Top 144 Countdown

[handdownmandown]

Not if St. Louis were to go there, and say, Evansville drops to the Horizon, or out of D1 entirely, both of which have been rumored over the last few years.

[stever20]

Not if St. Louis were to go there, and say, Evansville drops to the Horizon, or out of D1 entirely, both of which have been rumored over the last few years.

Why would SLU go backwords? A10 with VCU, Dayton, La Salle- and other teams that have made tourney recently- Richmond, GMU, Davidson vs MVC with only Wichita. No program goes backwords if they can help it. Definitely not one like SLU.

[hoyahooligan]

AP poll is such a joke. Why do we have to prove them wrong every single year. We're going to reach the top 10 of the poll, it's inevitable you might as well just start us there and save us all some time and stop making yourselves look foolish.

You're going to have to rank us after we knock off #19 Oregon.

Memphis, Gonzaga, ND, UCLA, New Mexico, and Baylor all too high.

[DumpsterFireA10]

Not if St. Louis were to go there, and say, Evansville drops to the Horizon, or out of D1 entirely, both of which have been rumored over the last few years.

Why would SLU go backwords? A10 with VCU, Dayton, La Salle- and other teams that have made tourney recently- Richmond, GMU, Davidson vs MVC with only Wichita. No program goes backwords if they can help it. Definitely not one like SLU.

We did in 2005.

[handdownmandown]

Why is Bradley worse than LaSalle? Or Northern Iowa worse than St. Louis? Both A10s are 'up' now if you call it that, but really they're about the same profile over the last decade.

Plus there's a nice piece of the A10 that hasn't been competitive in ages, whereas other than Evansville every team in the league has had highly competitive years over the last decade.

[stever20]

The A10 will be at least a 3 bid conference most likely this year- VCU, SLU, and La Salle. Dayton, UMass, RI, could all make some noise. The current A10 has averaged last 7 years like 3 bids per year.

The current MVC has been a 1 bid conference 7 years in a row.

[handdownmandown]

Except Xavier is gone, which means the current teams average two bids per year. Then take St. Louis OUT, and replace them in the Valley with Evansville, and the two conferences are a lot closer than you give them credit for - and by your measurement the Valley and the A10 both will get two bids this year.

Which was my point.

[stever20]

Except Xavier is gone, which means the current teams average two bids per year. Then take St. Louis OUT, and replace them in the Valley with Evansville, and the two conferences are a lot closer than you give them credit for - and by your measurement the Valley and the A10 both will get two bids this year.

Which was my point.

It's better for SLU to be in a conference with 2 other teams that make the tourney than a conference like the Valley with 1.

Looking at Ken Pom-
this year A10 has 8 schools in the top 90. 2 over 150. Worst one Fordham at 198. 8th best conference
MVC has 1 school in the top 90. 3 over 150. 11th best conference. 2 teams worse than 200. MVC is closer to the #16 MAAC than they are the A10 by the ratings.

It's not even remotely close between the two. A10 is so much deeper than the MVC now. The loss of Creighton crippled them.

[Bill Marsh]

The top of the AAC is pretty good... Ville, UConn, Memphis, Cincy, Temple.
2 National Champs and 3 Final Fours in the last 3 years.
2 NC and 4 FF in last 5
2 NC and 5 FF in last 6
Of course the Big East has 0 NC and 0 FF in the last 4 years. And over that time 2 of our best programs, Nova and GTown, have 1 tourney win each.

No doubt AAC will be a top league this year. However, once you trade Louisville for ECU, Tulsa and Tulane, the bottom falls out and the Big East will be better top to bottom.

Completely agree. ECU and Tulane are god awful basketball programs. And Tulsa hasn't done much in the past decade.

The program that has to answer a lot of question marks is Temple, but no one is talking about that fact. We hear questions all the time about how Creighton will handle the transition to a higher level of competition. The same questions exist about Temple.

Historically, Temple has built its teams around 3-star recruits. And that's what they're bringing in again this year. With good coaching, that approach produced solid players and sustained success in the A10. However, those same kids will be over their heads against the kind of talent that UConn, Memphis, Cincinnati, and now SMU are bringing in. Temple will no longer be able to rely on Philly players left over after the power conferences have taken their elite high school kids. Look who is bringing in Philly's best hs player this year. St. John's.

Temple is going to have to change its entire approach to recruiting if they want to be anything more than middle of the pack in the AAC. They're going to have to get much more energetic and reach out to places where they don't normally recruit. Frankly they're not built for that right now. The structures are not in place. And I don't know that they have the recruiting budget to do what needs to be done. They're pouring a ton of money into football without much revenue to offset the expenses.

There's a reason why these AAC schools emphasize either football or basketball but not both. They simply don't have the money to do both. With their pitiful TV contract, nothing's going to change any time soon. Temple has the same dilemma that is classic for all of these athletic departments - where to spend limited resources. The idea that they can compete with the Big East seems to me to be looking at the world through rose colored glasses.

The Big East is clear about where its athletic focus lies. It is clear about where its money will be spent. And they have a lot more of it to spend. A lot more and it's all going to basketball. The AAC has less revenue in total and has to feed the football monster that hobbles up money like there's no tomorrow. Heck, a football team loses money when it goes to a bowl game. What kind of a system is that?

People thought there was a conflict between football and basketball interests in the hybrid? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Half the AAC doesn't care at all about basketball. At least half. They resent the poor performing football schools that pull down their power rating. As is evident from the choices that were made for expansion, they control the agenda. Nothing could have made that clearer than choosing Tulsa over UMass. There is enormous pressure on traditional basketball schools like Temple to build up their football programs. That will only be to the detriment of their basketball program.

[hoyahooligan]

Memphis will have a harder go of it as well. They're used to beating up on CUSA teams and they'll still be able to beat them, but Pastner has yet to win a game against a top 25 team. So he's going to struggle against the Uconn's and Cincinnati's and this year Louisville's of the conference. Don't be surprised if they get swept by these teams.