Big East Expansion

No it was the basketball schools that did it, led by our very own Fr. Harrington. (He did a lot of good here).  Mike Aresco appealed to us to stay, but we couldn't have our basketball brand watered down by schools like Tulane and East Carolina.  That was the reason.  And they are football schools, so they would be calling the shots as that sport is more lucrative then basketball.

Quote from: carmineabbatiello on March 03, 2016, 12:31:17 PM

Quote from: Foad on March 02, 2016, 04:12:40 PM

Albany is a couple of years away from D2, no thanks.

Doc was right.  D2 on the horizon.

What he meant was they have not been in D1 for very long.

Quote from: WillieG on March 04, 2016, 12:09:00 AM

No it was the basketball schools that did it, led by our very own Fr. Harrington. (He did a lot of good here).  Mike Aresco appealed to us to stay, but we couldn't have our basketball brand watered down by schools like Tulane and East Carolina.  That was the reason.  And they are football schools, so they would be calling the shots as that sport is more lucrative then basketball.

Uhhh no. All conference realignment was done because of football. Every school with a football program did not care about basketball, it was the equivalent of water polo to them. Cinci, USF and Yukon weren't going to stay in a BE conference that only had 2 other football schools, they were going to find a football conference, and they did. There were no spots for a St. John's or a Villanova or Georgetown in a football conference so we had to go out and recruit other basketball only schools to play in this new conference, which we did. I'm still surprised they let us keep the big east name

We are getting half the league, if not slightly more, in the tourney each year.  Good TV contract.  High profile markets.  By and large the league is recruiting well (I know folks view this coming year as a down cycle).  I'm not a fan of expansion and don't think it is needed right now.

Quote from: goredmen on March 04, 2016, 01:25:41 AM

Quote from: WillieG on March 04, 2016, 12:09:00 AM

No it was the basketball schools that did it, led by our very own Fr. Harrington. (He did a lot of good here).  Mike Aresco appealed to us to stay, but we couldn't have our basketball brand watered down by schools like Tulane and East Carolina.  That was the reason.  And they are football schools, so they would be calling the shots as that sport is more lucrative then basketball.

Uhhh no. All conference realignment was done because of football. Every school with a football program did not care about basketball, it was the equivalent of water polo to them. Cinci, USF and Yukon weren't going to stay in a BE conference that only had 2 other football schools, they were going to find a football conference, and they did. There were no spots for a St. John's or a Villanova or Georgetown in a football conference so we had to go out and recruit other basketball only schools to play in this new conference, which we did. I'm still surprised they let us keep the big east name

Conference realignment, in general, happened because of football.  That  much is true.  But what I said was, it was us, the so called Catholic Seven, that disassociated with the schools that eventually made up the American Conference.  The Tulanes and the East Carolinas. This was, of course, after the biggest schools like Cuse left. The Big East commissioner at the time, Mike Aresco, begged us to stay but we couldn't be associated with the basketball teams from those schools.  It would have watered down our basketball league.  They wanted us to stay to help their basketball league.  It was the Catholic seven (In other words us) that broke away, not the other way around. 

We negotiated a settlement with them to have the Big East name and the conference records.  They chose the AAC name on their own and technically kept the old Big East charter for their own.  We got a new legal charter for our conference with the same Big East name. It was a negotiated settlement.  That's how we ended up with the name.

Quote from: goredmen on March 04, 2016, 01:25:41 AM

Quote from: WillieG on March 04, 2016, 12:09:00 AM

No it was the basketball schools that did it, led by our very own Fr. Harrington. (He did a lot of good here).  Mike Aresco appealed to us to stay, but we couldn't have our basketball brand watered down by schools like Tulane and East Carolina.  That was the reason.  And they are football schools, so they would be calling the shots as that sport is more lucrative then basketball.

