I would think they would want quality competition. The original 7 were grandfathered in despite their records, but Creighton, Xavier, and Butler were clearly selected due to recent success among other factors. I can't imagine they would allow a school into the Big East without bringing some credibility to the conference in basketball. It is crazy this year that this conference of 10 only has 1 true title contender in Villanova (not even a strong contender at that.) Any given year, though, at least 3-4 of these teams can be title contenders. The current ESPN Bracketology (updated 1/23/14) has 4 Big East teams in the tournament (Villanova, Creighton, Xavier, and Providence.) I think Villanova and Creighton are essentially locks, but past that I don't see any teams that should feel comfortable.

Two things:

#1 - Basing all of this off recent basketball success is actually kind of stupid.

#2 - The 10 current members of the Big East would be the best off if they went with Dayton & Duquesne.



Yes, you want a conference that is good at basketball. But you don't need to have a 10-team conference with 10 programs that are basically all top 75 programs in the country.

That just makes programs like DePaul, who was going 11-5 in C-USA and making the dance; and Butler, who was going 16-2 in the Horizon and making the dance; become teams in the 120s by losing 13 conference games.

Any 10-team conference is going 90-90 against itself in an 18-game slate.
Any 12-team conference is going 96-96 against itself in a 16-game schedule.

The Big East 10 will be about 15-5 in the additional OOC Games. If your two additions go a combined 15-13 OOC, your Conference RPI goes up.

So, you want two teams, who win OOC, but don't win in conference.

Who wins OOC and loses in conference? Dayton is fantastic at it. Duquesne not as much. But they add the Pittsburgh market and will finish 12th.

So if Duquense goes 2-14 and Dayton goes 4-12, the 10 other teams are 90-70 in conference, instead of 90-90 (Plus another two wins OOC each).

Here's BE standings if you double the conference records from the first time through the league:

16-2 Nova (28-2)
16-2 CREI (26-4)
12-6 PROV (22-9)
10-8 XAVR (19-11)
---
8-10 HALL (17-14)
8-10 MARQ (16-15)
6-12 GTWN (16-15)
6-12 STJN (16-15)
4-14 BUTL (13-16)
4-14 DEPL (12-21)

Now here's adding 2-14 Duquesne and 4-14 Dayton:
14-2 NOVA (28-2)
14-2 CREI (26-4)
11-5 PROV (23-8)
10-6 XAVR (21-9)
9-7 MARQ (18-13)
9-7 HALL (19-12)
8-8 GTWN (18-13)
---
5-11 SJU (17-14)
5-11 BUT (16-13)
5-11 DEP (15-18)
3-13 DAY (15-16)
3-13 DUQ (10-18)

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St. Louis U is currently ranked # 13 (coming off a solid 2013 A-10 championship season, where they won the regular-season title AND the conf. tournament)

.... just sayin' .... If they can keep up the recruiting and buck-up to keep their current coach (a Majerus protege) around, they could help the BE's RPI.

I honestly believe the Big East doesn't need another good team.

When you cram eight NCAA calibre programs into one 10-team leagues, five teams are finishing in the bottom half of the league.

9-3 OOC, 9-9 in conference, 1-1 in the conference tourney = 19-13 and the NIT.

you NEED teams at the bottom absorbing conference losses.

The A-10 has four teams who are 6-30. The other nine teams are .635 in conference.
The Bottom of the Big East is more competitive, so the top 7 are only .550 in conference play.

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They're better off taking the talent or at least SLU and Dayton if Richmond is too good. SHU, SJU, DePaul, usually suck(even in the 16 team BE). Butler sucks w/o their coach now, G'town sucks this year but is usually good, Providence is good but usually meh. Right there are 4-5 teams that will boost the others along w/ SLU. Then just throw in Dayton or Richmond and see if they go to the suck side or rise to the top.

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I think it's SLU's and Richmond's spots to lose at this point. There's more support there for those guys than others, and in those "others," there's public schools and market redundancies that just won't "make the cut."

If the Big East wants a public school, they'll go back for UConn.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Big East arranged something with the WCC, like a challenge. Really, the only school who probably does the conference any sustainable good in the sport of basketball is Gonzaga.

