jpschmack

I don't understand the logic of "let's kick teams out because they haven't made the NCAA tournament enough."

In 2000, the Bonnies made the dance. And beat Xavier twice. X finished 20-11 and didn't make the NCAAs. Are you upset that hasn't happened more frequently?

For Fordham, Duquesne, Bona, LaSalle, etc had more NCAA bids… odds are Temple, Xavier, etc would have less. This is what I was trying to explain earlier during the whole "BE10 getting 4-5 bids and the A10 getting 2-4 bids" thing.

Conferences are intra-related creatures.

Now we don't HAVE to get bids at the expense of each other. We always will to some degree, but we can get MORE bids. But to get more bids, you need more teams winning OOC games. Because we're guaranteed to go .500 against each other.

You look at OOC records, who's winning games and who'd not getting the job done.

Looking at NCAA bids isn't how you decide to kick out teams (As if that was a realistic possibility anyway). Besides, you can FIX a lack of OOC wins by scheduling teams that are easier to beat.

This is why the Big Ten has zero problem with Northwestern, or the SEC has zero problem with Vanderbilt Football. They LIKE beating those teams.

The only reason having a bottom feeder is ever a problem is if they aren't smart enough to schedule weak OOC and get some wins to helpt the league.

bprichard

Basketball and football are completely different beasts. If Alabama goes undefeated in football, they're going to the national championship game. In basketball, placement in the tournament is subjective. Non-BCS conferences often have a difficult time scheduling home games with big name schools, making building a good resume much more difficult. And when you have a team or teams who can't schedule OOC for wins because they can't find teams bad enough to beat, that's going to be a drag on the entire league due to the use of a pretty flawed mechanism, RPI, to compare teams at selection time.

jpschmack

Yes!

Every conference goes .500 against itself. The top five teams in a conference are going 13-3, 12-4, 11-5, 10-6 (or 14-4, 13-5, 12-6, 11-7). What makes some conferences rated higher than others is their OOC records.

19 of Xavier's 33 games were against A-10 opponents. It's not in Xavier's best interest to have teams like Duquesne, LaSalle, Bona, Fordham, URI and GW play a ton of tough teams OOC, go 4-8, then beat Xavier in A-10 play. Because then those six A10 teams will be 11-19 overall, and lower Xavier's SOS.

If they play a bunch of cupcakes, and go 11-3 OOC; when they play Xavier all those games against 18-12 teams helps Xavier get at-large bids and good NCAA seeds.

I disagree with you though on "can't find teams bad enough." There's 345 teams. The A-10 team with the worst OOC record last season played TEN games vs teams from the top 10 conferences OOC last year. Over the summer, I went thru everyone's OOC's last year and pulled 2-3 games each where you could say "We all knew you were losing that one, why schedule it?"

X-man47

As I stated on another thread, my preference would be to add 2-4 teams from the BE7 rather than jump to the BE7. This is because (1) the A10 with the additions (or frankly even without the additions) is a better league than the BE7, and (2) I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the better schools in the BE7 bolt from the new league as reallignment continues. The A10 is a great league, even losing Temple, and I don't want the Muskies to leave it. Back to the question...add G'town and Marquette first, and then add St John's and possibly Villanova second. The rest are not worthy of addition to the league. End of story.

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Xavier always goes to the NCAA tournament, and almost always makes some noise while there. Projecting anything less than that this season feels like folly.
Eamonn Brennan, ESPN (Summer Shootaround, 2012)

Bona84

Whatever. I continued the conversation because you didn't answer my question the first time.

I get your response. No question that Bona lost it's way when the basketball world was taken over by TV in the 80s. Bona found it's way again in the late 90s only to be taken down by idiots in 2003. Now that the administration and Schmidt, a former Xavier guy, have returned the program to competitiveness, you want to cast us aside. Ok.

By the way, I'm a fan of Xavier's program, and would very much like the Bonnies to achieve that level of success.

I also wonder how long it might be before you are wishing to cast aside Providence, Seton Hall or DePaul.

The conversation does not need to continue. I'll leave you to your Xavier is better than Dayton fetish.

