Will Big East stay at 10 or grow to 12 in 2014?

[cm5yz6]

Put me in the camp that just takes a breath for a year or two to see what we have before we start jumping at adding other teams. Who knows what continued realignment brings? What if Uconn decides to drop down in football? What if the ACC breaks apart with UNC splitting for the Big10 or SEC and teams like Wake Forrest and Duke decide that they no longer want to have football drive the bus, and they want the stability of a BB-centric league? Stranger things have seemed to happen lately. I'd like to take it a day at a time...

I've been saying this since Day 1 but I would LOVE to see a 15 team league that has an East, Midwest and West Divisions.

East:
Nova
Gtwn
Prov
SJU
S Hall

Midwest:
X
Butler
Marq.
St. Lou
Depaul

West:
Creighton
Gonzaga
St. Mary's
San Fran
TBD

Play everyone in your division twice to build great regional rivalries, and then the others in the 2 outside divisions once for 18 total games. Travel wise you make one trip out west (or east if you're a west coast team) and play 2 games on a Saturday--Monday or Friday--Sunday. What's the real difference between packing up and going to a game out to Nebraska or going and doing 2 on the west coast at Gonzaga and then SFU in one shot? Either way you're jumping on a plane. When I think of expansion I want teams that excite me (Gonzaga), not so-so programs like Dayton and Richmond. National league with teams built for the national stage that gets everyone's attention. How bout a Sunday afternoon national TV doubleheader on Fox with Butler at G'town at 1:00 and Nova at Gonzaga at 3:00? Let's think out of the box and figure out a way to get the Zags in this thing.

Sorry but the San Fran/TBD/St. Mary's (now under probation) games aren't exciting anyone. This is just an attempt to get the Zags, and though its a noble cause, it just doesn't make sense. Also, none of those schools are dropping football. The best chance to get any of those schools is if they are invited somewhere else as a football-only member, but I'm not sure how much the Big East wants to get involved with those types of situations.

[GumbyDamnit!]

Put me in the camp that just takes a breath for a year or two to see what we have before we start jumping at adding other teams. Who knows what continued realignment brings? What if Uconn decides to drop down in football? What if the ACC breaks apart with UNC splitting for the Big10 or SEC and teams like Wake Forrest and Duke decide that they no longer want to have football drive the bus, and they want the stability of a BB-centric league? Stranger things have seemed to happen lately. I'd like to take it a day at a time...

I've been saying this since Day 1 but I would LOVE to see a 15 team league that has an East, Midwest and West Divisions.

East:
Nova
Gtwn
Prov
SJU
S Hall

Midwest:
X
Butler
Marq.
St. Lou
Depaul

West:
Creighton
Gonzaga
St. Mary's
San Fran
TBD

Play everyone in your division twice to build great regional rivalries, and then the others in the 2 outside divisions once for 18 total games. Travel wise you make one trip out west (or east if you're a west coast team) and play 2 games on a Saturday--Monday or Friday--Sunday. What's the real difference between packing up and going to a game out to Nebraska or going and doing 2 on the west coast at Gonzaga and then SFU in one shot? Either way you're jumping on a plane. When I think of expansion I want teams that excite me (Gonzaga), not so-so programs like Dayton and Richmond. National league with teams built for the national stage that gets everyone's attention. How bout a Sunday afternoon national TV doubleheader on Fox with Butler at G'town at 1:00 and Nova at Gonzaga at 3:00? Let's think out of the box and figure out a way to get the Zags in this thing.

Sorry but the San Fran/TBD/St. Mary's (now under probation) games aren't exciting anyone. This is just an attempt to get the Zags, and though its a noble cause, it just doesn't make sense. Also, none of those schools are dropping football. The best chance to get any of those schools is if they are invited somewhere else as a football-only member, but I'm not sure how much the Big East wants to get involved with those types of situations.

Not dropping football but moving down in football. Both Nova and Gtwn currently have football programs, just not FBS football. Schools like Uconn and Temple which take state money and lose millions each year on football may need to re-evaluate their FB strategy. At some point they will need to decide if they can sustain lose kinds of losses b/c of a pipe dream that only the super conferences seem to cash in on. It must be killing them that the New Big East was able to garner more TV money for just BB than they did for both BB and FB.

[cm5yz6]

Put me in the camp that just takes a breath for a year or two to see what we have before we start jumping at adding other teams. Who knows what continued realignment brings? What if Uconn decides to drop down in football? What if the ACC breaks apart with UNC splitting for the Big10 or SEC and teams like Wake Forrest and Duke decide that they no longer want to have football drive the bus, and they want the stability of a BB-centric league? Stranger things have seemed to happen lately. I'd like to take it a day at a time...

I've been saying this since Day 1 but I would LOVE to see a 15 team league that has an East, Midwest and West Divisions.

