Dayton

[aughnanure]

Oh jeez, just relax everyone. Dayton and SLU in almost all likelihood are getting in.

[XU85]

Was at Cincinnati Music Hall for the Chieftians concert with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. At one point the Chieftans invited out a special guest to come play with them. The special guest was a NASA astronaut who took to of the Chieftan instruments up to the International Space Station and played them over a video link at a previous concert. During the introduction they mentioned that she was a University of Dayton Alumni. Two people three rows in front of me yelled "GO FLYERS." Listen I totally understand the astronuats are in an elite club. One should take pride that their school has produce one or more astronauts. But seriously who thinks its appropriate to yell out a cheer for your sports team at an event / venue like that? Lets just say there were more a few glares from the people infront of them.

On several different levels -- Who cares??

[SixTwentySix]

Ah screw it... go to 14 teams. They're all solid programs and a great fit. Let em all in.

[yorost]

Ah screw it... go to 14 teams. They're all solid programs and a great fit. Let em all in.

Yuck. Any of the most talked about ones in the discussion to 12 are perfectly fine, but if you add them all you do start diluting the field. Going to 14 in the future might make sense, but it should be to notably strengthen the conference.

...and who is 14? Dayton, St. Louis, (Richmond or VCU), and then?

[SixTwentySix]

Ah screw it... go to 14 teams. They're all solid programs and a great fit. Let em all in.

Yuck. Any of the most talked about ones in the discussion to 12 are perfectly fine, but if you add them all you do start diluting the field. Going to 14 in the future might make sense, but it should be to notably strengthen the conference.

...and who is 14? Dayton, St. Louis, (Richmond or VCU), and then?

Well I was being more sarcastic than anything and would prefer 12 myself. The 14 joke was in regard to all the bickering... But since you asked. Name a conference that isn't diluted. Name one that has great teams top to bottom that compete. Every conference in the country has bottom feeders, you cant avoid it. Everyone on this board seems to think we're going to have 12 schools with winning records.

[yorost]

None, but that's not the dilution I meant. We can keep adding teams in the middle or lower part of the conference, but that dillutes the marquee matchups we have. With 12 teams we get each team twice a season more frequently than every other year. With 14 we get each team twice a season a little more frequently than once every three years. Adding teams to the middle or lower parts reduces the number of marquee matchups the conference has. Yes, a strong middle gives nice wins, but more top games gives teams more chances at signature wins for their resumes.

The Big East could go to 16 because it was adding teams that would regularly be highly rated. If we can get more Gerogetowns, we can go higher with no worry, but until then it reduces matchups we want for our teams.

[SixTwentySix]

None, but that's not the dilution I meant. We can keep adding teams in the middle or lower part of the conference, but that dillutes the marquee matchups we have. With 12 teams we get each team twice a season more frequently than every other year. With 14 we get each team twice a season a little more frequently than once every three years. Adding teams to the middle or lower parts reduces the number of marquee matchups the conference has. Yes, a strong middle gives nice wins, but more top games gives teams more chances at signature wins for their resumes.

The Big East could go to 16 because it was adding teams that would regularly be highly rated. If we can get more Gerogetowns, we can go higher with no worry, but until then it reduces matchups we want for our teams.

I couldn't agree with you more. Which is why I'm an advocate for 12 teams as well. I'm just saying, at this point, who knows. Nothing will shock me. Fox may even pay more for the 7th ranked Boston market and all of a sudden Northeastern becomes a viable 14th team. After all, it looks like they may be winning their conference tonight and making the tournament. And isn't that all that matters on these forums?

I'm def on your side Yorost, you're one of the posters I follow and agree with the most. I've just decided to not buy into any rumors anymore. Just waiting for the announcements.

[DawgLover]

I understand the arguments regarding TV revenue and acknowledge that that will likely drive decisions on which and how many schools to add.

From a competition standpoint, however, I'd love to see it stay a 10-team conference with a double round-robin (if the league wants to have 18 conference games per team) or a 12-team conference with two divisions: play home-and-home against teams in your division and one game each against teams in the other division for a 16-game conference schedule.

I suppose the unbalanced schedule evens out over a number of years but, if there's a way to give all teams an equal shake in scheduling, it feels like a much more fair way to do things.

Yeah, I understand it's about dollars and not about "fair", but if there's a way to achieve both, it would be great.