brianstl1

The ten team Big 12 got 6 teams in last year. The Big East regularly put more than half their teams in the tournament.

jpschmack

That 10-team Big XII also had three of the top six teams in the country according to the polls. One of which left the conference. They've already lost more conference games than last season.

Also, the Pac-12 sent two teams last season (They really deserved one bid).

So as a general rule of thumb, the top half of each BCS conferences getting bids is a solid ballpark guideline.... with the top two conferences generally getting a bid or two from the lowest two rated of the six.

BrownIndians85

You're right, there have been many excellent thoughts posted on this thread. Not surprisingly, none of them came from you. While you continue to make excellent use of your cut&paste function and quote the most ridiculous sources for your information, I got many good repsonses from X and UD fans alike.

While I understand the allure of trying the BE7 on for size, I think the "invited" schools will eventually suffer buyers' regret of one fashion or another. As AdamTheFlyer has eloquently pointed out, it's unlikely the NCAA is going to hand out 6-7 bids to this new 10-team conference if that's indeed what happens. Especially when you take into account that 4 of the programs in BE7+ are low-mediocre teams with limited ability to "re-rise". So you need more schools. So you profit share diminishes.

I don't have sour grapes. I know SBU inside and out, and understand where we're at. If X, Butler, and St. Louis believe a 10-team league will be better revenue-wise, then so be it. Better to share NCAA units among 10 than among 14. Competitively, it will be interesting to see what plays out after the BE7 suddenly find themselves unable to schedule the likes of UConn, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, and Cincinnati - because that day arrives as soon as the split takes effect. Those gaudy, bloated RPI numbers just won't quite shine the same when you can't boost your profile by losing over half your games.

The arrogance of the self-proclaimed most coveted 7 schools in history will come to roost. Oh, they're sticking together now come hell or high water, but do you honestly think Georgetown believes in the bottom 4? Or shoot, even in any of the other 6? Short of a split amongst the BE7, the BB-only power conference simply isn't happening. ESPN loves the idea. The chosen few love the idea. The four at the bottom of the BE7 REALLY love the idea. Time will tell.

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paulxu

Brown, you make some great points...but what were the BB only schools suppose to do, short of leaving the BE?

If you are a small, private school and your conference is adding and subtracting members every year, with zero stability, you find yourself at everybody else's mercy.

This year your baseball team goes to Conn. to play a game. Next year that team is travelling to Boise St and San Deigo. Has to drive you nuts.

The BB only idea may turn out to be a disaster, but if they've got ESPN on board and add a few good schools, it makes sense to give it a go.

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

AdamtheFlyer

Regularly? Not really. Less than half the time actually. And that's in the deepest league in the country.

The leagues that do approach and occasionally top 50% regularly have 9 or more teams capable of getting a bid. The new league as discussed will have 10 total programs. Again, knowing how leagues work, that will give you 5, occasionally 6 possible NCAA teams. Sometimes only 4. Knowing how the bubble works, not every worthy team will get a bid.

The rumored 10 team league will start out much closer to a three bid league than a 5 bid league. I would guess it would average something like 3.5 bids over a decade.

A 12 team league would likely cross the 4 bid per year average. You're looking at 5 more bids over a 10 year span, and with that comes more teams winning games and gaining even more units. Not to mention more games on TV, meaning better TV deals.

Again, 10 is a very shortsighted number, no matter what teams are added.

__________________
Sure, I've been called a xenophobe, but the truth is, I'm not. I honestly just feel that America is the best country and the other countries aren't as good. That used to be called patriotism.

xudash

GOMUSKIES on Xavierhoops gets full credit on the attached - he shared it there:


http://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...uestory16.html

deja vu, all over again.

Same driving principals. Same natural pull to certain outcomes.

SingletofTruth

WH, I completely agree with you on this. I could see the "new league" (in most of the forms that are being discussed) settling into a 3-4 bid league which isn't much better than the current A-10 and arguably worse. The BE7 won't see Syracuse, Pitt, U Conn etc walking through the door anymore. As much as the fans of XU, Butler, Dayton, SLU, VCU, etc may disagree, the A-10 schools just are not on that level and it will have an impact on recruiting and national perception.

I am with Adam on the go big idea. I really like the idea of a large private/basketball-centric league. Let's pull in St Joes, the Dukes, VCU, Richmond, Butler, Dayton, SLU, Creighton and, why not, even the Bonnies. The size would provide some protection against defections (Georgetown, etc, with higher aspirations) and it would create one heck of a platform for basketball focused schools and their fans. I could get behind that league and it would contain enough quality programs to place more than 3-4 schools in the dance per year. It would seem to have TV appeal as well. Sadly, I don't think the larger league idea stands a chance.

And, WH, apologies for the omission but it seems like your school aspires out the A-10 with its football ambitions. Which is too bad because I really like UMass from a hoops perspective (notwithstanding the fact that the refs robbed us when they got all whistle happy on Chris Daniels after he started dominating Camby.....).

jpschmack

I really see no valid argument against including Dayton and having 12 teams. There's 4-5 arguments that could possibly be made:

#1 - Dayton isn't good enough in men's basketball.
-- They've done better than St. John's, Saint Louis, DePaul and Providence the last decade. So why you including them?

#2 - Dayton's market isn't big enough.
-- Fans and TV viewers are not limited to metro arenas. Middletown isn't exclusively Xavier territory, and very soon, it will be the Cincy-Middletown-Dayton DMA, which Xavier + Dayton delivers.

