One big point everyone has last track of concerning OOC schedule....

[Harrison]

Is the fact that we left Conference USA and are new to the Big East.  Now I am not assuring that things will change MU may see it's revenue go up down the road and decide it likes that and not change a thing.  However, no one has mentioned that we left a ton of money on the table by leaving C-USA.  People may or may not know that the NCAA pays out NCAA tournamnet revenue based on a unitized system whereby each member of the conference gets so many thousands of dollars ( around $60,000 last I recall) for each NCAA tournament game by a conference team.  Therefore, for example, each C-USA team would get 5 units of pay for MU's Final 4 run in 2003 for the years 2004 through 2009 or 2010.  I cannot recall if it is a 5 or 6 year payout.  Also, numerous other C-USA teams acquired games to crete this payout Louisville numerous games including a Final 4, Cincy, UAB, Charlotte, Depaul, etc.  When we left C_USA we left all that 4-5 years of guaranteed future "annuitized" income on the table.  Some may recall C-USA made an offer to the teams that left saying they would pay them the money if they agreed to so many games aginst C-USA teams each year.  That is why UAB, Charlotte, etc. appear on the CIncy, Depaul, Louisville, etc schedule for the last and next 3-4? years.  Mu chose to say no and walked away from that dinero. 
Additonally, you do not simply join a conference and start reaping the rewards of that conferences previous earned unit money.  MU joined the Big East and will begin to earn income but only on one years worth of units.  Therfore our NCaa tournament income is 1/5 what it will be going forward.  Clearly the gross revenue will go up in a few years as the Big East will garner more games even when divided by a bigger pool.  But for the next 4-5 years the cash inflow will be hurt by leaving 3-4-5 years worth of units on the table and only collecting on one.   You can throw in better TV dollars and better attendance but there is no way they make up the deficit.  Going forward they will be great additons to revenue and maybe at that time Mu looks at the revenue and decides 1 or 2 less home buy games is OK, but I do not see that happening in the near future given what we have given up short term.

[bheitz]

Hmmm... interesting.  I knew about some of the points you raise, but not all.  Thanks for the insight.

[downtown85]

interesting points but sometimes you got to take a hit in the short term to grow in the long term.  I think everyone on this board (and probably in the university administration as well) can agree that joining the Big East conference was and will continue to be a fantastic move, if not in terms of money but in the school's profile as a whole.  It will only get more and more lucrative in the future.   

[tower912]

I think everyone can agree that in hindsight, Marquette, if the legends are true, should have accepted the invitation to the Big East 20 + years earlier.    If we were in the BE in the 80's, I can't picture Dukiet being the best option available after Majerus was driven out for the crime of not being Al or Hank.   If we get a real coach instead of Dukiet, much of the darkness that MU is still trying on many levels to recover from never would have happened.

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

People love to mock the Bob Dukiet era -- and rightly so. But he was a very highly regarded coach at St. Peter's before he came to Marquette. It just didn't work out. Marquette has never had a problem attracting coaches. O'Neill was a sought after assistant and Deane had success before he arrived. Crean has turned out to be a great hire, but he was cut from a similar cloth as O'Neill. It's just been a better fit.

[4everwarriors]

Majerus resigned in June, before he was fired, to accept the 3rd assistant's job with the Bucks and work for his friend, Don Nelson. Most folks viewed this as a promotion, when in reality Rick was making quite a bit more at MU, particularly with his New Balance shoe deal, than the Bucks paid him. Nonetheless, he left the Warriors at a terrible time to seek out a coach.
Hank, as AD, thought he had a deal with Mike Newell of Ark.-Little Rock to become coach. Presser was set to go in July when, supposedly Newell's old lady chilled on moving to MKE and he crapped out on a Friday. Saturday afternoon Bob "douche bag" Dukiet was named as the new savior of the basketball program and chief piano player.
In Dukiet's debut, he, Copa, and the boys sent Bucky back to Mad City with a resounding "L". After that, however, everything was downhill with alot of rumor and innuendo surrounding the Dukiet era.
In summary, Hank f**cked up as AD and as a basketball coach, Dukiet made a fine piano player and bus driver.

[NotAnAlum]

We certainly could have done a lot worse than playing UAB, Memphis or even the bottom feeders like Tulane.  In the past 2 years we've played Neb. and Valpo on the road.  I can't imagine that someone from C-USA would have been much of a down grade.  I'm kind afraid that all of these decisions are made based on the edict that "We must have 20 home games".  That has always been attributed to money but I wonder if a large part of it is that TC just wants to avoid Non-con road games.  As you properly state we left a lot of money on the table, money that DePaul, who is in a similair sitaution decided to take.    

[Marquette84]

We certainly could have done a lot worse than playing UAB, Memphis or even the bottom feeders like Tulane.    

That's a pretty big assumption that we would EVER play Memphis.  Given the longstandaing rivalry with Cincy and Louisville, the likelihood of us playing Memphis is slim and none.   CUSA would probalby assign us East Carolina and SMU given the competitiveness of our recent games with them.

Of course, your post marks the first time ever that anyone ever suggested Tulane would be better get than Valpo or Nebraska.

Funny, when we were actually IN the conference with Tulane, people held Valpo up as the type of worthy opponent we should be playing and complained to no end about having to play the Green Wave.

That has always been attributed to money but I wonder if a large part of it is that TC just wants to avoid Non-con road games. 

Which explains why we just bought out the return games with Nebraska and Valpo . . .

No. . .wait. . .I think we DID play the return games on the road during the non-conference season.

As you properly state we left a lot of money on the table, money that DePaul, who is in a similair sitaution decided to take. 

The question is whether our share of NCAA credits is bigger than the home gate from the games we have to give up to get that money.

