Aquinas

VCU and Butler have added a lot of excitement to this conference. Like every other Billiken fan, I am hoping we join the new Big East. That said; the number of Billiken and A10 games broadcast has been wonderful. Not only are they broadcast, but there have been so many worth watching The final matchups this weekend are amazing with the top 6 teams in the conference all playing each other and jockeying for the title, seeding, first round byes and invites to the big dance. 1st. place SLU hosts 3rd place La Salle, who with a win would get the bye and have a shot at the title. SLU should be favored by about 6 points. VCU, tied with SLU for first place goes to Temple. A win by Temple gives them a shot at a first round bye. VCU should be favored by about a point. 4th place Butler goes to Cincinnati to play Xavier, with both teams playing for a 1st round bye. Xavier should be favored by about 2 points. These should all be great games in their own right and help our boys get more comfortable playing big games in front of big crazy crowds. Thanks A10 for a great season!

Why does Fox love us? The Bill are dancing this year and they have a great opportunity to go to the sweet 16 and beyond. They are also the best story going into the dance with the spirit of Rick Majerus imprinted on this team. Add to that Crews as potential “coach of the year” and you have a media feast. With every win in the dance the story will grow and the team will be a fan favorite. Part of every game will be a discussion of the new Big East. That kind of publicity is priceless and will draw fans to watch the new conference and Fox knows it. Fox is paying a lot of money for the new Big East product and SLU is in a very strong and unique position to promote it. Oh.. and the spirit of Rick Majerus will dance again next year. This is why SLU should be asked to join the conference and the sooner the better.

Wiz, if you rank the Bills as your 19th best team, why don't you have them as a 5th seed instead of a 6th?

Xavier just upset Memphis. This is good news! Memphis is 2 ahead of us in the Coaches poll and well ahead in RPI. This game will be a measuring stick with us going to Xavier next week. It is also a warning for us not to take Xavier lightly.

Burwell: SLU hits it big, as in 'new' Big East? Burwell’s article is very sloppy. First he leaves one of the original C7 teams Providence out of the 12 teams in the expanded C7, adding both Richmond and Siena. Then later in the article when he counts ranked teams in the expanded C7 he adds another team VCU. So Burwell lists 13 teams in his 12 team league and when Providence is added back in, he actually has 14 teams in his 12 team league. I guess sports writers don’t have to do much math to write for the Post. http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/bryan-burwell/burwell-slu-hits-it-big-as-in-new-big-east/article_6d4fe8de-8267-55bc-98bb-0f7f7d7f89a4.html

We are 18 in the CBS sports top 25. Butler is 19 and VCU 24. Three ranked A10 teems is pretty cool! http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/rankings/top25 More polls to follow, but we should see similar results. God is good.

It is obvious Jim Crews can coach and motivate a good team. So how do we explain his win loss history at Evansville? Why did he have such success with Evansville in the MCC from 1985-1993, with an overall record of 169-98 and conference finishes of 6th, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 5th, 5th, 1st and 2nd, but then end up so uninspiring with Evansville in the Missouri Valley from 1994-2001 with a 125-111 record and finishes of 5th, 5th, 4th, 6th, 1st, 6th, 6th, 9th? In the first 9 seasons he had 3 NCAA and 2 NIT appearances. In the last 8 years he had 1 NCAA appearance. The numbers don’t explain why the second half of his Evansville history is so lethargic. It could be an inability to recruit. A successful coach has to be able to do a lot of things well to succeed. There may be another explanation, but the track record at Evansville is concerning. I would hate to end up with a middle of the road team that failed to leverage its success with good recruiting. History likes to repeat itself and that Evansville history bothers me.

The Stevens quote I like best: "If we are physical, the Billikens are The Ravens"

I like Barnett's nose for the ball. He seems to get key rebounds and occasionally steps in front of passes. He seems more comfortable and is improving with his minutes. He does not have great athletic ability, but he seems to play taller than he is when it comes to rebounds. The quality of his minutes keep improving and that is critical when starters need a breather, get in foul trouble or get hurt.

