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A New Conference?


rhagolf

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I have been reading much from others about the talent demise in the A-10. It seems to have become an annual one-bid league. Geographically, other than Loyola-Chicago and Dayton, SLU doesn't fit in. If we can only be a member of a one-bid league, should we consider moving to one where opponents have some regional rivalry and travel difficulties are lessened? Maybe the OVC or Horizon? (No, I don't recommend The Valley, so lower the blood pressure.)

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Geez the ovc and horizon worse than the mvc even.   Considering our options I'd stay in the A10.   

We really just need a new league commissioner that has some vision.   We truly have the worst conference commissioner in college basketball.   She has done absolutely nothing to make the conference better 

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5 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

Geez the ovc and horizon worse than the mvc even.   Considering our options I'd stay in the A10.   

We really just need a new league commissioner that has some vision.   We truly have the worst conference commissioner in college basketball.   She has done absolutely nothing to make the conference better 

Absolutely. Bernadette doesn't seem to really care about promoting the A-10 or its teams. She also seems to really just ignore SLU.

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A-10 does have a pretty good TV deal.  Between CBS Sports , USA, and what we get on ESPN Networks

 

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If the A10 is a one bid league, there is no point in SLU staying in it.  Moving to the Big East is the way to go, however, does the Big East want us? Their TV deal is coming up soon, they apparently are looking to see what teams they can add that add value to what they get in a new deal. If we don’t get in now, then it might be years before we get another chance to get in. If it gets to that point, we have a decision to make. Right now the A10 is ranked #12 in conference rankings, the MVC is #15, the Horizon #21, the OVC #29. 

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Why couldn't our AD try to put together a new conference - I know that would require a vision.  I realize that we would not get another Auto bid for 5 years but it could still be a workable option if you took enough teams from one to make it a viable alternative and get one of the existing Auto Bids with keeping that conference name.  Might also push some of the other conferences that are better than the A10 now to be concerned to lose some of their better teams so they could expand and prevent the new conference from happening.  It would be complicated but honestly the BE is a unicorn for us and the sooner we realize that the better.  If the BE wanted us they would taken us but they have demonstrated that we are not high on their list.

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SLU needs to be in a conference with Xavier, Marquette, Villanova, etc.

That Butler and Creighton are there shows how little push SLU is making on the athletics front. Sad.

We used to play Marquette, Cincy, Louisville, Memphis like twice a year each. We have downgraded. I respect VCU and Dayton, they are worthy programs. Everyone else in this conference.. not as much.

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6 minutes ago, Soderball said:

SLU needs to be in a conference with Xavier, Marquette, Villanova, etc.

That Butler and Creighton are there shows how little push SLU is making on the athletics front. Sad.

We used to play Marquette, Cincy, Louisville, Memphis like twice a year each. We have downgraded. I respect VCU and Dayton, they are worthy programs. Everyone else in this conference.. not as much.

My real fear is that VCU gets an invite to the Big East when they decide to expand,  and we do not.  They are not a catholic college, but neither is UConn, and VCU doesn’t have a football team.  Travel would not be an issue.

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The teams that we want to be like are Gonzaga, Xavier, Butler, Creighton.

Us and Dayton are stuck in purgatory Juan Bid hell of the A10.

What did those teams do differently than us and Dayton?

They all established themselves in a low major conference, won multiple conference championships, built up their budgets, hired good coaches for the long term then they steadily moved up the conference ranks.  In the case of Gonzaga, because of geography, there was nowhere to go so they made themselves a national brand and also dragged the rest of their conference up with them.

SLU & Dayton became transients, jumping from conference to conference, coach to coach, in an effort to cheat the system, ie we will automatically be a good program if we are in a conference with other good programs.  We didn't invest in our program in any way until recently and by that time it was too late.  Dayton did the same, jumping from conference trying to skip steps.

The above schools all have 20+ years of steady focused program building behind them.  SLU & Dayton have about 5 years between them.

It may be too late but there is a proven way to build a winner outside of being a football school.  We need to embrace it.  Drop down in conference, maintain and slowly build up our budgets, keep the same coach for 10+ years, win multiple conference titles and get into NCAAs regularly and then move up our programs.

The A10 is a dead end.  Sadly VCU is the flagship.  Not us.  We won't be and we never will be.  We have two choices keep churning out top 75 teams in the A10 and never make the NCAAs or keep churning out top 75 teams in the Horizon or OVC and make the tournament ever year.  I choose the latter.

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I don’t see VCU getting in the Beast. Plus Fox may have more to say about what markets they would like to see added. That is our one advantage. That and I think the Beast has to fill in their MW exposure to ease expenses for the non revenue sports for their 4 MW teams. If you assume they will add 3 teams then UD and SLU should be at the top of the list. I just hope we’re doing the lobbying to make sure we are. 

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25 minutes ago, thetorch said:

The teams that we want to be like are Gonzaga, Xavier, Butler, Creighton.

Us and Dayton are stuck in purgatory Juan Bid hell of the A10.

What did those teams do differently than us and Dayton?