East:
Nova
Gtwn
Prov
SJU
S Hall

Midwest:
X
Butler
Marq.
St. Lou
Depaul

West:
Creighton
Gonzaga
St. Mary's
San Fran
TBD

Play everyone in your division twice to build great regional rivalries, and then the others in the 2 outside divisions once for 18 total games. Travel wise you make one trip out west (or east if you're a west coast team) and play 2 games on a Saturday--Monday or Friday--Sunday. What's the real difference between packing up and going to a game out to Nebraska or going and doing 2 on the west coast at Gonzaga and then SFU in one shot? Either way you're jumping on a plane. When I think of expansion I want teams that excite me (Gonzaga), not so-so programs like Dayton and Richmond. National league with teams built for the national stage that gets everyone's attention. How bout a Sunday afternoon national TV doubleheader on Fox with Butler at G'town at 1:00 and Nova at Gonzaga at 3:00? Let's think out of the box and figure out a way to get the Zags in this thing.

Sorry but the San Fran/TBD/St. Mary's (now under probation) games aren't exciting anyone. This is just an attempt to get the Zags, and though its a noble cause, it just doesn't make sense. Also, none of those schools are dropping football. The best chance to get any of those schools is if they are invited somewhere else as a football-only member, but I'm not sure how much the Big East wants to get involved with those types of situations.

Not dropping football but moving down in football. Both Nova and Gtwn currently have football programs, just not FBS football. Schools like Uconn and Temple which take state money and lose millions each year on football may need to re-evaluate their FB strategy. At some point they will need to decide if they can sustain lose kinds of losses b/c of a pipe dream that only the super conferences seem to cash in on. It must be killing them that the New Big East was able to garner more TV money for just BB than they did for both BB and FB.

When I said drop, I meant go to FCS. And obviously C7 and future Big East members have FCS teams, but its not a big trend to demote your program after it goes FBS. The only team which I can see that as a far out possibility is UConn, but their administration isn't going to give up on it any time soon. As for Temple, even if they dropped fball and asked to be in this conference, they wouldn't be invited, for several reasons. Duke and Wake are never demoting fball, they are in the south.

[xu95]

If 11 and 12 aren't picked by June 30th, I don't think Dayton's chances are very good. I would be surprised if Butler or Xavier voted to include them in the league.

I can understand your logic for X voting no - recruiting overlap. But what is your logic for Butler?

Seems if the vote is between Richmond and Dayton - Butler would rather have a school closer to them for all their sports and one they already play in the same football league with. Not sure I follow your logic - or maybe you are just assuming you know what Butler would do based on your own bias.

I like how you just naturally assume that I have a built in bias because I said that Dayton's chances aren't very good.

No, I do not know what the administration at Butler is thinking, but I am guessing that they will have a similar response to Xavier (which by the way, Xavier won't vote no because they hate Dayton). Xavier recruits the same areas as Dayton. They want to be able to say, "come play at Xavier and you can play in the Big East". I think Butler will have the same response. Why do they want to recruit against two schools all within an hour of each other.

[BBPETE]

Reply to both BIRDFAN AND CM5YZ6------I agree that a two division league makes real sense; not the three division with SF and St. Mary's; no way, remember you have to sponsor 6 sports and travel would kill you in terms of cost and time. Birdman has my lineup EXCEPT to stay true EAST place Richmond in that division (yes, CM5yz6) and have Xavier replace Dayton. A true nice package of private bb schools that you can play round/robin in your division and play each team on the other side once for 16 game season. This would be true for many of the other team sports and makes for a great bb league made up of at least what the President's truly try to have in mind that "school" be part of the equation---less travel in time (and also money).

[SixTwentySix]

I've always liked Richmond over Dayton, simply because of the 6/6 split idea. A 16 game conference schedule with divisions would be a really nice balance. It would also allow for a couple extra non-conference games to manage SOS differently for each team.

But no matter what happens and who gets in, I'm happy. Go Big East. Go Nova.

[Masterofreality]

Brian Burwell of the St. L Post Dispatch is reporting that "network executives" are pressuring the Big East to get to 12 schools starting immediately....and that it bodes well for St. Louis.

No mention of anyone else.

[admin]

Brian Burwell of the St. L Post Dispatch is reporting that "network executives" are pressuring the Big East to get to 12 schools starting immediately....and that it bodes well for St. Louis.

No mention of anyone else.

Link?

[marquette]

Brian Burwell of the St. L Post Dispatch is reporting that "network executives" are pressuring the Big East to get to 12 schools starting immediately....and that it bodes well for St. Louis.

No mention of anyone else.

Link?

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... 13972.html

Around the 2:10 mark

[BBPETE]

Knowing the tv/ad world NEVER, NEVER rule out what the push may be to get it done---the most $ out there (not that the league wants it) is to have Pittsburgh and Detroit represented; the current schools there are not very good---but tv land does not care ie; DePaul and Chicago is the example, so there will be league push back; but believe me the tv revenue is greater by 30% when you increase the take and divide by 14 (you have to take in U of Detroit and [sit down] Duquesne). May not happen @14 yet getting to 12 asap is a must for tv land---that' s St. Louis and Richmond now. 6 team division split with round robin play in division and each once on the other side. Look at it this way a GU/Vil game on a Monday night will pull in St. Louis tv if SLU is in the league-----as would Detroit tv (which still has a top 10/15 tv coverage Nationwide)---it is about "like schools", bb first attitude; and the tv revenue isn't it. Look for 12 teams for sure with a 16 game schedule.