Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

Future Big East member Saint Louis University looking good in the second half of the A-10 championship game.

Add both St Bonnies and SLU...and the Zags

How nice to see this subject listing, we've been waiting patiently for this to be so. Please recognize that some of us Billiken faithful may not live to see the membership being offered.

Good luck in your tourneys, we can't wait to play you, especially on a regular basis.

Happy to bring one more trophy in from the old league... Unfortunately our tournament appearance is going to have to delay the public announcement of SLU moving to the Big East.

STL isn't as big as Butler, Xavier, and Creighton were when they were mid majors. All of those teams were constantly ranked during the year. St. Louis is not. I don't think they have the brand level needed yet.

MullinMayhem wrote:STL isn't as big as Butler, Xavier, and Creighton were when they were mid majors. All of those teams were constantly ranked during the year. St. Louis is not. I don't think they have the brand level needed yet.

Agree with this. It is good though, to always have a couple of programs waiting in the wings if needed. It would be good if St. Louis can turn this into a run of dominance. Duquesne is the other A10 team that fits geographically, is in a good sized market, and has no overlap. They haven't made much noise since the days of the independents, when they were one of the big dogs, but they won 19 games this year, and are finally putting some money into the program. Would like to see them and St. Louis become dominant in the A10, just in case we need to do some addition down the road. Don't want to have to add tiny markets, or overlapping ones.

herodotus wrote:

MullinMayhem wrote:STL isn't as big as Butler, Xavier, and Creighton were when they were mid majors. All of those teams were constantly ranked during the year. St. Louis is not. I don't think they have the brand level needed yet.

Agree with this. It is good though, to always have a couple of programs waiting in the wings if needed. It would be good if St. Louis can turn this into a run of dominance. Duquesne is the other A10 team that fits geographically, is in a good sized market, and has no overlap. They haven't made much noise since the days of the independents, when they were one of the big dogs, but they won 19 games this year, and are finally putting some money into the program. Would like to see them and St. Louis become dominant in the A10, just in case we need to do some addition down the road. Don't want to have to add tiny markets, or overlapping ones.

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You must not know Pittsburgh too well. Duquesne BB is about 15th on the list of interesting sports to the Pittsburgh resident/fan. The Steelers and Pens take up the first 10 spots themselves...then comes Pitt football, then probably the Pirates, then maybe Penn State FB, then West V. FB because of that rivalry, then Pitt BB may be 14th, then Duquesne. And they might even come after Robert Morris. Pittsburgh is not a college BB town. Pitt was solid for a number of years when in the BE but college BB has basically died in Pittsburgh since they left for the ACC and became irrelevant. I would HATE the idea of Duquesne to be honest. SLU could make sense based on market size and potential but Dusquesne would become DePaul with a much smaller market size.

We keep talking about Saint Louis.

They haven't been good outside of the Majerus years and a couple of years after he died with his recruits.

Not sure if Travis Ford can perform but until I took a look at them I thought they were historically better than they have been

Congratulations to SLU, who really turned their season around in the past week with an excellent A10 Tournament. Travis Ford took at team that was dead last in the A10 three years ago, and has them dancing after an A10 Tournament championship in Year 3. Very impressive. There is little doubt that SLU is attempting to position itself for a future BE invitation. They have the basketball budget, the market and the institutional fit that the league desires and a home arena that is on-par with our membership. If/when they get basketball performing at a consistent level at the top of the A10, the dominoes will start to fall in their favor.

Personally, I would argue that the time is now, this Spring, to add an eleventh member. Doing so would allow our membership to increase its content, move to a 20-game conference schedule (while still keeping the round robin), and increase our presence at MSG for the Big East Tournament. By selling out every session of this year's conference tournament, the next step of our league's growth *should* be to increase the amount of games we have there. SLU has consistently traveled well to Brooklyn for the A10 Tournament, and there is little doubt that it would continue in the Big East. Additionally, our league membership would be adding a peer institution - a private, Jesuit school, with strong academics, a high enrollment and endowment, is located in a top media market (which now does not have an NFL team during the winter months to take away interest), and that is also rising to be one of the top men's basketball programs in the A10.

The mathematical data supports an addition to the league as increasing the average number of bids per year. Grabbing SLU in the near-term, especially after they have earned another tournament bid, would allow them to earn a portion of our current television (which our TV contract allows) and grow into becoming a strong and valuable member of the Big East long-term (just as Butler, Creighton and Xavier have) in advance of our next television deal.

3 thoughts:

1. If it makes sense to Fox, then it makes sense, because SLU adds a great institution in a big town that provides more connectivity to Creighton.

2. Before any contracts are signed to make it official, someone from SLU has to come over here and explain what is and why they came up with a BILLIKEN.

3. The Providence mascot is going to be ecstatic, because he'll look handsome, standing next to the Billiken in the conference mascot photo shoot.