Nice win by Dayton over Gonzaga

[Bill Marsh]

Two surprise teams this year so far are Dayton and UMass. They are playing much better than I thought they would. I chuckle when people talk about expansion and use the Flavor of the Month theme. You must look long term as to a best fit, not what happened in last year's tourney, or for gosh sakes, last night's games. VCU has lost two games, so now they are out of the expansion conversation? And now Dayton is making a statement? Come on, either they are a good fit or they aren't. Three weeks of 2013 basketball doesn't change that.

Dayton is not the flavor of the month. The only schools in the conference who had better attendance last year than Dayton were Creighton and Marquette. They were 26th in the country and it was a typical year for them. The conference simply can't ignore that kind of fan base. The only knock on them was that they hadn't delivered on the court. If they are turning that part of the equation around, there really is no reason not to add them.

I don't think that 2 losses takes VCU out of the conversation at all. None of us know what the thinking is among the presidents, but IMO VCU should be a lock as #11. They simply have too many positives and too little competition in the East. After them, the discussion should be which Midwest school to add as #12.

[Bill Marsh]

I found last night's results to be terribly depressing. I'll bummed put until the conference gets a big win under its belt.v

[PhillyPirate]

UMass is a public school with 20,000 plus students and is an FCS Football team since this year. Doubt they are a target for expansion because of football and institutional fit, though they are playing great now

[hoyahooligan]

Meh. I never thought Gonzaga was that good. I'd like to see Dayton play Syracuse to actually get a meassure of them since I don't think much of Baylor either.

[stever20]

Meh. I never thought Gonzaga was that good. I'd like to see Dayton play Syracuse to actually get a meassure of them since I don't think much of Baylor either.

totally agree about Gonzaga. I think they are the most overrated team out there- and have been for some time.

[cm5yz6]

I kind of feel like the Flyers are a Big East D-League team and if they do well enough they could get promoted. Or maybe we could employ some type of relegation like they do in soccer - best 2 teams from the A10 get to move up to the BigEast for a couple of years and we send a couple down for seasoning.

I've always thought about how this could work in college basketball. It would be so cool if we could figure it out. Imagine a Sienna - Northeastern game really mattering in February because it determines who is promoted. Or equally some conference bottom feeders fighting it out to see who gets to stay. I would imagine there would be some type of end of season tournament say between the bottom 2 of the top flight and the top 2 of the bottom flight to see who gets to go/stay in the top conference. The whole thing sounds interesting (and profitable as the Big East (or any conference) would have rights to double the games and an additional tournament - albeit the second flight of games would not be as intriguing as the top flight).... However, all this is held up (at least in my hypothetical world were things like this could happen) by the issue of NCAA tournament bids. You can't give the top conference and the bottom conference the same amount of bids (ie 1) because then there is no real benefit of being in the top flight (other than prestige and RPI ranking - obviously more teams would get into the tournament from at large bids from the top flight, but i digress)... However, you also want every team to be able to get in and have cinderellas. So my solution would to be to grant the top conferences 2 bids and the bottom conferences 1. The top conferences would award 1 bid for the regular season champ and 1 for the tourney champ, and the bottom would be the tourney champ. This obviously reduces the amount of at-large bids but would also naturally come with larger conferences (i imagine probably 12 on top, 12 on bottom, though a system of 12 on top, 20 on bottom would be interesting). Then again this could easily lead us down the road of being overtaken by football schools, though there are enough bball schools that if there was a restriction on the amount of teams you can have in your top flight (see above) then there would be enough space to go around... Basically, I would love to have the job of trying to make this work and I think it could be a lot of fun - obviously never happening

[cm5yz6]

Two surprise teams this year so far are Dayton and UMass. They are playing much better than I thought they would. I chuckle when people talk about expansion and use the Flavor of the Month theme. You must look long term as to a best fit, not what happened in last year's tourney, or for gosh sakes, last night's games. VCU has lost two games, so now they are out of the expansion conversation? And now Dayton is making a statement? Come on, either they are a good fit or they aren't. Three weeks of 2013 basketball doesn't change that.

Dayton is not the flavor of the month. The only schools in the conference who had better attendance last year than Dayton were Creighton and Marquette. They were 26th in the country and it was a typical year for them. The conference simply can't ignore that kind of fan base. The only knock on them was that they hadn't delivered on the court. If they are turning that part of the equation around, there really is no reason not to add them.

I don't think that 2 losses takes VCU out of the conversation at all. None of us know what the thinking is among the presidents, but IMO VCU should be a lock as #11. They simply have too many positives and too little competition in the East. After them, the discussion should be which Midwest school to add as #12.

Marsh, you think VCU should get in? a lock? I've never heard this opinion from you... please elaborate for the first time on this message board.

[TBC Alum]

[quote I chuckle when people talk about expansion and use the Flavor of the Month theme][/quote]
Myself, I vomit.

On topic, a nice win for DU. Enjoy!

Off topic - PLEASE, NOT ANOTHER EXPANSION THREAD.

PLEASE!!!

[ArmyVet]

I kind of feel like the Flyers are a Big East D-League team and if they do well enough they could get promoted. Or maybe we could employ some type of relegation like they do in soccer - best 2 teams from the A10 get to move up to the BigEast for a couple of years and we send a couple down for seasoning.

This is one of the dumbest comments I have read on this board and its written by from an administrator. I am sure the best way to create stability in a "new" big east is to have a constant shuffling of teams. Playing against lower competition does nothing to season a school, they will take a hit in recruiting. God forbid a coach leaves or their star player (Creighton?) and they have to go through a rebuilding process, looks like they are no longer welcome members. Plus there are all the legal ramifications to consider (scheduling, entrance/exit fees, wait times, etc.). All this would do is show a lack of solidarity within the Big East and would scream mid-major.

It's a great idea but could never happen and no league would agree to it. And I'm pretty sure the admin was just joking about it anyway.

[xavierfano8]

Great win for Dayton no doubt, but don't forget they needed a buzzer beater to beat IPFW and nearly lost to St. Peter's(also gave Cuse a run,but still). Dayton has done this plenty of times and collapsed in conference play. Can't take undefeated away from them now, but I'll wait and see.