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Bona84

res

I am biased against including Georgetown from having lived in the DC area for over 30 years. But the Hoyas seem to be atop most of the rest of your lists, so let's go ahead and accept them. Now, as a thought experiment, I thought it would be interesting to evaluate who else to take by looking at it from a Georgetown fan's perspective. Who do they pay to see? A poster on the Holy Cross message board provided these re-sale offers from a ticket holder with seats at center court, but in the highest tier of the Verizon Center.

Georgetown.v. Louisville $45.
Georgetown v. Tenn, Pitt, Marquette, St. John's $35.
Georgetown v OOC, Seton Hall, Providence, DePaul, Rutgers, $10.
Georgetown v. Syracuse, call for price.

I then perused Stub Hub. The lowest price on offer for Syracuse was about $83, $29 for Louisville. Pitt was $16, St. John's $13. Everyone else was single digits.

I admit, what I have presented is not the most scientific of samples, but I can only conclude that even Georgetown fans don't want to watch the BE7 play, with the possible exception of the Johnnies.

I wonder how much they'd be willing to pay to see the Flyers?

EDIT: I stand corrected. Those prices offered for center court seats in the 400 tier are from the Georgetown website, not from a reseller.

xudash

I have nothing but respect for the Bonnies program. I really do. You guys have proven that you can contribute to this conference. Amplifying what you mentioned, the Bonnies have been able to do that repeatedly, even having to build itself up from the ashes caused by self-inflicted wounds about a decade ago.

You also mentioned basketball having been taken over by television in the 80's. With respect to the Bonnies, in particular, you've nutted why this environment is so difficult in St. Bonaventure's case. If all this were simply about BASKETBALL, then the Bonnies have proven they have every right to remain relevant at the NCAA D1 table. But it just isn't about basketball anymore. It's about sports business at the collegiate level. It's about using sports to brand and market universities. In short, we all know this means that television appeal has been brought into the picture, along with the other program attributes that were always there: administrative support, facilities, budget, coaching, track record and tradition, etc.

We also understand, now more than ever, that like-minded institutions are aligning themselves with one another for purposes of forming or expanding athletic conferences in order to maximize their funding, "market" reach and competitiveness. We know what the B1G is about. We know what the SEC is about, etc. Down where all of us play exists an opportunity to form what may be regarded as the best or second best conference outside of what may become the Big4 conferences.

Where are the Bonnies in the context of all that? The perception is such that the Bonnies do well on a small budget in a remote area, but with a loyal following in a not-so-fun (for the competition) facility. Do the Bonnies register in Buffalo for TV purposes? I don't know, but my opinion doesn't matter. If the TV people say it registers, then that's one obstacle checked off. Otherwise, is the operating budget sufficient as compared to, say, Marquette's, or Georgetown's, etc.? That question probably attracts a "no" answer.

The Bonnies are the reigning A10 champs. They showed well in the Dance. The Bonnies have every right to be proud and they should continue to do well from here in a remodeled A10. Beyond that, if you accept that joining the BE7 is perceived to be the cat's meow, there appears to be room for 2, 3 or 5. It seems clear that X is one of the two, with Butler being the other immediate add candidate. It also is clear that SBU isn't getting many mentions for that conference for various reasons.

But let me put it this way: if Xavier leaves for this other thing - and the anticipation and act of doing that isn't about arrogance, it's about perceived opportunity (business) - and Xavier and the Bonnies run into one another in the NCAA Tournament and we lose to you, I will kick my chair in anger, then I'll smile and raise a toast to St. Bonaventure.

Bona84

I agree with your points, dash. My commentary was related to xavierhoops "best case scenario" of the A-10 dumping the Bonnies.

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Bona84

College Hoops

I seriously doubt that Seton Hall, DePaul and Providence went along with the other four schools without an agreement that they would stay together, at least for a period of time. I'm sure they feel its easier to create a strong conference regardless of the number of members, by choosing the schools to invite.

On the other hand whether the A-10 loses two or three teams, their biggest problem and the one preventing them from bringing in the BE 7 are the teams that really haven't made strides in their program either on the court or in the stands. If its Butler, SLU & X who leave, arguably, the A-10 could make a run at Gonzaga, St. Marys Creighton Wichita State Murray State etc. but to entice them, I think some current schools would have to move to different conferences,and thats not apt to happen.

RF1

The Big East CYO-7 should take LaSalle, Fordham, SBU, and Duquense keeping their league footprint in the northeast and all the members small Catholic schools.