The Holy Land of Hoops

It seems there are a few St. Louis fans who frequent this board and I was just wondering if you guys are hearing anything more than just speculation that you will join the Big East? I have seen posters on other boards post that St. Louis will join. I think every team in the Big East is in agreement that if we add another team than St. Louis is the first choice. My question then is, do we stay at 11? Or if we go to 12 who do we add? I don't want to see this conference go to more than 12.

I know there are similar posts and I am not looking to be repetitive but a post I read on redmen.com (I am a Villanova grad/fan) somebody said St. Louis is going to join the Big East next season. I have no idea if the guy knows what he is talking about though so wanted to see if there is any truth to this. Thanks!

I'm a SLU fan, and I don't think the BE is expanding, which makes SLU a moot point.

The question really hasn't come up much of late, and I think it's a somewhat dead issue among our fanbase for awhile after it didn't happen.

Everything is rumors at this point. Pop onto any board and you will have the same rumors/speculation sometimes even marauding as fact. I've read things as ridiculous as "Dayton and SLU are already in, the Big East just didn't want to take too much from the A10 at once" to as meaningless and unsubstantiated as "My cousin's nephew works at Georgetown and they really support Richmond, it's only a matter of time." What I'm getting at is that expansion may or may not happen soon (it almost certainly will happen eventually) and if anyone who had any inside knowledge wanted to talk we would know already.

I know this is a weird POV on this topic, but shouldn't we be adding another cupcake or 2 to go along with them if they come? It's great to have the strongest conference top to bottom but do we really need a tie from 3rd place all the way to 12th or 13th (if it gets that high)? Look at SJU, Marquette, Xavier, PC, G'Town...do we really need more teams in a log jam? In the ACC there's always Wake Forest, GT, VT, Clemson (usually...except this year), Miami (usually), etc. to pick on for the big guys to get good and fat. I'm also worried about STL becoming another Butler. Ranked and among the best mid majors for a few years, then lose a coach and key players and they turn into a basement team. No disrespect to Butler I really like that program and I'm assuming they will recruit well enough to compete again soon, but my point is that unless we are getting a sure thing like UConn, Cincy, Memphis, etc. I'd be cautious about expanding. To this day I don't understand why those 3 teams won't just let their bygones be bygones in football and just join us for hoops. Those 3 schools are like math wizzes who major in English Literature. They should stick to what they are best at and make decisions accordingly.

UCONN will sacrifice it's basketball to advance their football program. Football people are insane !
I read the UCONN forums and none of them ever mention they'd like to rejoin the Big East. Football means everything to them.
St. Louis would be a good addition and I hope they join. Gonzaga should be added too just for mens basketball. VCU and then Temple . Then you'd have a very formidable league.
Forget about a 10 team league, the goal should be to have as many teams as possible make it to the NCAA's and maybe win a championship .

RedStormNation wrote:I know this is a weird POV on this topic, but shouldn't we be adding another cupcake or 2 to go along with them if they come? It's great to have the strongest conference top to bottom but do we really need a tie from 3rd place all the way to 12th or 13th (if it gets that high)? Look at SJU, Marquette, Xavier, PC, G'Town...do we really need more teams in a log jam? In the ACC there's always Wake Forest, GT, VT, Clemson (usually...except this year), Miami (usually), etc. to pick on for the big guys to get good and fat. I'm also worried about STL becoming another Butler. Ranked and among the best mid majors for a few years, then lose a coach and key players and they turn into a basement team. No disrespect to Butler I really like that program and I'm assuming they will recruit well enough to compete again soon, but my point is that unless we are getting a sure thing like UConn, Cincy, Memphis, etc. I'd be cautious about expanding. To this day I don't understand why those 3 teams won't just let their bygones be bygones in football and just join us for hoops. Those 3 schools are like math wizzes who major in English Literature. They should stick to what they are best at and make decisions accordingly.

The coach left prior to last season. The new guy's done OK. SLU loses some great players off this team, but I don't see a 2 win team @ SLU anytime soon.

SJU87 wrote:UCONN will sacrifice it's basketball to advance their football program. Football people are insane !
I read the UCONN forums and none of them ever mention they'd like to rejoin the Big East. Football means everything to them.
St. Louis would be a good addition and I hope they join. Gonzaga should be added too just for mens basketball. VCU and then Temple . Then you'd have a very formidable league.
Forget about a 10 team league, the goal should be to have as many teams as possible make it to the NCAA's and maybe win a championship .

UConn would leave the Big East the minute the ACC ever wanted them. I don't want schools like that. Also Temple, because of football, would not make sense for the Big East, not to mention Villanova would block them. Besides St. Louis I think it would have to be VCU. If some type of arrangement with Gonzaga could work that would be cool as well. The only other team I could see making sense is BU if they became committed to becoming a stellar basketball team. The Big East likes to have cities and Boston would be huge (Philly, NYC, DC, Omaha, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Providence, Milwaukee, Seton Hall).

