Conference realignment discussion - v. 2015

[marquette]

I've been a pretty big expansionist in the past, and have been pretty bullish on SLU, but at this point I think it is much better for the league to stay at 10. Expansion will happen eventually but we are trying to cultivate the image of us as a power conference, which we have been very successful at. Maintaining that is priority #1. I don't think anyone but UConn and Gonzaga would protect that image if we added them right now (maybe VCU). Perception is very important right now. That plus we are just starting to see the first glimpses of developing rivalries. I'd like to give that a chance to germinate.

We need schools like Dayton, SLU, Richmond, VCU, and whoever else might be a candidate to establish themselves in the same way the Butler, Xavier, and Creighton had before coming to the league. I think we are a couple years away from that.

All that is not to say that I don't still enjoy talking expansion and candidates. It's a very interesting topic.

I think Dayton is at that level, at least the same as Creighton was prior to them being added. The problem with Dayton is location. Now it's not a huge problem for me because im used to schools being close to each other. Dayton could step into the conference today and the league would be better. A strong fan base and a currently good team with a good coach who would be more likely to stay with a Big East invite.

There are a lot of things to like about Dayton, and only half of them are related to Archie miller. They do have a BE budget (as does VCU). They do have a BE arena and facilities (as does SLU, VCU is working on making their arena BE quality, already have a great practice facility). They do have BE attendance (actually better than most, VCU is close and with arena expansion they probably will, SLU needs work). They have some long term history and some recent success. Passionate fan base. Established rivalry with X and with their fans I think we would see more rivalries develop rather quickly.

Their proximity to X might be an issue for Fox or the presidents, but I'm not sure why as FS1 is already available in most homes anyway. We aren't trying to sell a network like the B1G, SEC, ACC, P12, or Texas. They haven't demonstrated an ability to find a decent coach when they can't cheat off of X's test. That is concerning, as their last few hires were mediocre at best. They are successful but they aren't the established brand that X or Butler were when we added them. They do have a lot of similar qualities to Creighton and I'll give you that. There's also no one to add with them, which is admittedly more of a problem in my head than in real life, but I like even numbers. Most importantly, their fans tend to blow up message boards and I like my job nice and easy.

[pki1998]

Dayton as an expansion canidate has one major problem. Who do you add with them? The Big East needs a viable east coast team to pair with UD. There just isn't a good canidate.

Why do we need an east coast team? Are the mid west teams going to gang up on the east coast teams and take over? Are they going to move the Big East Tourny to chicago? I don't get this idea that it HAS to be balanced. Just get the two best programs period.

I personally think it would be unwise to have more teams in the Midwest than the east coast. The Midwest is always going to be Big Ten country. The BIG is currently a Midwest based league with some outpost on he eastern seaboard. Personally I Would love the Big East to be an east coast league with some outpost in the Midwest. Unfortunately there are no real expansion canidates in the east. Plus expanding in the east would help with MSG attendance.

Absence UConn becoming available, I would be opposed to any public University being added. I love the fact that we are all private schools who aren't subsidizing athletics with state tax dollars. UConn because of their reputation and history with the C7 would be worth adding a state school. I wouldn't like it, but it would be the right move.

Assuming football 5 teams, Gonzaga or UConn are not available, there are no schools that are must adds. Dayton is probably the best overall canidate. They probably have the best basketball success over the last ten years (an arguement could be made for VCU),and have a passionate fanbase that shows up to games including conference tournament games. in fact if they were invited they could legitimately be expected to bring over a thousand fans every year. But they do have one issue, and that is location. if they were located in Boston, Buffalo, Piittsburgh, Detroit or Cleveland they would have already been invited. There location is a problem, they are very close to both X and Butler. This is a bigger deal in the Midwest than east coast. when you get 25 miles out of our cities it's farmland and or core cities are much smaller. This means duplicating markets is not something network executives are inclinded to do. In addition, there are no new recruiting areas covered by adding Dayton.

While I love the round robin, the fact is expansion will have to happen in the future. When that happens Dayton is well positioned to get an invite, but adding only midwest schools would be detrimental to the league. Ideally Boston U or Northwestern would become basektball powers. unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon

[NJRedman]

Dayton as an expansion canidate has one major problem. Who do you add with them? The Big East needs a viable east coast team to pair with UD. There just isn't a good canidate.

Why do we need an east coast team? Are the mid west teams going to gang up on the east coast teams and take over? Are they going to move the Big East Tourny to chicago? I don't get this idea that it HAS to be balanced. Just get the two best programs period.

I personally think it would be unwise to have more teams in the Midwest than the east coast. The Midwest is always going to be Big Ten country. The BIG is currently a Midwest based league with some outpost on he eastern seaboard. Personally I Would love the Big East to be an east coast league with some outpost in the Midwest. Unfortunately there are no real expansion canidates in the east. Plus expanding in the east would help with MSG attendance.