For DePaul--which can't get a bump from a nationally known program like Wake Forest--they probably figured that playing a few extra games on the road is a bigger windfall than trying to actually host an extra game. 

For MU, we probably do better with another home game.

Perhaps Cords and Crean would have thought differently, however, had this apparent Tulane-love been voiced when we were actually playing Tulane . . .

[COS98]

were to replace the money we paid to leave the conference.  We were always walking from the NCAA tourney dollars.  I don't think we keep the NCAA dollars for those games or we might have been better off on both the financial and opponent side of the equation to take that deal.  I'm sure someone in the Business school ran the numbers.

[NotAnAlum]

I didn't say I wanted to play Tulane.  I used Tulane as the worst C-USA could offer.  You're right we probably would not have gotten Memphis but look DePaul got UAB so who knows.
I think that we all understand that there are Marque non-con games and then there is everything else.  The Arizona and Wake Forrest games we had over the last could seasons had marque quality.  There was a possibility they would be nationally televised, they look good on your schedule etc.  If you are going to turn down C-USA's offer because you want to hold those slots, particularly those away return game slots for Arizona, UCLA, Kansas, Wake Forrest etc than I understand and believe it would be the right decision.  If you are going to instead use those slots to play Nebraska and Valpo or Oakland then I'm sorry I think you made a bad decision.  Is Valpo typically a better basketball team than ECU or SMU, probably.  However, none rise to the level of a marque game so really what difference does it make.  Now you might say "They intended to schedule Marque games with those slots but couldn't."  To which I would say since they failed to execute their strategy the overall decision was a bad one.

[Marquette84]

I didn't say I wanted to play Tulane.  I used Tulane as the worst C-USA could offer.  You're right we probably would not have gotten Memphis but look DePaul got UAB so who knows.

Sorry for the misunderstanding--I thought you were implying that you thought Tulane would be better than Valpo or Nebraska.

If you are going to instead use those slots to play Nebraska and Valpo or Oakland then I'm sorry I think you made a bad decision.  Is Valpo typically a better basketball team than ECU or SMU, probably.  However, none rise to the level of a marque game so really what difference does it make.  Now you might say "They intended to schedule Marque games with those slots but couldn't."  To which I would say since they failed to execute their strategy the overall decision was a bad one.

I think the timing was such that we were committed to Valpo, Oakland and Nebraska before the details of the breakup of CUSA were worked out. 

If so, then we would have had to give up a home game in order to accomodate the CUSA request. 

My guess is that we make more on a typical home game (regardless of opponent) than what we're giving up in terms of NCAA credits.  If we get a marquee opponent, then its a windfall for us.  If its a buy game, its still financially in our favor to give up the CUSA credits.

[Harrison]

Clearly, the valpo and Nebraska games were done well before that.  Valpo endied up being a three for one type of dal with them playing up in MKE three times.  I realize one was the Classic but I still think that ws hte arrangement to get Mu to valpo one time.  Oakland and NEb were clearly before the BE.   I think at the end of the day the decision was MU did not want to have to go on the road to play the C-USA teams.  People are assuming Mu would play those teams at home.  That wa snot necessarily the case.  The ultimate decison I beleive was Mu decided they eanted the scheduling flexibility they would lose by agreeing to play them and while they would lose alot of money by walking away it could be to a degree recouped by replacing them with some buy games.   Clearly Mu had it's rationalization for it.  My recollection is all the other schools took the games.  Also there was no penalty to leave C-USA only the forfeited dollars.   The penalties went into vogue after it all happened.  Some will recall the Big East put in  the $1 million penalty that BC signed and then left 6 mos? later and got sued for.  Bc claimed they should not have to pay. Was always somewhat a fan of BC now I wish them only the worst.  Still not sure why a Northeastern Catholic school would leave the BE and join a conference of Southern state schools.  totally a bad fit in my opinion.  Not that it will happen every year but BE footbal compared to ACC footbal this year?!  Poetic justice that BC loses their Fb coach to another ACC school

[rocky_warrior]

Also there was no penalty to leave C-USA only the forfeited dollars.

Harrison, I think your recollection of the issue is incorrect.  Marquette bought out the games for $500,000
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_20040212/ai_n10941630

[HansMoleman]

were to replace the money we paid to leave the conference.  We were always walking from the NCAA tourney dollars.  I don't think we keep the NCAA dollars for those games or we might have been better off on both the financial and opponent side of the equation to take that deal.  I'm sure someone in the Business school ran the numbers.

I too recall a penalty to leave CUSA.  At the time, I thought MU gladly paid the fee in lieu of having to play the likes of ECU and TCU again.

[NotAnAlum]

Note what Cords is quoted as saying
"(Coach Tom Crean) has got to have an ability to create his schedule," athletic director Bill Cords said. "So we're opting to pay the exit fee in order to maintain our non-conference scheduling flexibility."
I wonder if Marq did this even though they knew it would cost them money simply because Crean is very against non-con road games.  It would have been real easy for Cords to say "We looked at the deal being offered and we beleive that we can do better finacially scheduling on our own."  Leads me to beleive it wasn't the best money decision. 
For years the scheduling of all these December bunnies has been written off as a $ decision made by the AD's office.  I'm starting to wonder.  Its pretty obvious that Crean's desired non-con schedule is 1 neutral site Tourne, One AND ONLY ONE away game, and the rest home games against what ever competition it takes to get all those home games.  And of course the Wis. games where ever it lands.  Crean calls the shots.  If so its kind of too bad because it virtually eliminates much chance generating other potential marque matchups.   

[MUfan12]

One other thing to consider- Schools usually do not schedule marquee games over break, unless its a neutral court. You'd have a tough time finiding a big time away game in December, as no one wants to bring in a Top 25 team with no students there, and I know that is the case at MU as well.