REF

Maybe you'll find something in Olean reporting that SBU is the 10th member...

bprichard

For that to happen, it's going to have to be outside of Vertical Sports. The admins have made it fairly clear that the A10 board is at the outer edge of their tolerance.

Snipe amuses me, but I see how he might wear on administration types.

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Bona84

Maybe...

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Bona84

paulxu

I can't figure out why 10 would be a good number. It would mean an 18 game schedule.
9, or 12 with divisions, seem to be better conference totals for basketball.

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DoubleJayAlum

10 teams allows for a true round robin without having a team sit out each gameday. Missing out on a weekend game is not ideal for ticket sales.

The MVC has gone with 10 members for awhile now and it is great for growing rivalries. The fact that nobody has a scheduling advantage eliminates perceptions of unfairness.

Obviously, I hope the new league goes to 12 as it helps Creighton's chances, but 10 is very viable.

paulxu

Thanks. Guess that makes sense. I suspect we fill up that off game slot during the season with a good OOC game now...Memphis, etc.

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Title_BU

Talk seems to be that SLU has an advantage over Creighton for the last spot.

With 10 looking like the plan, the A10 will be just fine

tman

If you are trying to find like minded programs to form a partnership, why would you include nine Catholic schools and ONE non catholic.

That doesn't make it for me.
For this reason Butler is left out IMHO.

I also don't get St. Louis before Dayton.
Dayton has twice as many NCAA invites during the last ten seasons.
Dayton puts more than twice the number of fans in the stands.
Dayton draws bigger numbers TV wise.
Dayton fans travel much bigger and better than the Billikens.

If it comes down to UD/St.Louis
This conference is stronger having Dayton in it--IMHO.
And isn't that what you want from a conference?

Muddy Waters

The fact that the BE7 appears to be considering poaching up to 4 Atlantic 10 schools and St. Bonaventure (a Catholic school that is the defending Atlantic 10 Champion) hasn't got a sniff from the BE7 tells you everything you need to know about the Bonnies. (edited)


This is good for all 10 teams if all 10 teams in the conference are good.

If all 10 teams are good, they can load up their 12-game non-conference schedules with winnable games and hope to go 10-2 or similar (as is the scheduling strategy for BCS-conference schools) which will give all 10 schools very good non-conference W-L records.

50% of each teams's RPI is the W-L records of their opponents.

Therefore, when conference play begins, each of the 10 teams gets the benefit of their conference opponents' inflated non-conference W-L record, and the average RPI ranking of every team in the conference goes up during the next 3 months - just like the BCS-conference teams.

The net result of this strategy is that every team with a 10-8 conference record or better has a good shot at an NCAA Tournament 'at large' invitation because 10-8 conference record against teams who have averaged a 10-2 non-conference record will result in an RPI Ranking of # 40 or better - good enough for an 'at large' invitation.

Teams with conference records of 11-7 (coupled with a 10-2 non-conference record) will have an RPI Ranking in the low 30's or high 20's and become locks for an 'at large' invitation.

If you don't believe this, set up a spreadsheet, input the hypothetical conference and non-conference W-L records for each of the 10 teams, calculate the end-of season RPIs, and use past NCAA RPI Ranking data to correlate the various calculated RPIs with the RPI Rankings associated with each RPI value.

In most years, a 10-team conference could expect 4 or 5 NCAA Tournament invitations.

If 4 of the 10 teams have good non-conference records coupled with very bad conference records, it is possible for the other 6 teams to get NCAA Tournament invitations, but this would be a rarity.

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Title_BU

Why is this so hard to understand? EVERYTHING works this way. Xavier and Butler are already in because they bring the most basketball cache to the conference. The collective reputation of the conference in the revenue sport is what drives ad, licensing, etc revenue.

And SLU (and Creighton) are favorable to Dayton for pieces of that. St Louis is a far superior market and Creighton's basketball reputation is incomparable.

There's no spite to it. Dayton just is too average a basketball program to move the needle and its in an overlapping market.

Bill Russell

Heck... that settles it, then. Dayton certainly won't be joining a 10-team conference.

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Kevin Waymire

I love the rivalry with Dayton and don't want to lose that. However, I wouldn't completely mind them being left out of the new conference so I wouldn't have to see Muddy's garbage ever again. No personal attacks. Attack the posts all you want, but not the poster.

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"Miller didn't do anything last year to improve on or surpass Gregory's performance..... In fact it looked just like a Gregory team. Nice start, crappy middle (with every excuse in the book), a decent win or two near the end to get everyone's hopes up, then a dissapointing finish - that is Dayton basketball 2002 - 2012."

-KNOBBY

BrownIndians85

This would be a good post if you quoted a source. I thought only real journalists were allowed to print something without naming a source.

If your hypothetical, non-sourced, statement is true, and Georgetown would not be part of the BE7 "package deal", then joining the other 6 to try and make some new conference would make zero sense. Let them try and solicit bids to join nearby conferences.

The BE7 is nothing without Georgetown. And, if Georgetown was up for grabs as a free agent, the A-10 should make a pitch to them and shoot for a 15 team conference.. the 3x5 scenario.

I'm not writing this from a "woe is SBU" position. There are reasons a smaller A-10 could be good for SBU. What I am against is the complete arrogance displayed by the media outlets reporting about these BE7 as if they are the most coveted BB-only schools on the planet. 3 of the 7 couldn't compete successfully in the A-10 as it is. 2/7 would be middle of the pack mediocrity at it's finest. 1/7 would be decent. 1/7 would be outstanding.

That and I'm sick of pages upon pages of trying to convince that Dayton's a good fit for the BE7+. No kidding they'd be a good fit. You don't have to convince anyone. Just don't throw around "facts" that are absolute garbage. If X joined the BE7 then the Cinncy market is covered. I'd go for StL and get another market before I'd duplicate one and tke Dayton.

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WH

Like I said before, it's become Lord of the Flies on this board!

I wonder if the A-10 schools who might consider departure will take awhile to decide. Two big questions need to be answered.

One, do the BE basketball schools get to retain the brand? I think this is a huge issue. Without the brand, the new league doesn't have nearly as much cache. It's very hard to establish a new brand in modern college athletics.

Second, will Georgetown continue to lobby the ACC for a deal like Notre Dame got? If The Hoyas are not part of the new Big East basketball conference - whatever it's name is - is it really such a great thing for an A-10 team to make the switch?

Obviously I have no idea how this will all play out, but I think it would be prudent for schools like Xavier to take their time to evaluate the situation. The schools do not have to make a quick decision.

Flyer75

Its amazing how many people allow ONE poster to drive their whole thinking on a fan base. Fair enough that you clarified that but in your initial rant you lumped us all in that category.

And I fully realize you said NOW...I, and others, tend to disagree.

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