The Big West wants 10 for RPI sake, every RPI analyst has said it best for your conference to have at least 10, with a 18 game conference schedule you beat up on your conference foes instead of getting beat by strong OOC games or lowering your SOS by playing bad teams.

Cal St- Northridge, Fullerton, Long Beach, Cal Poly
U Cal- Davis, Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara
and Hawaii- now the tie breaker (like Pacific was)

They added SDSU because they are great for that league and they really wanted in SD which is why they were pursuing UCSD earlier for that market which they wanted for upcoming TV deals and its where a lot of UC/CS alumni live. They were willing to let in another Cal St school w/o a UC school and break the balance in order to improve their RPI and get into the SD market but Boise was a tough sell which is why they wanted 750K a year.

Now that Boise isn't coming, and SDSU is probably leaving too...I bet they'll re-up talks with UCSD who will eventually find a way into D1 sooner rather than later and then CSUB will get their long awaited invite though they had made a stink about 11, I think it'll happen.

Plus I'm sure they'd like to be protected if Hawaii ever gets a full MWC invite or Cal Poly/UC Davis ever decide to join the FBS in the WAC or a new upstart conference with Idaho, NMSU, Sac St, the Montana's, and some of the other Big Sky teams.

UCSD is also the only D2 UC program and has the 4th largest UC enrollment outside of the UCLA/Cal-Berkley/Davis, and the 3rd largest endowment after UCLA/SF. And with 11 Cal St schools in D2 and 2 in NAIA they most likely want to encourage other UC schools to start moving up so that they may have a chance to in a decade or two.

After USCD the only non D1 UC schools left are UC-San Fransisco (no sports), UC-Merced (just est. in 2005, NAIA) and the UC-Santa Cruz "Banana Slugs" (in D3 and most likely to move up to D2).
The last thing the Big West wants is to be in a position where they have to invite CSUB w/o UCSD and other randoms like Grand Canyon, Utah Valley, and Seattle.

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UC Merced already said they plan on moving to D-II soon. UC Santa Cruz has turned down CCAA overtures in the past. They are a hippy school all about education and play in a gym smaller than my high school. My wife was a student trainer there when she was in college. UCSF is basically a grad school where you become MD, Phd etc...

W/ an east west split in the MWC the west would be SDSU, Fresno, SJSU, UNLV, Nevada, Hawaii. They could go for all sports w/ that setup. That would put the BW at 8 CSUB(D-II power/ top arena for BW) and UCSD would make a nice 10.

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As always I defer to your Cali knowledge. Must have had UCSC and UCM backwards...assumed it was UCSC since they've been around longer but an NAIA upgrade makes sense.

West - Hawaii, SDSU, Fresno, SJSU, UNLV, Nevada, Boise
Mnt - Utah St, WYO, CSU, AFA, UNM, Houston, SMU/UTEP/NMSU

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UCSC is one of the sh*ttiest D-III basketball schools around. Their Chancellor killed herself a few years back. Only good thing about UCSC is the view of the campus being in a forest overlooking the ocean.

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And they have the coolest mascots in college the sports: The Banana Slugs.

Oh yeah that. They have a roided up version hanging in their gym

kinda like this

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Huh? I really only know of ONE RPI analyst (Jerry Palm). I suppose there's some arm-chair RPI analysts out there (I'd consider myself one). But the ideal number of teams is totally dependent on how you perform out of conference.

Every conference goes .500 against yourself. The more conf games, the more your total SOS's move towards .500. So there's two reasons to play a 18-game conference season:
#1 - Your conference performs very well OOC, and you can make more money playing more conference games (Power Conferences).
#2 - Your conference is really awful, and going .500 against yourself is an improvement over what you were doing OOC (or you're in an isolated area of the country and finding OOC games is tough.

From an RPI standpoint, the fewer conference games you play, the better off you are. Because that means fewer games you're guaranteed to lose as a league. Your SOS from conference games is basically your league's total win pct.

8-team MWC 2011-12: 82-27 OOC (.753), 138-83 (.624) overall.
9-team MWC 2012-13: 82-25 OOC (.776), 146-90 (.618) overall.
10-team MWC 2012-13: 93-27 OOC (.775), 174-108 (.617) overall)**
(with a hypothetical 10th team going .775 OOC, let's say North Dakota State, since they are 9-3 OOC)

As you can see, more conference games lowers your overall win pct, which moves everyone's SOS towards .500.

Of course, that's if the newcomer MATCHES what the conference is doing OOC. Bakersfield is 4-11 this season (.267). That doesn't help:
9-Team BWC 2012-13: 37-59 OOC (.385), 109-131 (.454) overall.
10-Team BWC 2012-13: 41-70 OOC (.369), 122-151 (.446) overall.



I don't know how much the San Diego market effects their TV deal. People actually care about SDSU, so it helped. But no one really cares about the rest of the Big West, because they're .385 basketball teams.

The clear indication of this is that Hawaii and Boise St had to pay travel subsidies. If they helped the TV deal, that wouldn't be necessary. Everyone would have gotten more TV money offsetting the cost.