Uhhh no. All conference realignment was done because of football. Every school with a football program did not care about basketball, it was the equivalent of water polo to them. Cinci, USF and Yukon weren't going to stay in a BE conference that only had 2 other football schools, they were going to find a football conference, and they did. There were no spots for a St. John's or a Villanova or Georgetown in a football conference so we had to go out and recruit other basketball only schools to play in this new conference, which we did. I'm still surprised they let us keep the big east name

Conference realignment, in general, happened because of football.  That  much is true.  But what I said was, it was us, the so called Catholic Seven, that disassociated with the schools that eventually made up the American Conference.  The Tulanes and the East Carolinas. This was, of course, after the biggest schools like Cuse left. The Big East commissioner at the time, Mike Aresco, begged us to stay but we couldn't be associated with the basketball teams from those schools.  It would have watered down our basketball league.  They wanted us to stay to help their basketball league.  It was the Catholic seven (In other words us) that broke away, not the other way around. 

We negotiated a settlement with them to have the Big East name and the conference records.  They chose the AAC name on their own and technically kept the old Big East charter for their own.  We got a new legal charter for our conference with the same Big East name. It was a negotiated settlement.  That's how we ended up with the name.

Quote from: WillieG on March 04, 2016, 10:50:31 PM

Quote from: goredmen on March 04, 2016, 01:25:41 AM

Quote from: WillieG on March 04, 2016, 12:09:00 AM

No it was the basketball schools that did it, led by our very own Fr. Harrington. (He did a lot of good here).  Mike Aresco appealed to us to stay, but we couldn't have our basketball brand watered down by schools like Tulane and East Carolina.  That was the reason.  And they are football schools, so they would be calling the shots as that sport is more lucrative then basketball.

Uhhh no. All conference realignment was done because of football. Every school with a football program did not care about basketball, it was the equivalent of water polo to them. Cinci, USF and Yukon weren't going to stay in a BE conference that only had 2 other football schools, they were going to find a football conference, and they did. There were no spots for a St. John's or a Villanova or Georgetown in a football conference so we had to go out and recruit other basketball only schools to play in this new conference, which we did. I'm still surprised they let us keep the big east name

Conference realignment, in general, happened because of football.  That  much is true.  But what I said was, it was us, the so called Catholic Seven, that disassociated with the schools that eventually made up the American Conference.  The Tulanes and the East Carolinas. This was, of course, after the biggest schools like Cuse left. The Big East commissioner at the time, Mike Aresco, begged us to stay but we couldn't be associated with the basketball teams from those schools.  It would have watered down our basketball league.  They wanted us to stay to help their basketball league.  It was the Catholic seven (In other words us) that broke away, not the other way around. 

We negotiated a settlement with them to have the Big East name and the conference records.  They chose the AAC name on their own and technically kept the old Big East charter for their own.  We got a new legal charter for our conference with the same Big East name. It was a negotiated settlement.  That's how we ended up with the name.

I loved the old BE. But a BB only conference was the right choice. If we would have tried to keep the foot ball schools, they would be begging the ACC or Big 12 for inclusion and would have bolted  the first opportunity.

Quote from: WillieG on March 04, 2016, 10:50:31 PM

Quote from: goredmen on March 04, 2016, 01:25:41 AM

Quote from: WillieG on March 04, 2016, 12:09:00 AM

No it was the basketball schools that did it, led by our very own Fr. Harrington. (He did a lot of good here).  Mike Aresco appealed to us to stay, but we couldn't have our basketball brand watered down by schools like Tulane and East Carolina.  That was the reason.  And they are football schools, so they would be calling the shots as that sport is more lucrative then basketball.

Uhhh no. All conference realignment was done because of football. Every school with a football program did not care about basketball, it was the equivalent of water polo to them. Cinci, USF and Yukon weren't going to stay in a BE conference that only had 2 other football schools, they were going to find a football conference, and they did. There were no spots for a St. John's or a Villanova or Georgetown in a football conference so we had to go out and recruit other basketball only schools to play in this new conference, which we did. I'm still surprised they let us keep the big east name

Conference realignment, in general, happened because of football.  That  much is true.  But what I said was, it was us, the so called Catholic Seven, that disassociated with the schools that eventually made up the American Conference.  The Tulanes and the East Carolinas. This was, of course, after the biggest schools like Cuse left. The Big East commissioner at the time, Mike Aresco, begged us to stay but we couldn't be associated with the basketball teams from those schools.  It would have watered down our basketball league.  They wanted us to stay to help their basketball league.  It was the Catholic seven (In other words us) that broke away, not the other way around. 

