Big East Conference Expansion Ideas and Discussion

[BillikensWin]

It was simply your terminology. Nothing more.

[DeltaV]

I see nothing wrong with an 11 team Big East. They played with 9 in the 80's (and the ACC played with 9 for years as well), the Big 10 played with 11 for a long time as well.

This isn't football, where once you hit conference season you never play a weekend out of conference (unless you're scheduling Notre Dame or a service academy). This weekend, Nova played Temple out of conference, Georgetown played Michigan State (Nice win, BTW!). The conference could take SLU now, while they could capitalize on recent success and the new conference to bolster their recruiting, and then wait to see what happens in the future. Maybe Richmond or VCU really distance themselves, Davidson gets hot (I love the idea of pushing south into ACC country, but I think I'm a minority in that view), or Dayton gets a team to warrant their fanbase.

[gosports1]

Notice i said market not region. PC is clearly the favorite over URI. Uconn and Umass are not the same market. Nova is favored over everyone in Philly as well as PSU. St johns is also NYC's team, contrary to what the marketing folks at Syracuse would like everyone to believe

Well, if we are talking markets then there's really not much competition. Marquette is the only major D1 school in Milwaukee, Creighton in Omaha, Butler in Indianapolis (although IU is close), Xavier has competition from Cincy, but judging by attendance numbers I would say Xavier holds an edge, Chicago is probably more of an Illinois lean than DePaul (or Northwestern, for that matter).

I'm referring mostly to media coverage. Do people/MEDIA in the given cities prefer creighton to nebraska, xavier to Ohio St , Butler to Indiana, marquette to wisconsin or Depaul to Illinois? I have no idea but my inclination for most of them is no

[cr8onbb]

For Omaha, Nebrasketball is a joke. Creighton is king. But I agree with you on the others. Now, in terms of overall media coverage, a Husker football spring game sadly gets more coverage than a 2nd round NCAAT Creighton game. We have some work to do in that respect.

[Natty]

edit* double post

[Natty]

2.) Institutional fit with no FBS football, but, politely, scrub third-tier basketball program, and little in the way of NCAA Tournament history, but oh man remember that time five years ago when they made that cinderella run to the Sweet 16? That was awesome. They're totally a program on the rise and won't just revert to form once their coach leaves for a bigger paycheck (Richmond, UMass, VCU, Saint Louis, Davidson, Dayton, etc.).

Correction...it was three season's ago when my scrub third-tier basketball program made that Cinderella run, and it wasn't the Sweet 16, it was the Final 4, which your scrub second-tier program hasn't made since 2003, and you needed Dwayne Wade to do it when we did it with 5'11 Joey Rodriguez. And yes, we are a program on the rise, as our No.14 2014 recruiting class suggests, the first time we've signed three top-100 players in a class in the history of our program (since breaking our record of two two classes ago). And our coach hasn't left, in fact he's turned down programs year after year when everyone said he wouldn't, including some rinky-dink school in California called UCLA who was supposed to be one of those programs you don't turn down (see: 11 National Championships).

VCU is on the rise, just as that Gonzaga team you hold in such high regard was on the rise when they made their SECOND EVER NCAA tournament birth in 1999 (seriously man, they've been nationally relevant for all of 14 years now). No, we haven't made it to the Sweet 16 since losing four seniors post-Final 4 in 2011. Unfortunately we blew a three-point lead in the last minute to some up-and-coming program called "Indiana" the following season, only to see them steal a Sweet 16 bid from us with 11 seconds to play, which basically means our team TOTALLY SUCKED that season. Right? Because a two-point round of 32 loss to Indiana is pretty much the same as not being in the tournament or having any success at all, whereas Gonzaga beating 12-seed Akron then 13-seed Western Kentucky en route to their last Sweet 16 (2009) is TOTALLY AMAZING. Shame we won a mere 27 games the following season before losing in the NCAA tournament to Michigan in Auburn Hills (you try beating a Michigan team in front of 17,000 Michigan fans the season they play in a National Championship game). Probably shouldn't even have received a bid after finishing second in an Atlantic 10 conference that season (side note: two of your current members finished 5th and 7th in that same conference, VCU beat them both...one one the road, the other by 32 points).

You have no vision man.

[SecureDaBall]

I think VCU is the most worthy candidate but I'd like the conference to stay at 10 until the P5 football conferences figure out what they want to do about a split. It makes no sense adding any schools now if there will be better options out there from the schools left out of whatever becomes of the old BCS division.

[Bill Marsh]

Personally my choices would be:

1. Gonzaga
2. VCU
3. SLU
4. Dayton
.....
x. Richmond

If Dayton proves something this year and wins a round or two of the NCAA tournament it would improve my thoughts of them.

My list isn't about finding similar catholic schools in the east, it is about finding schools without big time football that are simply the best. I think Gonzaga is the best team period, and I like what I've seen from VCU the past decade.

SLU, Dayton, and especially Richmond seem too mid-major until they prove otherwise.

But if they added Gonzaga and a school like SLU or Dayton I would still be happy about it.

I proposed the Gonzaga idea here last summer but I couldn't get much agreement on it. I even threw in BYU as a travel partner to make the trips out west more productive but that didn't help.

[Jet915]

Personally my choices would be:

1. Gonzaga
2. VCU
3. SLU
4. Dayton
.....
x. Richmond

If Dayton proves something this year and wins a round or two of the NCAA tournament it would improve my thoughts of them.

My list isn't about finding similar catholic schools in the east, it is about finding schools without big time football that are simply the best. I think Gonzaga is the best team period, and I like what I've seen from VCU the past decade.

SLU, Dayton, and especially Richmond seem too mid-major until they prove otherwise.

But if they added Gonzaga and a school like SLU or Dayton I would still be happy about it.

I proposed the Gonzaga idea here last summer but I couldn't get much agreement on it. I even threw in BYU as a travel partner to make the trips out west more productive but that didn't help.

I'm all for Gonzaga and BYU but I doubt the east coast Presidents are. Or go all in and add Gonzaga, BYU, SLU and VCU. Hot damn, that would be an awesome conference.

[ivet]

Mormans and Catholics don't mix. Plus BYU has football. VCU has a better chance than BYU. If they go west they'll probably pick up St Marys and Gonzaga but I highly doubt we'll expand anymore west than Omaha.