Conference realignment discussion - v. 2015

[Gopher+RamFan]

Looks like VCU is falling apart at the seams. Multiple transfers & decommits along with the Mo Alie-Cox charges.

VCU was Shaka Smart. They will be competitive but never at the level he had the program. Glad the BEast didn't hitch itself to that wagon.

Quite a lot of assumptions here.

1. Transfers: No one has transferred, yet. Terry Larrier (ESPN Top 50) may transfer (and end up at SJU/UCONN) but there is a chance he stays - he's dealing with a personal situation, needing him closer to home. Justin Tillman's dad announced prematurely that he'd transfer (Top 100), but ended up staying. If Shaka had stayed, ESPN Top 100 Gilmore would have definitely transferred out of the program.

2. Commits: Yes. The 3 original recruits have decommitted and will attend P5 schools (one has already committed to UNC). Signed another 3 star, and landed a graduate transfer from ORU who averaged 15 and 7. VCU is one of 6 programs still on the list for former SHU star Sterling Gibbs.

3. If you read the sworn statement of the girl who accused Mo Alie-Cox, you'll see she initiated contact by grabbing hair. Considering the accuser had to file the complaint with the magistrate, as the police didn't think there was enough evidence (although this happened in a popular club with multiple witnesses) to charge Cox - this probably won't amount to anything.

4. VCU is the only "candidate" to be in the RPI Top 100 for more than a decade straight. If you think it was all Shaka Smart (although he did elevate the program. Like Capel and Grant before him, then well just agree to disagree). VCU is almost done building their 25 Million dollar practice facility, and has the largest traveling fanbase of any "candidate" school.

Pretty premature of you to announce it's demise before the new coach has even coached a game. We'll do just fine. If VCU was a private school, theyd be in. That's the only thing holding them back, not on the court metrics.

I'm sure you'd be the same person slamming VCU after hiring a "no name" coach Shaka Smart in 2009, and losing his best player to a Florida Community College. Let the process play out before firing off sentences.

[BEX]

Right now there is too much uncertainty with the league to say that a new TV deal will be guaranteed after this one is up.

Did Rupert whisper this in your ear or did you just make it up as usual. 12 yr. deal - 10+ left. Check back in 2025.

People come on here and want to discredit Fox and the BE, and then say, oh BTW, we'd love to be part of that. Huh?

[Bluejay]

VCU is one of 6 programs still on the list for former SHU star Sterling Gibbs.

I'll bet you that you don't get him.

[Gopher+RamFan]

VCU is one of 6 programs still on the list for former SHU star Sterling Gibbs.

I'll bet you that you don't get him.

Ha, UCONN is the favorite now - but I'd be the happiest member of this board if we landed him in the post-Shaka era.

I'm just getting annoyed at the shots taken at VCU for losing 3 incoming recruits and no transfers (as of yet) off of an NCAA team (5th in a row) during a coaching change. 6 miles down the road, another "candidate" school hasn't been to the tournament since 2011, and just announced their 3rd transfer of the offseason while keeping their coach. One is a bonfire to one poster here, the other is not.

[BEX]

Well, I guess you can expect a few shots when you post about 2 A-10 teams on a BE board. Personally, I think you retained a good amount of talent and will contend once again for the A-10 title and go on to the Dance. Losing a longtime coach and subsequently his recruits this time of year sucks. No time to replace. Everybody else has to step up. The Richmond transfers? Wow. Hurts them bad as well as the A-10.

[Gopher+RamFan]

Well, I guess you can expect a few shots when you post about 2 A-10 teams on a BE board. Personally, I think you retained a good amount of talent and will contend once again for the A-10 title and go on to the Dance. Losing a longtime coach and subsequently his recruits this time of year sucks. No time to replace. Everybody else has to step up. The Richmond transfers? Wow. Hurts them bad as well as the A-10.

I get that, this is a BE board so it should be mostly about the Big East. When another poster writes something extremely negative about a program Im a fan of, I'll chime in from time to time. Outside of that, I don't post here much. Bringing up VCU on my own would just lead to resentment on this board, and since this isn't my conference "home" they'd be right to resent it.

The A-10 as a whole should be better next year, but still no clear deep teams that I can think of this far out. Archie going to UF would be a pretty big blow. That's why you see programs hoping for a BE invite, any A10 fan who says they don't want to move up is either in denial or is a fool.

[cm5yz6]

Well, I guess you can expect a few shots when you post about 2 A-10 teams on a BE board. Personally, I think you retained a good amount of talent and will contend once again for the A-10 title and go on to the Dance. Losing a longtime coach and subsequently his recruits this time of year sucks. No time to replace. Everybody else has to step up. The Richmond transfers? Wow. Hurts them bad as well as the A-10.

I don't want to make this about Richmond as they are an A-10 school and this is a BE board, but to be fair the first two transfers did so because they never played and weren't expected to be significant contributors moving forward. Diekvoss (literally 0 min) and Smithen (11 season points, avg 3 min/game = scrub time). However, I'll give you Nelson-Ododa - pretty surprising. Though, with Cline swallowing up his minutes as the year progressed (and rightfully so) and the defensive improvements from Allen, I guess it shouldn't be quite as shocking. Richmond is definitely better with him, but they'll be fine without him.

