Thammel just in with the latest on expansion/contraction. This tidbit should cause us to fittingly go into Labor. All up in the air of course, but this seems to indicate the Big East will be the BEAST with 20+ teams. Expansion settles/helps the football contingent, but remember the ESPN/basketball legacy is the trump card historically. The Providence papal lineage at the top has always dealt the cards in this conference which will help the hoops only and Catholic schools. Marinatto has served on the BCS as CFO as well so he has the football lineage. We are in good hands is my feeling.
Quote
A high-ranking college official did say Sunday that the Big East had reached out to multiple Big 12 universities and indicated, much as it did during the Texas-Pac-12 expansion talks last year, that the league would be interested in taking the universities if the Big 12 fell apart. The official said the Big East was not rooting for the demise of the Big 12, but opened up lines of communication in case it dissolved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/sports/ncaafootball/texas-is-key-player-in-pac-12s-expansion-outlook.html?_r=2&ref=sports
In good hands?? UL, Pitt and WVU are being a bit creative right now as they seem to have little interest in bball-only schools. Remember, Marinatto wanted to accept the last ESPN offer but several schools interfered (including bbal only schools). With that said, Marinatto lost respect as a leader. The linchpin, in my opinion, in Syracuse. If they turn up the heat then the BE is over; they are a charter member that is a private school that plays football. They were runners up in '90 to FSU in ACC expansion and were invite a second time in 2003 before the Virginia Gov interfered. The BE without Cuse is the current B12 in my opinion.
Quote from: muhs03 on September 05, 2011, 12:23:48 AM
In good hands?? UL, Pitt and WVU are being a bit creative right now as they seem to have little interest in bball-only schools. Remember, Marinatto wanted to accept the last ESPN offer but several schools interfered (including bbal only schools). With that said, Marinatto lost respect as a leader. The linchpin, in my opinion, in Syracuse. If they turn up the heat then the BE is over; they are a charter member that is a private school that plays football. They were runners up in '90 to FSU in ACC expansion and were invite a second time in 2003 before the Virginia Gov interfered. The BE without Cuse is the current B12 in my opinion.
wut?
What muhs03 is saying is that we keep thinking that basketball tradition would save the conference, but that there has been very little action on behalf of the football schools to suggest that they would be bound to that tradition when all is said and done.
The article said that the Big East made offers to some of the Big 12 teams, so I do not thing that means we would take every leftover. A 19 team conference works with each team playing each other once in basketball. A 21 team conference could work. 21 team could be three divisions of 7. Counting Notre Dame and Villanova their are 8 only basketball schools. Get either Notre Dame or Villanova to participate in football. Then you could have two divisions of football only schools and one division of basketball only schools. Basketball only schools would play each other twice and three teams from each football division on a rotating basis.
Quote from: muhs03 on September 05, 2011, 12:23:48 AM
In good hands?? UL, Pitt and WVU are being a bit creative right now as they seem to have little interest in bball-only schools. Remember, Marinatto wanted to accept the last ESPN offer but several schools interfered (including bbal only schools). With that said, Marinatto lost respect as a leader. The linchpin, in my opinion, in Syracuse. If they turn up the heat then the BE is over; they are a charter member that is a private school that plays football. They were runners up in '90 to FSU in ACC expansion and were invite a second time in 2003 before the Virginia Gov interfered. The BE without Cuse is the current B12 in my opinion.
Are you the poster formally known as Speakeasy on the Journal Sentinel site? (I think that was your name?) The dude who constantly dogged Marquette and proclaimed how awesome Syracuse was (as a school and city), and how crappy Marquette/Milwaukee were?
How did you handle MU beating Cuse this year 2 times? Still think Buzz Williams can't hold Jim Boheim's jock? Cuse is on its way down in basketball..so you better be jumping on the MU bandwagon.
Ners, he isn't a pro-Syracuse guy. Just read his past posts. In fact, the post he made wasn't all that pro-Syracuse. Just stating that the football schools (like Syracuse deciding to seek ACC membership) aren't as beholden to tradition as Dr. Blackheart states.
Calm down dude.
Quote from: The Sultan of South Wayne on September 05, 2011, 09:04:44 AM
Ners, he isn't a pro-Syracuse guy. Just read his past posts. In fact, the post he made wasn't all that pro-Syracuse. Just stating that the football schools (like Syracuse deciding to seek ACC membership) aren't as beholden to tradition as Dr. Blackheart states.
Calm down dude.
Diasgree - and it was more of a curiosity than anything. The dude certainly is welcome to post here - but much like Hoopaloop smells a lot like Chicos - this muhs03 smells a lot like a visitor to the JS comment board that constantly dogged MU.
