Catholic 7 Meeting?

[Benny B]

I am assuming that selling assets for $10 would invite a lawsuit right?

What Pakuni said.  Nevertheless, "$10" is a placeholder; please note the asterisk.

[brewcity77]

However, I do *not* think taking a school for all sports but football is a good idea. That's just a recipe for instability.

Well, it depends on how you do it. Think about the make-up of this league with football schools being forced to park their sports elsewhere:

Marquette
Georgetown
Villanova
St. John's
Providence
Seton Hall
DePaul

Butler
VCU
Xavier
Dayton
St. Louis

UConn
Memphis
Temple
Cincinnati

Okay, first off, any decisions that are made are made with the basketball-only schools controlling everything. The football schools can choose to leave, but they can't control the direction the conference takes. Basically, they would only be here because associating their basketball with us would be more lucrative than going independent or going all-in with the MAC or C-USA.

Memphis and Temple were all but giddy to get into the Big East. Clearly this was a better bet for them and no one was kicking down their door. Their football can stay where it is, doesn't hurt them any, but obviously this is a better bet for their basketball and other sports. I wouldn't worry about them going anywhere.

Cincy and UConn would come in with their eyes firmly set at leaving. So what? As long as they're here, they add to our basketball profile. And if they leave, that's still a damn good basketball league. If we drop to 14, so be it. Damn good conference. If we choose to replace them with Creighton and Wichita State/Richmond/Murray State/whomever, again, so be it. We don't take much of a drop-off and the basketball schools get even more of a stranglehold on the conference.

Regardless, having a couple football schools in that raise the basketball profile is fine as long as we're in a situation where we don't need them. If they leave, so what, what's important is they no longer control what's happening to us.

[Benny B]

I'm not sure if it was Brew, or somebody else, but did someone have the numbers in regard to how much revenue Marquette brought from basketball to the Big East?  I thought i remember reading that Marquette was the most profitable within the last 10 years or something in providing revenue to the conference from the NCAA tournament?

I'm sick of reading how Marquette was an anchor from the CUSA and isn't "pulling their own weight"

Thanks.

2011 Report - http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=25546.0

2012 Report - http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=32345.0

[4everwarriors]

Question for scoopers,  We all know MU will not have a football team for obvious reasons, but if the C-7 schools do indeed become a basketball only conference would these schools need another "secondary" sport to help with revenue?  Perhaps having a good baseball program, or soccer program would help.  Soccer is gaining popularity throughout America for about 10 years now, and baseball is America's past time. 

Having an institution lean so heavily on a sport other than football could be a recipe for conference instability for decades and decades. Just curious on thoughts of fellow scoopers. 

(yes i know the Marquette Men's soccer team did great this year) I'm talking about sustained success for another sport other than basketball, or does it really not matter?

Still waitin' on Crean's soccer field donation.

[Tommy Brice for Coach]

YES YES YES YES.  Exactly how it should/will go down. 

+1

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Question for scoopers,  We all know MU will not have a football team for obvious reasons, but if the C-7 schools do indeed become a basketball only conference would these schools need another "secondary" sport to help with revenue?  Perhaps having a good baseball program, or soccer program would help.  Soccer is gaining popularity throughout America for about 10 years now, and baseball is America's past time. 

Having an institution lean so heavily on a sport other than football could be a recipe for conference instability for decades and decades. Just curious on thoughts of fellow scoopers. 

(yes i know the Marquette Men's soccer team did great this year) I'm talking about sustained success for another sport other than basketball, or does it really not matter?

Womens soccer team has been really good for years now. 5 straight conference titles and now the mens team is on the rise. Plus our volleyball team has had its best two seasons the last 2 years and they are on the rise as well. Volleyball is a pretty big deal as well nationally.

[mu03eng]

Or... how do we know that Larry wasn't the one that got the C7 off their collective rears the day after he was hired?

Then great, full credit, but again that's his job.  If the C7 plus others league happens and it turns out he is the lynch pin, he should get a raise and praise.

[chapman]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8736716/atlantic-10-open-adding-big-east-basketball-eating-21-team-conference-source

Looks like the A-10 wants the C7.  21 team conference?  Ewwww.  I think we'll do without St. Bonaventure, Duquesne, and Fordham.  I think their premiere schools would as well.

[Tigidal]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8736716/atlantic-10-open-adding-big-east-basketball-eating-21-team-conference-source

Looks like the A-10 wants the C7.  21 team conference?  Ewwww.  I think we'll do without St. Bonaventure, Duquesne, and Fordham.  I think their premiere schools would as well.

Won't happen with all current teams... Gtown won't even schedule a game anymore with GW, nonetheless be in the same conf with them.

