Big East Conference Expansion Ideas and Discussion

[Bill Marsh]

I would think though that there comes a point...a line in the sand if you will when the UConn, Memphis, Cincy trifecta realize they aren't getting invites to the power football conferences, lose a ton of money, keep losing, and say enough is enough. It may come later than sooner, but I just can't see them staying in a terrible basketball conference. UConn still hasn't seen the post-Calhoun effects yet. Cincy loses Kilpatrick. You say they gambled...which is correct. But even the craziest, stupidest gambler has to give up at some point. I still don't see how it makes financial sense to stay there. The only thing holding them in place might be ESPN because they are worse than our conference in basketball but they are still on ESPN while we are on Fox. Every scenario where the AAC would be a better fit in my mind can be refuted.

Nope. That point will never come.

You're right about UConn not having felt the post-Calhoun effect. Ollie has them in the Sweet 16 and positioned to go further in his first year of eligibility. Since he took over recruiting, Ollie has brought in or has secured commitments from five 4-star recruits - 2 of whom are 5-star recruits. Yes, they are still waiting to feel the post-Calhoun effect.

[adoraz11]

Some of you not wanting to expand are too arrogant in your point of view. You think this conference is already established and all is good. It's not. A10 and AAC had a better year than us. With our brand name comes constant references to the old version we can't compete with. Why do you just assume vcu and Dayton will be around in two years? Why wait and see if we have another down year before expanding? What happens if we have another down year and schools like vcu no longer would be interested in joining? Like it or not ten teams is a disadvantage. Nobody cares about what percent of teams get in. It's about NUMBER of teams. Dayton is a perfect example of why we should expand. They were sixth in the a10 yet the only team still remaining. Point is any team can make a run. That is why the more teams in the better.

Edit: when I say more teams the better, I think 12 would be good going into next year. I think more than 16 starts to hurt you.

My main point is we can't just assume we can take another hit and that expansion candidates would still want to join. That's why I'm being critical of the notion that we can wait and see what happens.

[HoosierPal]

I would think though that there comes a point...a line in the sand if you will when the UConn, Memphis, Cincy trifecta realize they aren't getting invites to the power football conferences, lose a ton of money, keep losing, and say enough is enough. It may come later than sooner, but I just can't see them staying in a terrible basketball conference. UConn still hasn't seen the post-Calhoun effects yet. Cincy loses Kilpatrick. You say they gambled...which is correct. But even the craziest, stupidest gambler has to give up at some point. I still don't see how it makes financial sense to stay there. The only thing holding them in place might be ESPN because they are worse than our conference in basketball but they are still on ESPN while we are on Fox. Every scenario where the AAC would be a better fit in my mind can be refuted.

Two items I would like your thoughts on concerning this post.
1) There as been considerable angst about Dayton and Xavier covering the same TV market, thereby there is no advantage of adding Dayton. Cincy and X definitely cover the same market so the same comment has to hold true. How do you think this flies with Fox?

2) The Big East was broken apart due to football. Now you propose it be put back together by adding UConn, Memphis, and Cincy. So this new BE would differ from the old BE by exchanging these three for Syracuse, Pitt, and Louisville (plus the other 3 hoops schools). How could this NOT be considered a huge step backwards?

[notkirkcameron]

Creighton off to a mediocre start, if they're eliminated it'll be the first time since 1993 Big East hasn't sent a team to the sweet 16. Anyone still in denial that we don't need to expand, aside from the presidents?

Don't look now, but aside from Dayton, none of even the craziest expansion candidates mentioned in this thread (Gonzaga, UMass, VCU, Wichita State, Richmond, Davidson, Saint Louis, etc.) made the Sweet 16 either, and Dayton's Sweet 16 trip was their first one in 30 years, so your very premise (that the Big East can get more teams deeper into the tournament by adding teams that aren't going deep in the tournament), makes no sense at all.

[adoraz11]

Creighton off to a mediocre start, if they're eliminated it'll be the first time since 1993 Big East hasn't sent a team to the sweet 16. Anyone still in denial that we don't need to expand, aside from the presidents?

Don't look now, but aside from Dayton, none of even the craziest expansion candidates mentioned in this thread (Gonzaga, UMass, VCU, Wichita State, Richmond, Davidson, Saint Louis, etc.) made the Sweet 16 either, and Dayton's Sweet 16 trip was their first one in 30 years, so your very premise (that the Big East can get more teams deeper into the tournament by adding teams that aren't going deep in the tournament), makes no sense at all.

