Can't believe people are actually debating the merits of the new C7. As if we had any other choice?
We will add the best 3-5 schools and go from there.
i'm just not a big believer in waving the white flag.
i know the c-7 were virtually kicked out. that doesn't mean the presidents couldn't creatively build something just as good as the old big east.
just sayin..
What would you have them do?
Newsie wanted us to sit and wait until we get booted and on rear ends. The fact we were proactive and made twice as much money is irrelevant to him.
gross oversimplfication.
there was good reason for the C7 to be proactive and shake up the cadaver formerly known as the big east.
it's the plan that's chilling. a small "catholic" conference won't be as good as the atlantic 10 in a few years. you point to all that money that's supposedly coming in as the difference maker. let's see it first. this is the same mantra we heard about stephenson/landesberg/etc turning around st john's fortunes once they were on board. the wishful thinking is laughable.
NO ONE is paying 30 million dollars (down from 50 million) for ten teams few care about. this is another internet rumor from the same guys who told you in december orlando sanchez will be suiting up soon. i suggest we wait for the news conference.
there are good plans out there. maybe foad...in his spare time...can look mine up. there are other good suggestions. the reality is dorky college presidents, including our own, are heading up this new "enterprise". you saw how well ours did since looie left.
here's what i predict: a dog of a conference...a few teams doing well, including ours as long as lavin is on board...a RARE final four appearance for any if its members and no national championships in the foreseeable future.
most of you will be happy with this...
Even if folks agree to disagree with you about the long term prospects (compare the Big Smoke - I hate the religious connation of C7 and hope it disappears 3 seconds after a proper name is announced - with its new teams to the A10 with its losses and then keep making those ridiculous predictions) if you refuse to come up with an alternative you're just blowin', well, smoke. Let's look at what you keep harping on about.
Money - Yeah $500mill or even $300 mill over 10 is probably a pipe dream. Here's what's not, $2 mill per for the BE 7, a 33% increase from the last contract. And $500K per for the A10 deserters (predict 5) and others, a $150K per year (43%) increase. These terms likely stay in place at least 5 years as the BE 7 bring the lion's share of the cache and negotiating leverage to the table and per published reports the A10 5 understand this and still like the increased $. That's only $16.5 per year which while far less than the two figures in the original sentence is an increase for all parties and without the financial drains of loser football programs that all but 50 schools have keeps them financially competitive.
Rankings - You keep talking about how many teams from the new conference are ranked. G-Town, Butler, Marquette, VCU (potentially in), St Louis (probably in and 26th in both polls). Compare that to the BE. Memphis. End of story. No comparison. Cincy's getting votes. UConn might have if they were eligible but they wouldn't be ranked, then again Creighton's still getting votes too. There's no comparison in the hoops strength of what becomes of the old conference and the new conferences and that's before UConn and Cincy run for the hills. By comparison the ACC has 6, the Big 10 5. No one else has more than 3 so the new conference would be third in ranked teams and likely in conference RPI.
Alternatives - In absence of your solution I submit that there is no alternative. With the ACC defections the BE ceased to exist and no other viable or relevant conference would take non football schools, no matter what a bunch of bad bloggers and journos choose to believe.
So if you're only point is that the new conference isn't as good as the historical BE, well, yeah we all agree. But you're going to need some semblance of ammunition to convince the rest of us that it's the end of the world.
there is no ammunition...only smoke. that's because not one of us has a b-b pellet's worth of clout. we're the flea walking up the elephant's leg with a wild night of fornication on our minds. in some cases, size matters.
what WOULD i have done? for starters, back in the day, make sure penn state got in. if that failed, i would have offered to double john swofford's salary to jump to the big east once there were rumblings he was talking miami, boston college and va tech into joining his conference. all our guy could do was suck his thumb before bringing in great basketball, but mediocre football schools that kept us on a par with the ACC. so swofford kept working to get his conference into the BCS, while ours still sucked enough to have big east football downgraded into mid major status. no wonder there was a mass exodus. of course, i would have taken the one-point-13 billion dollar TV offer from ESPN the conference shot down. it's all urine the drunk watered his flowers with at this point.
lets put aside the delusion that savvy programmers at the networks are going to pay a halfway decent basketball league formerly known as the big east more than they'll pay a halfway decent football/basketball league. there are more than a few "golleeeee's" from the andy griffith/gomer pyle contingent on these boards. most of us are from the big city. we'd like to see it first.
i've already said what i'm going to say about the "leadership" of the C7 going forward. it's weak...it's out of touch...it's soft...it's mediocre...there's still no sense of urgency...not bad for a bunch of losers who still manage to cash nice checks. to make matters worse, there's buzz the new commissioner may be coming from the west coast conference that houses gonzaga, byu, san francisco, etc. i don't know anything about him. what i don't like is he's taking credit for gonzaga when it's really gonzaga's coach who stuck around. he's also taking credit for expanding TV coverage when EVERY conference is doing the same in the current climate.
so here are my b-bs...there are three choices.
one...push on and add, maybe, three teams to the conference and pray someone is willing to endow you with millions and millions of dollars to allow you to compete with real programs.
two...have a detente with the current "big east" knowing that any of those sailors will jump ship at the first whiff of the female hormone. the reality is, virtually none of these teams are very attractive to the big boys. not any more. that gives you a 16 team conference. if any (uconn, cincy) get a whiff, they can be replaced.
three...my preference...a mega conference that can blow away the competition with major promotion. a big city conference that would consist of the aforementioned 16...then adding butler, charlotte, dayton, duquesne, xavier, vcu, st louis and richmond along with detroit, creighton, holy cross (an original big east invitee), wichita, east carolina, southern miss and cleveland state. four divisions, eight teams each. home and home within the division with a number of inter division games. post season would be first round games at division leaders' home courts with the remaining 16 heading to MSG. i left out west coasters like gonzaga, st mary's, san francisco, santa clara because i don't know if their fan base would be able to get to MSG every year. i don't think the finals should be played in omaha, even though they do a kick-ass job with the baseball world series.
i haven't seen a better idea...yet.