What are your thoughts about having a separate division for schools that do not participate in football? There are now more than 320 Division I teams. We divided football; why not basketball?

I've been following this Board for a couple of months and wanted to chime in with my "two cents"

With any luck some conference commissioners read some fan boards because I see more sense coming out of boards like this than come out of conference "rooms" from the major conferences. ;D

I posted on this thread because this is where the key to solving the BCS expansion problem lies. Expansion is most llikely to occur in Big East, and C-USA definite...SunBelt with leftovers...and MWC maybe. The Big 10 should but is still waiting and holding out for Notre Dame.

The key to expansion in the Big East and C-USA are the "deadweight" basketball schools. NO football expansion is likely until the basketball question is solved. As someone alluded to earlier, it's tough to kick teams out of these conferences....so let's give them somewhere to go.

The NCAA currently has 31 basketball conferences, a 32nd conference would allow the NCAA to have 32 champs and 32 at-larges. This has some symmetry as well as eliminating the abominable play-in game which much like the BCS is being forced on us by the power 6 conferences.

A new 32nd league will only work if the champion of the league could qualify for the tourney without the advent of an auto birth in the early years (takes 3 years for any new league to qualify auto birth). With this rule only strong basketball schools could form a new conference.

Here it is...BTW the college presidents would love this conference; all sports, NO football, and best of all...all Catholic. I'll call it Great Midwest Atlantic Conference...

From the A-10
Xavier
St. Josephs
St. Bonaventure

From the Big East
St.Johns (recently dropped football)
Providence
Seton Hall

From C-USA
St. Louis
Marquette
DePaul

From the Horizon League
Detroit Mercy

You could add others, but a strong 10 team basketball conference would create huge interest. It's not spread too far afield. And BEST OF ALL :) it opens up 3 slots in the Big East, and 3 slots in C-USA for football expansion. The A-10 is a mix and match conference already so no harm done there (and it's 1AA anyway)

Comments?

Welcome DaddyWags!!

I think you forgot to add a team to your conference: Georgetown. They're also Catholic, fit the the Midwest Atlantic criteria, and they have non-scholarship football (Patriot League member).
Villanova could also fit in this league, but they have football.

DawgandDuck...

I left out Georgetown and 'Nova because they have football. Although Georgetown could be considered, if you want to put in non-scholarship football schools. The more Eastern schools you added to this league the more midwestern you'd want to subtract.

The best solution to the non-1A Big East football schools would be a partnership with the A-10 which is 1AA. Villanova may eventually go 1A. I've heard that UMass has explored this also. The 1AA football schools could go to the A-10, and any 1AA A-10 schools wanting to move up could be brought into the Big East (although the Temple experiment seems to have failed here).

However if a proposed league like this ever flourished the stature of the A-10 would take a big hit in basketball with the loss of Xavier, and St.Joes, less with St. Bona.

The Big East needs room in football. They only get it with a reduction of the basketball schools. Getting the basketball schools to WANT TO LEAVE is the trick. The same is true for C-USA.

It's my opinion that G'town would be a good fit for your league, even though they have non-scholarship football, they think very much like a basketball-only school. (Non-scholarship is kind of like a compromise between the G'town students and the G'town administration, IMO. The admin does not have to fork out a lot of $$'s for a football program, and the students get to enjoy some football. Both sides win! ;D )
You're probably right about 'Nova.


I have no idea what 'Nova's plans for football are. They have a football team, unlike Seton Hall or Providence, haven't dropped football like St. John's, and they have scholarship football unlike G'town. All of those factors put 'Nova in a category by itself in the BE, IMO. I do think that it is Commissioner Tranghese's desire to be more all of an all-sports conference. That's probably why he gave bball-only schools like SJU, GU, UConn, and 'Nova the privilege of BE football membership if they upgraded to IA. To date, UConn is the only school that has taken advantage of that offer. However, 'Nova might join the Huskies in I-A as well soon.
It is my opinion that UMass is going to go I-A very soon. I do not know if the Big East is going to give them an invite or not (I'd say probably not, considering the size of the league right now), but there have been rumors out there that the MAC might pick up UMass if they do decide to go I-A (as a possible replacement for Marshall or UCF, should either leave).


Agreed!!!

Welcome aboard DaddyWags!

You raise, and possibly answered, a problem for realignment. Your new league would fit with a break between the FB and BB schools in the BE and ACC. If the FB (bb) schools (Clemson, FSU, GT, MD, Miami, Pitt, Syracuse, VT, WV) broke of the form 1 conference; and the BB(fb) formed another (Duke, UNC, NC St., UVa, Wake and the BE BB(fb) teams). Your GMAC (Will Chevy be upset ??? ) would fit into this scenerio; providing and outlet for the BB only schools and allowing both conferences to expand.

The question you raised, and possibly answered, is: Would the new FB(bb) conference get an automatic big dance bid immediatly, or have to wait 3 years. The answer seems to be: Whatever the NCAA wants! The NCAA could approve the above conferences with an immediate automatic big dance invite if it wanted. As usual, politics will decide. If it stops a fight between the BB and FB schools, it could be approved. If the BB schools object, it would probably fail.

The new FB(bb) conference could keep the name BE if the BB formed GMAC or call itself Big Atlantic if the just formed a new conference. It could add So. MS, UL, etc to grow to 12 if it wanted. Tobbacco Rd would probably keep the ACC name, but Big Ivy sounds good. Big Ivy could go to a 12 team conference with north and south divisions, adding Navy, Army etc.

Note, this lineup would add 1 conference to the Big Dance, but subtract 1 from the BCS since Big Ivy would not qualify.

FBfan

Wright Waters said the Sun Belt was 1-AAA before it started sponsoring football, so this classification already exists.