They all established themselves in a low major conference, won multiple conference championships, built up their budgets, hired good coaches for the long term then they steadily moved up the conference ranks.  In the case of Gonzaga, because of geography, there was nowhere to go so they made themselves a national brand and also dragged the rest of their conference up with them.

SLU & Dayton became transients, jumping from conference to conference, coach to coach, in an effort to cheat the system, ie we will automatically be a good program if we are in a conference with other good programs.  We didn't invest in our program in any way until recently and by that time it was too late.  Dayton did the same, jumping from conference trying to skip steps.

The above schools all have 20+ years of steady focused program building behind them.  SLU & Dayton have about 5 years between them.

It may be too late but there is a proven way to build a winner outside of being a football school.  We need to embrace it.  Drop down in conference, maintain and slowly build up our budgets, keep the same coach for 10+ years, win multiple conference titles and get into NCAAs regularly and then move up our programs.

The A10 is a dead end.  Sadly VCU is the flagship.  Not us.  We won't be and we never will be.  We have two choices keep churning out top 75 teams in the A10 and never make the NCAAs or keep churning out top 75 teams in the Horizon or OVC and make the tournament ever year.  I choose the latter.

Uh it's tough to keep the coach 10+ years when the guy dies.

CTF is a journeyman himself and is not a stable base to build anything on.

 

You really blaming SLU for spoons retiring/not wanting to keep Uncle Brad/Majerus dying/firing Jim crews?

Go look at Xs coaching history. You're just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I cannot even begin to go over how wrong you are about everything? Horizon league. Laughable. Worst post you have ever made on this board.

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2 minutes ago, Soderball said:

Uh it's tough to keep the coach 10+ years when the guy dies.

CTF is a journeyman himself and is not a stable base to build anything on.

X lucked out with their coaching changes. Gilles built a tree and then it just kept providing fruit. We have stumbled and fumbled around with our coaching choices. One good followed by two bad doesn’t cut it. 

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4 minutes ago, slu72 said:

I don’t see VCU getting in the Beast. Plus Fox may have more to say about what markets they would like to see added. That is our one advantage. That and I think the Beast has to fill in their MW exposure to ease expenses for the non revenue sports for their 4 MW teams. If you assume they will add 3 teams then UD and SLU should be at the top of the list. I just hope we’re doing the lobbying to make sure we are. 

I think we got a big hit from having Jim Crews when we did. We were finally getting national exposure and credibility coming off of the Majerus team. We then have made some seriously misguided coaching decisions and planted ourself into mediocrity. Our program just plain has to be better. This year with Ford finally having his roster lined up and experienced and falling flat faced was abysmal. Worst disaster we have had in some time. The only national exposure we got was "biggest disappointment" .. we didn't even make the NIT this year. Last year's team was just better in every conceivable way. Shoulda moved on from Perkins. Shoulda paid and kept Linssen for another year. Forrester was just not the answer. Ford needs to go next year.

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2 minutes ago, slu72 said:

X lucked out with their coaching changes. Gilles built a tree and then it just kept providing fruit. We have stumbled and fumbled around with our coaching choices. One good followed by two bad doesn’t cut it. 

Agreed. We had the tree. We picked Crews instead of getting Moser or Bennett. Disaster. SLU curse.

Anyone who knew anything was all about not hiring Crews. Media in this town just sucks and hates SLU.

 

I'd argue VCU has had luck too. They're on what the 3rd gen of the Shaka tree.

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7 minutes ago, Soderball said:

Agreed. We had the tree. We picked Crews instead of getting Moser or Bennett. Disaster. SLU curse.

Anyone who knew anything was all about not hiring Crews. Media in this town just sucks and hates SLU.

 

I'd argue VCU has had luck too. They're on what the 3rd gen of the Shaka tree.

I think picking Crews was about saving money over anything. Now we're spenders about 6 years too late.

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37 minutes ago, thetorch said:

The teams that we want to be like are Gonzaga, Xavier, Butler, Creighton.

Us and Dayton are stuck in purgatory Juan Bid hell of the A10.

What did those teams do differently than us and Dayton?

They all established themselves in a low major conference, won multiple conference championships, built up their budgets, hired good coaches for the long term then they steadily moved up the conference ranks.  In the case of Gonzaga, because of geography, there was nowhere to go so they made themselves a national brand and also dragged the rest of their conference up with them.

SLU & Dayton became transients, jumping from conference to conference, coach to coach, in an effort to cheat the system, ie we will automatically be a good program if we are in a conference with other good programs.  We didn't invest in our program in any way until recently and by that time it was too late.  Dayton did the same, jumping from conference trying to skip steps.

The above schools all have 20+ years of steady focused program building behind them.  SLU & Dayton have about 5 years between them.

It may be too late but there is a proven way to build a winner outside of being a football school.  We need to embrace it.  Drop down in conference, maintain and slowly build up our budgets, keep the same coach for 10+ years, win multiple conference titles and get into NCAAs regularly and then move up our programs.

The A10 is a dead end.  Sadly VCU is the flagship.  Not us.  We won't be and we never will be.  We have two choices keep churning out top 75 teams in the A10 and never make the NCAAs or keep churning out top 75 teams in the Horizon or OVC and make the tournament ever year.  I choose the latter.

