Conference realignment discussion - v. 2015

[MUBoxer]

I posted on an MU board about Dayton and wanted to bring that point over here. Dayton has 16 NCAA appearances, 24 NITs. Only three of those are Elite 8s (one a runner up). The thing that this conference has in many of the teams (minus the new three) is that each team had a period where they were pretty much on par with the blue bloods in the country. Dayton never had that and the recent success coincides with the two teams that dominated the A10 (temple and X) leaving so it's not even as impressive as a few years ago. They don't belong. No there's not a better fit but we shouldn't try and make something that doesn't fit, fit.

How many Elite 8's, Final 4's, Finals, and Championships does each team in the Big East have?

These three blow Dayton's resume out of the water

Villanova: 35 NCAA appearances, 16 S16, 12 E8, 4 FF, 1 championship

Marquette: 31 NCAA appearances (32 invites), 16 S16, 7 E8, 3 FF, 1 RU, 1 championship

Georgetown: 30 NCAA appearances, 11 S16s, 9 E8, 5 FF, 3 RU, 1 Championship

These resumes are better

St Johns: 29 NCAA appearances, 9 S16, 6 E8, 2 FF, 1 RU

Xavier: 25 NCAA appearances, 7 S16, 2 E8

Depaul: 21 NCAA appearances, 10 S16, 3 E8, 2 FF

Now we get into the resumes that Dayton would fit in with but they'd be behind Providence at least:

Creighton: 19 NCAA appearances, 3 S16, 1 E8

Providence: 17 NCAA appearances, 5 S16, 4 E8, 2 FF

Butler: 13 NCAA appearances, 5 S16, 2 E8, 2 FF, 2 RU

Seton Hall: 9 NCAA appearances, 4 S16, 2 E8, 1 FF, 1 RU
---------------------
Dayton: 16 NCAA appearances, 7 S16, 3 E8, 1 FF, 1 RU

I don't think it's a smart move to add more teams with good but not really spectacular special resumes.

[Flyer75]

Can you please explain (I must have a reading comprehension problem) how X's resume "blows Dayton's out of the water"?

They have the advantage in appearances....and that's it. No FF, no Ru, less E8, same amount of S16.

Unless you were referring to the Top 3?? But you have 3 categories and only 2 headings for how you organized them.

[RDriesenUD]

I posted on an MU board about Dayton and wanted to bring that point over here. Dayton has 16 NCAA appearances, 24 NITs. Only three of those are Elite 8s (one a runner up). The thing that this conference has in many of the teams (minus the new three) is that each team had a period where they were pretty much on par with the blue bloods in the country. Dayton never had that and the recent success coincides with the two teams that dominated the A10 (temple and X) leaving so it's not even as impressive as a few years ago. They don't belong. No there's not a better fit but we shouldn't try and make something that doesn't fit, fit.

How many Elite 8's, Final 4's, Finals, and Championships does each team in the Big East have?

Villanova: 35 NCAA appearances, 16 S16, 12 E8, 4 FF, 1 championship

Marquette: 31 NCAA appearances (32 invites), 16 S16, 7 E8, 3 FF, 1 RU, 1 championship

Georgetown: 30 NCAA appearances, 11 S16s, 9 E8, 5 FF, 3 RU, 1 Championship

These three blow Dayton's resume out of the water

St Johns: 29 NCAA appearances, 9 S16, 6 E8, 2 FF, 1 RU

Xavier: 25 NCAA appearances, 7 S16, 2 E8

Depaul: 21 NCAA appearances, 10 S16, 3 E8, 2 FF

Now we get into the resumes that Dayton would fit in with:

Creighton: 19 NCAA appearances, 3 S16, 1 E8

Providence: 17 NCAA appearances, 5 S16, 4 E8, 2 FF

Butler: 13 NCAA appearances, 5 S16, 2 E8, 2 FF, 2 RU

Seton Hall: 9 NCAA appearances, 4 S16, 2 E8, 1 FF, 1 RU
---------------------
Dayton: 16 NCAA appearances, 7 S16, 3 E8, 1 FF, 1 RU

I don't think it's a smart move to add more teams with good but not really spectacular special resumes.