ChestRockwell85 wrote:It seems there are a few St. Louis fans who frequent this board and I was just wondering if you guys are hearing anything more than just speculation that you will join the Big East? I have seen posters on other boards post that St. Louis will join. I think every team in the Big East is in agreement that if we add another team than St. Louis is the first choice. My question then is, do we stay at 11? Or if we go to 12 who do we add? I don't want to see this conference go to more than 12.

I know there are similar posts and I am not looking to be repetitive but a post I read on redmen.com (I am a Villanova grad/fan) somebody said St. Louis is going to join the Big East next season. I have no idea if the guy knows what he is talking about though so wanted to see if there is any truth to this. Thanks!

I doubt it will be next season. I have no real inside sources but i would not be shocked is SLU and unknown are identified as joining in two years. It is all money really. Fox's money increase is slated to increase and the odds are the rumored additional money from Fox for 12 will likely become available at that time. Also it allows for the BE to see what happens in post BCS world with the football schools. I highly doubt much will happen but it is worth a peak especially with rumors of a new division, student athlete unions and the like. The next is money for A10 exit fees. a 2 year period allows for SLU and __________ to not have to pay the steep costs for early exits. There are a few other factoids but all the $ point to no SLU next year with a likely 2-3 year period before SLU and ______ join the league.

@ Redstorm with 12 teams you don't need to have a cupcake, assuming you add SLU and Dayton, minus their best 3 years you get two teams that average top 100 RPI against 100 SOS year in and year out (we are talking like 30 years). Assuming they performed at that level that would make them an average BE team this year. If you insert those numbers into the current BE's RPI you will still have a large muddled middle. However your muddled middle will have an average RPI around 40 as opposed to an average RPI of 60. This alone gives you more bids. while the muddled middle is still the bubble it becomes the inside of the bubble. NCAA seeds get better, NIT's become NCAA's and also rans get NIT's and so on. That is more exposure, more tourney units, and more seasoning for the entire league. Long and short if the BE expands a cupcake isn't necessary in fact it would have the opposite effect as it would hurt the overall image of the league.

RedStormNation wrote:I know this is a weird POV on this topic, but shouldn't we be adding another cupcake or 2 to go along with them if they come? It's great to have the strongest conference top to bottom but do we really need a tie from 3rd place all the way to 12th or 13th (if it gets that high)? Look at SJU, Marquette, Xavier, PC, G'Town...do we really need more teams in a log jam? In the ACC there's always Wake Forest, GT, VT, Clemson (usually...except this year), Miami (usually), etc. to pick on for the big guys to get good and fat. I'm also worried about STL becoming another Butler. Ranked and among the best mid majors for a few years, then lose a coach and key players and they turn into a basement team. No disrespect to Butler I really like that program and I'm assuming they will recruit well enough to compete again soon, but my point is that unless we are getting a sure thing like UConn, Cincy, Memphis, etc. I'd be cautious about expanding. To this day I don't understand why those 3 teams won't just let their bygones be bygones in football and just join us for hoops. Those 3 schools are like math wizzes who major in English Literature. They should stick to what they are best at and make decisions accordingly.

Yes by all means. Nothing makes a league better like adding teams that are awful.

I'm not sure your allusions to Wake, GT, VT, Clemson, and Miami are accurate here. Miami and Virginia Tech were not brought to the ACC for their basketball. They are football schools, have been for some time. However, even Miami won the ACC regular season AND ACC Tournament last year soooo... Clemson is on the bubble this year, and if they make the NCAA Tournament, that will be 5 trips to the dance in 7 years for the Tigers, including three that should count double because they were being coached by Oliver Purnell at the time.

Personally, one of the best things about the Big East is that there are no bad teams, and every night is a battle. This will make for compelling conference races and fights for tournament berths down the line (and more importantly, great television).
Live-RPI.com has 7 of the 10 Big East teams in the top 75 for RPI. No other prominent conference can boast that kind of concentration of its teams being at least kind of in the tournament picture.
American (5 of 10)
A-10 (7 of 13)
ACC (9 of 15)
B1G (7 of 12)
Pac-12 (7 of 12)
SEC (6 of 14)

Further, the lowest-ranked team in the Big East right now as Butler at #153. Among the power conferences, only the Big Ten does not have at least one team lower than that (Lowest-ranked team is Penn State at #121). The Pac-12 has two (Washington State & USC). The ACC, A-10, and SEC all have three. The American has FIVE, not including their new additions (#194 East Carolina and #212 Tulane)



I agree with the rest of your post.