owlfan2272

The catholic league isn't going to join a 21 team conference and split the pie with Fordham and others. If they had to do that they would just stay where they are. If the catholic league leaves it will be for a new league.

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Temple Owls have won a lot.

jpschmack

Our disconnect is citing a "LOOK! CHAOS! CLICK HERE!" article. Just because a shoddy article only mentions three schools doesn't mean it's a 10-team conference about to happen with UD left out. Forget unnamed sources, here's a named source:

“Everything’s on the table. Everybody’s got a different opinion on whether it’s when or if. We’re discussing them all, we really are." -- Marquette AD Larry Williams.

When stories on both sides of the continent are mentioning Gonzaga possibly involved, the idea that it's ONLY three teams being discussed seemed like nothing more than a jab to incite the UD fans.


But back to the topic at hand...

jpschmack

I agree on UD's position as not a lock. But I also think it would be a bad move for the Big East Seven to shun Dayton for three reasons:

#1 - The aforementioned market discussion. As you know, in a few years it's going to be the Cincinnati-Middletown-Dayton DMA, and it will be #16 market in the country. Adding both Xavier and Dayton both DELIVERS that market.

#2 - In a word: Infrastructure.
Everything you said about their MBB program is basically true. But why? Underachieving/choking culture, a lack of mental toughness, bad coaching? It's not because of a lack of facilities/resources compared to the rest of the conference. That's infrastructure.

The culture is fixable with a good hire. (For proof of this concept, look at UD's nationally ranked women's hoops and volleyball programs and where they were a decade ago). You can win without infrastructure if you have a good coach. But BCS schools steal coaches, so it doesn't often last. BCS schools can't steal arenas. Infrastructure makes good coaches want to work for you.

#3 - If you're the BE7 -- admittedly fearful of becoming the A-10's "peer" in terms of perception -- you can't leave the A-10 strong enough to compete with you. You HAVE to go for the jugular.

If BE7 takes Xavier, Saint Louis and Creighton? Why wouldn't the A-10 continue to compete for 3-4 NCAA bids like they did before? How much different is the new A-10 from the A-10 before 2000? VCU, Butler, Richmond, George Mason (with 17 NCAA bids, 4 Final Fours, Four Elite 8s in the last decade) instead of Temple, Xavier, UMass and Va Tech (23 NCAA bids, 1 Final Four, Four Elite 8s in the decade before Va Tech left). The Other Eight schools remain the same, and have about the same performance (10 NCAA bids in old days, 9 NCAA bids and an Elite 8 in the last decade).

People forget that when conferences expand, there's more conference losses. DePaul found that out the hard way. There's not going to be a ton more teams going from each expanded conference, and the tournament's now 68 teams. The A-10 would be slightly weaker, but able to compete no different than before.

Hell, without Xavier in the way, how many more NCAA bids would UD have the last eight seasons? At least two.
Last eight seasons: 1 NCAA bid, 1 losing season. Other six years: 70-57 vs A-10 teams; 5-14 vs Xavier.

The BE7 is probably taking five A-10 schools (Xavier, Saint Louis, Dayton, Butler, and VCU or Richmond). Assuming UMass joins the BE Football conference, that leaves the A-10 with eight schools, half of whom haven't made the dance since 1999. If they take VCU instead of Richmond, the remaining A-10 schools have 12 NCAA bids (7 wins) in the last 12 seasons. That's a 1-2 bid league.

jpschmack

I categorically disagree. "Everything" depends solely on "How many invites the BE7 issues."

No one in this conference is going to say no thanks to an invite.

If Xavier and Saint Louis go, the league is in good shape. UMass is probably gone and we add George Mason for 12.

But they do NOT want to become another Atlantic 10, so expect them to bring the hammer.

