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The A-10 has to reach out Wichita St. to see about their interest in joining up. Failing to do so would be a massive leadership failure.

I don't think Butler is a fair case. The Butler before the Big East was coached by Brad Stevens. The Butler after was coached by a few different guys. A fair question is whether Butler could have survived Brad Stevens leaving if they weren't in the Big East. They may have ended up like George Mason reliving the glory days of back to back championship games. Instead, they've come out OK. I doubt you'd find a serious Creighton fan anywhere that regrets going to the Big East. They've had a 2 seed in the dance, a sweet 16 and conference championships since going. Some things are just bigger than rolling through the Valley and getting a 9 seed in the dance. Xavier is an interesting one but even with the fewer NCAA tourney appearances, I'd bet the vast majority of their fans don't regret leaving.

Pretty sure Aunt Becky's daughters are on the women's field hockey team.

I'm probably naive but I think Joe would do it for free as part of his ongoing commitment to St. Louis. Likely took him less than an hour.

Totally agree with this. If this is a facilities upgrade only, no matter how big it is, I think the Athletic Department should think long and hard about how they went about this announcement, given the context of the Big East commish comments only a week prior. All they needed to do was say "A Major Announcement regarding facilities" and it would have been received well. As it stands now, people are likely going to be disappointed with an announcement that otherwise should have been an unequivocal positive!

A "student learning center" as part of a Chaifetz upgrade would impact all the teams and athletes. No way they would be pumping this up as such a great thing if it was a change in the Athletic Director. That makes no sense.

11 teams makes perfect sense for their play everyone twice but increase the number to 20 games model. With many conferences going to 20 games, I was under the impression they would be on 11 for the foreseeable future. Val's comments yesterday obviously change that. - 12 teams and 2 divisions means only 16 games (5 x 2 +6) if you go twice against your division and once against the other. It wouldn't be this format. - 14 teams and 2 division means 19 games (6 x 2 +7) if you go twice against your division and once against the other. This would make a fair amount of sense as it's a blend of the 18 and 20 games that most conferences settle on, but there would be concern that some teams get 10 games in a given season while others get 9.

Roy, you keep bringing this up based on message board rumors that are most likely nonsense. Pretty much any team that has switched conferences anywhere has been brought in as "full" members. Now clearly, any school that is brought in should NOT expect access to past NCAA units won by current members of the Big East, and such school(s) would likely have to concede any accrued units won with their current conference. So there is a short-term financial hit, but it's understood that long-term it is a huge financial positive.

This is exactly right. When the commish goes public on something like this it's not because they want to discuss it two years later; it's because they want to do it now.

Thanks Taj for turning a really important thread about Mizzou vs. SLU into a really important thread on COVID.

There is no way they are requiring all that. It's very much an honor system. If some unvaccinated person wants to fake a card to get in it's not going to be hard to do. It's as much about plausible deniability as anything for the Blues and SLU and every other restaurant, concert venue, etc. that are "requiring" vaccination. It's not all that different than last year where you had to flash your phone with your wellness check which basically said you felt healthy. If you didn't feel healthy but still wanted to attend the game, of course you could just say you were healthy and still go...

OTE seems to think they can generate a whole lot of NIL money off these players and share only a portion of it with them. I have my doubts that will work but maybe the shoe companies are already in bed with it.

I agree the PAC will have a seat at the table. Just too important not too. I guess I disagree that the long-term trend of people heading to the West will continue indefinitely. To put it simply, there are currently too many people and not enough water out West. At some point the droughts, constant fires, electricity shortages, etc. will materially affect the quality of life out there and will offset the warmer weather that has attracted all those people. The Midwest isn't dead yet.

Agreed. I think it’s even worse than that when you put a thoughtful response on social media 98% of the people may agree with you but the 2% that don’t will form a vocal opposition such as the one Hanlen dealt with yesterday.

The folks on the Tigerboard were not very excited about the Christian Jones commitment, that is for sure. Time will tell who is better between him, Kramer, Thames and Hughes. I recognize they are all different types of players but they are all local guards that either we or Mizzou are/were recruiting so comparisons are natural.