Location: Moraga, CA
Facilities: Alas, no pictures
Merchandise: Not too much with the new logo yet

Los Angeles Galaxy

I'm going to try something new on the SLP tonight and see what happens. I'm just going to give you the logo and let you say whatever you want to say about it in the comments. Please feel free to weigh in on the LA Galaxy's new logo and then on Sunday night I'll give you my thoughts.

As a little food for thought, here's their old logo and here's a story about the change.

Lurkers - de-lurk!

SUNDAY NIGHT UPDATE - I HATE, HATE, HATE this logo. It is so ridiculously boring and cheap. I can't say that the old logo was great, but it had a ton more life than this joke. I hate the fonts that they used, I hate how all of the letters in the "GALAXY" look like they are tipped the wrong way, I hate all the dead space...I just plain HATE it. I think this logo is awful.

And I hate that they introduced it mid-season, I hate that they did it only because Beckham is on his way and they want to force people to buy merchandise, and I absolutely hate that that you can only get jerseys with the Herbalife sponsor across it. Herbalife is a creepy pyramid scheme and I would never pay to advertise them.

I will have a lot more to say about the MLS tomorrow. I want to like the MLS, in fact I went to my first Galaxy game last week and had an absolute blast, but this whole Beckham precedent and a lot of the other things that they are doing rubs me the wrong way. I don't think I'll ever be able to take this league seriously even though I want to.

Team: Los Angeles Galaxy
League: Major League Soccer
Location: Carson, California
Stadium: Home Depot Center - here's my review on Yelp and a few pictures I took.
Online Store: Get your Becks jersey now!

Santa Barbara Foresters vs. California Oaks - 7/3/07

I swear to you that I will post a logo review sometime soon. The holiday has me all messed up.

On Tuesday night I went to see the Santa Barbara Foresters take on the California Oaks in Carpinteria, about fifteen miles away from their normal home field at UC Santa Barbara. They were playing at Carpinteria High School as a benefit for the city's Little League teams. Quite a few fans packed the little tiny seating area at the high school's field and they were treated to an entertaining game in an absolutely gorgeous setting.

I complain a lot about living in Southern California. Honestly, I can't wait to move back up to the Pacific Northwest next year. However, there are a few things here that you just can't find up in Washington. Like a ballpark in front of breathtaking mountains and citrus orchards and a cool breeze blowing in off the ocean. The stadium isn't much to look at, but the field is in incredible shape and the view...well it speaks for itself (click on the pictures to bigify)...

The life of a ballplayer, huh? It just isn't fair.

Wow! The last picture will be forever burned in my mind as my version of what baseball will look like in heaven.

Oxnard Chupacabras

Recently I joined an online fantasy indoor football league in which we run our clubs like we would if we were the owners and operators of a real life team. This includes designing a logo, creating a website, managing promotions and all that other crazy stuff you get to do when you own a minor league franchise. I don't know how this will ever be measured or how any of it will work but I figure it should be a fun experiment. What the heck, might as well.

While designing the above logo for my Oxnard Chupacabras I learned a couple of important lessons about logo design that made me think more about what I do on this blog.

The first lesson that I learned is that it is very, very difficult and time consuming to design a graphics heavy logo from scratch. I couldn't do it. I tried a few different things but I just don't have the knowledge or the experience working with Photoshop to design something that complex. Because of this, I now have a lot more respect and a lot more empathy toward graphic designers.

However, I also learned that it isn't that hard to come up with something attractive and somewhat professional if you are in a pinch and can't do something more complex. With virtually no design experience, no training and pretty crappy software I was able to design something that is at least clean and interesting. It's not a great logo by any means, but in my opinion, it tops quite a few of the logos that I have reviewed over the years. I now have a lot less respect for teams that put out cheap, unprofessional crap.

Another thing that I learned is that I really enjoy designing. I don't think I could ever do it as a profession. I don't think I have the artistic ability to succeed and the perfectionist that lives inside of me would take over and drive me crazy in the long run, but I can see myself doing it on a freelance kind of thing or as a hobby more often. I need to learn a lot more about graphic design if I were to do so, but I'm definitely willing and excited to learn.

Team: Oxnard Chupacabras - check out the website, I'm really proud of the start I got on it.
League: Internet Indoor Football League
Location: Oxnard, California
Arena: The totally fake Ventura County Events Center. Sadly, there is no arena in the VC.
Online Store: Someday soon!

Los Angeles Riptide

How did I miss the fact that Los Angeles has had a Major League Lacrosse team since 2005?

The Los Angeles Riptide debuted last season at the Home Depot Center and went 6-6 and yet somehow managed to stay completely anonymous to me despite my never ending search for affordable, sports entertainment in this area. They open their 2007 season in Chicago on May 19th and return for their home opener on May 27th against the New Jersey Pride.

