It reeks of the ramblings of somebody frustrated with the ACC.

Ask yourself, after all the angst the Big East Catholic BB (non-FBS) schools went through (being jerked around by other schools whose primary motivation was their FBS football program), WHY ON EARTH would those schools want to go back down that road ?

UConn's best bet is to improve their football program to be desirable by P5 conferences.

While I think the non-football schools are smart for not chasing the dragon of FBS football, and all it's money-draining trappings; the writing is on the wall:

No one who has dropped football after 1970 has found it an enjoyable experience. It may be a "we just had to swallow the pill, and it was the right decision for us" or it may have been a "that was a huge mistake and wish we still had it. But no one in college athletics has dropped football in the last 45 years and said "It wasn't a big deal, our alums weren't pissed. We transitioned easily and instantly from football school to basketball school."


In other words, UConn dropping football to join the Big East simply isn't happening.
And UConn picking a basketball conference for all sports over a football conference for all sports isn't happening either.

Which means, UConn to the Big East isn't happening... (unless the FBS splits from Division I and the AAC buys the Big East name from the Catholics).

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

Article out of Asbury Park(previously posted in another thread)discussing future possibility of UCONN joining the BE for none FB sports if their Big 12 membership bid fails. Link at http://www.app.com/story/sports/college ... g/91840616

Navy is a FB-only member of the AAC. Could Connecticut be one too ? The AAC (American) could then be 10 + 2 FB).
I keep thinking the AAC can invite UMass for all sports.

Is the American Conference somehow holding UConn BB back ?

The women are so good, they can't find much competition ANYWHERE !
And they just won another National Championship (is that 4 in a row ?)

I'm not clear on what huge advantage the BE offers over the American....

I don't see the Big East ever pursuing a hybrid model. And I don't see the American going along with that either.

The UConn women being head and shoulders above everyone in their conference is meaningless. They were head and shoulders above everyone in the "mega Big East" as well. In their last 24 seasons, they are .953 in conference games. And .951 in conference tournament games. And .920 in non-conference games. And .900 in NCAA Tournament games.

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

I also thoroughly enjoy the stories about the Big East's success this season that bring up not expanding past 10.

Like, this: http://www.espn.com/blog/collegebasketb ... r-quantity

Big East touting quality over quantity
The Big East won't be mistaken for the deepest league in the nation. And given that its membership stops at 10 teams, it will never echo the preseason banter of other mega conferences touting the possibility of double-digit NCAA tournament bids.

But keeping the focus strictly on quality, how many other leagues have a top four playing better than No. 2 Villanova, No. 7 Xavier, No. 10 Creighton and No. 18 Butler?

> Which wouldn't be any different if the Big East had more members.

That moved Butler to 7-0 and gave the Big East's four best teams a collective record of 25-0. The four best teams of the other major conferences can't say that.

> Which wouldn't be any different if the Big East had more members.

That's what separates the Big East. Villanova (2), Creighton (6), Xavier (14) and Butler (20) make it the only conference with four teams ranked in Ken Pomeroy's top 20 of adjusted offense.

> Which wouldn't be any different if the Big East had more members.

That's enough of a reminder that even though it downsized, the league still has a lot of beast left.

> Which wouldn't be any different if the Big East had more members.


I think the Big East remains stupid for not inviting a couple of teams behind the curve that could become better than the A-10 schools, but could never really catch up to the other Big East schools. Bringing in two schools that would spend the next 10 years getting their butts kicked in conference play would give the Big East 7 or 8 bids every year.

Instead, they'll pummel the crap out of each other, and teams like Georgetown and Marquette will be sitting at 7-11 in Big East play, 16-14 overall and watching the NCAAs on TV.

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

A few points:

All the good D-I teams schedule a bunch of patsies to start the season.
If you start 10-0 against a bunch of lesser teams, then go 10-10 vs. your conference, you bragg to the tourney Committee - "We're a 20-win team !"

OK, they take RPI into consideration, but if you don't play in a pre-season tournament vs some tough competition, the expectation is that a Big East Team SHOULD start at least 8-2 before beginning conference play.

The Big East has a nice group of teams, but when the original 7 expanded, they added some great programs in Xavier, Butler and Creighton. Xavier and Creighton both Jesuit, I believe. Butler - religious non-Catholic, with 2 recent trips to the NCAA Championship Game!
Geographically - Creighton (Omaha, NE) is a real haul ! It's a burden to kids in their other sports.

I think I might expand with Duquesne (Pittsburgh), Dayton, St. Louis, and Wichita State. More quality, some of those schools will be up and down, but I think the committee will cut them some slack for depth when they pummel the snot out of each other. They could get half (7) of those 14 into the Tourney a lot of years.

I wouldn't take Wichita State to be the only public school. I'd say they should take Dayton, Duquesne and St. Bona for 13 schools, and they could get 8 of 13 into the dance.

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

Should the new Big East plan on expansion in the far future, it's obvious for some of the experts and viewers that it should be Dayton and St. Louis being #11 & #12 respectively. Then for #13 & #14, it should be Duquesne and St. Bonaventure, to attempt on balancing East/West division play, as well as on the conference scheduling of 19 games, plus boosting some RPI and some tourney bids.

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Florida State Seminoles fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)! 2011-12 ACC men's basketball conference tournament champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football Atlantic Division champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football regular season champions; 2012, 2013 & 2014 ACC football conference bowl tournament champions; 2014 NCAA D-I FBS BCS national champions; 2015 ACC baseball conference tournament champions!

SLU is terrible right now, but have some great recruits coming in...

