Profile of possible Catholic conference members

[Litehouse]

Here's last years attendance figures for some of the schools being mentioned lately:

Memphis - 16,768
Creighton - 13,507
Dayton - 12,567
Xavier - 10,098
Butler - 7,178
VCU - 6,645
UCF - 6,370
SLU - 6,299
Richmond - 5,959
Temple - 5,925
George Mason - 5,896
ECU - 4,566
URI - 4,537
St. Joe's - 4,405
Duquesne - 3,899
UMass - 3,300
Houston - 3,281
Detroit - 2,474
BU - 979 (yep, nine hundred)

Some other schools of interest for comparison:
Seton Hall - 7,937
DePaul - 7,676
Providence - 7,043
Rutgers - 5,602
USF - 4,230

UWM - 4,154
UWGB - 3,007

[dwaderoy2004]

Agree but 12 is the absolute lowest we can go. That may force us getting used to seasons where less than 4 teams get an NCAA bid. If we go to 16 it may be 6-7, maybe 8 in a great year. Thats big, because it'll hard for fans to stay interested and believe if they have to be top 3-4 to get a chance at the NCCAs (which will be owned by GTown, St. John's, Nova and Marq).

I think going to 16 and splitting into 4 pods/divisions gives fans something to fight for, instead of seeing their name listed 8th out of 2 teams.

Also, being THE national basketball conference can be something to sell the league on. It'll be hard though if UNLV, UMass and Memphis look other places b/c of football.

Why is 12 the absolute lowest we can go?  I'm perfectly fine with 10.  A league of MU, Nova, G-town, ND, Butler, Xavier, St. Johns, Providence, Seton Hall and Depaul would consistently produce 5-6 bids/year.  Why dilute it down past that?

[StillAWarrior]

From a purely selfish perspective, I'd like to see Marquette coming to town to play Cleveland State on a fairly regular basis.  So, throw them into the mix of our fictional conference.

[muhs03]

Here's last years attendance figures for some of the schools being mentioned lately:

Creighton - 13,507
Dayton - 12,567
Xavier - 10,098
Butler - 7,178
VCU - 6,645
UCF - 6,370
SLU - 6,299
Richmond - 5,959
Temple - 5,925
George Mason - 5,896
CU - 4,566
URI - 4,537
St. Joe's - 4,405
Duquesne - 3,899
UMass - 3,300
Houston - 3,281
Detroit - 2,474
BU - 979 (yep, nine hundred)

Some other schools of interest for comparison:
Seton Hall - 7,937
DePaul - 7,676
Providence - 7,043
Rutgers - 5,602
USF - 4,230

UWM - 4,154
UWGB - 3,007

Dayton's capacity is 13,455 so they almost sell-out every game, on average. Plus, they play on campus and their game day environment is actually a lot of fun. With stronger competition, they would sell-out most of their home games.

[4everwarriors]

Rutgers 1976 = Jammin' James Bailey. 

And that's about it for that program.

Not true. Lloyd Moore ended up there after leaving MU.

[77ncaachamps]

I  love Butler as a basketball add, but please stop referring to them as a Catholic school! (They were founded by a Christian group but are non-sectarian.)

[Aughnanure]

Why is 12 the absolute lowest we can go?  I'm perfectly fine with 10.  A league of MU, Nova, G-town, ND, Butler, Xavier, St. Johns, Providence, Seton Hall and Depaul would consistently produce 5-6 bids/year.  Why dilute it down past that?

But this isn't the Big East anymore, teams with .500 records in conference are not going. Its too dense, most teams would just beat each other up and lower the opinions of the conference as a whole. Plus, the league also won't have as much respect at least in the first years, so if the teams don't beat the BCS teams in the OOC games, it will be hard to comeback from that in conference play. If MU, GTown and Nova are disappointing in the OOC, it'll hard for teams in to lose to them and make an argument for the NCAA.

Great leagues get half their league in. The BCS leagues typically get 4-6 bids out of 10-12 teams.  This league will start in an underdog position and will have to earn that respect, unfortunately, and a few down years in OOC will have a bad impact.

Plus, I think divisions are more fun...more storylines, develops rivalries, more reason for fans to follow.

BrewCity has several posts on this that are much better at explaining why. 12 is fine, but 10

[bilsu]

A lot of posters here do not seem to realize that we need some bottom feeders to beat up on.