Big East Conference Expansion Ideas and Discussion

[aughnanure]

It's also worth pointing out the following:

1. Air planes routinely fly at 600 mph.
2. Regardless of whether it's a short trip or a long trip, the hassle of getting to and from the airport, going through baggage and check in, etc is all the same. Once you're in the air, an extra hour or even two is no big deal.
3. Most of the problems of travel are readily solved with intelligent scheduling and divisional play. It's probably one trip to the East Coast per year for Gonzaga. I think they can manage that.
4. Regardless of how many time zones they cover, there certainly are conferences that have the same span of distance as the Big East would have with Gonzaga.

Any credibility you may have established with regard to your first three points is immediately undermined by the complete nonsensicality of the fourth. Take a good look at this map and tell me with a straight face that any conference worth its salt routinely faces the same kind of travel as you're proposing for Gonzaga. http://collegesportsinfo.com/ncaa-map/

Longest Road trip in select Division I Conferences
Big West: 2,446 miles (Davis, CA to Manoa, HI)

"Big East Plus Gonzaga": 2,260 miles (Providence, RI to Spokane, WA)

Conference USA: 1,753 miles (Norfolk, VA to El Paso, TX)

WAC: 1,743 miles (Bakersfield, CA to Chicago, IL)

American: 1,534 miles (Storrs, CT to Houston, TX)

ACC: 1,260 miles (Coral Gables, FL to Chestnut Hill, MA)

Pac-12: 1,222 miles (Seattle, WA to Tucson, AZ)

Big 12: 1,193 miles (Morgantown, WV to Austin, TX)

Big 10: 1,164 miles (New Brunswick, NJ to Lincoln, NE)

West Coast: 1,030 miles (Spokane, WA to San Diego, CA)

Atlantic 10: 1,007 miles (St. Louis, MO to Kingston, RI)

SEC: 924 miles (College Station, TX to Columbia, SC)


Long Story Short: A "Big East plus Gonzaga" would mean Gonzaga would routinely face the longest intra-conference road trip in the Continental United States, which would be almost 25% farther than the nearest contender. It's actually a shorter trip for Providence to fly to the Azores than it is to go to Gonzaga.

When I prove you wrong, what are you going to do about calling my point nonsensical?

Big West: 2,460 miles (Honolulu, HI to Sacramento, CA)

WAC: 2010 miles (Seattle, WA to Brownsville, TX)

When flying at 600 mph, the extra 250 mile compared to the WAC is exactly 25 minutes. You seriously consider that a significant difference?

Even the 500 mile difference compared with CUSA is only an additional 50 minutes.

If the Big XII decides to expand to 12, they'll add BYU in a heart beat if BYU is willing. They won't bat an eye at the 1680 miles between Provo and Morgantown. The additional 570 miles for PC to Spokane is less than an hour.

I understand why you're having a problem with this. It's because you chose to ignore my first 3 points. Most of the time with air travel is consumed with getting to and from the airport, checking in, security, waiting, boarding, disembarking, baggage pick up, etc. whether the flight is 200 miles or 2000 miles, all of that remains the same. You can add 600 miles to a trip and only add an extra hour. It's really not that big a deal.

I think that it's up to Gonzaga to decide if it's worth it. But intelligent scheduling can alleviate a lot of problems. If they play East Coast schools only once a year, that's a road trip East to only half the schools each year. If scheduled during intercession, that can be done in one trip with 3 games. After that, travel time isn't much different than what they already have in The WCC. Scheduling is completely within the control of the conference, so they can make it a priority to minimize the impact.

A travel partner like BYU would make the trip out west more productive for the rest of the conference since they could knock off 2 games with one round trip. Again, for the East Coast schools, it would be one road trip out west every other year.

I'm not saying that expanding with Gonzaga and BYU is the best idea in the world, but it actually is doable. Remember that my original comment on this subject was that if Fox wanted to add more attractive programming, Gonzaga and BYU would be the most appealing solution to them. I stand by that comment. My hunch is that Fox would love it.

