The fate of the A-10s presence in the Midwest is really going to hinge on who is left and how many midwestern schools are there. If Dayton is the lone school left behind then I think the Flyers could remain in the A-10 and be comfortable; if that school is St Louis and Creighton is in the Catholic 7/12 then the A-10 would probably have to give up the midwestern flank. Now if for some reason two schools were still sitting there after the C-7/12 take their picks then I think they could successfully rebuild however the schools added would have to bring more value than the east coast options available. I think upgrading the league's NYC presence will take precedence however and we are more apt to see a Stony Brook or Hofstra add.

Article out of Philly discussing A-10 realignment situation at http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/col ... ition.html

If the A-10 has to return to 14:

UMass
Rhode Island
Fordham
Siena
St. Bonaventure
Duquesne
St. Joseph's
La Salle
George Washington
George Mason
VCU
Richmond (or Davidson)
Detroit Mercy
Cleveland State (or Dayton)

If Richmond goes to the C7 instead of Dayton I could see Davidson being taken instead if Cleveland State.

The Missouri Valley takes Milwaukee.

The Horizon League takes Oakland, Northern Kentucky, and SIU-Edwardsville.

The Summit invites North Dakota.

The OVC invites North Alabama.

The Atlantic Sun invites Columbus (GA) State.

I am really curious as to what happens with the Altantic 10 once the Catholic 7 finalize their membership. The A-10 will be standing at 9 or 10 members, but aside from the old tournament shares owed to the league, there won't be a whole lot holding the league together and the league will be devoid of any real headliners that elevate the level of the conference and draw media attention.

I almost think that the schools left behind might be better served by reorganizing and combining with elements of of other leagues to create more geographically-friendly conferences:

Fordham really belongs in the Patriot League not the A-10
Rhode Island is a better fit with America East
VCU/Richmond and George Washington could go back to the CAA

I'd really like to see the CAA go back to their Southern roots and become a true southern basketball conference (also adding UNC Greensboro and Davidson) while its 3 northern members (N'eastern, Hofstra, and Drexel) could hook up with the rest of the A-10 members and maybe a couple MAAC schools for a basketball league with a more Northeastern flavor.

Everyone thinks/wants a newly raided conference to dissolve, they wanted the Big 12, Big East, and now ACC to dissolve but they never do...sh*t rolls down hill.

The A10 is great brand, and they have some good tournament money being paid out to them over the ext few years. No one will just drop those assets for geography, that's why they joined the A10 in the first place.

The A10 just added Butler/VCU...so losing them isn't that bad (if its Richmond, VCU is an easy replacement).

Losing Xavier/Dayton/SLU hurts but by no means kills the conference in fact it makes it more compact and concise and mirrors the ACC w/o NC and the 4 Southern fb schools (Clem, GT, FSU, Mia)

I agree that the CAA should go back to its roots and I'm hoping the A10 will facilitate that by raiding them for Northeastern, Hofstra, and George Mason thus bringing some sense of balance back to the CAA.

Besides them the only obvious candidate for the A10 is Siena with Marist and Iona as longshots.

I would however, like to see the A10, after losing its Western wing in Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri to change its expansion course from the West to the South and grab what in my opinion is the best remaining non FBS/Catholic7/A10 school....Davidson (which makes up for losing Charlotte).

Then when UMass leaves in a few years for a full membership in a FBS conference, or Rhode Island stops caring about athletics, or Fordham bolts to be a full member of the Patriot League because its easier to make the tourney, or the Catholic 12 decides to go to 14 or 16...the A10 will still have a solid base that it can rebuild around by adding some more NC schools like UNC-Greensboro or Wilmington or more NE schools like Marist/Iona/Drexel or any new up and coming bball school.

But no matter what the A10 will continue to be the best non-fb D1 conference outside of the Catholic 7 and will not just go the way of the WAC (which is also still around and just raided the Summit for UMKC).

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

The problem I see with the remaining A-10 is it's basically a Catholic 12 reject conference. Many of the schools are in the same city or close by so the market they're in, they don't carry.

Georgetown - George Washington
Villanova - St. Joe's, La Salle
Providence - Rhode Island
St. John's - Fordham
Richmond - VCU (this is a case where the A-10 might be ahead)

That leaves UMass, St. Bona, and Duquesne. UMass has a foot out the door, Duquesne is in Pitt's shadow, and Bona doesn't offer much (sorry).

So ultimately I do think it's realistic they just pick off some MAAC schools and survive as a NE conference. I can't say I'd be too confident about Davidson though.

