The Holy Land of Hoops

It works both ways, this idea of holding to 10 teams. Have an off year, so to speak - our first year in existence mind you - and we ONLY get 4 teams into the Dance. Have the year we're having this year, with a Conference RPI of 2, and the conversation as it stands in early February centers upon about 6 bids.

Is the latter trend more sustainable than the former initial outcome? Absolutely. Precisely because of the 10 schools that are involved and thanks to the long-term riches bestowed on the Big East from Fox. Just look at the recruiting classes coming into this conference. As an abstract example, consider where DePaul may be headed with its new facility and hopefully a new coach. Think just about that. Our "worst" team is about to benefit from a state-of-the-art facility in Chicago. I had to put "worst" in quotes given that DePaul managed to wake-up following its OOC schedule. The point is that our supposedly weakest link is fully capable of becoming very formidable.

It can't be much clearer than it is now. The Presidents know that they've nutted it. There is precisely ZERO pressure or reason to expand the Big East. Even if football realignment and finances caused some attractive football-centric schools with solid hoops programs to become available, it isn't clear that it would make sense even then to expand.

The round robin format is going to create some nice rivalries down the road - - from those that already exist.

JT III in USA Today:

Q: What's your impression of the Big East this year, in Year 2 of the revamped league?

A: What's our league strength of schedule? Two. ... For a year and half, two years, we kept telling people we're made for basketball. At the end of the day, we're going to be one of the best basketball conferences. That's what it's made to do. Year 1, in all honesty, it's hard for me — I should be able to look, big picture, at the Big East last year — but it's hard because of our year. We had a difficult year last year. ... It was hard for me to take a step back and say, whoa, the Big East, because I was thinking, We've got to stay above water here. Last year was tough because of that. I think Year 1 was part of a growing process, obviously. I think that the partnership with Fox is tremendous, but ... Year 1 of any journey is an adjustment process.

We're one of the best basketball conferences. I'm glad people like you are going to start saying that.

Q: This is more of an observation, and something I've noticed with both the Big 12 and Big East being deep and competitive this year. Both leagues have true round-robin formats, which must be nice in this age of mega-conferences.

A: Yes, and the other component which helps a conference that's restarting is that (format) helps build rivalries. You have a tough game here, you know you have to go there. Fans, schools, it helps to build up those rivalries. Every Big East school made a conscious effort to up their out-of-conference scheduling. It's paid off; we had some success. But I do like the home-and-home. I do like the round robin. Obviously, it helps when the league is strong; you're playing seven of 10 teams that are in the (RPI) Top 50 or so. That helps.

Q: I'd think coaches would like that, too, because schedules are balanced. They're not in bigger conferences.

A: They're not. Having lived through that and with another television provider, if you were one of the better teams, your schedule was going to be significantly harder than one of the other teams that was not as good. They wanted to see you. They wanted to see you. They wanted to see you.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/bigeast/2015/01/30/coachs-corner-john-thompson-georgetown/22586915/

Good take by JTIII. So much for the argument that if we did not expand we would not be able to keep up with the bigger conferences getting 5 and 6 bids.

The round robin is gr8.

Also, the size of the conference really adds familiarity with teams. I'm watching almost everygame and have more familiarity with the conference top to bottom than ever before. Absolutely love it.

The old big east was more of a monster in terms of amazing teams, but if you weren't a top 5-7 team I wasn't watching unless you were playing one of the top 5-7 teams, and I wasn't going to bother learning who your players are. Totally different now, and I love it.

One of the main issues when the big east expanded in 2005 was what that would do to the intimate conference feel, and whether that would make things unweildly. And while the conference expansion made the conference awesome, the unwieldy predictions did come true and some teams got lost in the mix.

Not totally related, but Ken Pomeroy wrote a blog recently about the best conference. He used a lot of different metrics. Some where we were the best (median strength) to some where we were the worst (likelihood for Final 4.) But, we were in the discussion, so at least by him we are viewed as a high-major conference.

If we can just get our top teams to make the next step to the final four we will be fine.

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog ... conference

Great post......The premature expansion chatter has been so annoying.

"We're just getting started!"

FormulaX wrote:Great post......The premature expansion chatter has been so annoying.

"We're just getting started!"

It may be annoying, but the only reason it exists is because there were reports out of the conference and Fox from day one that the conference was expected eventually to grow to 12. These comments were then reinforced almost a year later by the Xavier AD when he said that the conference could be expected to expand to 12 within 5 years.

Expansion doesn't preclude continuation of double round robin scheduling. One more member could be added and the conference schedule could be expanded to 20 games. The MAAC is doing that right now with an 11 member conference and double round robin scheduling.

Bill Marsh wrote:Expansion doesn't preclude continuation of double round robin scheduling. One more member could be added and the conference schedule could be expanded to 20 games. The MAAC is doing that right now with an 11 member conference and double round robin scheduling.

So I'll bite... Who's the ideal 11th member?

No j/k, I don't want to start this again.

The Xavier AD was clearly talking out of turn. Everything public comment on the subject since that point (and there's been a lot), including those by valk say the same thing as common sense should tell you. There is no interest in expansion. No one wants it, doubly so because there aren't any suitable candidates (much less 2 or 4)

Edrick wrote:The Xavier AD was clearly talking out of turn. Everything public comment on the subject since that point (and there's been a lot), including those by valk say the same thing as common sense should tell you. There is no interest in expansion. No one wants it, doubly so because there aren't any suitable candidates (much less 2 or 4)

First of all, the fact that they now have all of their people "on message" means absolutely nothing other than the fact that Val has proven herself to be a good CEO. We only have to look at the stealth expansions of the ACC when they grabbed Pitt and Syracuse and of the Big Ten when they added Rutgers and Maryland to see how uninformative "party line" comments are. There were no hints of imminent expansion in either of those cases.

Second, regardless of whether expansion makes sense or not, people are going to talk about it because the conference itself opened it up. As an option with comments both at the time the league was formed and again the following year. It's not like fans are speculating in a vacuum.

Third, no suitable candidates? Who thought that Rutgers was a suitable candidate for the Big Ten before it happened? Or that the West Virginia geography made sense for the Big XII? In order to know if a candidate is suitable, we have to know who's available and exactly what the conference in question is looking for. the ACC and the B1G, for example, were looking for very different things when they made their expansion decisions.