This +1 million. Can we stop acting like sitting down...in a seat....on a plane an extra 90 minutes is some insane notion. The players end up getting to their hotels and sitting down playing video games anyways. Is there much of a difference?

Give Gonzaga an extra million/yr for travel costs and we're good.

First off Gonzaga already travels ridiculously far for all their sports. Secondly, actually look at your non-basketball sports' schedules. They already travel to the west coast at least once a year (or at least Texas/Florida)...probably multiple times).

[HoosierPal]

This is getting silly. Half the posters say stay on the East Coast. Half the posters say bring in West Coast teams. And then another half say expand into the Midwest. (Oops, that's three halves.)

[lolhoya]

Uh if public schools worked great then why aren't there anymore of them in the Big East?

Football. Most public schools have it. VCU doesn't.

[notkirkcameron]

This +1 million. Can we stop acting like sitting down...in a seat....on a plane an extra 90 minutes is some insane notion. The players end up getting to their hotels and sitting down playing video games anyways. Is there much of a difference?

Give Gonzaga an extra million/yr for travel costs and we're good.

First off Gonzaga already travels ridiculously far for all their sports. Secondly, actually look at your non-basketball sports' schedules. They already travel to the west coast at least once a year (or at least Texas/Florida)...probably multiple times).

Like you said, it's not just the travel for basketball. It's the travel for all the other sports which favors geographic compactness. Spokane is not that big a town, which means it's not that big an airport. Which means you can't really get direct commercial flights. That means more time traveling and more dollars spent, unless Gonzaga wants to fly the women's soccer team charter from Spokane to Philly...and Providence....and Chicago....and Cincinati...with a layover in Denver or Sea-Tac or Detroit each time.

West Virginia is already complaining about their travel schedule in the Big 12, because (surprise!) there aren't exactly a ton of flights from Pittsburgh (closest major airport to Morgantown) to Ames, Iowa and Lubbock, Texas; and WVU is a large, public university, while the Big East is a conference overwhelmingly made up of smaller, private universities. Saint Louis complains about their extra travel in the A-10, where they are the geographic outlier. We can debate the airspeed velocity of unladen airplanes (or swallows) all day. The point remains that unless Gonzaga moves their campus to Boston, for me personally, they are an unattractive candidate for Big East expansion, and I suspect I'm not alone in this regard. I don't like Gonzaga in the Big East, and I especially don't like it if Marquette is paying their cab fare.

[Jet915]

Gonzaga, BYU, SLU and whoever they want on the east coast (Richmond or VCU). That's a 7 bid league.

[lolhoya]

Remember who is running this conference: college presidents. Presidents from academically strong schools. Eggheads. The anti-public school thing isn't about FOIA, it is about academic reputation!

Those guys aren't going to waive their standards for just anyone. If UConn drops football - sure. Heck, maybe even if UMass drops football (it would be nice to have the entire state of Mass as a market). But schools like VCU, Wichita St, etc.? Ain't happening!

On the athletic side, if there was only one public school, it is important to realize that they would be able to get in kids that NOBODY else in the conference can get it. That matters. If you are going to waive your standards, you do it for a big return - like a huge fanbase or a huge TV market.

There are plenty of public schools that have great academics. So is this really about public schools? Or is it about academics?

If it's about academics, I think that's a terrible reason. I do agree with you that the presidents may worry about this, but I think it's stupid. This is an ATHLETIC conference. We are not competing in chess and debate. People don't associate conference schools with each other academically, unless you are talking about the Ivy League. Do people think of Georgetown and St. John's as being on the same academic level? No.

For that matter, VCU compares very well with some of the schools already in the league. Check out the average SAT scores.

And are you insinuating that VCU can accept basketball players that the other schools can't? Sorry to burst your bubble, but all of the schools in the conference will accept virtually any basketball player that can qualify with the NCAA. This is big time basketball.

