sludevil
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Posts posted by sludevil
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Seems pretty crazy to rank anyone while the transfer portal is still in full gear. A few teams have had their rosters completely reshaped (for better and worse!) just in the last few days.
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13 hours ago, billikens747 said:
He looks excited.
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3 minutes ago, Fraz said:
Mark Mitchell to Mizzou
Huge get for Mizzou. Was very sorry to see him leave Duke.
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12 minutes ago, TheA_Bomb said:
ACC is in hospice care right now. Dr Brinton (voted STL Best Dr 8 years in a row) says they might have 2 years to live.
The court cases are filed.
Duke can be in the B10, I don't think that's a problem. I'm telling you their football has been good for a few years now, they got a good QB transfer with a cannon for an arm.
Two years feels like the lower bound for the ACC's remaining lifespan. The court cases will probably take at least a year or two to play out - and then the result would have to be favorable to FSU/Clemson (i.e., something less than $572 million in total exit fees, as estimated by FSU).
Duke football has been solid recently (minus the dip at the end of the Cutcliffe era), but has historically been very bad. Duke is also missing the large alumni base + linear cable value of the big state schools like UNC and UVA. But there's not a whole lot to be done about that - gotta just play the cards you're dealt and hope the B10/SEC sees the case for expansion.
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21 minutes ago, thatskablamo said:
I’m shaking my head at UNC leaving the ACC without their hated Tobacco Road dance partner, though. I know precedent was set when the Aggies broke ranks with the teasippers up in Austin, but a conference with UNC that doesn’t have Duke in it doesn’t seem right. Will the Dookies let this happen?
I agree that it sucks, but I don't think the Dookies will have much say in the matter. The only saving grace is that the ACC's implosion is probably (hopefully?) at least a few years off, which gives Duke some time to continue dumping money into the football program.
But ultimately I think the interests of Duke and SLU are somewhat aligned here: both need basketball to drive a larger portion of media value. To that end, Brett Yormark and other like-minded folks (who view basketball as undervalued) are incredibly important. In a best-case scenario, the B12's media deal comes up again before the ACC implodes, and the B12 provides a proof-of-concept of decoupling (and pushing more value towards) basketball in that next deal. Unfortunately, though, a lot has to go right for that to happen.
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Based on my borderline-obsessive following of conference realignment over the last few years, I'd rank the ACC schools as follows:
1. Definitely safe (i.e., bound for the B10/SEC): UNC, UVA, FSU, Clemson
2. On the bubble: Miami, VT, GT, NCSU
3. Not looking good, but unlikely to drop below the B12-level: Duke, Louisville
4. Definitely screwed: Wake, Syracuse, BC
The info on Pitt has been all over the place, but my best guess is that they're in group 3. However, groups 2 and 3 are far more fluid/interchangeable than groups 1 and 4, both of which are more or less carved in stone.
(And just for completeness: if we're counting ND as an ACC member, then they get their own group 1A.)
EDIT: And for further completeness, the new additions (Cal, Stanford, SMU) are probably somewhere between groups 3 and 4. (Group 3.5?) Still very strange to to me that California schools will be playing in the ACC.
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10 hours ago, Lando Griffin said:
The last comment about those fers are literally buying our program, they should feel like scum.
Ha! Welcome to men’s college basketball, where ya been?
It's just a human response. And we could very well be in the same boat in a few years if Schertz does well here.
I definitely feel for ISU. It's just a really bad chain of events: (1) get snubbed by the NCAA committee (in favor of a hilariously underqualified UVA team?), (2) transfer portal opens and (3) lose your coach to a fellow mid-major. Basically have to start from scratch, and you don't even get the national exposure that would've come with Cream Abdul-Jabbar in the tourney.
(With that said, I'm excited as hell for this hire and hope he brings some of the ISU players with him.)
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[Deleted - apologies for the double post]
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13 hours ago, Lord Elrond said:
UConn left the AAC (American Athletic Conference), not the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). Completely different pay zone. They joined the Big East and wanted to stay in the AAC as an affiliate, but the AAC said no. When they went independent, there were plenty of other independents, but in the last few years just about every FBS school has seen the financial advantages of joining a conference and had done so (Delaware to CUSA, Army to the AAC as a football only affiliate, and UMass to the MAC). Right now there are only 2 FBS schools that will not in a conference for football after UMass joins the MAC, Notre Dame and UConn. UConn’s financial situation in football is in no way comparable to Notre Dame’s (UConn has no national contract that I can find, their last one was with CBS, but got killed in 2021). The UConn football on field lack of success also doesn’t help. If they were able to join the MAC or C-USA as an affiliate only for football they should make that deal in a heartbeat.
If anything, UConn demonstrates the financial issues of going with a basketball only conference if you want to stay relevant in FBS football as well. It used to be you could be independent in football, but in this day and age, unless you are Notre Dame, the life of an FBS independent is not great.
100%. Though independence is becoming increasingly difficult even for ND, who are now getting financially squeezed via the bad ACC media deal and via the new CFP deal. (And their NBC deal is probably not good enough to bridge the gap.) As with the ACC's implosion, I think ND joining a conference (presumably the B10) is now a matter of "when" rather than "if".
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Also depends on the legal requirements that are in place when the dust settles. If schools are forced to treat players as employees (and/or share revenue with players), then that probably creates another massive shock.
The only real guarantee is that the top B10 and SEC teams will be fine. Everyone else (including the "lesser" teams in the B10/SEC) is on less solid footing.
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2 minutes ago, brianstl said:
I don't think the ACC is dead. There aren't enough landing spots for their members for the ACC to be dead.