Absence UConn becoming available, I would be opposed to any public University being added. I love the fact that we are all private schools who aren't subsidizing athletics with state tax dollars. UConn because of their reputation and history with the C7 would be worth adding a state school. I wouldn't like it, but it would be the right move.

Assuming football 5 teams, Gonzaga or UConn are not available, there are no schools that are must adds. Dayton is probably the best overall canidate. They probably have the best basketball success over the last ten years (an arguement could be made for VCU),and have a passionate fanbase that shows up to games including conference tournament games. in fact if they were invited they could legitimately be expected to bring over a thousand fans every year. But they do have one issue, and that is location. if they were located in Boston, Buffalo, Piittsburgh, Detroit or Cleveland they would have already been invited. There location is a problem, they are very close to both X and Butler. This is a bigger deal in the Midwest than east coast. when you get 25 miles out of our cities it's farmland and or core cities are much smaller. This means duplicating markets is not something network executives are inclinded to do. In addition, there are no new recruiting areas covered by adding Dayton.

While I love the round robin, the fact is expansion will have to happen in the future. When that happens Dayton is well positioned to get an invite, but adding only midwest schools would be detrimental to the league. Ideally Boston U or Northwestern would become basektball powers. unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon

Why would it be unwise? Should we not trust the midwesterners? Are we going to have to grow corn on Utopia Turnpike? Whats the bad things that can happen by adding two midwestern teams? I seriously want to know. Say we add SLU and Dayton how does that change how we are as a league? We still have a strong presence on the I95 corridor and will keep playing our tourny at MSG. Why is it bad to be 7-5 Mid-west/east coast? We are a united conference it's not like our nice midwestern friends are going to start forcing the east coast schools to do anything they don't want to do. I don't get this logic that it has to be geographically balanced and what does the Big Ten have to do with anything?

Seton Hall, Nova and SJU are closer than Dayton, X and Butler. We used to be a very close league. SJU, Hall, Nova, UConn, PC, BC, Gtown. Those are all REALLY close together.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

I've been a pretty big expansionist in the past, and have been pretty bullish on SLU, but at this point I think it is much better for the league to stay at 10. Expansion will happen eventually but we are trying to cultivate the image of us as a power conference, which we have been very successful at. Maintaining that is priority #1. I don't think anyone but UConn and Gonzaga would protect that image if we added them right now (maybe VCU). Perception is very important right now. That plus we are just starting to see the first glimpses of developing rivalries. I'd like to give that a chance to germinate.

We need schools like Dayton, SLU, Richmond, VCU, and whoever else might be a candidate to establish themselves in the same way the Butler, Xavier, and Creighton had before coming to the league. I think we are a couple years away from that.

All that is not to say that I don't still enjoy talking expansion and candidates. It's a very interesting topic.

Excellent post, Marquette, and I believe that you have hit the nail on the head. The Big East will remain at 10 teams until two realistic expansion candidates emerge that are consistently as good or better than the performance of the ‘average’ BE team. Anything less would dilute the quality of the BE product for no good reason, and that just won’t happen.

I believe that Dayton, under Archie Miller, has now emerged as the leading candidate for the 11th team, but team No. 12 will take a number of years to become apparent, and by then, Archie Miller will have likely moved on to an Indiana, Ohio State, or Louisville. Dayton will need to make the right replacement hire to keep the ball rolling, and that hasn’t been Dayton’s forte to date.

Assuming for the moment that Dayton continues to be a ‘quality’ team after Archie leaves, who will be No. 12?


Today’s RPI Rankings (I forgot VCU on my previous post, so I added them to the list below.)

2 - Dayton (7-1) • SOS Rank # 17
45 - Richmond (5-3) • SOS Rank # 16
49 - Gonzaga (6-2) • SOS Rank # 43
82 - Wichita State (3-4) • SOS Rank # 22
90 - Connecticut (5-3) • SOS Rank # 56
119 - Virginia Commonwealth (5-3) • SOS Rank # 123
208 - Saint Louis (4-3) • SOS Rank # 223

It is my opinion that Wichita State, Connecticut, and Virginia Commonwealth will not become members of the Big East because they receive state funding. I think that travel considerations for all sports will be a deal-breaker for Gonzaga. That realistically leaves St. Louis and Richmond.

Saint Louis, under Jim Crews, is a train wreck, and will require a long-term rebuilding job by Jim Crews’ replacement, who will be named in the spring of 2016 or 2017. It will be at least another 4 years until Saint Louis has a chance of fielding a good basketball team, and that is only if SLU makes a very good hire. It’s difficult for a program in tatters to attract a good coach. Fortunately, Dayton will have everything in place to attract a good coach, and hopefully, they will.

Richmond is a very interesting and realistic possibility in my mind, but the Spiders will need to continue to improve, as they aren’t there yet. Richmond is a private school (check), an East Coast school (check), with a Christian ethos (similar to Butler, check). Saint Louis is a better institutional fit that Richmond, but Richmond balances geography and would add another non-Catholic University. They just need a better basketball team.