We negotiated a settlement with them to have the Big East name and the conference records.  They chose the AAC name on their own and technically kept the old Big East charter for their own.  We got a new legal charter for our conference with the same Big East name. It was a negotiated settlement.  That's how we ended up with the name.

In other words, we got the tastiest scraps from Longshank's table.

So for those who haven't seen, the NY Times recent published an article discussing Big East Expansion to become that country's first ever nation-wide conference (Big America/Big 50?). The article focused on Gonzaga and Saint Mary's. I believe this is was talked about briefly on here and I wanted to see what people thought of this.

Big America East- St. John's, VCU, Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, Valparaiso, Saint Louis, Dayton, Xavier, Butler, Providence
Big America West- Gonzaga, Marquette, Saint Mary's, Arizona State (basketball only), Washington State (basketball only), DePaul, San Diego State, Boise State, and Fresno State.

That's a 20 team league spanning the entire country except the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana area.

You've got very good major programs like Villanova, Gonzaga, Georgetown, Xavier, and Marquette and very good mid-major programs in VCU, Dayton, Saint Louis, Boise State, Fresno State, and San Diego State. And you have good on the rise programs in St. John's, Saint Mary's, Seton Hall, and kind of DePaul. As far as my knowledge goes, only 5 of those schools have football programs so you could either A) build a football conference (risky and prior negative history with that) or B) Only take them for basketball. The only teams that would falter for option B would be Arizona State and Washington State. If that's the case, you could go to Wichita State, South Dakota State, UNLV, Akron, Ohio, UAB, Midd Tennessee, Old Dominion just to name a few.

I know these aren't big and elite programs. But there's a few kind of impressive programs in here. And it would make the conference the toughest in the country. A cool idea I had was for the conference tournament, you have the top 6 seeds from each division, top 2 get bye's. The winner of each division plays a best of 3 series for the title. Try to get like the Staples Center as the West Coast home and keep the Garden as the East Coast home.

This is incredibly lofty and ambitious and is a good 5 years, at least from being even considered. But I think this would be absolutely insane. I would imagine it would help teams recruit nationally, more exposure in March Madness (I could easily see 4-5 from each division make it on average where some years you could have 6 or maybe even 7. This would make the conference tournament the most exciting conference tourney in the nation, a big TV deal would be inevitable.

I know that overexpansion can kill a league, but all you're really doing is adding a division and increasing competition. But if the Power 5 conferences were ever going to break away from the NCAA, they would have to take this conference for their basketball.

Quote from: johnniesfilmmaker on March 22, 2016, 01:09:29 PM

So for those who haven't seen, the NY Times recent published an article discussing Big East Expansion to become that country's first ever nation-wide conference (Big America/Big 50?). The article focused on Gonzaga and Saint Mary's. I believe this is was talked about briefly on here and I wanted to see what people thought of this.

Big America East- St. John's, VCU, Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, Valparaiso, Saint Louis, Dayton, Xavier, Butler, Providence
Big America West- Gonzaga, Marquette, Saint Mary's, Arizona State (basketball only), Washington State (basketball only), DePaul, San Diego State, Boise State, and Fresno State.

That's a 20 team league spanning the entire country except the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana area.

You've got very good major programs like Villanova, Gonzaga, Georgetown, Xavier, and Marquette and very good mid-major programs in VCU, Dayton, Saint Louis, Boise State, Fresno State, and San Diego State. And you have good on the rise programs in St. John's, Saint Mary's, Seton Hall, and kind of DePaul. As far as my knowledge goes, only 5 of those schools have football programs so you could either A) build a football conference (risky and prior negative history with that) or B) Only take them for basketball. The only teams that would falter for option B would be Arizona State and Washington State. If that's the case, you could go to Wichita State, South Dakota State, UNLV, Akron, Ohio, UAB, Midd Tennessee, Old Dominion just to name a few.

