Had this to say:
2. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said on the ESPNU College Basketball Podcast Thursday that the Irish had talked to the other seven Catholic schools about forming a national Catholic conference. If the ACC option didn't occur then the Irish would have bolted with the rest. That shows how much this has been discussed and was a distinct possibility. Pitt coach Jamie Dixon also said on the same podcast that he was told the reason Marquette and DePaul were added 10 years ago was to ensure the five Catholic schools had seven members to retain an NCAA bid if they decided to leave. He said the eventual split of football and non-football was always inevitable, and may have actually happened later than predicted."
both of those stood out to me that even 7 years ago they were preparring for an eventual split. My guess is they assumed it would be because football no longer had a need for basketball, not the other way around.
We'd all still be one big, happy, diverse league, if not for cable TV. It would have worked fine without the football schools getting picked off at the whim of other conferences. Without that, football and basketball schools could have worked together (relatively) smoothly.
You can't really blame the football schools, TV money and (at least it seemed) stability was better elsewhere, if Marquette had football we'd have done the same.
Quote from: JTBMU7 on December 14, 2012, 08:58:58 AM
Had this to say:
2. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said on the ESPNU College Basketball Podcast Thursday that the Irish had talked to the other seven Catholic schools about forming a national Catholic conference. If the ACC option didn't occur then the Irish would have bolted with the rest. That shows how much this has been discussed and was a distinct possibility. Pitt coach Jamie Dixon also said on the same podcast that he was told the reason Marquette and DePaul were added 10 years ago was to ensure the five Catholic schools had seven members to retain an NCAA bid if they decided to leave. He said the eventual split of football and non-football was always inevitable, and may have actually happened later than predicted."
both of those stood out to me that even 7 years ago they were preparring for an eventual split. My guess is they assumed it would be because football no longer had a need for basketball, not the other way around.
We discussed it on the Rivals Board ad nauseum back then. The Catholic Conference was discussed since we were in the MCC. None of this is a surprise.