EDIT: In the current standings, of the bottom 9 schools, they will be keeping 7. Only VCU and La Salle are in the top 7. And this is assuming they do pass on VCU for Richmond which is not a sure thing

That's actually not a bad plan so to have double representation in these areas, yes they are in the shadow of some other schools but so are tons of others conferences and grabbing even a 10th of the total TV audiences of Balt/DC, Virginia, or North Carolina is still worth more than what the bottom of the MAAC/NEC/AEC can bring.

Maryland - Georgetown - George Washington, George Mason - American (clearly 3rd)
Penn St - Temple - Villanova - St. Joe's, La Salle - Lafayette, Lehigh - Drexel (likely 4th)
Boston College - UConn - Providence - UMass, Rhode Island, Northeastern - Holy Cross, BU - Bryant (likely 4th)
Rutgers - Syracuse - Seton Hall, St. John's - Fordham, Iona, Hofstra, St Bon, Siena - Stoney Brook, Albany (clearly 4th)
Virginia, Virginia Tech - Old Dominion - Richmond - VCU -Liberty - William & Mary - VMI (likely 4th)
Penn St - Pitt - West Virginia - Dunesque - Robert Morris (likely 4th)
UNC, Duke, NSCU, WF - East Carolina - Charlotte - Davidson, UNC-Greensboro - App St, Elon, WCU (clearly 4th)

If they took the 16 I bolded above, they'd have a pretty strong set of teams and markets even as the 3rd/4th option even at 10% is still a ton of possible eyeballs to sell for whatever media deal they could get.

And while yeah the A10 moves from a top 8 conference (w/ the Big6+MWC) to likely the bottom of the top the 12 behind the Catholic 7...but still its with the others conferences that would routinely be considered multiple bid leagues by the sports pundits (ACC, B1G, B12, SEC, P12, nBE, C7, MWC, CUSA, WCC, and the MVC).

And FYI Davidson has more tourney bids than any currently in the A10 other than VCU/Butler(which its tied with both) and StJoe's/LaSalle/Xavier/Dayton.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

tkalmus--You illustrated the point I'm trying to make. The A-10 schools are all the #4 (or lower) school in their markets. Once the tournament money dries up the A-10 is going to have a large footprint, a lot of travel, and not a lot to show for it. This is why I suggested that they join forces with the CAA and work to create a northern and southern league and maybe shed a few schools that don't really fit in during the process. Is it really worth it to maintain a footprint that spans from Rhode Island all the way to Richmond or NC if we're talking about a league fighting to be a 2 bid league? If the end product of an A-10/CAA collaboration was two 10 member leagues with modest travel I think it would be considered a successful transition, far better than lingering on pretending that your league is still being headlined by Xavier and Temple.

Umm...

Providence (or Amherst) to Richmond is ~500 miles and 8 hours by bus and ~2hours commercial air.

Richmond to Charleston is ~420 miles and 6 hours by bus and ~1.5 hours commercial air.

I don't see the appeal. There is more benefit to playing in Balt/DC, Pitt, Philly, NY/NJ, NE over playing against William and Mary, Towson, Delaware, Charleston, and UNC-Wilmington. It gets your school on TV more, puts the school's name out in those areas for prospective recruits and students, and its probably more attractive to the fans and alumni base than playing more South (less true if they were fb schools).

If there's such a worry about travel just expand to 12 play home and home in the South which is an easy bus ride, and only fly/play at 3 of the Northern schools each year.

A10 North- Duquesne, StBon, Siena, Fordham, Rhode Island, UMass
A10 South- VCU, Richmond, GWU, GMU, LaSalle, StJoe's

(If 14 drop Duquesne to South and add Hofstra and Northeastern to the North.)

End of the day the A10 has the money coming in, no school is leaving for the CAA or MAAC anytime soon while the money is still flowing and the only flight risks after the C7 raid will be UMass due to their FBS status.

The new core of the A10 GWU, LaSalle, StJoe's, Duquesne, StBon and VCU/Richmond (if they stay) could move the conference further South like you want or keep it on that I-95 corridor that runs from Richmond to NYC, however Maryland and DC are part of the North now and while the state of Virginia is still "Southern," Richmond and the DC suburbs have more in common with DC/Philly/NYC than Wilmington and Charleston.

And finally on the CAA, William and Mary is a Patriot League candidate, James Madison is looking to move to the FBS and UDel could be right behind them, George Mason is/was a top A10 candidate and Northeastern/Hofstra are also A10 replacement candidates, and if everyone starts bolting Charleston could return to SoCon along with UNC-Wilmington leaving just Drexel and Towson who would have to join the American East.