[NJRedman]

Any credibility you may have established with regard to your first three points is immediately undermined by the complete nonsensicality of the fourth. Take a good look at this map and tell me with a straight face that any conference worth its salt routinely faces the same kind of travel as you're proposing for Gonzaga. http://collegesportsinfo.com/ncaa-map/

Longest Road trip in select Division I Conferences
Big West: 2,446 miles (Davis, CA to Manoa, HI)

"Big East Plus Gonzaga": 2,260 miles (Providence, RI to Spokane, WA)

Conference USA: 1,753 miles (Norfolk, VA to El Paso, TX)

WAC: 1,743 miles (Bakersfield, CA to Chicago, IL)

American: 1,534 miles (Storrs, CT to Houston, TX)

ACC: 1,260 miles (Coral Gables, FL to Chestnut Hill, MA)

Pac-12: 1,222 miles (Seattle, WA to Tucson, AZ)

Big 12: 1,193 miles (Morgantown, WV to Austin, TX)

Big 10: 1,164 miles (New Brunswick, NJ to Lincoln, NE)

West Coast: 1,030 miles (Spokane, WA to San Diego, CA)

Atlantic 10: 1,007 miles (St. Louis, MO to Kingston, RI)

SEC: 924 miles (College Station, TX to Columbia, SC)


Long Story Short: A "Big East plus Gonzaga" would mean Gonzaga would routinely face the longest intra-conference road trip in the Continental United States, which would be almost 25% farther than the nearest contender. It's actually a shorter trip for Providence to fly to the Azores than it is to go to Gonzaga.

When I prove you wrong, what are you going to do about calling my point nonsensical?

Big West: 2,460 miles (Honolulu, HI to Sacramento, CA)

WAC: 2010 miles (Seattle, WA to Brownsville, TX)

When flying at 600 mph, the extra 250 mile compared to the WAC is exactly 25 minutes. You seriously consider that a significant difference?

Even the 500 mile difference compared with CUSA is only an additional 50 minutes.

If the Big XII decides to expand to 12, they'll add BYU in a heart beat if BYU is willing. They won't bat an eye at the 1680 miles between Provo and Morgantown. The additional 570 miles for PC to Spokane is less than an hour.

I understand why you're having a problem with this. It's because you chose to ignore my first 3 points. Most of the time with air travel is consumed with getting to and from the airport, checking in, security, waiting, boarding, disembarking, baggage pick up, etc. whether the flight is 200 miles or 2000 miles, all of that remains the same. You can add 600 miles to a trip and only add an extra hour. It's really not that big a deal.

I think that it's up to Gonzaga to decide if it's worth it. But intelligent scheduling can alleviate a lot of problems. If they play East Coast schools only once a year, that's a road trip East to only half the schools each year. If scheduled during intercession, that can be done in one trip with 3 games. After that, travel time isn't much different than what they already have in The WCC. Scheduling is completely within the control of the conference, so they can make it a priority to minimize the impact.

A travel partner like BYU would make the trip out west more productive for the rest of the conference since they could knock off 2 games with one round trip. Again, for the East Coast schools, it would be one road trip out west every other year.

I'm not saying that expanding with Gonzaga and BYU is the best idea in the world, but it actually is doable. Remember that my original comment on this subject was that if Fox wanted to add more attractive programming, Gonzaga and BYU would be the most appealing solution to them. I stand by that comment. My hunch is that Fox would love it.

This +1 million. Can we stop acting like sitting down...in a seat....on a plane an extra 90 minutes is some insane notion. The players end up getting to their hotels and sitting down playing video games anyways. Is there much of a difference?

Give Gonzaga an extra million/yr for travel costs and we're good.

First off Gonzaga already travels ridiculously far for all their sports. Secondly, actually look at your non-basketball sports' schedules. They already travel to the west coast at least once a year (or at least Texas/Florida)...probably multiple times).