[muguru]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8736716/atlantic-10-open-adding-big-east-basketball-eating-21-team-conference-source

Looks like the A-10 wants the C7.  21 team conference?  Ewwww.  I think we'll do without St. Bonaventure, Duquesne, and Fordham.  I think their premiere schools would as well.

St. Bonnies, Duquesne and Fordham turn our collective stomachs, much the way seeing MU in a conference with STL and Dayton would turn mine. YUCK!!

[mu03eng]

I am assuming that selling assets for $10 would invite a lawsuit right?

In our society today, everything gets a lawsuit, doesn't make it any less the right and smart thing to do.

What is interesting is what USF, Cincy and UConn do.  They have to see the writing on the wall(if their ADs are as smart as LW seems to be  ) so do you leave ahead and owe an exit fee, but land in a softer position, or do you hang on to the bitter end, not have to pay the exit fee, and then have a huge scramble to find a home.

I'm betting at least USF blinks first.

[WarriorDoc]

Can anyone comment of the timing of this?  How fast this hoops-only scenario could happen?  I know there is no real rush as long as it gets done within the window of time necessary, but as a fan you'd love to know what conference your team is playing in.

[mu03eng]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8736716/atlantic-10-open-adding-big-east-basketball-eating-21-team-conference-source

Looks like the A-10 wants the C7.  21 team conference?  Ewwww.  I think we'll do without St. Bonaventure, Duquesne, and Fordham.  I think their premiere schools would as well.

Pre-emptive strike by the A-10 to prevent poaching.  Why would the BEast teams want to split the BE funds 21 ways instead of 12?  I think this signals that this thing is 80-20 to happen as a 12 team BE bball only conference.  Book it 

[🏀]

If you're interested, here's what the map would look like after kicking out the BE football schools and adding Dayton, Xaiver, Butler, SLU and Creighton.



The center of the conference would be Mansfield, Ohio. I wonder if they hotels near a stadium with cheap parking meters?

[chapman]

Pre-emptive strike by the A-10 to prevent poaching.  Why would the BEast teams want to split the BE funds 21 ways instead of 12?  I think this signals that this thing is 80-20 to happen as a 12 team BE bball only conference.  Book it  

Right on.  Wonder where the knucklehead from a couple months ago is who told us that the A-10 schools all love each other, nobody would dare leave, and that their door is closed on expansion to anyone?  At the first peep of defections they're already scared enough to want to invite 7 teams.  In other words, 10 of the 14 are afraid and 4 of the 14 are salivating.  And in other words, if we break away there won't be any struggle to get the A-10 teams of our choosing to join.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Question for scoopers,  We all know MU will not have a football team for obvious reasons, but if the C-7 schools do indeed become a basketball only conference would these schools need another "secondary" sport to help with revenue?  Perhaps having a good baseball program, or soccer program would help.  Soccer is gaining popularity throughout America for about 10 years now, and baseball is America's past time. 

Having an institution lean so heavily on a sport other than football could be a recipe for conference instability for decades and decades. Just curious on thoughts of fellow scoopers. 

(yes i know the Marquette Men's soccer team did great this year) I'm talking about sustained success for another sport other than basketball, or does it really not matter?

I'll quote LW first hand from the Marquette Circles in NYC.  Marquette will be relevant to any conference as long as we maintain excellance in all our sports programs in addition to basketball.  LW cited the recent success of men's & women's soccer and the women's volleyball team.  Repeatadly cited the need and desire to build a fieldhouse to allow teams to practice year round in Milwaukee weather.

[WarriorDoc]

Oh hey guys, remember this?  What an idiot:

DAYTON (OH) -- To Whom it May Concern, namely DePaul, Marquette, St. John's, Providence, Georgetown, Seton Hall, and Villanova:

I understand that you've been having a Maalox Moment or two, so I'd like to address some of your concerns to help explain your indigestion about the continuing implosion of the Big East Conference -- the home turf for all of your athletic programs. And when I say indigestion, I mean panic attacks about your potential irrelevance from the college basketball landscape. My purpose is not to allay your fears but rather substantiate them. As chaotic and desperate as you think they are, I believe there is sound evidence to suggest your fears don't go far enough. They are ever-present, but they are also victim to the sin of spin. Your depth perception is inside-out, and it's worth my time to provide an outside-in viewpoint to cast a proper light on the changing college landscape.

So here goes.

In a nutshell, you're screwed. Not blindfold-and-cigarette screwed, but short on options and shorter on time. You're Jack Dawson on the Titanic and Celine Dion is clearing her throat. The good news is there are lifeboats. The bad news is you came from steerage and those lifeboats aren't for you. In two hours the ship will founder and the best you can hope for is to use the body of a dead porter as an improvised flotation device until help arrives -- but it's no sure thing they'll find you floating among the debris, alive, worth saving.