I've never been to a lacrosse game so I might have to check it out if I have some free time this summer. I'm really excited to support a team that loves Star Wars nearly as much as I do. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that they used the Sarlacc of The Great Pit of Carkoon eating a rather boring surfboard shaped wordmark. First Boba Fett and now his board? It's a charmed life for this Tatooine Terror.

What's that? It's supposed to be a shark? Are you sure? I choose not to believe you.

Team: Los Angeles Riptide
League: Major League Lacrosse - Updated, sorry!
Location: Carson, California
Stadium: Home Depot Center
Online Store: The Sarlacc on a t-shirt!

Santa Barbara Breakers vs. Chico Force

Saturday night I traveled up to beautiful Santa Barbara, California to check out the area's only professional basketball team, the Santa Barbara Breakers of the IBL. Welcome to the Sports Pavilion on the campus of Santa Barbara City College...

An announced crowd of 725 (probably more like 400-500 actually in the stands) rooted the Breakers on to a 128-115 victory over the Chico Force. Former UCLA star Toby Bailey led the way for the Breakers with 35 points while Allen Purnell added 23. Tyree Jones and Larry Smith both scored 22 for the Force in the loss.

Those are the facts, now onto my impressions of my first minor league basketball game. First of all, the Sports Pavilion at SBCC is a dump. One of the dingiest, dirtiest buildings that I have ever been in. The entrance is a shambles, the ticket office is an unfinished room, the area where you go back to the bathrooms is disgusting, the seats are uncomfortable and rickety and the lighting in the gym messed up my eyes and gave me a headache. I probably won't go to another Breakers game because of the Sports Pavilion alone.

Another reason I won't be back to a Breakers game is because of false advertisement. On every single one of the team's publications (like the schedule they handed me with my ticket purchase seen above) and on all of the ticketing websites the Breakers list their ticket prices as $6, $10, $14, $18, and $25 for regular seating. When I got to the game, the ticket prices listed were $8.50, $12.50, $16.50, $20.50 and $27.50. They fail to mention that there is an extra $2.50 charge on all tickets. I know some places charge extra for day-of-game tickets but this isn't made clear anywhere and I feel like it's a bit of a shady bait-and-switch tactic on the part of the Breakers.

Also, like I predicted when I took them to task for their ticket prices in an earlier post, they were sold out of the cheap seats and I had to purchase a $12.50 ticket. Now take a look at the first picture again, do you see anyone sitting in the top corners of the bleachers? I don't. There never was anybody sitting in those seats even before the game. Even in an empty building, usually there are a few honest people that sit in their assigned seats at least until the end of the first half, but not tonight. I can't prove anything, but I don't think that the cheap tickets actually exist. Is this another bait-and-switch ploy by the Breakers?

I feel a little bit ripped off by the game play as well. The Breakers made a big deal about signing former Utah Jazz star Bryon Russell, but he has yet to play in a game. There also was no Samaki Walker or Fred Vinson or Mike Efevberha or Shantay Leggins. Heck, there wasn't even local kid Santiago Aguirre to root for. Toby Bailey (seen above pouting after scoring 35 points, sorry for the poor picture) and Billy Knight aren't bad, but what happened to the rest of this "star studded" roster?

And while the game was fast paced and high scoring it wasn't very interesting or exciting. It's basically just a bunch of guys playing pickup basketball trying to score as many points as possible for themselves. This is a big problem throughout minor league basketball and is one of the reasons that fans don't ever get invested in these smaller teams. Players are just looking to catch the attention of somebody higher up in the food chain so team play that leads to more interesting basketball goes straight out the window.

The Breakers do try to put on a show, albeit a bush league one. They have a cheers squad that does a little bit of dancing and throws t-shirts into the crowd. They have some random guy that stomps his feet and yells at the crowd during timeouts, but only in the first half for some reason. They play repetitive pump-you-up music throughout the entire game. And the players all sign autographs on the court following the final buzzer. Nothing is very imaginative or creative, they do just enough to get by.

There were only a couple positives that I could single out. There were a lot of kids at the game that were really, really excited to be there. They danced around on the floor, slapped five with the guys, even got into the huddle at one point during a timeout and yelled "BREAKERS" louder than the players did.

They also seem to be doing a fair amount of sales of their replica jersey. I saw quite a few people shell out $50 for the blue jersey with a big sweeping Santa Barbara across the chest. It's probably because it was the only piece of merchandise that wasn't completely boring. And at least the Breakers have team jerseys. Chico's jerseys were blank other than the number.

So while I wish that I could say that my Santa Barbara Breakers experience was better, I just cannot report anything more than being completely underwhelmed and a little bit angry at the team. Minor league sports has to provide to it's customers the feeling that you are getting more than what you paid for. But between the bait-and-switch tactics and the boring game play, after the game I felt like I spent far too much money on an inferior product. I sincerely doubt that I will be back.