GoldenWarrior11 wrote:Just to recap:
Last year, the AAC was a P6 conference, with UCF winning the Fiesta Bowl, UConn winning the National Championships in men's and women's basketball. The Big East was nothing more than a mid-major, as football is currently driving the bus and no one cares about "Little Sisters of the Poor" basketball. The American, which has lower average pay outs to each of the schools with its TV contract than the Big East (which, again doesn't sponsor football), still has a better contract because it has games on ESPN 2 and ESPNU. Finally, Big East schools do not have the resources to compete with the other Power 5 basketball conferences and will soon be regulated to mid-major status.
This year, the AAC was awful, AWFUL, in football. 6 of its schools had non-winning seasons, including 5 schools have 4 or fewer victories. 3 of those schools had 3 or fewer wins. In basketball, they are also really struggling to earn their spot among the strong. They currently have one team that is ranked (#23 SMU). 4 of the schools have losing records (ECU, UCF, Houston, USF). 5 of those schools, in basketball, are averaging under 5,000 people per game.
ECU: 4,565
UCF: 4,064
USF: 4,016
Tulane: 2,688 Includes one conf game at downtown NBA Arena vs Michigan
Houston: 2,416
This year, the Big East is very successful. 7 of the 10 teams have winning records, and still has one of the highest RPI of any of the conferences. 3 of the schools are currently ranked (Villanova, Georgetown and Butler). The league will probably be represented by 6 of the teams in the conference.
My point is this: The AAC's awful year this year should be considered an anomaly, due to the strength of the down schools in the conference (Memphis, UConn)? Interesting how all the AAC folks were convinced that the Big East's down year last year should have been reflective of the conference potential as a whole. Looks to me that AAC fans can dish it out, but can't take it back.
1. There is no P6. Nice try though.
2. The fact that UConn and Memphis have good histories in basketball doesn't mean that this year is an anomaly for the AAC. SMU has NO history in basketball, but they ranked. That makes up for one of the traditional powers being down. The fact is that of the 11 basketball schools in the AAC, only 4 have serious histories in basketball and recent success - UConn, Memphis, Cincinnati, and Temple. Houston has some great history but little to no recent success. The rest constitute a laughing stock of college basketball, i.e. East Carolina, Central Florida, South Florida, Tulane, SMU, and Tulsa. SMU and Tulsa are making some noise this year but years like this are the anomaly for them. Those 6 + a dormant program at Houston is why the AAC is a bad conference.
3. Your attendance figures are quite well chosen. They reflect the lack of interest in college basketball at far too many of the AAC schools. It's not that there isn't a potential fan base available; it's that they just don't care. ECU is a perfect example. They can draw 50,000 for a football games but can't draw 5,000 for basketball games. As a result, the football schools of the AAC put their money into investments in their football programs, not basketball.
4. When they brought in new members during realignment, the AAC failed to make basketball a priority - to their own detriment. They chose Tulsa over UMass. They failed to bring in a basketball school like VCU to complement the football-only membership at Navy. Adding Wichita State as a non-football member would have been a smart move as well to improve their profile in basketball. The objection to a new add like UMass is that their football is laughable. This is true. But they had no problem bringing in football schools whose basketball programs are laughable. With UConn and Memphis in the fold, they have a much better opportunity to achieve power conference status in basketball than in football. In fact they will never achieve power conference status in football. Nonetheless they care about football, and they don't care about basketball.
5. Restricting your analysis of these 2 conferences to the last 2 years is a problem. The reason that last season was regarded as an anomaly is because the Big East is a collection of schools with great history and traditions in the sport. So, people expect that they will be back when they are down. Even in a down year for the Big East, they had 2 teams (Villanova & Creighton) that were ranked much higher than the best AAC school (SMU) in a down year.