Fine, so let's assume we added two schools in either Dayton, vcu, slu, Gonzaga, etc this year. Both would have made the tournament. As you said, maybe none would have advanced further than the round of 32. I'll take 6 teams in and a mediocre tournament result than 4 teams and a mediocre tournament result any day. Further, the law of probability says that the more teams the better the chance of one of them making a run. It's that simple.

To finish, I'll say that a10 competed much better than us despite most teams being knocked out early. Vcu, St. Joe's could have easily advanced off the top of my head. Meanwhile, aside from providence, all 3 big East teams sucked in their elimination games.

[Xudash]

Creighton off to a mediocre start, if they're eliminated it'll be the first time since 1993 Big East hasn't sent a team to the sweet 16. Anyone still in denial that we don't need to expand, aside from the presidents?

Don't look now, but aside from Dayton, none of even the craziest expansion candidates mentioned in this thread (Gonzaga, UMass, VCU, Wichita State, Richmond, Davidson, Saint Louis, etc.) made the Sweet 16 either, and Dayton's Sweet 16 trip was their first one in 30 years, so your very premise (that the Big East can get more teams deeper into the tournament by adding teams that aren't going deep in the tournament), makes no sense at all.

Fine, so let's assume we added two schools in either Dayton, vcu, slu, Gonzaga, etc this year. Both would have made the tournament. As you said, maybe none would have advanced further than the round of 32. I'll take 6 teams in and a mediocre tournament result than 4 teams and a mediocre tournament result any day. Further, the law of probability says that the more teams the better the chance of one of them making a run. It's that simple.

To finish, I'll say that a10 competed much better than us despite most teams being knocked out early. Vcu, St. Joe's could have easily advanced off the top of my head. Meanwhile, aside from providence, all 3 big East teams sucked in their elimination games.

Program strength certainly is going to be a major factor in the criteria used to make the expansion decision, but keep in mind that television markets will most likely carry a heavy weighting in those criteria. Besides, this just isn't about which programs did what this year in the NCAA Tournament.

[lolhoya]

Some of you not wanting to expand are too arrogant in your point of view. You think this conference is already established and all is good. It's not. A10 and AAC had a better year than us. With our brand name comes constant references to the old version we can't compete with. Why do you just assume vcu and Dayton will be around in two years? Why wait and see if we have another down year before expanding? What happens if we have another down year and schools like vcu no longer would be interested in joining? Like it or not ten teams is a disadvantage. Nobody cares about what percent of teams get in. It's about NUMBER of teams. Dayton is a perfect example of why we should expand. They were sixth in the a10 yet the only team still remaining. Point is any team can make a run. That is why the more teams in the better.

Edit: when I say more teams the better, I think 12 would be good going into next year. I think more than 16 starts to hurt you.

My main point is we can't just assume we can take another hit and that expansion candidates would still want to join. That's why I'm being critical of the notion that we can wait and see what happens.

I agree with your premise. The only thing I disagree with is the last line - as long as the Big East gets more TV money, the A10 teams will still absolutely want to join.

But going back to your main point, I completely agree that more teams is better because people are obsessed with number of bids, number of S16 teams, etc. Nobody cares about percentages. It's a good point.

If there were better candidate schools, I would be totally on board for expanding now. The candidate schools just all really scare me. I think waiting a couple years to see how things shake out is the right approach, and seems to be what the Presidents are doing.

[Frank the Tank]

If there were better candidate schools, I would be totally on board for expanding now. The candidate schools just all really scare me. I think waiting a couple years to see how things shake out is the right approach, and seems to be what the Presidents are doing.

I see this comment a lot, but who is the Big East waiting for? Where is the hidden school in a major market and great fan base that's going to pop up out of nowhere? Who has a better TV market and institutional profile than SLU that isn't geographically incompatible (i.e. Gonzaga) even in the BEST case scenario for such hidden school? It would be one thing is we have a long list of non-FBS private schools in large Eastern/Midwestern markets with even just passable on-the-court histories to begin with to evaluate, but there isn't. Who else is there even on paper just as institutions and putting aside any on-the-court metrics? Davidson? Duquesne? BU? Holy Cross? How likely are any of the 4 that I just listed going to be better options than SLU or Dayton in 2 years or, more importantly, develop anywhere near the fan bases?