Very true. I should've clarified that the ACC is dead as a "power" conference. Something will happen with the ACC and the B12 - either a combination of some sort, or just a handful of ACC teams joining the B12. (And there's probably even room for a tier below that with WSU/OSU + the ACC leftovers, if any + maybe the better AAC/MWC teams. There are lots of possibilities, but all of them are far worse for the teams involved than when we had a true P5 structure.)
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2 minutes ago, Cowboy II said:
-did FL St also do this? I wonder if they could tag team the ACC?
That's effectively what's happening, though FSU filed in Florida and Clemson in South Carolina. Their legal arguments are also different: FSU is basically going for broke (i.e., GoR should be thrown out), while Clemson is taking a somewhat more nuanced approach (i.e., once we exit the conference, the GoR no longer applies to us).
It sure looks like FSU and Clemson coordinated their suits and arguments - so if they can't win on FSU's case, they may be able to use Clemson's case as a fallback. And, of course, defending suits on multiple fronts will further pressure the ACC to settle.
In any event, the ACC is dead. It's just a matter of time.
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26 minutes ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:
You could make a case for all of the bubble teams that got in and a handful that didn't, but UVA has absolutely no business playing in any tournament but the NIT.
Agreed. Can only assume Tony Bennet has some crazy dirt on the selection committee.
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10 minutes ago, slufan13 said:
How many jobs out there are better than the SLU job currently? Louisville, Michigan, Washington, Ohio St (3 big ten teams for next year) for sure. Oklahoma St has money but kind of seems like a dead spot. Stanford is a good job but requires a unique candidate. West Virginia is just pretty meh. I would definitely not put Vandy ahead of SLU. This is currently a top 5 job on the market. Go get a stud.
I think the large majority of P6 positions are viewed as superior to SLU, though I agree with your take on Vandy. But perhaps the bigger issue is that the pool of HC candidates isn't fixed. A "stud" candidate can simply choose to stay at his current job (probably with a substantial pay raise) if he doesn't see the value in leaving for SLU right now (e.g., SLU isn't enough of a step up, or he thinks a better opportunity will present itself in the future). We're playing against the field of current openings + the field of potential openings over the next ~year.
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For what it's worth, the latest from Trilly Donovan: "The buyout is large, but it sounds like Saint Louis will have the money. Does Chris May go too?"
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Per Brett McMurphy, Heeke was fired for "financial & operational mismanagement, resulting in an athletic department financial 'disaster,' loss of major donors & mishandling of former coach Jedd Fisch's contract".
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12 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:
Yeah I really don't think he has a SLU source on this and is just kinda drawing conclusions based on other people in the conference. Which is pretty much what Travis was fighting in the recruiting space. "He's likely not going to be around after this year".
It isn't clear where the info is sourced from - but he has a strong track record on things like this, and he tends to avoid posting rumors that he hasn't independently confirmed. It's certainly encouraging for those of us who would like to see a change.
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Trilly Donovan noting today that it’s “tournament or bust” for Ford. Seems promising (and definitive).
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On 12/22/2023 at 11:11 AM, Lord Elrond said:
They couldn’t be dumb enough to leave without a landing spot in a new conference, could they?
It's a school run by Florida men. Anything is possible.
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54 minutes ago, BLIKNS said:
Rumor was they were looking at UConn
This was actually confirmed at the time by Brett Yormark, but today's report notes that those discussions are dead. My guess is that if the B12 gets Gonzaga, they'll want to pair the Zags with another basketball-only school.
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The best-case scenario for SLU is for the Zags to join the B12 and then the B12 to poach a school from the Big East (St. John's? Villanova?), thus creating a spot for the BE to backfill. (Though I wouldn't be shocked if the BE is already looking to expand in connection with its next media deal.)
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1 minute ago, brianstl said:
I don't know what is going on with Love or if we have any chance with him.
That said, if you have a real chance to get Caleb Love... You better do everything you can to get him. I don't care about his numbers at UNC. I know his talent and he would instantly be the best guard in the A10. Just as important, Caleb would instantly change how recruits and college basketball players across the country view the program.
I agree with your second point far more than your first. For almost his entire career, Love has wavered between average to actively harmful to his team. Maybe some of that is a product of his environment, teammates, etc., but outside of a very limited window last year, there's not much in his college track record to suggest that he can be a positive player over the course of a season.
With that said, he was still a multi-year starter for a blue blood program (and a top HS recruit), so I agree that a transfer to SLU would probably generate positive headlines.
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18 minutes ago, gabriel said:
I wouldn't put our chances at zero. He was objectively bad this year at UNC and the fans let him know about it. Might want to go to a school where he can take 20 shots without the national pressure and develop his shot more before making a run at the league.
I very much agree with this. The past season has hurt Love's stock - and for a kid with NBA aspirations, I imagine he'll prioritize "fit" (i.e., being the centerpiece of an offense) over NIL. UNC fans have also (justifiability, for the most part) been tough on him throughout his career, so a friendly hometown crowd probably also works in our favor.
I would still bet on him going to a P5 team, but I don't think our odds are as hopeless as others on this thread seem to believe.
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4 minutes ago, BLIKNS said:
Don't understand the Big XII obsession with wanting to be in all 4 time zones... Really putting UCF on an island... I think they should make a play for Louisville , add Memphis,( closer for Cincinnati and West Virginia. Maybe USF( travel partner for UCF). Had heard Tulane name mentioned... Seem determined to get to 16 though
I believe it's almost entirely driven by TV contracts. Their current push to grab PAC-12 schools will allow them to offer football games in the "fourth window" (i.e., late night), which is valuable to media partners looking for inventory. But I agree that - absent some very creative scheduling - the travel logistics could be a nightmare.
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