Article: A10 should look at adding Wichita St

[Wufan]

"South": Wichita State, Creighton, Saint Louis, Tulsa
West: UNLV, SDSU, New Mexico, Gonzaga
Midwest: Cincinnati, Georgetown, Marquette, DePaul
East: UConn, Memphis, VCU, Temple

Play pod members 2X for 6 games, everyone else once for 12. To me, this would foster strong rivalries, and would be the best basketball conference in the country. I

How do you get 12 games for a sixteen team league?

two games against each of your "pod" members for 6 games. One game against the other 12 teams for 12 games. That's a total of 18 games in the conference.

[SpiritedDrake]

everyone is really obsessed with the results of the last 5 years when talking about new conferences. VCU was a completely nobody before Shaka put them on the map, what happens if he leaves?

[Dean Wormer]

I'm not arguing for staying - if there were good options, but there isn't. If we could go to the B12, that would be great. But going to the A10? We complain about having to go to STL for the conference tournament. But Brooklyn? It would suck for baseball. Probably suck in lot of different ways.

Ultimately I'm a realist on conference realignment. If WSU really wanted to do something big - form a new conference of like minded teams in the region. It would take someone with vision - which we don't have. So, the alternative is you make the best of your circumstances and try to influence the MVC conference in ways to make it stronger. Continue to build the athletic department so it is solid and growing and dominate your situation.

I really wish we could simply form a basketball mega-conference out of the Big East, A10, AAC, MWC, and WCC. Something like:

"South": Wichita State, Creighton, Saint Louis, Tulsa
West: UNLV, SDSU, New Mexico, Gonzaga
Midwest: Cincinnati, Georgetown, Marquette, DePaul
East: UConn, Memphis, VCU, Temple

Play pod members 2X for 6 games, everyone else once for 12. To me, this would foster strong rivalries, and would be the best basketball conference in the country. I think this conference could routinely get 8, 9 or even 10+ teams in the tournament, and the TV deal would be huge with all of the potential (non-overlapping) markets.

But it can't possibly happen. Too many obstacles, including legal sanctions, NCAA red tape, and the enormous amount of cohesion necessary to pull the disparate parts together.

You're making up some fantasy dream conference and you put DePaul in there? What, are you related to Ray Meyer? I would take everybody in the Big East before I would consider DePaul. Might as well list Duke, Kentucky and Wisconsin-Appleton.

[KingTut]

How does DePaul never seem to get left behind in conference changes? Other than bringing the Chicago market to a slightly larger extent than UIC, Loyola or whatever, DePaul brings nothing.

It's mind boggling that whatever flavor of the month mid-major latches on with various major conferences, but DePaul never gets left behind.

[LanceShock]

How does DePaul never seem to get left behind in conference changes? Other than bringing the Chicago market to a slightly larger extent than UIC, Loyola or whatever, DePaul brings nothing.

It's mind boggling that whatever flavor of the month mid-major latches on with various major conferences, but DePaul never gets left behind.

By bringing DePaul with them, the teams that left the Big East to form the Big East brought enough teams with them to secure an autobid right away.

[frankthetank]

I think the more important thing about the AAC is that they're higher up the conference pecking order. The MVC is higher than a lot of conferences ... it's what lets us poach teams from, say, the Horizon. The AAC has bigger conferences they can poach from -- including the MVC and A10. If AAC teams leave, the AAC is still higher in the pecking order than most conferences.

I do think any interest in joining the AAC needs to be balanced against the possibility that UConn/Cinci leave in the future. But the AAC has options to replace them.

This is definitely true. There has been one constant over the past few years: sh*t ALWAYS rolls downhill in conference realignment. The old Big East/now-AAC was down to only 3 full-time members due to all of the poaching from the power conferences and it STILL was able to raid the other conferences below them. The league lower on the pecking order is NEVER able to "reverse raid" against a league above them that lost members. This is what keeps university presidents and ADs awake at night - if you're not in a conference where you're already in position to be a predator, then you'll inevitably be the prey when someone above you gets raided. It never happens the other way around. If the A-10 gets raided by the Big East, for example, no one from that league is going to suddenly want to head to the MVC. The A-10 is in the position of power there and it will continue to have it even if it loses several members. Likewise, the MVC can do the same to the Horizon no matter how many members the MVC might lose, and so on and so forth. That's why there's a sense of urgency in conference realignment - long-term, you need to be at higher ground to thrive (or just survive).

[frankthetank]

How does DePaul never seem to get left behind in conference changes? Other than bringing the Chicago market to a slightly larger extent than UIC, Loyola or whatever, DePaul brings nothing.

It's mind boggling that whatever flavor of the month mid-major latches on with various major conferences, but DePaul never gets left behind.

You answered your own question. DePaul is in Chicago, which means a heck of a lot in a world where TV markets are 90% of the battle in conference realignment. While the past decade has been horrendous for DePaul, the school still has quite a bit of history and tradition (much more so than UIC or Loyola). Finally, Chicago is to basketball recruiting what Texas and Florida are for football recruiting - it's a place where everyone wants to have a presence. Even if DePaul loses every single conference game, it still allows other conference members to get on TV and visit recruits in Chicago annually. That's just the bare minimum. It's not as if though DePaul is some lost cause (particularly with a brand new city-supported arena getting built) - multiple coaches have won there and it's in the middle of arguably the best recruiting territory in the nation, so a conference taking a flyer on DePaul isn't very risky in the world of conference realignment compared to the hot midmajor that's in a small market (where if they aren't performing well on-the-court, then they aren't providing the league any value at all).

The MVC extended the exact same reasoning with respect to adding Loyola last year as opposed to Murray State and other smaller market schools that have had better on-the-court records. I said back then that the MVC was going to add a Chicago school without question and was correct on that point. Markets and academic prestige are what drive the thinking behind conference realignment much more than pure on-the-court performance because university presidents (NOT athletic directors or coaches) are the decision-makers on this issue.

[KC MVC FAN]

[quote="SpiritedDrake"]everyone is really obsessed with the results of the last 5 years when talking about new conferences. VCU was a completely nobody before Shaka put them on the map, what happens if he leaves?[/quote]


Wrong, wrong about VCU. I lived in Richmond, VA throughout the 80s. VCU, located in downtown Richmond, was a known very strong BB program all the time we were there. That's been a tough BB area for many years that is probably only recognized if you live there (numerous very good mid-major teams and the ACC). After I moved back to the mid-west I rarely heard about VCU. But that was a geography and news/sports reporting issue. Prior to last year we got very little MVC news in the KC area sports pages or TV sports. An occasional box score for MSU, Creighton, or WSU. MVC was still out there somewhere, just not a big KC interest.

[pafan]

This is definitely true. There has been one constant over the past few years: sh*t ALWAYS rolls downhill in conference realignment. The old Big East/now-AAC was down to only 3 full-time members due to all of the poaching from the power conferences and it STILL was able to raid the other conferences below them.

Didn't Tulane/Memphis and the others all join before the Catholic 7 jumped ship?

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Yes, the Catholic-7 announced their divorce mere days after Aresco announced Tulane's induction.