I'm not a believer in expanding just for the sake of expanding. I've written about conference realignment about virtually every single league over the past 5 years and don't take expansion for any conference lightly. However, pretty much every single argument that I've seen against Big East expansion is largely anachronistic or a throwback to quaint desires (i.e. round robin scheduling) that, whether it's right or wrong, don't have any applicability in today's dog-eat-dog world of college sports. There is not going to be a more on-point expansion candidate than SLU for the Big East. Period. There is ZERO reason to wait on them because there isn't even a hypothetical school out there on paper that could even possibly pop out of the blue with the same combination of institutional fit, major TV market, facilities and recent on-the-court credentials. Dayton vs. VCU is a reasonable debate, but waiting around for either of them just doesn't make sense and puts off the inevitable.

Fox money is not the issue, either. The New York Times reported last year that the network would kick in additional money if there were 12 teams:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/sport ... .html?_r=0

The Big East still has market power right now. In order to maintain such market power, it needs to act aggressively. I typically laugh at the calls of many fans wishing their conferences to be "proactive" because most leagues actually don't have the ability to be proactive (and can only be reactive to those higher up in the food chain), but there's no excuse for the Big East to be an inactive bystander here.

[Bill Marsh]

If there were better candidate schools, I would be totally on board for expanding now. The candidate schools just all really scare me. I think waiting a couple years to see how things shake out is the right approach, and seems to be what the Presidents are doing.

I see this comment a lot, but who is the Big East waiting for? Where is the hidden school in a major market and great fan base that's going to pop up out of nowhere? Who has a better TV market and institutional profile than SLU that isn't geographically incompatible (i.e. Gonzaga) even in the BEST case scenario for such hidden school? It would be one thing is we have a long list of non-FBS private schools in large Eastern/Midwestern markets with even just passable on-the-court histories to begin with to evaluate, but there isn't. Who else is there even on paper just as institutions and putting aside any on-the-court metrics? Davidson? Duquesne? BU? Holy Cross? How likely are any of the 4 that I just listed going to be better options than SLU or Dayton in 2 years or, more importantly, develop anywhere near the fan bases?

I'm not a believer in expanding just for the sake of expanding. I've written about conference realignment about virtually every single league over the past 5 years and don't take expansion for any conference lightly. However, pretty much every single argument that I've seen against Big East expansion is largely anachronistic or a throwback to quaint desires (i.e. round robin scheduling) that, whether it's right or wrong, don't have any applicability in today's dog-eat-dog world of college sports. There is not going to be a more on-point expansion candidate than SLU for the Big East. Period. There is ZERO reason to wait on them because there isn't even a hypothetical school out there on paper that could even possibly pop out of the blue with the same combination of institutional fit, major TV market, facilities and recent on-the-court credentials. Dayton vs. VCU is a reasonable debate, but waiting around for either of them just doesn't make sense and puts off the inevitable.

Fox money is not the issue, either. The New York Times reported last year that the network would kick in additional money if there were 12 teams:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/sport ... .html?_r=0

The Big East still has market power right now. In order to maintain such market power, it needs to act aggressively. I typically laugh at the calls of many fans wishing their conferences to be "proactive" because most leagues actually don't have the ability to be proactive (and can only be reactive to those higher up in the food chain), but there's no excuse for the Big East to be an inactive bystander here.

There are a couple of reasons to wait.

1. Two of the major cornerstones of the conference are in transition at the highest levels of their administrations. St. John's and Marquette are both in the process of hiring new presidents. I can't possibly imagine the Big East making such a major decision without the input of the new leaders at these 2 institutions to have input into the decision and to vote on it. Each of them will bring their own vision for the future for their universities and that vision will obviously include what they want to see in the Big East.

2. It's one thing to look in the rear view mirror at a school's on-the-court history, but it's equally important to look forward at where they are going. St Louis is in no shape, manner, or form ready to compete in the Big East next year. They are graduating all 5 starters from this year's team. Players sitting on the bench will be the building blocks for next year. But the best recruits from the past 3 years were all 2-star recruits and one of those, Jared Drew, their best recruit 2 years ago, was run out of the program last year when the coaching staff decided to pull his scholarship. They're bringing in a batch of 3-star recruits for next year, which simply means that they will not have a single impact player to build around next year. Bringing in St Louis next year would be an enormous mistake. They have disaster written all over them. They are likely to be as bad or worse than DePaul. They will have an enormous drop off from this year and are simply not ready to compete at the Big East level.