I don’t consider Big East expansion to be inevitable. I honestly don’t think that the Big East will expand unless or until it can add two private schools with consistently good teams. The time frame for that to happen appears to be at least four years away (if ever).

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RPI Forecast - through games of Dec. 9, 2015

10 - Dayton (24-6) • SOS Rank # 38
64 - Richmond (18-12) • SOS Rank # 69
148 - Saint Louis (13-17) • SOS Rank # 55

This Year's Dayton Team will be Archie Miller's Best Flyers Squad Yet – CBS Sports – December 10, 2015 - 2:53 pm ET

Miller will keep proving his worth and increasing his value as the months go on.

To wit, a 72-67 win at No. 21 Vanderbilt on Wednesday night. With his team trailing by 16 expertly coached his Flyers back into the game against a Vandy squad boasting multiple future NBA picks. Dayton's slithery comeback against the Dores signaled the program's biggest win this season and one of the most deft-yet-impressive coaching jobs of Miller's time with UD. (The Flyers subsequently moved into the CBS Sports rankings on Thursday, coming in at No. 21. They're likely not to leave the rankings for some time now.)

"The Vanderbilt win was the result of not handling [Xavier] well two weeks ago," Miller told CBS Sports on Thursday of Dayton's 90-61 loss to undefeated Xavier on Nov. 29. "We learned our lesson in getting down and people not trying to make a play for themselves, to score 10 points on one basket."

The Flyers are now 7-1, have five wins against top-100 teams (which is as many as anyone else in the country) and they've achieved this in a way few other coaches/teams could. They've made headway and gotten better without their best player. That would be Dyshawn Pierre, who was suspended for the first semester by the school after allegations of sexual assault. This is no shock for Dayton. The line last year about the Flyers winning despite having only six scholarship players and nobody over 6-foot-6 became so overused it was practically secondhand knowledge to anyone with even a passing interest in college basketball.

[BEX]

I don't see UD getting the votes to get in anytime in the forseeable future.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

I don't see UD getting the votes to get in anytime in the forseeable future.

I could not find a newer version of the Bylaws. If someone else can, please post them.

The Big East Conference Amended and Restated Bylaws as of October 17, 2011

Article 4.02 - New Members

An institution which meets the requirements for membership set forth in these Bylaws may be admitted into the Conference as a new Member by a vote of at least three-fourths of all of the Directors of the Board...

If Article 4.02 has not been changed, it implies that 8 of the 10 BE schools must approve the addition of a new member (or that three schools are needed to block a potential new member). Does anyone know if this is still the case ?

[trephin]

it could be argued that the close schools would be needed to saturate the NY metro with it's population density and multiple entertainment options in contrast to a more spread out population with less options in the midwest. note, this is complete conjecture on my part as I'm unsure of the makeup of the conference's midwest areas.

i do think UD's proximity to XU may be a hinderance either on a TV level or due to XU's desire. How much on court success matters is unknown. Can the conference expand with less on court success if balanced by a school with more success? does enrollment matter?

i'm not sure there is ANY urgency to expand in the next 5 years however

[DeltaV]

How's Davidson this year? I know they're small, and a little further away, but part of me likes the idea of trying to stick it to the heart of the ACC

[MUBoxer]

They probably have the best basketball success over the last ten years (an arguement could be made for VCU)

When three tournament appearances = best success over the past ten years then you know it's slim pickings. I get everything else you're saying about midwest vs east coast. But lets not forget Ohio is barely midwest. I mean you mentioned detroit as a viable eastern option, is dayton that much different? The state is directly south and still in the same time zone. That being said I vote Davidson to rep the east coast plus it'd be great to get the Big East affiliated with Curry now that Wade is almost finished with Basketball. Then add Dayton because well, like I said earlier, slim pickings and fitting an oval into a circle is easier than a square into a circle. (metaphor for those that didn't follow)

[stever20]

They probably have the best basketball success over the last ten years (an arguement could be made for VCU)

When three tournament appearances = best success over the past ten years then you know it's slim pickings. I get everything else you're saying about midwest vs east coast. But lets not forget Ohio is barely midwest. I mean you mentioned detroit as a viable eastern option, is dayton that much different? The state is directly south and still in the same time zone. That being said I vote Davidson to rep the east coast plus it'd be great to get the Big East affiliated with Curry now that Wade is almost finished with Basketball. Then add Dayton because well, like I said earlier, slim pickings and fitting an oval into a circle is easier than a square into a circle. (metaphor for those that didn't follow)

Dayton isn't remotely close to VCU on the floor the last 10 years....

VCU has had 7 tourney spots in 10 years with a final 4 run. 9 years in a row with at least 24 wins. Dayton last 10 years with 3 bids and only 4 years with 24+ wins.

Only reason why VCU isn't in the Big East is the litmus test. It's definitely not basketball.