In basketball parlance, the Big East is the Titanic, college football is the iceberg, and the A10 is the RMS Carpathia. When the Carpathia trawls the debris field for survivors, folks like yourself aren't in a position of strength to demand hot towels and a wine list. You might have been a passenger on the grandest ocean liner to ever set sail, but that was two hours ago. Nobody cares anymore and the royal crest you've been bear-hugging presently sleeps at the bottom of the north Atlantic. You're like everyone else now, but still cling to the Guggenheim attitude.

Glad we could be there to offer a rescue. Want to know more about our swashbuckling sloop? Consider the following.

The A10 holds all of the face cards and authors their own future. The private A10 schools are not going to retreat from the stability and security of the top basketball-only conference in the country and venture out into shark-infested waters where schools are cannibalizing their own league members, jockeying for position, and lobbying over one another into conferences that are completely unstable geographic nightmares of greed, self-absorption, and academic antagonism.

Do I foresee institutions leaving the dead calm of the A10 to form a new basketball-centric conference amid the unpredictable swells and whitecaps of present-day re-alignment? No way -- not unless its under the terms, conditions, and timetable of the departing A10 members. There is too much chaos and uncertainty to abandon a perfectly good ship and swim for the promise of an uncharted land mass.

Especially not after Butler and VCU were just added to the improving conference. It's hard to imagine Butler and VCU accepting invitations to the A10 without the darnedest assurances from Xavier, Dayton, and St. Louis that a bait-and-switch was not eminent.

The A10 is the safe haven at the moment. League members control their own fates and have a timetable based on a sun dial instead of a stopwatch. Members recognize as a stable league, their strength is in numbers.

The A10 is a league many institutions are intrigued to join -- not parachute out of. More schools want a boarding pass than vacant staterooms to fill. The climate is getting more and more advantageous to the A10 as FBS football implodes the college landscape. Even a traveling salesman understands market forces. The A10 office recognizes their position of strength at the bargaining table. The strength is not absolute, but the leverage is undeniable.

Bernadette McGlade knew this last year when she added the Bulldogs and Rams. Her hand is only that much stronger and strengthening by the hour. The A10 doesn't need the Big East basketball schools to survive. A nice addition? Certainly. A necessity? No. Big East basketball schools may ultimately reach a point however where their fate is determined by others only -- on the timetable of others and at the mercy of others.

None of this is to suggest Big East basketball members compare unfavorably to the brass hats of the A10. Marquette, Villanova, and Georgetown have reached Final Fours in recent years. St. John's is still St. John's. Comparing one Big East school to one A10 school is not the comparison that will re-map the landscape however. Power rests in the hands of those most capable of retreating to their existing ships and staying above the waterline. The A10 does not need a flotilla of supply ships to remain at sea for an extended period. She's stocked, cocked, and water-tight. More than that, all hands on deck believe in her.

The A10 schools have historically operated on a smaller budget than schools in the Big East. Maintaining the status quo is just another day at the office. Members are used to stretching a dollar. The A10 brass -- Xavier, Dayton, St. Louis, Butler, St. Joe, and VCU -- are not going to let dollar signs overcome them by some newfangled Big East Redux 2.0 unless it's more bulletproof than the Merrimack.

Why?

The A10 schools would be assuming 100% of the risk while the Big East schools would be taking on none of the risk. When you have nothing to lose, you can't. But A10 schools have everything to lose because they would be folding an already strong hand for a new deal of unknown cards. A10 schools are happy and content where they are if that's the worst case scenario. That's not the case with the basketball schools in the Big East. The problem with musical chairs is there's never a chair for everyone. Big East schools are killing each other to find a seat at the table -- any table.

You've worked hard to convince yourself that everything is the other way around and when Big East basketball schools say "jump", A10 schools shout "how high?", but its nothing more than a half-baked Baghdad Bob impersonation. Whatever happens will happen because the A10 schools chose it to happen. They hold the decisive veto.

Time is wasting and you've already wasted plenty of that. During the favorable weather when most skippers were tightening up their rigging and caulking their hulls, you only had time to count the checks. You were a grand ship but you're nothing but a memory now. Just a cold, rusty, maritime relic sitting alone with no passengers and no port-of-call.

The A10 might not be the ship of royalty, but she's our ship and certainly worth fighting for. You can denigrate her all you like, but she still floats. Rather than order our sailors and officers to command a new ship under your slanted and corrupted oversight, perhaps it will be us barking the orders and assigning the bunks, on our own trusty boat, warts and all, in a manner and timetable of our choosing.