Thank you, but you sure have an interesting way of comparing things.

[RDriesenUD]

I posted on an MU board about Dayton and wanted to bring that point over here. Dayton has 16 NCAA appearances, 24 NITs. Only three of those are Elite 8s (one a runner up). The thing that this conference has in many of the teams (minus the new three) is that each team had a period where they were pretty much on par with the blue bloods in the country. Dayton never had that and the recent success coincides with the two teams that dominated the A10 (temple and X) leaving so it's not even as impressive as a few years ago. They don't belong. No there's not a better fit but we shouldn't try and make something that doesn't fit, fit.

How many Elite 8's, Final 4's, Finals, and Championships does each team in the Big East have?

Villanova: 35 NCAA appearances, 16 S16, 12 E8, 4 FF, 1 championship

Marquette: 31 NCAA appearances (32 invites), 16 S16, 7 E8, 3 FF, 1 RU, 1 championship

Georgetown: 30 NCAA appearances, 11 S16s, 9 E8, 5 FF, 3 RU, 1 Championship

These three blow Dayton's resume out of the water

St Johns: 29 NCAA appearances, 9 S16, 6 E8, 2 FF, 1 RU

Xavier: 25 NCAA appearances, 7 S16, 2 E8

Depaul: 21 NCAA appearances, 10 S16, 3 E8, 2 FF

Now we get into the resumes that Dayton would fit in with:

Creighton: 19 NCAA appearances, 3 S16, 1 E8

Providence: 17 NCAA appearances, 5 S16, 4 E8, 2 FF

Butler: 13 NCAA appearances, 5 S16, 2 E8, 2 FF, 2 RU

Seton Hall: 9 NCAA appearances, 4 S16, 2 E8, 1 FF, 1 RU
---------------------
Dayton: 16 NCAA appearances, 7 S16, 3 E8, 1 FF, 1 RU

I don't think it's a smart move to add more teams with good but not really spectacular special resumes.

Can you explain to me why Creighton was a good addition, but Dayton would be so bad?

[DudeAnon]

Can you please explain (I must have a reading comprehension problem) how X's resume "blows Dayton's out of the water"?

They have the advantage in appearances....and that's it. No FF, no Ru, less E8, same amount of S16.

Unless you were referring to the Top 3?? But you have 3 categories and only 2 headings for how you organized them.

Are we really counting tourney accomplishments from the 60's? X has been the better program consistently for the last 30 years.

[Bill Marsh]

I don't see how the geography argument is hard to understand. Right now the BE elevates X to the biggest program in SW Ohio. It's natural to want to preserve that status. Dayton probably won't surpass X if they joined the BE but they definitely won't if they stay in A10.

It's hard to understand because being the only program in an area doesn't guarantee success and because having two programs in an area doesn't prevent success. Duke and North Carolina are 2 of the most successful programs in college basketball history and they're just down the road from each other. In addition, a 3rd team in close proximity, NC State has won 2 national championships.

Same is true for Kentucky and Louisville. Georgetown and Maryland, both with great histories, are a stone's throw from each other. BYU and Utah have succeeded in the same area. At one time, St. John's and NYU thrived in the same city until NYU dropped the sport.

The fact is that strong rivalries fuel interest in both programs. A combination of Xavier and Dayton would increase interest in the Big East in Ohio, a populous state. which would be good for the conference.

[Bill Marsh]

Trying to follow all the reasons for/against adding teams to the conference.
If the information on Fox is correct, they would only pay to add 2 teams and keep the money per team the same.
The advantage to 10 (and the round robin) is assumedly for the fans more than anything else (rivalries, even chance each year, etc.) more so than anything else (TV ratings, inventory, etc.)