Richmond is a great choice because it fits the profile of the other schools and is located in the east. The big football revenue schools are going geography crazy, but it makes a lot more dollars and academic sense to reduce travel with a collection of a private school basketball conference. The C7 needs another east coast team to expand to 12 and keep the geography balanced. This results in 2 beautiful travel easy divisions and an overall Sagarin rating of 81.16, which would make it the 4th best conference if all of the teams were in it today. Creighton and other mentioned schools are just too far away when you consider all sports, though it could be picked up in an expansion to 16 teams. Here is the new C-ish 12; in Sagarin ratings order: East Division: 18 Georgetown 48 Villanova 63 Providence 70 St. John’s 98 Richmond 104 Seton Hall Mid-West Division: 19 Marquette 30 St. Louis 34 Butler 65 Dayton 83 Xavier 143 DePaul. I would love to see the Bills playing each school in the division home and way each year and play each east team once a year for a 16 game conference schedule.

I like the talk of Richmond snd I think it is good news for SLU if it is accurate. It means they are adding an east coast team which only makes sence if they are putting together a 12 team leauge. Richmond makes for a good 6 team east coast division with easy all sports travel and it would balance out the 6 midwest teams that would also have easy all sports travel. It would allow midwest schools of Marquett, Depaul, Xavier, Butler, SLU and Dayton. Creighton is probably on the out side because it is farther west than they have to go for a quality team. It could easily be considered in a 14 team league with the addition of another east coast team.

We sometimes forget how young these guys are. SLU is a Catholic University and even in sports I think we are called to be forgiving of transgressions as long as a player truly recognizes the wrong doing, apologizes for his actions and recommits to the team. Besides, haven’t we all needed forgiveness for doing something stupid, especially at that stage of our lives? If he wants to come back, it is obviously up to the coaches, but I for one would like to see it happen. Even from a sports perspective, we are in a scholarship position to take a chance. He might be grateful for the opportunity, mature as a young man, and develop into a nice player.

This article talks about SLU and Crieghton as last 2 in as rumored on this board: http://www.nj.com/college-basketball/index.ssf/2013/01/catholic_7_basketball_schools_currently_feeling_out_potential_tv_rights_partners_according_to_report.html This article says VCU in the picture and could take that last spot from SLU. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-basketball/news/20130109/catholic-7-tv/ The geography concerns me. If Dayton, SLU and Creighton are all in with Marquette, DePaul, Xavier and Butler, it unbalances the league, with 7 mid-west teams and 5 east teams. One of these teams would have to play in the east division, which I doubt any of them want to do. We have to keep in mind it is all sports, not just basketball. VCU solves that problem, but it means somebody is on the outside looking in... I hope it isn’t us. The only other solution would be to bring in VCU and one more east school for a 14 team league, but I have not read anything suggesting that is on the table.

Interesting note: While it is just a snapshot in time, the Sagarin ratings currently have us ahead of every team in the Catholic 7. Only Marquette has beaten a top 50 team. 44 St. Louis 45 Georgetown 48 Marquette 73 Seton Hall 94 Providence 102 Villanova 119 St. John’s 136 DePaul

He bailed on a commitment before he came to us and now has bailed on his commitment to us. He failed to bond with the existing team and coaching staff, which from a distance seems to be a pretty happy group. Actually this team looks like a lot of fun to play with, at least for anyone who appreciates playing shutdown defense. He could be suffering from home sickness or he could be a head case. He has enough talent to land somewhere, but I suspect high division 1 schools will be wary. No one wants to waste a scholarship on a guy who never finds happiness. He might end up being a star somewhere or he may just never fit in. It was painful watching Willie Reed make decisions that contributed to the unraveling of his career, hopefully this young man can get his back on track.

