Scholarship table
This makes some sense, I remember DeGioia was quoted in the paper prior to selecting teams that they were considering all teams up to the Missouri river. That would count Gonzaga out.If Gonzaga is ok with the travel, I think they should be added. It's such a bigger hassle for them than it would be for the other 10 teams. Even for the other sports like baseball, they aren't even playing home and homes so you would only be taking your baseball team to Spokane every other year. You can be smart with the scheduling and have the Gonzaga teams travel to the east coast once a year doing a 3 team swing. I'd love it if the Big East went big and added Gonzaga, SLU, BYU and Dayton. East coast schools would not want that though.As for number of teams, I just think in the long run, 14 will be the number. Once you get to 12, you are already losing out on home/home series. At 14, you can spare the travel to Spokane for more teams while also increasing your chances for more NCAA bids. I know BYU can jump ship, you can have Richmond replace them. In the end, it's about how many NCAA bids your conference gets, no one cares how many teams are in the league. With this set of teams, we will average 6-7 bids a year easy.
No, it would be 9:30.I wouldn't want it either. I'm just having a thought experiment here.
If the goal of the conference is elite basketball, then Gonzaga and VCU appear to put the top two on the list. If institutional fits are at the top, then it's Saint Louis and Gonzaga. If it's location (big cities), it's Saint Louis and Dayton. If it's endowment, it's Richmond and Saint Louis. Saint Louis would appear to fit in the most criteria. Gonzaga's only check is it's location. If the schools feel that it's other positive attributes outweigh this, then an invitation will eventually be in order. I think it's a tough sell however.
Georgetown is opposed to Richmond, infringing their territory.
Richmond doesn't have that successful basketball program history, however. If they wanted to bump a bit of that $1 billion endowment into their athletics programs, I'm sure the other schools wouldn't mind.Unless another private, eastern-based, school goes on a run in the next few years, I'd say Saint Louis and Dayton are in the driver's seat.
I thought the rumor was they were oppossed to VCU and wanted Richmond instead.
I know they are opposed to VCU...but I don't know if they are necessarily pro Richmond. That was floated out there.
TAMUI do know, Newsie is right on you knowing ball.
Dayton is not on the list, at all. Not being considered. The only people who think they are on the list are Dayton fans.VCU, Richmond, SLU, Gonzaga, and BYU were on the original list. Wichita State has been added to the conversation. Dayton brings the conference absolutely nothing other than a rivalry with Xavier. FS1 is not going to pony up more money for Dayton. They probably won't pony up more for Richmond or SLU either. They will for VCU, Gonzaga, BYU and maybe Wichita State.