Looking at this year's NCAA slots seems to help. Here are the RPI, conferences, number of team, NCAA bids and percentage of teams invited:

1 Big Twelve 10 - 7 - 70%
4 Big Ten 14 - 7 - 50%
3 ACC 15 - 6 - 40%
2 Big East 10 - 6 - 60%
5 SEC 14 - 5 - 36%
6 Pac Twelve 12 - 3 - 25%

11 Mountain West 11 - 4 - 36%
7 Atlantic Ten 14 - 3 - 21%
8 American 11 - 2 - 18%

There just doesn't seem to be much benefit to adding more teams and losing the round robin.
If the Big 12 can get 7 teams in, and we can get 6 in, while conferences with 15, 14 and 12 members do no better, or even worse, it seems to be more of doing what we did this year, than anything else. Maybe the 11th and 12th members help the math as JP contends with good data, but it's not determinative.

A one year sample? Really?

[DudeAnon]

I don't see how the geography argument is hard to understand. Right now the BE elevates X to the biggest program in SW Ohio. It's natural to want to preserve that status. Dayton probably won't surpass X if they joined the BE but they definitely won't if they stay in A10.

It's hard to understand because being the only program in an area doesn't guarantee success and because having two programs in an area doesn't prevent success. Duke and North Carolina are 2 of the most successful programs in college basketball history and they're just down the road from each other. In addition, a 3rd team in close proximity, NC State has won 2 national championships.

Same is true for Kentucky and Louisville. Georgetown and Maryland, both with great histories, are a stone's throw from each other. BYU and Utah have succeeded in the same area. At one time, St. John's and NYU thrived in the same city until NYU dropped the sport.

The fact is that strong rivalries fuel interest in both programs. A combination of Xavier and Dayton would increase interest in the Big East in Ohio, a populous state. which would be good for the conference.

In the battle for recruits having 2 programs in an area can prevent success. Xavier gets a huge amount of players from the Indianapolis area. You don't think Butler resents X taking home their recruiting advantage? And I am not sure it is just coincidence that Dayton finally succeeds after X left the conference. Their fanbase really only cared about the 2 games vs X previously. Now they can focus on UD regardless of the opponent.

[MUBoxer]

Can you please explain (I must have a reading comprehension problem) how X's resume "blows Dayton's out of the water"?

They have the advantage in appearances....and that's it. No FF, no Ru, less E8, same amount of S16.

Unless you were referring to the Top 3?? But you have 3 categories and only 2 headings for how you organized them.

Was referring to the top three that's my bad I'll fix that. I ordered them based on NCAA appearances first if you think Dayton's resume is better good for you, but as of today looking at the two programs with the consistency that X has shown I'd take them.

[JPSchmack]

I don't get the whole "close geography is bad" thing.

I don’t think the issue people have is necessarily “proximity” but how people make assumptions about TV markets and their importance. AKA - “The Big East doesn’t need a smaller, adjacent market of 0.8 million people because Xavier ‘gives us’ the 2.1 million people in the Cincy market.”

But life isn’t that simple. DMA’s are a statistical formula which puts 571,000 residents of Warren & Hamilton counties in the Cincy DMA. That area is around MIDDLETOWN, which as you can guess from the name is halfway between Dayton and Cincy.

The notion that college basketball allegiance and viewing habits fall along those lines is practically nuts. The popular belief is that in the not too distance future, Cincy-Dayton will merge into one market with 3.3 million people in it. If there was a mega-airport by Middletown, they’d probably have been one market like Dallas-Fort Worth already.

They already get the same TV channels, have remarkably similar ratings for TV in college basketball. Those ratings for the NCAA tournament, by the way, see an increase in Cincinnati in years when Dayton is also in the field.

There’s UD fans in Middletown and Cincinnati, there’s Xavier fans in Middletown and Dayton. There’s also Cincinnati Bearcats, Ohio State, Kentucky and Louisville fans. But the point is, Xavier & UD in the Big East provides a plurality of all those fans fans in a region of 3.3 million.