If and when that happens, Celine will be in rare form. Big East basketball schools won't have a heart that goes on. It will have an ongoing heart attack.

[TJ]

Right on.  Wonder where the knucklehead from a couple months ago is who told us that the A-10 schools all love each other, nobody would dare leave, and that their door is closed on expansion to anyone?  At the first peep of defections they're already scared enough to want to invite 7 teams.  In other words, 10 of the 14 are afraid and 4 of the 14 are salivating.  And in other words, if we break away there won't be any struggle to get the A-10 teams of our choosing to join.

Oh hey guys, remember this?  What an idiot:

They're not wrong yet.  It's possible that the A10 teams have banded together and agreed not to participate in all the shenanigans.  Granted, the teams of the Big East "made" that "agreement" at one point too, and they already haven't kept out of it since Temple left and they poached Butler & VCU, but it's possible that they all drew a line in the sand together.  We'll see in a few months.

[bilsu]

It would be nice to have Cincy and Uconn, but they would remain a destablizing factor so I think you leave them out. Madison Square Garden has the right to terminate Big East contract, if there is a significant change in teams. I suspect they will dump Big East and go after ACC. They may allow Big East to stay there in short-term until ACC finishes whatever contract they might have for their tournament.

[jficke13]

Question for scoopers,  We all know MU will not have a football team for obvious reasons, but if the C-7 schools do indeed become a basketball only conference would these schools need another "secondary" sport to help with revenue?  Perhaps having a good baseball program, or soccer program would help.  Soccer is gaining popularity throughout America for about 10 years now, and baseball is America's past time. 

Having an institution lean so heavily on a sport other than football could be a recipe for conference instability for decades and decades. Just curious on thoughts of fellow scoopers. 

(yes i know the Marquette Men's soccer team did great this year) I'm talking about sustained success for another sport other than basketball, or does it really not matter?

Yes,we've been having good success in Mens/Women's soccer and Women's vball. I'm also told by my east-coast friends that our lacrosse team is positioned for growth (as is the sport at large). *However* outside of the very top levels of competition in these sports, they are not revenue producing. Tennessee/UCONN Women's bball may be profitable, but most Women's hoops are not. We should not bank on any secondary sport being a regular revenue-producing sport.

[frozena pizza]

Oh hey guys, remember this?  What an idiot:

He is basically saying no one is going to leave the A-10 unless they are getting a better deal.  Of course, that is the whole point.  Anyone who says an A-10 school will stay in the league simply for the sake of stability and would rather play Fordham, St. Bonnie's, Duquesne and LaSalle than Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette and St. John's has no clue.

[brewcity77]

He is basically saying no one is going to leave the A-10 unless they are getting a better deal.

You're giving him too much credit. He was being a smartass saying the A-10 is better off than the Big East and that we should be grateful if they throw us a life preserver because otherwise we're screwed. This desperation bid by the A-10 to go to 21 shows that they already know we can take whatever schools we like from them and all they can do is smile and nod.

[Benny B]

Can anyone comment of the timing of this?  How fast this hoops-only scenario could happen?  I know there is no real rush as long as it gets done within the window of time necessary, but as a fan you'd love to know what conference your team is playing in.

If a dissolution vote as outlined above is going to take place, it has to take place in the next six months, and if that should be the case, Marquette is playing in a 7-team Big East in 2013-14.  When the invitees happen to join, that is up for discussion.

If "reorganization via dissolution" is the outcome here, my gut tells me that it goes down within two weeks following the conclusion of the NCAA tourney.

[RyanConroy]

May be a silly suggestion, but could it be feasible for a new, basketball-centric conference to align itself with a single apparel brand, the obvious one being Jordan? It would seem to make sense from a marketing and recruiting standpoint: big basketball paired with the biggest/best basketball-only apparel outlet. Maybe Nike is interested in Jordan increasing its footprint in the college game (a footprint that seems to lag far behind that of the pro game, albeit for obvious reasons). It already has ties with Georgetown and Marquette.

This very well may not conform to NCAA regulations. I'd be interested in knowing if it would.

[mu03eng]

If a dissolution vote as outlined above is going to take place, it has to take place in the next six months, and if that should be the case, Marquette is playing in a 7-team Big East in 2013-14.  When the invitees happen to join, that is up for discussion.

If "reorganization via dissolution" is the outcome here, my gut tells me that it goes down within two weeks following the conclusion of the NCAA tourney.

Agreed.  What gets interesting is if the football teams jump first.  If that's the case we get some extra money and don't have to disband.  Here is to hoping SEC and Big 12 poach from the ACC soon forcing UCONN and Cincy to jump now.