Xavier, Saint Louis are sitting pretty.
Butler and Dayton are on the phone saying "It's 12 teams, right?"
VCU, Richmond are sweating heavily and about to start stabbing each other in the back.
Duquesne is printing reports comparing the Pittsburgh and Richmond markets.
Bona, LaSalle, St. Joe's, URI, Fordham and GW are boned (But the Bonnies better be calling and saying "16-teams with Creighton! We'll join the West so you can recruit Pittsburgh!")

letsgogdub

"May you live in interesting times."

FlyingElvis

Is Temple OK with the new "Big East" or whatever they call themselves if the BE7 leave?

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"US Bank Arena can't be that bad"

paulxu

JP, I appreciate the analysis you offered of the different alignment possibilities, and their impact.

The overriding factor I believe for the BE 7 will be $.
They are losing quite a bit with the conference shake ups, and are faced with some crazy travel schedules for all their teams in the projected BE.

So, the TV money will probably dictate the makeup of the BEBall schools if they leave. 10 may be hard...but will it be more $ than if they go to 12?

I would think they go to 12, but although the Dayton market is very viable, if it could be delivered in the future from Cincinnati, they may consider Creighton for the 12th...gives good east/west divisions.

Maybe Temple ends up in a reconfigured ACC someday. They wanted to play big time football and you can't do that in the current A10 or what may be a BB only BE.

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...he went up late, and I was already up there.

duq81

Here's a possibility that's a long shot, but probably more likely than any of the BE7 joining the A10. The BE7 are going to invite 5 teams. Xavier, St. Louis, Dayton, either Butler or Creighton, and one eastern school, likely VCU or Richmond, with Duquesne a long shot. The 4 midwestern schools added to Marquette, and DePaul, make for a nice division, as do the other 6. What to do for the schools left behind? Approach UConn, and UC, and propose to sponsor an 8 school football league. UConn, UC, Temple, Memphis, E Carolina, USF, UCF, and UMass. If other schools want to join for football only, add them if they make sense. This would be a 16 team league for all other sports. Why would UConn and UC want to join this instead of being off on their own? Simple, while they might not be thrilled about playing the Dukes and Bonas of the world, those schools are no worse than playing Tulane and SMU, and are much closer, and are located in the same markets that the BE schools have long played in. UConn and UC should be driving this bus, and the other schools will likely follow their lead. Bernie should at the very least, have this scenario in mind. Would it be a great league, no, but it would probably be a bit better than the current A10, so what's not to love. This league could actually have the potential to surpass the Catholic league.

Muddy Waters

I find it amusing that the only posters who are 'worried' about the Flyers being left out of the new conference are not Dayton fans.


DePaul Among 7 Catholic Schools Set for Big East Exodus (Chicago Sun-Times - December 12, 2012)

The upheaval in conference alignments could lead DePaul and other basketball-only Big East schools to leave the conference soon to form a new league.

That league might retain rights to the conference name and eventually be made up of 10 schools, including the seven Big East Catholic basketball members and potentially other Catholic schools such as Dayton and Xavier, which are in the Atlantic 10.

No decision was made after the meeting, but sources indicate a vote by the university presidents to separate might be imminent.

The conference’s Catholic basketball members are DePaul, Marquette, Georgetown, St. John’s, Villanova, Seton Hall, and Providence.

DePaul has a long history of playing most of those schools even before its conference affiliation started in 1992 in the Great Midwest.

DePaul’s historic rivalries with Notre Dame and Dayton also would be precedent for aligning in a new league with those programs.

Should the fans of Saint Louis and Butler be worried because their schools were not mentioned in the Sun-Times article ?

Of course not. That would be silly.

The biggest unanswered question at this point is who the 12th school will be, and my money is on VCU.

Creighton would be a great addition to the new conference in terms of school quality, basketball team quality, and fan support (2011-12 attendance rank: # 6: 16,665 per game), but I couldn’t see any enthusiasm from the BE7’s five East Coast members for inviting a Nebraska school to join the new conference.


