paulxu wrote:2 years, and 54 pages in this thread, and not a whole lot has changed from this article about possible candidates:
http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basket ... -henderson
paulxu wrote:2 years, and 54 pages in this thread, and not a whole lot has changed from this article about possible candidates:
http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basket ... -henderson
Bill Marsh wrote:paulxu wrote:2 years, and 54 pages in this thread, and not a whole lot has changed from this article about possible candidates:
http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basket ... -henderson
Interesting. Thanks for the link.
Apparently expansion is inevitable. At least DeCourcy seems to think so. Has nothing changed?
One thing that we know has changed is that St Louis' bubble has burst. DeCourcy reports average home attendance as 7700 and says that it was higher in the past. It was significantly better . . . almost 20 years ago. And it's headed in the wrong direction. This year it was barely 7,000. According to DeCourcy, the Billikens bring the St Louis market. The question is, how much of that market does it bring?
If this was the pecking order of candidates a year and a half ago, I hope the thinking of the decision makers at the Big East has changed. According to DeCourcy's article, Richmond is #2. If that's the case, there's no point in expanding. Just stay at 10. As DeCourcy points out, it's tough to expand with a program that's #2 in their own city. But apparently #1 in Richmond is unacceptable because it's VCU, large, public, and with lots of resources - just what the C7 has been trying to get away from. He implies that the C7 weren't able to compete with that kind of school back in the old Big East days and won't be able to do so now. Really? What does that say about the ability of the membership to compete against national competition outside the conference right now? Not exactly a vote of confidence.
The article does an excellent job of explaining that every remaining candidate for expansion has a down side and is therefore a compromise. I'm more optimistic than he is and would make the compromises necessary to go with the candidates with the big up side rather than to settle for the safe choices that represent mediocrity.
paulxu wrote:2 years, and 54 pages in this thread, and not a whole lot has changed from this article about possible candidates:
http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basket ... -henderson
paulxu wrote:As opposed to possibly some posters, I have zero inside information on anything. I can only do what most others do, look at the info from the outside and try to make sense out of it.
Fox was apparently OK with going at the beginning (and assumedly now) with 12 schools fully paid.
The 7 who voted went with 3 to start.
The biggest criteria from the outside seems to have been institutional fit; having Butler means religion isn't the key.
With X in the same city as UC, and Butler near IU, fit was as important as eyeballs from a public school (relatively speaking).
To me that seems that although schools like VCU and Wichita would be great basketball fits (and more so 2 years ago when they were closer to their NCAA FF successes), and would have been new TV markets and very logical to get a good start...they weren't included.
Some schools play in markets where they are much smaller in enrollment/alumni base (Georgetown/Maryland, X/UC, etc.). So I don't believe that is a determinative factor. The institutional fit and possible market expansion seem to be the keys if the BE was thinking about going to 12. Even the number of potential NCAA bids would seem to fall behind these 2, since the math might have argued starting with 12 schools 2 years ago.
For those reasons I think the article by DeCoursey may still be on point. Richmond and St Louis still seem to fit the best. Would be nice to have more recent NCAA success, but might not be critical. Richmond would balance Butler as non-Catholic schools. Both have excellent basketball facilities, and the institutional fit is there.
Also, I have no idea why, but it is curious to me that a school with VCU's resources and enrollment doesn't start up big time football.
paulxu wrote:As opposed to possibly some posters, I have zero inside information on anything. I can only do what most others do, look at the info from the outside and try to make sense out of it.
Fox was apparently OK with going at the beginning (and assumedly now) with 12 schools fully paid.
The 7 who voted went with 3 to start.
The biggest criteria from the outside seems to have been institutional fit; having Butler means religion isn't the key.
With X in the same city as UC, and Butler near IU, fit was as important as eyeballs from a public school (relatively speaking).
To me that seems that although schools like VCU and Wichita would be great basketball fits (and more so 2 years ago when they were closer to their NCAA FF successes), and would have been new TV markets and very logical to get a good start...they weren't included.
Some schools play in markets where they are much smaller in enrollment/alumni base (Georgetown/Maryland, X/UC, etc.). So I don't believe that is a determinative factor. The institutional fit and possible market expansion seem to be the keys if the BE was thinking about going to 12. Even the number of potential NCAA bids would seem to fall behind these 2, since the math might have argued starting with 12 schools 2 years ago.
For those reasons I think the article by DeCoursey may still be on point. Richmond and St Louis still seem to fit the best. Would be nice to have more recent NCAA success, but might not be critical. Richmond would balance Butler as non-Catholic schools. Both have excellent basketball facilities, and the institutional fit is there.
Also, I have no idea why, but it is curious to me that a school with VCU's resources and enrollment doesn't start up big time football.
Gopher+RamFan wrote:paulxu wrote:As opposed to possibly some posters, I have zero inside information on anything. I can only do what most others do, look at the info from the outside and try to make sense out of it.
Fox was apparently OK with going at the beginning (and assumedly now) with 12 schools fully paid.
The 7 who voted went with 3 to start.
The biggest criteria from the outside seems to have been institutional fit; having Butler means religion isn't the key.
With X in the same city as UC, and Butler near IU, fit was as important as eyeballs from a public school (relatively speaking).
To me that seems that although schools like VCU and Wichita would be great basketball fits (and more so 2 years ago when they were closer to their NCAA FF successes), and would have been new TV markets and very logical to get a good start...they weren't included.
Some schools play in markets where they are much smaller in enrollment/alumni base (Georgetown/Maryland, X/UC, etc.). So I don't believe that is a determinative factor. The institutional fit and possible market expansion seem to be the keys if the BE was thinking about going to 12. Even the number of potential NCAA bids would seem to fall behind these 2, since the math might have argued starting with 12 schools 2 years ago.
For those reasons I think the article by DeCoursey may still be on point. Richmond and St Louis still seem to fit the best. Would be nice to have more recent NCAA success, but might not be critical. Richmond would balance Butler as non-Catholic schools. Both have excellent basketball facilities, and the institutional fit is there.
Also, I have no idea why, but it is curious to me that a school with VCU's resources and enrollment doesn't start up big time football.
I know you're also a richmond fan (but mostly X). VCU will not start a football program for the foreseeable Future. No donors or alumni are interested in donating 100 million to start a football program from scratch. VCU does not even field an FCS team, but posters on here keep wondering when it will happen (maybe because they assume publics will always start one?) VCU has missed the boat on starting football, it's not worth starting unless there's a good chance of being P5 in 10-15 years. VCU can instead focus all those resources and enrollment on becoming the best it can at basketball.
The school carries the richmond market by far, and would be the only school in the BE who could claim that (maybe Marquette and Milwaukee too?). Adding VCU would bring a proven traveling fan base to MSG (already the largest fan presence in Brooklyn), 42-47,000 people directly associated to the school every year (students/employees), a 1.3 Billion endowment, a basketball program that hasn't been outside the RPI top 100 in more than a decade (spanning 3 coaches). As well as including a program that has been to the NCAAs 7 out of the last 9 years, brought 1200 fans to a press conference for the new coach, and a new $25 million basketball only practice facility opening in September.
They're not a slam dunk candidate because they're public, but they'd instantly be the hated team in conference (being public). They'd trqvel well to east coast schools (filling in some portions of the Verizon center) and add viewership to FS1. I'm a VCU fan, so take everything with a grain of salt (I know nobody here makes the decision anyway).
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