My contention is that the "conventional wisdom" of expansion -- adding the strongest candidates -- doesn't apply to the Big East. Other conferences have expanded with the strongest programs possible because:

A. They were expanding for TV purposes (SEC/Big Ten/ACC)
B. They LOST STRENGTH to someone else (American, Mountain West, Big XII)
C. They foresaw LOSING STRENGTH to someone else and made a pre-emptive expansion (Atlantic 10).

The A-10 added VCU, Butler, George Mason and Davidson because they knew they'd lose Temple and Xavier and probably two other schools (which turned out to be Charlotte & Butler). But the A-10 already had Fordham, LaSalle, Duquesne and a rotating group of teams at the bottom (Bona, URI, UMass, Richmond, Mason, SLU)

The Big East has DePaul and one rebuilding team each year. A four-team top, a four-team middle, A two-team bottom. And this is a problem

Generally speaking, in conference play (10 teams), the TOP and BOTTOM are going to have inverse records. And the middle teams that are above/at .500 get NCAA bids in a league as strong as the Big East.

But the Big East has only two teams in the bottom: 4-28 last year.
And the BE has four TOP FORTY PROGRAMS: 52-20 last year.

That leaves the four teams in the middle, and since the BE is gonna go 90-90, that makes the middle finish 34-42. That’s not enough wins for Creighton to make the dance. Creighton went 1-4 against Nova, Nova, Xavier, Xavier, Oklahoma; and 2-5 against Providence, Providence, Butler, Butler, Seton Hall, Seton Hall, Seton Hall and Indiana; 3-3 vs NIT/CBI/CIT teams, and 12-2 vs 130+ of the RPI.

Compare that to St. Bonaventure, who was #27 on Selection Sunday: 1-2 vs NCAA locks, 16-3 vs 130+ of the RPI.

Bona was 4-1 vs worse teams, Creighton was 1-6 vs ridiculously good teams, and Creighton was 70 spots worse in RPI. Then in the NIT, Wagner beat St. Bonaventure and lost to Creighton by 33 points.



The Big East should expand. NOT to “add strength.” They have enough strength as is. But to create balanced thirds that also adds TV markets:

St. Bonaventure:
- 10-2 OOC (8-3 average. With Big East schedule/money to buy games, there’s no need to play at Syracuse, at Florida, at Pitt, at Wake, at NC State, at Illinois. All OOC losses the last six years)
- Buffalo TV market, Rochester TV market. Same amount of residents in the 585 and 716 area codes as the St. Louis Metro Area.
- Probably going 6-12 at best in Big East play on average.

Duquesne:
- 8-4 OOC average (again, no need to play at WVU, at Penn State, at Ga Tech, at Arizona)
- Pittsburgh TV market
- Probably going 3-15 at best in Big East play

Dayton:
- 10-2 OOC average (again, no need to play three quality opponents OOC)
- Cincy + Dayton, aka Southwest Ohio is roughly the #18 sized overall market. And there’s so many teams in the area, you’d have a plurality)
- Need someone with a big rep like UD in expansion to win the PR war, just adding two lower teams is tough to spin.


That makes the Big East Top four: 52-20, like before. The bottom four would be 13-59. And the middle five would be a combined 48-38 (11-7, 11-7, 11-7, 10-8, 9-9).

The Big East would have gotten at least eight bids last year: Dayton and Creighton for sure. St. Bonaventure and MAYBE Marquette could have gotten bids depending on how the unbalanced schedule shook out.

A four-team top, a four-team bottom, and a FIVE TEAM MIDDLE that could ALL GO DANCING. Especially with the A-10 suffering yet another hit without Dayton.

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

SLU was highly-competitive 4-5 years ago, until the guys recruited by Majerus graduated.
His replacement was a decent bench coach, but not so hot on the recruiting trail.
SLU has since brought in Travis Ford, and he is showing much more success in recruiting, and this bodes well for SLU's future competitiveness.

One would have to assume that FOX may be influencing the Big East's stance on expansion.

SLU will be good soon... but what the hell does the Big East NEED another team like Butler, Creighton, Providence, Seton Hall, Marquette & Georgetown for?


I hear you on FOX's influence. But I also think that it would be worth it for FOX to jump on my concept. (Although, I'd totally understand if they wanted SLU instead of UD).

#1 - In JP's 13-team expanded Big East, they'd be getting 7 to 8 bids every year. Which makes the property more valuable.
#2 - They'd have 27 more conference games, 3 more BET games, and about 24 to 27 more OOC games of inventory.
#3 - They'd have the Big East teams being watched more in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Rochester (The Bonnies were the #1 watched team on NBCSN last season... our fans WATCH ON TV, because no one STAYS in Olean).

#4 - The Big East is one of the most cost-effective properties in college sports. That costs them $15 million more per year to get the exclusive rights of 60 college basketball games, half against mostly Big East opponents. Fox is paying $106.29 million this season for TWENTY-TWO Pac-12 men's basketball games.

#5 - it also lets them set the schedule based on a hybrid of "what gets us the most bids?" and "TV matchups" because with a 13-team league, they'd do Home & Away with six teams, and the other six opponents once for 18 games.

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1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

Article out of Omaha with comments from Big East Commish regarding how past league expansion has fared and "possible" future league expansion at http://www.omaha.com/creighton/mens-bas ... 8fdf0.html

Article out of Hartford(previously posted in another thread) with denials from BE and UConn regarding any membership discussions at http://www.courant.com/sports/college/h ... story.html

IBJ blog article with comments from BE Commish regarding league financial and membership situation at http://www.ibj.com/blogs/4-the-score/po ... -to-expand