What the hell are you talking about? Why does Gonzaga deserve more money than everyone else? Why do we need to send our Volleyball teams to Spokane Washington? The Zags aren't Duke, they don't deserve the special treatment. What happens if they can't handle the increase in competition? What do we do then with this albatross on the other side of the country? They aren't worth the headache and everyone has known that for over a year now. The Presidents aren't inviting them, discussion over.

[Bill Marsh]

This +1 million. Can we stop acting like sitting down...in a seat....on a plane an extra 90 minutes is some insane notion. The players end up getting to their hotels and sitting down playing video games anyways. Is there much of a difference?

Give Gonzaga an extra million/yr for travel costs and we're good.

First off Gonzaga already travels ridiculously far for all their sports. Secondly, actually look at your non-basketball sports' schedules. They already travel to the west coast at least once a year (or at least Texas/Florida)...probably multiple times).

Like you said, it's not just the travel for basketball. It's the travel for all the other sports which favors geographic compactness. Spokane is not that big a town, which means it's not that big an airport. Which means you can't really get direct commercial flights. That means more time traveling and more dollars spent, unless Gonzaga wants to fly the women's soccer team charter from Spokane to Philly...and Providence....and Chicago....and Cincinati...with a layover in Denver or Sea-Tac or Detroit each time.

West Virginia is already complaining about their travel schedule in the Big 12, because (surprise!) there aren't exactly a ton of flights from Pittsburgh (closest major airport to Morgantown) to Ames, Iowa and Lubbock, Texas; and WVU is a large, public university, while the Big East is a conference overwhelmingly made up of smaller, private universities. Saint Louis complains about their extra travel in the A-10, where they are the geographic outlier. We can debate the airspeed velocity of unladen airplanes (or swallows) all day. The point remains that unless Gonzaga moves their campus to Boston, for me personally, they are an unattractive candidate for Big East expansion, and I suspect I'm not alone in this regard. I don't like Gonzaga in the Big East, and I especially don't like it if Marquette is paying their cab fare.

Why debate it? That's Gonzaga's call. They already own their own team plane. Which reduces a lot lf the hassles with commercial flights and makes direct flights possible.

[Bill Marsh]

Gonzaga, BYU, SLU and whoever they want on the east coast (Richmond or VCU). That's a 7 bid league.

I like the idea of a 14 team league if they're going to expand beyond 10 (which is my first choice). 14 allows for a 19 game schedule if you play home and home I your division and once in the opposite division.

The problem with a 12 team league is that it's neither divisional play nor double round robin in the modern world of 18 game schedules. Either stick with 10 and do double round robin or go to 14 and play with divisions.

[NJRedman]

Remember who is running this conference: college presidents. Presidents from academically strong schools. Eggheads. The anti-public school thing isn't about FOIA, it is about academic reputation!

Those guys aren't going to waive their standards for just anyone. If UConn drops football - sure. Heck, maybe even if UMass drops football (it would be nice to have the entire state of Mass as a market). But schools like VCU, Wichita St, etc.? Ain't happening!

On the athletic side, if there was only one public school, it is important to realize that they would be able to get in kids that NOBODY else in the conference can get it. That matters. If you are going to waive your standards, you do it for a big return - like a huge fanbase or a huge TV market.

There are plenty of public schools that have great academics. So is this really about public schools? Or is it about academics?

If it's about academics, I think that's a terrible reason. I do agree with you that the presidents may worry about this, but I think it's stupid. This is an ATHLETIC conference. We are not competing in chess and debate. People don't associate conference schools with each other academically, unless you are talking about the Ivy League. Do people think of Georgetown and St. John's as being on the same academic level? No.

For that matter, VCU compares very well with some of the schools already in the league. Check out the average SAT scores.

And are you insinuating that VCU can accept basketball players that the other schools can't? Sorry to burst your bubble, but all of the schools in the conference will accept virtually any basketball player that can qualify with the NCAA. This is big time basketball.

Oh get off you're high horse Hoya's.