Conference Realignment- WHAT IF....

[squirrel]

I disagree that the A10 is a stronger league. It is a higher profile league dominated by high profile teams. But for every Xavier and Temple, there are Fordham, LaSalle, SLU, St. Bonnie, Duquesne and Charlotte (and yes I know some of those programs are getting better or have been good at least once). A major problem the league has seen has been how to schedule with 14 teams. They have tried a series of schemes, finally settling on one that should work wonderfully for them.

Before all this Big East fallout, Seton Hall was already under pressure from Big East membership to increase its budget to be more in line with fellow league members. There have been overtures between the A10 and Seton Hall in the past.

The most likely thing you will see is a high-profile eastern-oriented league. This league will consist of the best out of the Big East and A10 orphans, and maybe even CAA schools like ODU, VCU and Geo Mason. What exactly that means is TBD. On the surface, one would think Butler, Dayton and Xavier would be included based on recent performance alone. SLU hasn't performed, but they have a market. Creighton is kind of in no-man's land...though an attractive school for a basketball-oriented conference of this type, they will probably need a travel partner to make it worthwhile. So who would it be: SLU, Bradley, Wichita, other?

So, the more A10 and CAA teams that would be involved in such a league, leads me to believe that there would be an Eastern league and a Midwestern League. The other problem Valley schools face is everyone wants East Coast exposure. It's why SLU is in the A10. So the more Midwest schools these leagues add, the more EC exposure the Dayton's, Xavier's and SLU's lose.

So really, it will come down to whose left and who's got friends in a position to help. I hope Bradley is having ongoing conversations with Creighton, DePaul and Butler. Similarly, I'm OK if we're talking with Drake and Loyola (two schools with which we have a long history), and I would expect other Valley are doing the same.

[friendlyzag]

Hi friendlyzag! What do you think have been the key contributing factors which have allowed Gonzaga to put together a strong non-conference schedule year in and year out? (Winning! Duh. --- But what else?)

Thanks for the welcome.

I think TD has hit a lot of the important elements. Gonzaga can attract big games now largely because most coaches are pretty sure we're not going to show up as a "bad loss" come tourney selection time. It's circular. We needed to win and play good programs to get here, where it's easier to schedule other good programs.

Two factors that probably helped immensely in getting us from a late-nineties Cinderella team to a program BCS schools will schedule: travel and TV. After showing up on the national radar in the very late 1990s, Gonzaga embraced the "go anywhere, play anyone" philosophy. They scheduled big by playing big teams on the road. If we did get someone to come to Washington, we had to schedule the game away from our home court in a bigger facility (the Battle in Seattle at the Key Arena, the Ronald McDonald House Classic at the Spokane Arena). No one wanted to come to campus. But that's changing now. After working from away games to series and moving up the ladder, we're starting to reap the benefits, and this year we couldn't ask for a better true-home nonconference sched, with Butler, Notre Dame, and Michigan State all coming to the 6,000-seat McCarthey Athletic Center. Other than BYU's, it's the biggest venue in the conference. Schools like Creighton should have a big advantage bringing teams in, since they play in a great arena.

And then there's TV. Gonzaga filled a hole for ESPN, which needs West Coast games to fill its late slot. We play a lot of 8 p.m. starts for broadcast at 11:00 Eastern. There are just fewer programs in the Pacific time zone to take advantage of those opportunities, so the WCC gets a lot of airtime, and if we have a game against someone noteworthy that can fill that slot, it almost always gets national play. Teams like to be on TV, and programs (like ours) that are on TV a lot get noticed more. One reason BYU came to the WCC (we'll see how long that lasts) is so that they could finally get some nationally broadcast games.

And I think coach Few is well liked and respected. That helps in getting other programs to take us seriously.

Finally, the program has to want to do it. I do believe that some of our conference foes put all of their eggs in the beat-Gonzaga basket, which is a frustration. USF, particularly, has scheduled weakly this year. But they beat us by double-digits last year, and they can do it again. They've got talent and a good coach. They seem to figure that if they have a great record OOC (playing no notable teams) and then knock off Gonzaga and possibly St. Mary's or BYU, that will be good enough for their post-season resume. It's frustrating, because their strength of schedule will be so poor that a loss to them is disastrous. But what can you do?

I enjoy the MVC. It's good basketball. (I even went to Arch Madness one year -- lots of fun.) I hope you all have a good season and we see three or four from yours and and three or four from ours all showing up in the tourney. Now go play some tough roadies and get things started!

[TylerDurden]

I disagree that the A10 is a stronger league. It is a higher profile league dominated by high profile teams. But for every Xavier and Temple, there are Fordham, LaSalle, SLU, St. Bonnie, Duquesne and Charlotte (and yes I know some of those programs are getting better or have been good at least once). A major problem the league has seen has been how to schedule with 14 teams. They have tried a series of schemes, finally settling on one that should work wonderfully for them.

Before all this Big East fallout, Seton Hall was already under pressure from Big East membership to increase its budget to be more in line with fellow league members. There have been overtures between the A10 and Seton Hall in the past.

The most likely thing you will see is a high-profile eastern-oriented league. This league will consist of the best out of the Big East and A10 orphans, and maybe even CAA schools like ODU, VCU and Geo Mason. What exactly that means is TBD. On the surface, one would think Butler, Dayton and Xavier would be included based on recent performance alone. SLU hasn't performed, but they have a market. Creighton is kind of in no-man's land...though an attractive school for a basketball-oriented conference of this type, they will probably need a travel partner to make it worthwhile. So who would it be: SLU, Bradley, Wichita, other?

So, the more A10 and CAA teams that would be involved in such a league, leads me to believe that there would be an Eastern league and a Midwestern League. The other problem Valley schools face is everyone wants East Coast exposure. It's why SLU is in the A10. So the more Midwest schools these leagues add, the more EC exposure the Dayton's, Xavier's and SLU's lose.

So really, it will come down to whose left and who's got friends in a position to help. I hope Bradley is having ongoing conversations with Creighton, DePaul and Butler. Similarly, I'm OK if we're talking with Drake and Loyola (two schools with which we have a long history), and I would expect other Valley are doing the same.

You don't think the A10 is stronger than the Horizon and WCC? I'm sure there are disagreements about whether or not the A10 is better than the MVC, but that wasn't the point I was making in my post. I was talking about Gonzaga's ability to schedule the way they do.

I don't really want to delve into the MVC vs. A10 debate. They're both great leagues with pluses, minuses and some good teams year in and year out.

[pawball]

Who can care that much about conference alignments after what's gone on this summer? It doesn't mean shat. College athletics, especially on the BCS level, has become one big scumball. It's gotten to the point to where a beat writer, when describing an AAU coach in Memphis who is targeted for a crime, implies that it's an understood, token deal that the AAU coach expects and gets something for helping a kid in deciding the college he goes to. Ho! HO Ho HO. Like, you give me this much, then I will deliver this kid to you. HO! And the writer writes as tho, hey, that's all OK. OKay Dokey. Everything's cool. Except for the actualy "crime." Whatever. What this shat does is make me give less a shat than ever about collegiate athletics. Unfortunately, I've been conditioned since my early teen years to care about it. So it's very difficult to, as they say, to break the cord. I'm closer than I've ever been to doing that, but this is tougher than stopping smoking. I'm FED-UP and ready to drop off the grid. Hey, it's all just escape anyway, right?