Interesting though that he has friends who gave him access to the Scout Syracuse Insider Board, references the greatness of Carmelo Anthony, and has several other posts that shine a nice light on Syracuse. The dude from the JS Board also graduated from MU High School -which I assume MUHS 03 pertains to as well. That guy was a major league jack ass on the JS Board - so I'm sure that he wouldn't come here and be completely obvious about it.
The writing is on the wall. The big east sucks at football and no one really wants any of us.
Quote from: bilsu on September 05, 2011, 07:45:15 AM
A 21 team conference could work. 21 team could be three divisions of 7. Counting Notre Dame and Villanova their are 8 only basketball schools. Get either Notre Dame or Villanova to participate in football. Then you could have two divisions of football only schools and one division of basketball only schools. Basketball only schools would play each other twice and three teams from each football division on a rotating basis.
It's so crazy it just might work.
While I was focused on new TV markets - as we all were - when discussing expansion earlier, I do believe at this stage it may become important to grab Kansas, K-State and Missouri to establish that the Big East and not the Big 12 survives if only one can. I know it sounds like just a name, but I would actually officially change the name of the conference to the "BEAST" if we did that. It keeps the Big East traditional name, but also acknowledges that what is being put together is a large super conference.
If we didn't go for those teams, then it's possible the Big 12 could take TCU back (remember it's Texas that doesn't want them in the same conference, just like it didn't want Oklahoma to have Nebraska as a rival), so if they get them in and make a play for Louisville, Pitt and even West Virginia, they could beat us to the punch.
Even in a worst case where those schools all went ACC and we got Kansas, K-State and Missouri, we survive as the BEAST.
I think the St. John's resurgence is absolutely crucial, because with Madison Square Garden as a venue, our current basketball-only line-up has 5 very compelling teams to make our strengths:
1. An incredibly strong block of basketball-only schools in Georgetown, Villanova, St. John's, Notre Dame and Marquette.
2. New York domination right now - and there is some balance between football and basketball in New York as opposed to other regions like the South. I believe more people in the New York market watched each of the Final Four games than watched the BCS championship (open to correction from someone more knowledgable, but I believe 18.5 million watched the BCS title, while 16.7 million watched UConn-Butler and almost as many each of the semifinal games nationally, but I believe in New York basketball won out). Providence, Seton Hall and DePaul are certainly weaker basketball-only programs right now, but at least they help us dominate New York and have some presence in Chicago.
3. I do believe we have an ally in the SEC on the football front. They always felt like it was them against the Pac 10-Big 10 alliance that froze them out of the Rose Bowl for decades, and I've heard nothing but grumbling down here on the four 16 team "super conference" concept. I've heard more and more people down here say they are perfectly happy to just have an SEC championship be the end of their season, though obviously no one will turn down the money of a title game really. So I believe the SEC would want to keep a 5 major conference set up with the ACC and the BEAST both continuing on, and even if they were absolutely forced into a 4-super conference format, i believe if the BEAST had Missouri, K-State and Kansas, that would be a much more appealing "weakest member" of four surviving conferences than the ACC which follows most of the SEC's footprint with much weaker teams.
I'd still rather keep the 6 major conferences, and wish no ill-will toward the Big 12 and ACC, but i would feel much better prepared for potential bad scenarios if we added Missouri, K-State and Kansas to TCU and just called it the BEAST.
In theory, I would think Mizzou, Kansas, and K-State are a package deal. Mizzou alums I've talked to are insistent that if they move to the Big East, Kansas should come with them. Kansas and K-State may not be able to move politically one without the other.
Adding those three schools bring the Big East to 20 teams for basketball, and 12 teams for football, potentially allowing the Big East to stage a conference championship game for football (New Meadowlands?).
Big East West Division: Mizzou, TCU, Kansas, K-State, Louisville, Cincinnati
Big East East Division: USF, West Virginia, Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers, UConn
For basketball, you could play a 20-game schedule where everyone plays each other once, and you have one "rival" you play twice. (Mizzou-KU, Syracuse-GTown, Cincy-Louisville, MU-DePaul/ND, Pitt-West Virginia, etc.) OR, split the league into divisions (Perhaps, four five-team divisions, and rotate the mirror game every year). Where it gets tricky is the conference tournament. In its current format, a 20-Team Big East Tournament would finish on Saturday, with teams finishing 17-20 starting on MONDAY. So the format would have to change.
If this was taken, you could either do "Top 12" make the conference tournament, or split the league into four 5-team divisions, and take the top 3 from each division.
West Division: TCU, Mizzou, K-State, Kansas, USF
Central Division: Marquette, DePaul, Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Louisville
Atlantic Division: Georgetown, Syracuse, Villanova, Pittsburgh, West Virginia
Northeast Division: Rutgers, St. John's, Seton Hall, UConn, Providence
The school I really feel bad for in all this conference-shifting is Iowa State. They have literally nothing to offer to anybody except filling a seat for football.
