Arkansas-Little Rock
Lamar
New Orleans
South Alabama
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Texas-Arlington
Texas-Pan American
Texas-San Antonio

Why? Basketball? Would be a stinky basketball conference from the get go.

Southland basketball is probably still better and South Alabama isn't even close enough to be considered in a regional conference like this.

Then you have Lamar, Arlington and San Antonio all giving serious thought to reviving football. Gives them no reason to leave a conference that already houses one of the best D-IAA football conferences in the land.

If you really wanted a new conference you would need at least 10 members with placement in major money markets and have some established rivalry and tradition with those come along for the ride.

As it stands SunBelt basketball is on the verge of getting that all important second team in the postseason (NCAA/NIT) and the Southland could possibly add Pan American and Corpus Christi as new members anyways.

Yeah, I was short on time and decided to throw the concept out there for purposes of banter as UALR, UNO, and USA are the only non-football schools of the Sun Belt and Lamar, UTA, and UTSA are the only non-football schools of the Southland. Barring major changes in membership requirements, this "Texas and three others" conference is an obvious pipe dream, especially with the glaring issue of automatic bid qualification into the NCAA Tournament. I foresaw travel New Orleans and South Alabama (Mobile) as travel partners, and would have also included Centenary and Oral Roberts if not for their sectarian status...also, is the Sun Belt really on the verge of returning to multi-bid status (ala mid-1980s)? Utah State is headed to the WAC, not the Sun Belt, and Louisiana-Lafayette isn't exactly of Western Kentucky stature just yet (esp. in light of recent events)...

All things being equal (i.e. both SLC and proposed conference are automatic NCAA qualifiers), I fail to see how the SLC would be much better than the proposed conference...

But all things are not equal. There are regions and travel costs to be considered. Plus rivalries with old conference ties and teams.

Plus ties to a conference with Division I playoffs. The Sunbelt teams would have to give up any bowl revenue the Sun Belt brings in.

And then just the quality of the teams in general. I mean honestly, Southland basketball is not good because their teams will not schedule quality opponents because they don't recruit for quality opponents. And the Sun Belt is middle of the road, better than the Southland.

Then you add in other factoring sports like baseball and track which are probably the more reputable sports in both conference, but the teams involved in the proposed conference are closer to the bottom.

So at best you have similar basketball leagues with the proposed and the Southland, Sun Belt basketball is still better, there is no football, football revenue or pull for recruits from having football, and all the other sports suffer.

So with UTPA and TAMUCC being on the short list of possible new members to the Southland, why would any of them want to leave an established conference?

Now there are some great possibilities to a new conference like this if you start thinking bigger schools with the right markets and some name recognition that will not pigeon hole the proposed conference into being a small conference full of perceived regional school.