The new Beast has an opportunity to fix the east and west balance that was missing in the old Big East and the current A10. The lack of balance has caused all Midwest schools to do most of the travel and it affects all sports. Bottom line is improved with increased revenue or reduced expenditures. Reducing the travel costs for all sports improves the financial bottom line. Given all of the attention Midwest schools are receiving in expansion discussions, it certainly appears that the new Beast is looking for balance, to bring a reduction to travel fatigue and costs. As discussed to the point of exhaustion, it is easy to get to 7 mid-west schools. I suspect Dayton and Creighton are the last 2 in. While Creighton holds a number of advantages over Dayton, I suspect basketball history with other Catholic schools in this proposed western division will carry a lot of weight. I don’t see any way that any school further west than Creighton gets because the travel would be crazy. The big question is what east team(s) will be added. Ironically while it is easy to pick the additional schools in the Midwest, there are no clear school(s) to add in the east. Each one of the Midwest teams being talked about raises the new Beast power rating. However only VCU would do that in the east, but it is a large public school. Other east schools are in the same city or area of an existing member, or the team would bring down the new conference power rating. At this point, the east division will be the weak division coming out of the starting gate. I suspect travel sanity is something all of the schools are looking for, so a balance of East and Midwest teams will prevail. Playing home and away in division and once a year each team in the other division makes a lot of sense.

It just makes a lot of sense for the new conference to have the same number of teams in each division. I suspect they are looking at a wide range of possibilities and every basketball only team in the country is looking at this as a way to keep or make their team relevant. At this point, the C7 only have 5 teams in the east, but it looks like they would really like to have 7 in the Midwest. That means adding 2 teams in the east. VCU does not fit the culture, St. Joes is in Philly with Nova so it adds nothing to the TV market. Other teams likely bring down the power rating. Or the Beast says no to two of the following schools: Creighton, SLU or Dayton. Creighton Omaha 88.95 Marquette Millwauki 85.11 Butler Indianapolis 83.02 SLU St. Louis 81.72 Xavier Cincinatti 80.21 Dayton Dayton 80.42 Depaul Chicago 76.9 But there is another possibility. They could be looking at a west coast division, which would explain the discussion of Gonzaga and teams west of that. Then they could be looking at only 5 teams in the mid west. The other thing they could do is build a super conference with two Midwest divisions of five teams. One playing in the east and one playing in the west. That would take three more teams in the Midwest. Maybe Bradley, Detroit, Murray State or Valparaiso. A 20 team super BB conference would be impossible to ignore. The challenge is to keep the power ratings up and travel reasonable. I suspect they are fielding calls from all over the country. Those west coast teams are going to want to do something. In the mid west, Xavier and Butler are easy additions no matter what they do and they can add one more team to balance the current East Teams. After that they have to make a big decision.

There is a lot of incentive for the C7 to go to a 12 or even 14 team league. The current average Sagarin power ratings of the C7 is just marginally better than the A10. Every additional team being discussed raises the average power rating of the conference. The bottom 5 teams in the new Beast are going to be from the C7. At this moment, only Marquette and Georgetown are impressive. One of the big advantages that the Beast can offer over the A10 is balance in the number of teams in the Midwest and the East. This will allow for East and West divisions, significantly reducing travel for the Midwest teams coming from the Big East and the A10. Teams in Ohio and points west play in the West and everyone else plays in the East. A 12 or 14 team conference also offers a very impressive collection of cities when considering the media exposure of the league. The collection of teams being proposed in a 12 team conference, would currently put the Beast as the 4th strongest conference in the country with a 14 team league slightly stronger. That projected position will garner attention from the media and be hard for any future playoff scenario outside of the NCAA to ignore. Also the C7 are use to being in one of the top basketball conferences in the country. To get there again, they must be at least 12 or 14 coming out of the blocks. So I expect to see a 12 or 14 team conference, with great matchups, TV and recruiting appeal. An all sports conference that covers a lot of geography, but with East and West divisions that make travel for all sports reasonable.