I wonder what would happen, if the Big 12 survived by taking TCU and another team like West Virginia jumped to SEC? The Big East would either have to give up on football expansion or take teams like East Carolina, Memphis, Central Florida and ?. In that case, I would think MU is safe in the Big East as it still would be a second tier football conference. I think the biggest threat to MU is adding Kansas and another very good basketball program. The football schools would then have enough basketball pedigree to drop some of the basketball only schools. I do not think they would drop Georetown, Villanova, St John's or Providence. Notre Dame(assuming they refuse to join in football), Seton Hall, DePaul and MU are the teams that need to worry.
Not sure any conference is going to drop a solid basketball or football program at this point. I think it's more likely conferences get more and more creative in how they handle payouts to schools. There are so many different ways a conference could shake things up within its organization.
No conference is going to drop anybody. What they could very well do is simply leave the BE and go out on their own. I think what you might see is the remnants of the B12 formally invite the BE football schools to join. Legally they keep the BCS AQ status and don't have to worry about a messy divorce from the BE non-football schools. Under that scenario, you would have the six remaining B12 members, TCU and some new team (Colorado State???) as a western division, and the traditional eight schools remaining as an eastern division.
Quote from: bilsu on September 05, 2011, 07:45:15 AM
Get either Notre Dame or Villanova to participate in football. Then you could have two divisions of football only schools and one division of basketball only schools. Basketball only schools would play each other twice and three teams from each football division on a rotating basis.
The Big East wants ND, they're not buying.
Villanova wants the Big East for football, but has no suitable stadium at their disposal. Temple has a lease with Lincoln Financial through 2018, Penn isn't giving up Franklin Field, and the next available stadium is an 18,500 seat MLS stadium in Chester, PA.
Georgetown has two suitable stadia in its area (RFK, FedEx Field) but neither side wants the other in football.
Quote from: DFW HOYA on September 05, 2011, 08:39:27 PM
The Big East wants ND, they're not buying.
Villanova wants the Big East for football, but has no suitable stadium at their disposal. Temple has a lease with Lincoln Financial through 2018, Penn isn't giving up Franklin Field, and the next available stadium is an 18,500 seat MLS stadium in Chester, PA.
Georgetown has two suitable stadia in its area (RFK, FedEx Field) but neither side wants the other in football.
That is why I firmly believe the Big East gives Notre Dame an ultimatum. Either join in football or leave. The Big East cannot let Notre Dame stay as a basketball only school, because they will be a potential disabling factor as long as they can decide to join another conference in football and leave after everything else has been settled.
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/college/football/big_east_thinking_big_ou8JdQKJUhWEeCUtGv7dNP
"The Big East has studied the creation of four five-team divisions in basketball and two divisions -- East and West -- in football, The Post has learned.
In basketball it could mean each school having home-and-home games with the other four schools in its division and then playing crossover games from schools in other divisions. Some schools wouldn't play each other in a given year.
Football would split along geographical lines with Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Cincinnati, Louisville and TCU in the West Division, and UConn, Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt, South Florida and West Virginia in the East.
Division winners would meet in a true conference championship game, with a BCS bowl game on the line.
The basketball splits likely would create some division but unless the non-FBS football schools (Georgetown, St. John's, et al) are willing to risk the very real possibility of the FBS football-playing schools breaking away, they'll agree to expansion and the new formats."
So what would those five, four-team divisions be:
TCU, Kansas, KSU, Mizzou
Marquette, DePaul, ND, Louisville
Cincy, Pitt, WVU, Syracuse
St. Johns, Providence, UConn, Rutgers
Villanova, Georgetown, Seton Hall, USF
Quote from: The Sultan of South Wayne on September 06, 2011, 09:10:51 AM
So what would those five, four-team divisions be:
TCU, Kansas, KSU, Mizzou
Marquette, DePaul, ND, Louisville
Cincy, Pitt, WVU, Syracuse
St. Johns, Providence, UConn, Rutgers
Villanova, Georgetown, Seton Hall, USF
The only problem with looking at it like this is it assumes no Big East teams leave, which I am hard-pressed to believe. I'm guessing at least 2, maybe even 4 get poached up. In that case, will they still want to expand to at least get to 12 FB schools?
I really like the divisions idea though. In that case UCF and Memphis get added probably as the 1st two (outside of the Big 12 remnants), then more Texas schools like SMU, Baylor (TCU will put up a fight against them) or Houston become options.
Quote from: The Sultan of South Wayne on September 06, 2011, 09:10:51 AM
So what would those five, four-team divisions be:
TCU, Kansas, KSU, Mizzou
Marquette, DePaul, ND, Louisville
Cincy, Pitt, WVU, Syracuse
St. Johns, Providence, UConn, Rutgers
Villanova, Georgetown, Seton Hall, USF
Article says four five-team divisions.