I think you're overthinking this. We're applying all the intelligent, rational arguments for conference realignment to a conference that is a one-bid league and doesn't move the needle for TV.

If Hawaii left, they'd invite Sac State to be a travel partner with Davis; because otherwise Davis is floating up in NorCal alone. Hawaii and Davis are travel partners in the Pacific-less BWC.

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Yeah not a Big RPI guy, just saw some thing out there about ideal size for the smaller conferences is 10. I know the fact that you beat up on each other means RPI goes down but the smaller guys in the 1 bid leagues get beat up mostly in OOC play so it limits dropping your RPI even more than it would be...or that's what I've read if that make no sense let me know but how I've seen it RPI mostly deal with your OOC play but I think that's what you illustrating in the bold above.



I was reading on Big West Confidential that with the new Cali networks being talked about (once again I don't live there so correct me if I'm wrong) that they've were considering picking up the Big West bball TV deal. And CBSsports/NBCsports need inventory so many thought the smaller targeted conference like the Big West/MVC/American East would be getting some $ from TV. Also not sure if this helped but still they do want in the SD market for some reason.

I probably am. But FYI Sac State had to make an agreement with the Big Sky not to ditch them in Oly sports for the Big West in exchange for letting UC Davis/Cal Poly into the conference for fb. So that most likely won't happen. Outside of WCC and fb schools, UCSD is the most logical addition for long term gain but in a pinch CSUB is there if need be.

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That does make some sense... hording small conference hoops for content at a cheap price... I like it.



I did not know that regarding Sac State. Maybe if Hawaii left, Davis would jump to the Big Sky?

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who care what Rosie Palm said, the BW commish Dumb Dennis said he prefers 10, and talked to the A-Sun when they had 11 and said 10 works best. Of course he went back on the 11 thing when BSU was willing to pay. He also said he was interested in UCSD back when there was no room and said they'd have to wait for an opening.

Hell even the Patriot and WCC went to 10 that should tell us 10 is the new minimum. Horizon just fell below 10 I'm sure they want to get back. AEC fell to 8 and is now looking to go to 12.

At the end of musical chairs the only conf under 10 will be the Ivy, by choice and the WAC by being lepers

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If Sacramento St had a genuine desire to come to the Big West as a replacement school the Big Sky would make the arrangements to release them from their promise and let them go IF it helped even out membership numbers in the Big Sky i.e. North Dakota leaves first.

This would leave the Big Sky with:

Portland St
E Washington
Idaho (no fb?)
Idaho St
Montana
Montana St
Weber St
S Utah
N Arizona
N Colorado
Sacramento St (fb only)
UC Davis (fb only)
Cal Poly (fb only)

This would give them 10 all-sports members and 12 for football unless Idaho downgraded but I think the Vandals will soon find themselves with a football only invite to the SBC.

With San Diego St and Boise out of the picture I wonder what the Big West will do. Are they safe holding at 9 members re-establishing their time honored balance of 4 UC schools, 4 Cal St schools, and Hawaii (instead of Pacific) being the tie breaker? Or do they consider some of the options on the table like Cal St Bakersfield, UC San Diego, or even nudging Sacramento St to break their blood oath with the Big Sky? I wonder if they would consider a non-California member if it would raise their RPI (New Mexico St)?

On another note--maybe someone from the West Coast might offer me some insight--if the WCC lost 'Zaga and BYU is there any chance that the UC schools would consder joining up with the WCC for academic reasons?
If this were to happen the WCC would look like this:
Portland+NorCal Division of: Portland, UC Davis, St Mary's, Pacific, San Francisco, and Santa Clara
SoCal Division of: UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine, Loyolal Marymount, and San Diego.

This would then mean that the Cal St Schools and Hawaii would have to add some of the WAC schools (Cal St Bakersfield, New Mexico St, Utah Valley, Seattle, and Grand Canyon) to keep the Big West alive.

I think they should go to 10. Give UCSD first dibs, if they're not ready give it to CSUB.

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I think the plans for the Big west hinges on BYU. If BYU goes back to the Mountain west and takes gonzaga. I'm curious if the big sky could go to 14 schools. (invite Portland and Grand Canyon) they would be travel partners for Portland state and Northern Arizona. They could have a north and south spit in basketball.

With that done and the WCC a California conference and a one bid league. i see them inviting cal state Bakersfield as their 8 member. I see more of maybe a small scheduling alliance between the big west and the WCC. Something like each team is guaranteed a home and away game from the other conference. The Big West conference will wait for uc san diego and the wcc could wait for any future California upgrades

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BYU isn't coming to the MWC and they have nothing to do w/ what the BW is gonna do, if Hawaii became all sports that would for sure trigger the BW to move. WCC is all private schools BW is all public schools sheading their last private, Pacific. Big Sky requires football(they're figuring they'll get Idaho fb back soon) and won't add GCU, Portland, they have better options if they ever changed the fb rule, like Denver, Seattle, NMSU. MWC isn't taking Gonzaga either, we'd take BYU's other sports before w/ take Gonzaga.

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