That’s far from being 'mediocre', despite the opinions on this thread of some posters.

In fact, Archie Miller has a record of 7-2 (77.8 %) against teams from BCS conferences to date:

2011-12: 4 wins [Wake Forest (N), Minnesota (N), Alabama (H), Ole Miss (H)] and 1 loss [Seton Hall (H)].

2012-13: 3 wins [Boston College (N), Auburn (N), Alabama (A)] and 1 loss [Colorado (N)].

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paulxu

They may not be "concerned" about the future of those 3 schools, but they probably need their votes/presence as a unified majority for the dissolution of the league, maintain their NCAA credits, keep the BE name and the MSG contract. Probably can't do all that with only 4.

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...he went up late, and I was already up there.

duq81

Bingo! Seton Hall is not going to vote to dissolve the league, only to get kicked to the curb. It's going to be the 12 team league that has been mentioned. The question is, will the A10 go out and raid the CAA, and MAAC, or will they attempt to lure the bigger fish that I proposed?

Muddy Waters

Muddy's Observations:

(1) The vote to split the Big East will precede the formation of a new basketball conference and the signing of contracts by the schools forming the new basketball conference.

(2) The name of the new basketball conference may be the 'Big East' if the basketball schools' lawyers can make that happen.

(3) However, the name of the conference is not critical - the conference's membership is. The new conference will get noticed and will get a lot of media attention, regardless of its name.

(4) Although DePaul (and possibly Seton Hall) could be ditched after the vote on the BE15 split, I seriously doubt that will happen.

(5) Here's the new 12-team basketball conference as I see it:

2011-12 NCAA Men’s Basketball Attendance (ncaa.org)

New Big East Conference - 12 Schools

Code:

Rk. University   Attendance

13. Marquette    15,138
28. Dayton       12,154
35. Georgetown   11,283
39. Xavier       10,155
44. Villanova     8,923
54. St. John's    8,428
63. Providence    7,883
66. Saint Louis   7,757
67. DePaul        7,740
70. VCU           7,622
76. Seton Hall    6,941
78. Butler        6,599

As previously posted, I would not consider VCU to be a 'lock' just yet, but rather, I would consider VCU to be the best 12th team available.

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Good question.

The Atlantic 10 in 2014-15 (prior to further departures / expansion) ?

Code:

   University        Attendance

1. Duquesne          3,204
2. Fordham           2,343   
3. Geo. Washington   2,561 
4. La Salle          2,209  
5. Massachusetts     4,279 
6. Rhode Island      3,829
7. Richmond          5,660
8. St. Bonaventure   3,926
9. St. Joseph's      4,197

Atlantic 10 W-L Records - Updated December 13, 2012

Code:

 Charlotte        9-0  
 Temple           7-1
 La Salle         6-1   
 Richmond         8-2    
 Butler           7-2
 Dayton           7-2 
 Xavier           7-2
 VCU              6-3
 St. Bonaventure  5-3  
 St. Joseph's     5-3
 Saint Louis      5-3
 Duquesne         6-4   
 Massachusetts    4-3   
 Geo. Washington  4-6
 Rhode Island     2-7
 Fordham          1-8

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A10fan2

nevermind

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Muddy's from 2009

He has since made the same "prediction" this year. CLASSIC

Title_BU

I was about to post that. If the 7 are leaving and they discussed 3, that doesn't sound arbitrary. 10 is the perfect conference round-robin size.

http://m.espn.go.com/extra/ncaa/story?storyId=8742607

bostonspider

My only big issue with muddy's analysis is that the university presidents are going to look at institutional fit as well as athletic fit. 11 of the 12 schools he mentioned are fairly similar, though DePaul is surprisingly large at 15,000 undergrads. The rest are under 10,000 and are all highly selective private universities. VCU is a huge 24,000 undergraduate state university with a very different academic focus and mission. I just do not see the institutional fit that I would see with either Duquesne or Richmond.