So yeah VCU/Richmond could join the unstable CAA but why would they take the best pieces they want to play close by (GMU) and have a great division with 2 schools in DC and Philly plus your cross town rival (if they are still there) and possibly a school in Pittsburgh and let your students travel to the North including NYC a few times plus be in a higher profile league.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

Umm...

Providence (or Amherst) to Richmond is ~500 miles and 8 hours by bus and ~2hours commercial air.

Richmond to Charleston is ~420 miles and 6 hours by bus and ~1.5 hours commercial air.

I don't see the appeal. There is more benefit to playing in Balt/DC, Pitt, Philly, NY/NJ, NE over playing against William and Mary, Towson, Delaware, Charleston, and UNC-Wilmington. It gets your school on TV more, puts the school's name out in those areas for prospective recruits and students, and its probably more attractive to the fans and alumni base than playing more South (less true if they were fb schools).

If there's such a worry about travel just expand to 12 play home and home in the South which is an easy bus ride, and only fly/play at 3 of the Northern schools each year.

A10 North- Duquesne, StBon, Siena, Fordham, Rhode Island, UMass
A10 South- VCU, Richmond, GWU, GMU, LaSalle, StJoe's

(If 14 drop Duquesne to South and add Hofstra and Northeastern to the North.)

End of the day the A10 has the money coming in, no school is leaving for the CAA or MAAC anytime soon while the money is still flowing and the only flight risks after the C7 raid will be UMass due to their FBS status.

The new core of the A10 GWU, LaSalle, StJoe's, Duquesne, StBon and VCU/Richmond (if they stay) could move the conference further South like you want or keep it on that I-95 corridor that runs from Richmond to NYC, however Maryland and DC are part of the North now and while the state of Virginia is still "Southern," Richmond and the DC suburbs have more in common with DC/Philly/NYC than Wilmington and Charleston.

And finally on the CAA, William and Mary is a Patriot League candidate, James Madison is looking to move to the FBS and UDel could be right behind them, George Mason is/was a top A10 candidate and Northeastern/Hofstra are also A10 replacement candidates, and if everyone starts bolting Charleston could return to SoCon along with UNC-Wilmington leaving just Drexel and Towson who would have to join the American East.

So yeah VCU/Richmond could join the unstable CAA but why would they take the best pieces they want to play close by (GMU) and have a great division with 2 schools in DC and Philly plus your cross town rival (if they are still there) and possibly a school in Pittsburgh and let your students travel to the North including NYC a few times plus be in a higher profile league.

_________________
Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

I think the key to putting some of the discussion to rest is in regards to what the A10 will have left:
what they will have will be quite similar to what they started with, just swapping Temple for Richmond. If VCU stays, even better.

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Our a10 posts got lost in the A-Sun. Detroit could be bridged w/ Cleveland St. and it's not too far from Duquesne in Pitt. Yes Davidson is better I hope they want to go and hope the A10 wants them. Stony Brook is better than Hofstra now. Would UMass want to keep Northeastern out? What about Vermont and Niagara? They've been solid, not sure of their facilities.

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I get that Stoney Brook is better than Hofstra but, the A10 schools have got to be tired of their members that play football, up and leaving them and probably want as stable as a league they can construct. Stoney Brook is now in the AE/CAA along with Alabany, New Hampshire, and Maine which works well for them. While its no certainty, its still possible that those four could add Monmouth, Bryant, Cen Conn St, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Towson add make an all sports league sometime in the future. I think the bball only schools like StBon, StJoes, LaSalle, GWU, and VCU would try to avoid them if at all possible.


I'm not sure why UMass would or could keep out Northeastern, everyone knows they have one foot out the door like Temple had for years but they have nowhere else to go which limits their power in the league.

I've seen Vermont and Niagara as candidates before but I think Iona and Marist would probably be higher on the list than them.

I think the big decisions for the A10 is whether to continue there march West (Detroit) head South (Davidson) or just double down in their exsisting footprint.

Either way I think 14 is a must and 16 could also be possible if they are heading West/South.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

I think the A-10's best bet is to focus on dragging the footprint south. I don't see the value in trying to stay in the Midwest with Detroit Mercy and Cleveland St--I don't think either school has the pedigree or the athletic budget to be in the A-10.

I would say add Hofstra to shore up NYC and then go with Southern schools like George Mason, Davidson, UNC Wilmington, or UNC Greensboro. This would certainly make the league's new poster child VCU happy.

I could also see where keeping the league small and just having 12 members would be prudent since the league won't able to garner at-large bids at the rate it once did with all of the recent defections

ESPN article with comments from A-10 Commish who says that "so far" no member schools have given notice of leaving for the new BE/Catholic 7 league at http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story ... ioner-says