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Ok everyone, I know 16 is not the optimum number. In no way do I think that any time soon the conference will go to that number and in no way do I think they should. However, it would be cool just to consider matchups, non-rev competitions, and an allegiance of like-minded institutions for things outside of sports (think of ivy-like interactions where their affiliation raises the stature of the universities). Thinking this way, what would be your optimum 16? Obviously these could kind of be pie in the sky, if this happens, if that. Here is my list:

Butler ------ Indianapolis, IN
Creighton ------ Omaha, NE
Davidson ------ Charlotte, NC (ish)
DePaul ------ Chicago, IL
Detroit ------ Detroit, MI
Georgetown ------ Washington, DC
Marquette ------ Milwaukee, WI
Northeastern ------ Boston, MA
Notre Dame ------ South Bend, IN
Providence ------ Providence, RI
Richmond ------ Richmond, VA
Saint Louis ------ St. Louis, MO
Seton Hall ------ South Orange, NJ
St. John's ------ New York, NY
Villanova ------ Philadelphia, PA
Xavier ------ Cincinnati, OH

Lacrosse Associate Member:
Johns Hopkins ------ Baltimore, MD


Others considered:
College of Charleston ------ Charleston, SC
Dayton ------ Dayton, OH
Siena ------ Albany, NY
Valparaiso ------ Valparaiso, IN


This alignment would give the conference 16/17 great markets (with Johns Hopkins) with 15/16 states (then Notre Dame's national appeal), and some top notch universities academically. Not too mention if for some reason we found a need to compete 16 v 16 with the major football conferences (no idea what ncaa may look like with large 16 teams conference in the future) this would be a top notch 16 bball conference with strong recruiting holds in the Midwest, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and even dipping into the South. Also, only 1 football team in Notre Dame, who i am sure would prefer to stay independent as long as possible. As is evident, I would prefer to stay relatively close geographically (namely states which border current conference states), but I am assuming some would like to go West. Ideas? Again, this is pie in the sky.

No offense but I for one am a little tired of the 7,000 posts about adding this school or that or another pie-in-the-sky conference alignment. Let's play one season with 10 teams, and re-evaluate what we have after. What I hate about college athletics are the schools that have just jumped willy-nilly to whatever patch of grass they thought would be greener for them, and that caused 4 others to start looking to do the same (see WVU). What I like about the new Big East is that we were formed as the anti-BCS FB conference. Stick to solid BB schools for now and let's not rush anything so we get it right. Those 16 as presented just waters down the BB product. Make the BB product really strong and then worry about expansion later.

GumbyDamnit! wrote:No offense but I for one am a little tired of the 7,000 posts about adding this school or that or another pie-in-the-sky conference alignment. Let's play one season with 10 teams, and re-evaluate what we have after. What I hate about college athletics are the schools that have just jumped willy-nilly to whatever patch of grass they thought would be greener for them, and that caused 4 others to start looking to do the same (see WVU). What I like about the new Big East is that we were formed as the anti-BCS FB conference. Stick to solid BB schools for now and let's not rush anything so we get it right. Those 16 as presented just waters down the BB product. Make the BB product really strong and then worry about expansion later.

Yeahhhhh sorry for having a bit of fun. And like I said i don't really care about the basketball product all too much. They are all pretty decent in bball which i made a decent requirement but I mostly looked at the schools, what they could bring to the conferences credibility off the court. As in the institutions working together. Especially the national impact (at least eastern impact) as it would be a group of great schools in different states working together who would also be pretty darn good at bball. Its a cool idea to bring the product (both academically and athletically) to more people across this part of the country (ie VA, NC, MI). Sorry for making 1 thread not 100% focused on the sports product and specifically bball (though i realize its a hoops board).

This would be a disaster for our schools.

yorost wrote:This would be a disaster for our schools.

How? those schools are good schools?

I yi yi !!!!!!

I concur with all other comments. I think 12 is still in play but i agree we have about over analyzed every nuance of the considered schools. While fun... there just is no reason to look past 12... and if we are going to resort to discussing the merit of potential Big South Schools... i'll switch my support to staying at 10 teams

That 16 team league is a great institutional fit. But when basketball season came around, I would just start watching the ACC.

I get a feeling the OP is looking to provoke Dayton fans

I agree that we should maybe start to focus more on the 10 schools we have now!

James wrote:I get a feeling the OP is looking to provoke Dayton fans

I agree that we should maybe start to focus more on the 10 schools we have now!

I promise it wasn't, I just wanted to expand the states a little more. Since I wasn't really focusing on fan turnout for bball or the points for dayton's inclusion you can understand why they weren't in my list, I kind of thought i'd get some other hypotheticals but apparently this whole idea is blasphemous so im pretty much over it. It was fun thinking about though.

Forget about Northeastern and Boston. NO support for college sports except for hockey.

PC is essentially covering the Boston market.