I know these aren't big and elite programs. But there's a few kind of impressive programs in here. And it would make the conference the toughest in the country. A cool idea I had was for the conference tournament, you have the top 6 seeds from each division, top 2 get bye's. The winner of each division plays a best of 3 series for the title. Try to get like the Staples Center as the West Coast home and keep the Garden as the East Coast home.

This is incredibly lofty and ambitious and is a good 5 years, at least from being even considered. But I think this would be absolutely insane. I would imagine it would help teams recruit nationally, more exposure in March Madness (I could easily see 4-5 from each division make it on average where some years you could have 6 or maybe even 7. This would make the conference tournament the most exciting conference tourney in the nation, a big TV deal would be inevitable.

I know that overexpansion can kill a league, but all you're really doing is adding a division and increasing competition. But if the Power 5 conferences were ever going to break away from the NCAA, they would have to take this conference for their basketball.

Do you have link for the article Johnnies?  Can't find it.

So for those who haven't seen, the NY Times recent published an article discussing Big East Expansion to become that country's first ever nation-wide conference (Big America/Big 50?). The article focused on Gonzaga and Saint Mary's. I believe this is was talked about briefly on here and I wanted to see what people thought of this.

Big America East- St. John's, VCU, Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, Valparaiso, Saint Louis, Dayton, Xavier, Butler, Providence
Big America West- Gonzaga, Marquette, Saint Mary's, Arizona State (basketball only), Washington State (basketball only), DePaul, San Diego State, Boise State, and Fresno State.

That's a 20 team league spanning the entire country except the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana area.

You've got very good major programs like Villanova, Gonzaga, Georgetown, Xavier, and Marquette and very good mid-major programs in VCU, Dayton, Saint Louis, Boise State, Fresno State, and San Diego State. And you have good on the rise programs in St. John's, Saint Mary's, Seton Hall, and kind of DePaul. As far as my knowledge goes, only 5 of those schools have football programs so you could either A) build a football conference (risky and prior negative history with that) or B) Only take them for basketball. The only teams that would falter for option B would be Arizona State and Washington State. If that's the case, you could go to Wichita State, South Dakota State, UNLV, Akron, Ohio, UAB, Midd Tennessee, Old Dominion just to name a few.

I know these aren't big and elite programs. But there's a few kind of impressive programs in here. And it would make the conference the toughest in the country. A cool idea I had was for the conference tournament, you have the top 6 seeds from each division, top 2 get bye's. The winner of each division plays a best of 3 series for the title. Try to get like the Staples Center as the West Coast home and keep the Garden as the East Coast home.

This is incredibly lofty and ambitious and is a good 5 years, at least from being even considered. But I think this would be absolutely insane. I would imagine it would help teams recruit nationally, more exposure in March Madness (I could easily see 4-5 from each division make it on average where some years you could have 6 or maybe even 7. This would make the conference tournament the most exciting conference tourney in the nation, a big TV deal would be inevitable.

I know that overexpansion can kill a league, but all you're really doing is adding a division and increasing competition. But if the Power 5 conferences were ever going to break away from the NCAA, they would have to take this conference for their basketball.

Our problem is ESPN and CBS talking us down or just ignoring us.  In the old days we were hyped by ESPN.  Now they do stuff like Requiem For The Big East.

Idk about you guys but the older I get, the less I think of ESPN. They had the gay Michael Sam-boyfriend kiss during the live telecast of the NFL draft; they don't give credit to other journalists who do break stories; Chris Berman should have retired, or forced into retirement 25 years ago; they don't allow their "journalists" to appear on other networks like WFAN; Keith Olberman; they sensationalize trivial success; etc, etc.

I'm probably old and cranky, but they don't impress me.

Our problem is ESPN and CBS talking us down or just ignoring us.  In the old days we were hyped by ESPN.  Now they do stuff like Requiem For The Big East.

Idk about you guys but the older I get, the less I think of ESPN. They had the gay Michael Sam-boyfriend kiss during the live telecast of the NFL draft; they don't give credit to other journalists who do break stories; Chris Berman should have retired, or forced into retirement 25 years ago; they don't allow their "journalists" to appear on other networks like WFAN; Keith Olberman; they sensationalize trivial success; etc, etc.

I'm probably old and cranky, but they don't impress me.