I'd like to see
MU, DePaul, ND, Louisville, Cincy
St. John's, Providence, UConn, Pitt, WVU
Nova, Georgetown, Syracuse, Rutgers, Seton Hall
KU, KSU, Mizzou, TCU, USF
You could swap Nova with UConn or St. John's/Providence for Rutgers/Seton Hall but I think this would be a logical breakdown. You get home and homes with historical rivals then fill out the rest of the schedule with strong teams from the other divisions no matter how you slice it up.
That would leave us playing a home and home with DePaul, ND, L'Ville, and Cicny for 8 conference games per year, then 10 or 12 games from the remaining 15 teams for a conference schedule of 18 or 20 games. The BEast tourney would be unreal.
I was with a few influential ND fans/adminstrators tailgaiting before the ND v USF debacle.
The latest rumor was that Jack Swarbrick, The Big East, ESPN and DeLoss Dobbs are talking very seriously about taking Texas independent. The deal in the works would be to merge the existing Big East and Big 12(minus TXA&M, Mizzou, OU, and OSU) into a 14 team football conference. Texas would join as members in all other sports than football, and the conference would add another BBall only school, Butler was discussed. To bring total Big East membership to 24.
It would look something like this:
Football:
ND - Independent
Texas - Independent
West Division
TCU
Texas Tech
Louisville
Baylor
Kansas
Kansas St.
Iowa St.
East Division
Pitt
Cincy
UCONN
Syracuse
USF
WVU
Rutgers
Basketball would most likely split into 4 divisions with 6 teams each.
This would provide both Notre Dame and Texas with a viable conference for the non football athletics, while also preserving a life raft, if the other conferences moved to a 16 team format.
Thanks Jamail....post-Labor Day dyslexia apparently!
Quote from: The Sultan of South Wayne on September 06, 2011, 09:10:51 AM
So what would those five, four-team divisions be:
TCU, Kansas, KSU, Mizzou
Marquette, DePaul, ND, Louisville
Cincy, Pitt, WVU, Syracuse
St. Johns, Providence, UConn, Rutgers
Villanova, Georgetown, Seton Hall, USF
You have it backwards. It's 4, 5 team divisions per the NY Post article.
I am sick of Louisville. I hope they are not in our division.
Chip Brown just tweeted that the SEC is targeting West Virginia as their 14th member. I haven't heard their name come up too much with realignment talks, but would one of the best Big East football schools leaving be bad for the Big East, but potentially good for Marquette's prospects of remaining in the conference long term?
Quote from: TrueBlueAndGold on September 06, 2011, 10:14:34 PM
Chip Brown just tweeted that the SEC is targeting West Virginia as their 14th member. I haven't heard their name come up too much with realignment talks, but would one of the best Big East football schools leaving be bad for the Big East, but potentially good for Marquette's prospects of remaining in the conference long term?
I think it would mean we get Missouri as long as the Big 10 keeps rejecting them.
Quote from: TrueBlueAndGold on September 06, 2011, 10:14:34 PMChip Brown just tweeted that the SEC is targeting West Virginia as their 14th member. I haven't heard their name come up too much with realignment talks, but would one of the best Big East football schools leaving be bad for the Big East, but potentially good for Marquette's prospects of remaining in the conference long term?
Bad for the Big East, and anything bad for the Big East has the potential to be bad for Marquette. I think we're sort of in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If teams start leaving the Big East, say West Virginia goes to the SEC, then the door is open for possibly a Syracuse and/or Louisville to bolt for the ACC, then the walls come tumbling down as the whole conference falls apart. But if they all stay, and we add Missouri and Kansas, then the football schools start thinking about how life would be without the basketball-onlies.
I think the best thing to do for us right now is to get a new AD in place so we have someone to steer the ship through this crapstorm, and attach ourselves at the hip to teams like Providence, Villanova, St. John's, and Georgetown so that if/when it all goes balls up, we have a viable backup plan and allies to help us get there.
Quote from: TrueBlueAndGold on September 06, 2011, 10:14:34 PM
Chip Brown just tweeted that the SEC is targeting West Virginia as their 14th member. I haven't heard their name come up too much with realignment talks, but would one of the best Big East football schools leaving be bad for the Big East, but potentially good for Marquette's prospects of remaining in the conference long term?
Actually a blogger with some ties named "Frank the Tank" predicted WVU about a week ago. The reason being that there is an agreement with current SEC schools not to take ACC schools from the same state (eliminates Georgia Tech, Florida State and Clemson), that Virginia Tech and the North Carolina schools would have "political issues" to deal with, and that Mizzou is more interested in B10 than anything.
That leaves West Virginia.
nm