Article: A10 should look at adding Wichita St

[KC MVC FAN]

I like Snaggle's proposal for a mega BB conference:

QUOTE: 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. End QUOTE

Think a lot of folks have or have had a similar idea. But, as presented, IMO, I think it is a little too big. A geo footprint the Atlantic to the Pacific is too big and probably is self defeating. May need to consider a much smaller footprint, perhaps from west of the Appalachian Mountains to the California/Nevada border, may have to go smaller than that-Ohio to the Rockies. But every time you reduce the footprint you reduce the number of quality BB schools. Seriously doubt all the above schools would like the cross continent travel cost for all conference sports and teams. Money, money, money. Plus several of the football school would probably not to over emphasize BB at the expense of their football.

Don't think there are currently a lot of schools that will sign on to a proposal like this. May have to settle with some lesser, but still good BB teams. Based on what I read in some other topics, i.e., MSU to the SUNBELT for football, ILSU and UNI to the MAC, Evansville and SIU to the OVC, perhaps you could join WSU, UTEP, NMSU, NDSU, maybe Tulsa, maybe Creighton and SLU, maybe Houston, maybe a other Texas. Probably not going to look like Snaggle's dream conference, but makes for interesting reading and hopefully constructive thought.

A side comment. I think ideas of getting an invite to the Big 12 or any power FB/BB conference are pipe dreams. For anyone to get into any of the Big 5 conferences is going to require a high class football program. Look at the Big 12, they took TCU, a very decent FB program but a drag of a BB team.

[CBB_Fan]

After doing a little more review, I think market considerations have to be the first considerations for that mega-conference idea. Usually that just means market size, but for college basketball I think growth potential and metered rates for basketball are more important predictors.

The best college basketball towns without power conference teams are Memphis, Cincinnati, Dayton, Indianapolis, Norfolk, Detroit, Richmond, New Orleans, Tulsa, Saint Louis, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque. For potential, I looked at census data and college basketball demographics, and found that the greatest predictive values are high male:female ratios, high incomes, and an population that is larger than normal in the 25-54 age range. Those areas that corresponded to those metrics were Denver, Las Vegas, California, Dallas, Houston, Oregon, Tulsa, Utah, Richmond, and Kansas City.

Creating a geographically acceptable conference out of that is hard, but I'd go:

West:
UNLV
SDSU
BYU
New Mexico

South:
Tulsa
SMU
Houston
Tulane

Midwest - North:
DePaul
Cincinnati
Dayton
Butler

Midwest - South:
Memphis
Saint Louis
Creighton
Wichita State

This would reduce the conference's total geographical foot print by removing the east coast from the equation. This relies on the fact that the east coast has mostly tapped out its basketball viewership, with most of the population interested in pro sports or already dominated by power conference teams. The northern Midwest is slightly more accessible from a ratings standpoint, while the south and west are veritable gold mines. I think the southern MidWest pod would have the side benefit of bringing in Kansas City, the #6 basketball city.

Tournament wise, we could see a rotation between the Staples Center, American Airlines Center, Chicago Arena, and Fedex Forum. That way no pod would have an inherent advantage, and the arenas would all be NBA quality and capable of holding 16 fanbases. A 16 team tournament would also be simple and interesting just because of its symmetry.

None of has even a slight chance of coming true, but it is fun to speculate about.

[frankthetank]

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?

Yes, I made a typo there. The Big East was down to 5 full-time football members (and that was before Louisville and Rutgers ended up leaving). Still, the overarching point is that the Big East was still able to raid Conference USA despite not even having enough football schools to remain an eligible NCAA FBS conference. The reverse poaching hopes of Conference USA instead taking in the Big East retreads (and believe me, I heard that quite a bit back then) never came to fruition and, in fact, the Big East went out and poached every spare part of value from C-USA. That's why no one should ever take seriously any argument that the MVC can poach A-10 teams if SLU/VCU/etc. leave that league - anytime that a conference lower on the pecking order starts getting some thoughts of hubris and that they can reverse raid someone higher, they get punched right in the face. Likewise, the MVC can poach the Horizon at will even if Wichita State, Missouri State and Illinois State all leave. The pecking order simply doesn't change in college sports.

[MVCfans]

UMass and the MAC are splitting ways for football. Have to wonder if this means UMass will consider leaving the A10 for non-FB sports and joining a new league?

[Wufan]

UMass and the MAC are splitting ways for football. Have to wonder if this means UMass will consider leaving the A10 for non-FB sports and joining a new league?

Interesting. UMass isn't exactly in the geographic footprint of Chicago, so I'm not seeing a Valley impact.

[MVCfans]

UMass and the MAC are splitting ways for football. Have to wonder if this means UMass will consider leaving the A10 for non-FB sports and joining a new league?

Interesting. UMass isn't exactly in the geographic footprint of Chicago, so I'm not seeing a Valley impact.

Lots of dominoes would have to fall (and it's the off-season so I realize this is wild speculation), but:

1) if the AAC accepted UMass in all sports, I assume the A10 would want to replace them. No idea if WSU is on their radar.
2) if CUSA let UMass join for football alone, is it possible CUSA want to add a school in the other sports?

[lime]

UMass was a disaster in football. I can't imagine anyone else is interested in them although conference realignment has been strange. They were drawing more people to their 17k on-campus stadium in FCS than they are to Gillette (90 miles away). I could see them trying the independent thing for a year or two in hopes that they can get on with the AAC but think they'll eventually find themselves crawling back to the CAA and FCS.