Either way, I wasn't the one who said VCU was imploding, but its not really accurate to defend it by saying "hey, hey look over there." At least not in this situation. Also, both schools could still grab a transfer or two before the time is up, so we shall see.

Ok, I'm finished with A-10 talk - sorry guys.

[Natty]

Looks like VCU is falling apart at the seams. Multiple transfers & decommits along with the Mo Alie-Cox charges.

VCU was Shaka Smart. They will be competitive but never at the level he had the program. Glad the BEast didn't hitch itself to that wagon.

Completely uneducated post.

Going down the list...

1) "VCU was Shaka Smart" - Once upon a time VCU was also Jeff Capel. Then VCU was Anthony Grant. Now VCU was Shaka Smart. The reality is Will Wade was a SoCon Coach of the Year and literally implemented VCU's pressing system that Shaka Smart hung his hat on (ask Briante Weber, the poster-child of havoc, who is quoted saying so). People forget that Shaka Smart never won a conference Coach of the Year award and never won a regular season title yet was somehow always the first name that popped up for every job opening. Shaka Smart did a great job at VCU but went to the Final 4 with Anthony Grant's recruits in 2011 (Rodriguez, Burgess, Skeen, Rozzell, Nixon). He was 7-2 in NCAA tournaments before assistant Will Wade left for UT Chattanooga (was the underdog in all but one of those games) then was 0-2 without Wade and was the seed favorite in both of those games (a 5 in 2014 that fell to 12th-seeded SFA and a 7 this past season).

2) Recruit decommits - VCU's 2015 class was ranked 25th nationally if I'm not mistaken by ESPN. Here's the reality of recruiting classes: they aren't proven one bit (see: Larrier, Terry). VCU's 2014 class was ranked 14th nationally by ESPN but they were basically a non-factor during VCU's 2015 A-10 tournament championship run (Treveon Graham, Mo Alie-Cox, Doug Brooks, JeQuan Lewis, etc...those were the guys who won the trophy for VCU). The only player that played any minutes was Terry Larrier (who'll be headed to a Big East school, btw, so there's that bit of breaking news for you Big East fans...I'll allow you all to guess where he's going), and Larrier was literally one of the worst shooting Rams over the past decade in terms of effective field goal percentage at under 42% (41.8% if I remember correctly). He was also VCU's highest rated recruit since Kendrick Warren but at 6'8 shot more threes than twos, and I shit you not...had two dunks on the season at 6'8 and as a top-50 recruit. The reality is statistically VCU was able to keep their two best freshmen: Justin Tillman and Mike Gilmore, two former top-100 recruits, Gilmore being a top-80 guy but Tillman being a guy that got more minutes. Both were way more efficient than Larrier but Larrier had a higher high school ranking next to his name so naturally he's what matters.

3) Nothing is happening to Mo Alie-Cox - Nothing happened the first time this case came up and now that the girl has taken it to civil court, once again, nothing will happen. Read the girls story.

4) Back to the recruiting - VCU loses Tevin Mack and one other top-100 recruit but replace them with Korey Billbury, who may not be a top-100 recruit, but averaged over 14 points in D1 college basketball (not high school) the past two seasons. They will also add another transfer next week that was ranked higher out of high school (according to Rivals) than Tevin Mack. Will it take some time for Will Wade to prove himself to the top-100s of the world? Yes. But in the meantime he has an incredibly talented team, a team that will include three more top-100s on the roster than Shaka Smart had when he went to a Final 4 in 2011.

5) Learn from your own past - You guys remember Brad Stevens right? Was he Butler basketball? The Bulldogs took a slight dip with Roosevelt out but then bounced back big last season. The reality is good programs find a way to stay toward the top, and that's exactly what VCU has done over literally their last three coaches, winning CAA and A-10 titles under each and every one. VCU now also will have a brand new practice facility that will open this fall to recruit to, AND...a REALLY good coach who turned a SoCon bottom feeder into one of the better teams in that league virtually overnight. That isn't easy to do. Ask DePaul fans.

Sleep on VCU if you want, but the Rams are going to be REAL good next season, and don't be shocked if they actually get better under Will Wade, just like they did with the three previous coaches before him.

[Bluejay]

Nobody here cares.

[GoldenWarrior11]

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/owlsinq/Source-.html

Temple is not close to voting whether they will build an on-campus football stadium for the Owls. Their lease at Lincoln Financial Field (home of the Philadelphia Eagles) ends in 2017. Speculation has already begun as to whether Temple can sustain football long-term. Personally, I don't think they were never a fit for the AAC. Football-wise, they are better suited for the MAC, and basketball-wise they are better suited for the A-10. Unfortunately, you can't have both.

I do not think Villanova would ever approve of Temple's inclusion into the Big East, but I would much rather have Temple as a public institution over VCU.