I tend to agree. I thought the conference should have taken someone other than Creighton for the final spot, knowing they would be there later. I felt St. Louis, Richmond or Dayton would have been best.

That said, I see what the Big East was doing. They wanted to stretch the footprint out west. And this was the year to do it with McDermott on the roster still. The Big East knew they would compete again with him there, this year being his senior year. Creighton is ranked at #12 still, and many fan eyes are on them. So the program is boosting the conference and when the school needs to rebuild, the conference will give the school a boost.

As for the next steps, the Big East can now bridge Xavier/Butler/Depaul/Marquette to Creighton via St. Louis...a school that will also be in the tournament this year. St. Louis seems the fit to form that bridge. And then you have to consider Dayton and Richmond. Or course, St. Louis and Richmond could both be passed over if the Big East instead opted for public schools without football like Wichita St. and VCU.

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If St Louis keeps having successful seasons and tournament runs I wonder at what point the Big East brass break down and decide to expand? It seems silly for them to ignore a successful program in a Top 25 media market that that shares the same religious heritage as 9 of the 10 current members. Is the question of who deserves to be #12 the issue that is holding the process up? Out of Dayton, Duquesne, Richmond, and VCU surely one of those could serve as a decent placeholder.

There has been some great debate on the future 2 heading towards the Big East. It appears that SLU is the front runner.

Based on the selections so far...I just don't see a non-private, non-Catholic school getting the bid. So if, the BE wants the city of Richmond....it will most assuredly be the U of Richmond.
I'm just not sold on the BE picking up another non-Catholic school. At least with Butler...they used to be Catholic, right?

I do like Dayton quite a bit for this situation. But, do understand the overlapping that has been mentioned as a draw back.

Of the ones listed...I guess that Duquesne is my favorite for the second spot to 12. Good sized market, not overly competitive, doesn't overlap other markets/schools, and plenty of history with other Catholic schools.

As a backup for the eastern schools....I still have Boston U and Loyola in Baltimore(even though there might be some market overlap) as two quality markets to grab. BU has a large student population and Loyola puts another foot on the eastern seaboard, which keeps travel down for everybody there.
Backups for the west...Detroit Mercy and....?Gonzaga? Gonzaga sure is far away.

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No Butler(Christian Church, Disciples of Christ) was never catholic. BU(methodist, not catholic) isn't leaving the PL, neither is Loyola.

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BU actually downgraded athletically when they went to the Patriot. Why it doesn't appear that way is because the Patriot is so many times better academically than the AE, and because the AE was riddled with issues...many of which BU helped create. But, BU was cutting their athletic budgets, and the Patriot allows them some freedom in tackling scholarships with more flexibility (in other words: BU can choose to be really cheap). The corrosion and instability of these other northeastern conferences helps make the Patriot look stable, which they are...but only because it's an Ivy Lite conference.

All that is to say...Boston isn't budging from the Patriot for the Big East. Not that Boston wouldn't fit into the Big East profile, but because Boston would have to spend more on athletics, which it won't.

Heck, to even get into the Patriot, Boston had to promise they would field lacrosse, which they are...practically fully funded by donations. That's not how you operate a major AD.

I was not aware of those issues. Thanks for the info.
Seems odd that a school of their size with over 1.4 billion in endowments....would be so cheap?? What's the deal with that?




Dang it, 0 for 2 on that one.

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If you would have put BC instead of BU you would have been correct. BC is Jesuit/Catholic. Of course they won't be leaving the ACC.

It also said that the church was never in charge of Butler, I don't know how that worked. Let's claim it but have nothing to do w/ it?

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It's a mixture of the administration and the school's enrollment profile. BU isn't terribly unlike NYU, with a diverse student body who just don't really give a hoot about college athletics. Boston just got AAU designation in 2012, and they have been very committed to making the school into a research incubator.

To me, Georgetown could be Boston in some time. The pay cut this new Big East took from breaking away from that other part puts pressure on the schools to spend and succeed to stay visible and relevant. Who knows if Georgetown has the administration to keep that up.

NYTimes article with comments from BE Commish regarding how that league is now dealing with the aftermath of conference realignment at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/sport ... ports&_r=0