If St Louis is in the Big East's future, they would be far wiser to give them another season to rebuild while they are still outside of the Big East and to give Crews a chance to show that he can be a recruiter. He recruited better this year in his first season in fall command of the program. Maybe he can step it up again next year and have back-to-back recruiting classes of his own players to build around.

The extra year will also give the leadership at St. John's and Marquette a year to stabilize their administrations and to engage in discussions with the leadership at the other 8 member schools.

[BillikensWin]

If there were better candidate schools, I would be totally on board for expanding now. The candidate schools just all really scare me. I think waiting a couple years to see how things shake out is the right approach, and seems to be what the Presidents are doing.

I see this comment a lot, but who is the Big East waiting for? Where is the hidden school in a major market and great fan base that's going to pop up out of nowhere? Who has a better TV market and institutional profile than SLU that isn't geographically incompatible (i.e. Gonzaga) even in the BEST case scenario for such hidden school? It would be one thing is we have a long list of non-FBS private schools in large Eastern/Midwestern markets with even just passable on-the-court histories to begin with to evaluate, but there isn't. Who else is there even on paper just as institutions and putting aside any on-the-court metrics? Davidson? Duquesne? BU? Holy Cross? How likely are any of the 4 that I just listed going to be better options than SLU or Dayton in 2 years or, more importantly, develop anywhere near the fan bases?

I'm not a believer in expanding just for the sake of expanding. I've written about conference realignment about virtually every single league over the past 5 years and don't take expansion for any conference lightly. However, pretty much every single argument that I've seen against Big East expansion is largely anachronistic or a throwback to quaint desires (i.e. round robin scheduling) that, whether it's right or wrong, don't have any applicability in today's dog-eat-dog world of college sports. There is not going to be a more on-point expansion candidate than SLU for the Big East. Period. There is ZERO reason to wait on them because there isn't even a hypothetical school out there on paper that could even possibly pop out of the blue with the same combination of institutional fit, major TV market, facilities and recent on-the-court credentials. Dayton vs. VCU is a reasonable debate, but waiting around for either of them just doesn't make sense and puts off the inevitable.

Fox money is not the issue, either. The New York Times reported last year that the network would kick in additional money if there were 12 teams:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/sport ... .html?_r=0

The Big East still has market power right now. In order to maintain such market power, it needs to act aggressively. I typically laugh at the calls of many fans wishing their conferences to be "proactive" because most leagues actually don't have the ability to be proactive (and can only be reactive to those higher up in the food chain), but there's no excuse for the Big East to be an inactive bystander here.

There are a couple of reasons to wait.

1. Two of the major cornerstones of the conference are in transition at the highest levels of their administrations. St. John's and Marquette are both in the process of hiring new presidents. I can't possibly imagine the Big East making such a major decision without the input of the new leaders at these 2 institutions to have input into the decision and to vote on it. Each of them will bring their own vision for the future for their universities and that vision will obviously include what they want to see in the Big East.

2. It's one thing to look in the rear view mirror at a school's on-the-court history, but it's equally important to look forward at where they are going. St Louis is in no shape, manner, or form ready to compete in the Big East next year. They are graduating all 5 starters from this year's team. Players sitting on the bench will be the building blocks for next year. But the best recruits from the past 3 years were all 2-star recruits and one of those, Jared Drew, their best recruit 2 years ago, was run out of the program last year when the coaching staff decided to pull his scholarship. They're bringing in a batch of 3-star recruits for next year, which simply means that they will not have a single impact player to build around next year. Bringing in St Louis next year would be an enormous mistake. They have disaster written all over them. They are likely to be as bad or worse than DePaul. They will have an enormous drop off from this year and are simply not ready to compete at the Big East level.

If St Louis is in the Big East's future, they would be far wiser to give them another season to rebuild while they are still outside of the Big East and to give Crews a chance to show that he can be a recruiter. He recruited better this year in his first season in fall command of the program. Maybe he can step it up again next year and have back-to-back recruiting classes of his own players to build around.

The extra year will also give the leadership at St. John's and Marquette a year to stabilize their administrations and to engage in discussions with the leadership at the other 8 member schools.

Bill, you often have good information, but the bolded part shows that you have an agenda. Jared Drew was not going to return to the Saint Louis program after his redshirt season. It was made quite clear in and around St. Louis that he had worn out his welcome. The fact that you mention star ratings further devalues your post. Check the ratings of the players that SLU just graduated. Recruiting rankings mean less than nothing. UK in 2013 had the top ranked recruiting class, and they lost in R1 of the NIT.

More to come...