#3 - Expanding past 10 reduces inventory of a double-round robin.
-- Nothing prevents 12 teams from playing an 18-game conference schedule with seven opponents twice. Scheduling those seven extra games for TV would be easy. Not everyone is a TV draw for everyone else. Marquette-Dayton probably has a lot more appeal than Marquette-Providence.

#4 - Travel issues surface because you'd have to take an Eastern Team for divisions!
-- No you don't need divisions based on geography (see above). And with 10 teams, you'd have one crazy travel-partner anyway. Nothing would change if you took Creighton over VCU for #12. Although, since VCU has a Final Four recently, I don't see why you wouldn't take them.

#5 - Dayton & Richmond/Omaha don't bring enough more to the TV deal to justify splitting the revenue two more ways.
-- That could be true. However…

$1.5 million per school = $15 million. Adding two more teams would be $1.25 million per school on a $15 million TV contract.

But if two more teams gets you one more bid (each bid being worth $1.5 million), it gives you more opportunities to win more NCAA games, and earn more units. Not to mention that getting an extra bid keeps someone else out of the field, earning money so they can try to afford competing with you.

Honestly, if I'm a BE7 school, I'm willing to take a $250,000 per year gamble that taking UD and VCU would kill, and lead to AT LEAST one more NCAA bid and an average of 1.5 NCAA shares a year, offsetting the loss of a splitting the the TV contract a couple extra ways.

And it's not like the Dayton and Richmond markets would bring $0 additional TV dollars. They might not bring $3 million more total, but they could probably get half of that, making the addition bid a break-even proposition and any tournament win that extra bid gets you is a bonus.

College Hoops

For years I had thought the split in the BE was inevitable. when the seven schools announced they were leaving, I thought Butler, Dayton SLU X and any A-10 school would want to join them. After thinking about it for a couple of days, I'm not so sure.Now, its the Jerry McGuire "show me the money" approach. You've got four of the seven programs who from a national perspective have as much significance as a gnat's fart. In other words they haven't done a whole lot. A fifth (Nova) has had some success, but lately seems to be treading the waters of mediocrity. You're going to be new kids in the family, and will be in the minority with respect to any conference votes. How many teams will there be? If its 10, getting more then 3 bids is going to be difficult. It also means more ooc games, and good ooc games are not always easy to to schedule on a home and home basis.Your moving into a conference where the teams play many of their home games in arenas they lease. How much will that affect scheduling and receipts? By adding one team, Creighton expands the A-10 Conference footprint and the perception of the league overall. Again, if I represent the leadership of a school being invited to join the BE 7 its show me the money.

GoMuskies

That's not accretive according to your math. Adding two teams to gain half a bid per year on average is one quarter of a bid per team added. You had the ten team league with 3+ bids per year, which is .3 bids/team per year. Adding 2 teams to get 5 extra bids per decade would then be dilutive. You need AT LEAST six extra bids per decade to break even.

paulxu

Adam, here is a possible 10 team league (predicated primarily on the maximum market coverage/past NCAA bids/similar size-type of school) and their number of bids in the last 10 years:

Xavier 9
Marquette 8
Villanova 7
Georgetown 6
Butler 6
Creigton 4
Seton Hall 2
St John, Prov, and De Paul 1 each

That's 45 bids in 10 years. You might think they could hold a 4.5 average per year without expanding. I realize some units bids were earned in different conferences, but that should average out.

If you added 2 schools from the next group of candidates mentioned most often with the same criteria noted above;

VCU 5 (reference only as they don't really fit the school profile unfortunately)
Richmond 3
Dayton 3
St Louis 1

Adding 2 of those schools to get you to 12 will historically only pick you up a .4 bid/year. Then I guess you could do the math on whether the math result from splitting the TV money vs. the less-than-1/2 bid possibility is worth going from 10 to 12.

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Chetburger

If the A10 remained in tact and did nothing, but BE7 would have to join the A10 somehow. They would be out of options. So in a sense, Xavier and Butler are making a distinct choice: whether they want to be a part of a few/all of the BE7 teams within the A10, or without the A10.

If Xavier and Butler choose to be with some/all of the BE7 without the A10, what they are really choosing is a separation from the A10 itself, rather than a choice to join forces with the BE7. Because they can join forces with the BE7 either way. So XU and BU are basically saying "we value leaving the A10 more than we value playing the BE7."

As I said, if the A10 does nothing, the BE7 must join. Maybe not all, but some. Creighton, Zags, etc will not uproot their ADs and fly across 2-3 times zones to play 3 decent programs and 4 average ones. The BE7 needs more good teams to sell itself to those more distant schools to make it worth those schools' time and hassle.

So if you are St. Joe, Richmond, Bonas, etc, Xavier and Butler are basically telling you off to the point that even IF the BE7 were to join the A10, just having you also in the league is a worse option than just playing the BE7 alone.

I suppose its possible for Butler to choose to leave the A10 before they play their first A10 game.

__________________
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"Shaving points for cash since 1997."

paulxu

There is another way of saying it.
Maybe it's "there's more value in joining the BE 7 than staying, knowing that the 7 must have made a pact to leave, and the A10 doesn't have room for all of them."

__________________
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bprichard

And surely the BE7 made some informal discussions with their targets before deciding to leave the Big East. The A10 making a powerplay for the BE7 is not a realistic concept.

xudash

More supposed G2, this time from the Georgetown board:

What happened to NoBoumtjeInTheYaYaRoom? He had the inside scoop


Still here. Not sure there is much more to tell. Barring a change of heart from either side the 7 will retain Big East name and MSG. League members will decide on 10, 12 or 14 by 1st of year. Xavier Butler and Creighton are top 3 choices. And it would be a shock to all parties if separation didnt occur by summer 2014.[