I respect him as a poster for his long history as a fan of the Billikens, but strongly disagree with TheTorch that going down in conference is the best path. He's been beating that drum for years and I'm pretty sure if given the choice of the Big East he believes we should decline.

To me it's simple. Get into the conference that produces the most NCAA bids per year and do your best to compete. $, recruits and fans will all be bigger in better conferences. Until this year, the A10 has been a multi-bid conference and realistically it should be multi-bid going forward. Probably too much to ask for 4 bids but 2.5 a year is not unreasonable. Why anyone would want to join a conference where the entire regular season doesn't matter and the only thing that really matters is whether you can win your conference tournament every single year is beyond me.

p.s. if anyone is serious about downgrading conferences, why in the world wouldn't you want the MVC? It's full of regional rivals and is also a one bid league every year.

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4 minutes ago, kshoe said:

I respect him as a poster for his long history as a fan of the Billikens, but strongly disagree with TheTorch that going down in conference is the best path. He's been beating that drum for years and I'm pretty sure if given the choice of the Big East he believes we should decline.

To me it's simple. Get into the conference that produces the most NCAA bids per year and do your best to compete. $, recruits and fans will all be bigger in better conferences. Until this year, the A10 has been a multi-bid conference and realistically it should be multi-bid going forward. Probably too much to ask for 4 bids but 2.5 a year is not unreasonable. Why anyone would want to join a conference where the entire regular season doesn't matter and the only thing that really matters is whether you can win your conference tournament every single year is beyond me.

p.s. if anyone is serious about downgrading conferences, why in the world wouldn't you want the MVC? It's full of regional rivals and is also a one bid league every year.

The A10 has had some major upgrades with Frank Martin and Fran Dunphy and Archie Miller back in the picture. Those are names: Martin and Miller I could take in exchange for Ford.

The MVC is just not very good. the OVC has my alma mater SIU-Edwardsville Cougars. I find it hard to believe that careful and knowledgable basketball fans find these options serious.

We're not going on the road to risk losing in Peoria to Bradley. It doesn't matter how much fans want those road trips. I'd be traveling there. It would be great for me. It is NOT great for the program. Priority should be on getting the NET/RPI/Sagarin/Pomeroy ratings up, not pleasing a few hundred people with nothing better to do.

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9 minutes ago, Soderball said:

Uh it's tough to keep the coach 10+ years when the guy dies.

CTF is a journeyman himself and is not a stable base to build anything on.

 

You really blaming SLU for spoons retiring/not wanting to keep Uncle Brad/Majerus dying/firing Jim crews?

Go look at Xs coaching history. You're just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I cannot even begin to go over how wrong you are about everything? Horizon league. Laughable. Worst post you have ever made on this board.

I do blame SLU for not keeping Spoon.  We nickel and dimed him into an early retirement and then magically he gets the coaching bug again at UNLV.  Should have never hired Brad, should have never hired Crews.

X's coaching history more or less follows my strategy.  Pete Gillen coached there for 10 seasons, 7 NCAAs, Skip Prosser 7 seasons, 4 NCAAs, Thad Matta, just 3 but he was not an outside hire 3 NCAAs,  Sean Miller 5 seasons 4 NCAAs, Chris Mack 9 seasons 8 NCAAs.  All these guys were in the same coaching tree.  Xavier had a long term strategy for success and it worked, just Gonzaga, Creighton, & Butler.  SLU has never had one.  We've jumped at every opportunity to make a splash and its failed.  We need a new plan.  This one works.

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The A10 is on a downward path, not an up and down with occasional highs and lows.

Number of A10 NCAA bids by year:

2014 - 6

2015 - 3

2016 - 3

2017 - 3

2018 - 3

2019 - 2

2020 - Covid Year Sucked

2021 - 2

2022 - 2

2023 - 1

Coaches have come and gone, but here we are. Every A10 AD and Men’s Head BB Coach needs to post this on their office wall. It should be the first thing they look at in the morning, and the last thing they look at when they leave, with the question “What am I doing to make this conference better?”  

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14 minutes ago, kshoe said:

I respect him as a poster for his long history as a fan of the Billikens, but strongly disagree with TheTorch that going down in conference is the best path. He's been beating that drum for years and I'm pretty sure if given the choice of the Big East he believes we should decline.

To me it's simple. Get into the conference that produces the most NCAA bids per year and do your best to compete. $, recruits and fans will all be bigger in better conferences. Until this year, the A10 has been a multi-bid conference and realistically it should be multi-bid going forward. Probably too much to ask for 4 bids but 2.5 a year is not unreasonable. Why anyone would want to join a conference where the entire regular season doesn't matter and the only thing that really matters is whether you can win your conference tournament every single year is beyond me.

p.s. if anyone is serious about downgrading conferences, why in the world wouldn't you want the MVC? It's full of regional rivals and is also a one bid league every year.

Thanks

We've been following the path that you have laid out for nearly 50 years.  Where are the results?

Can you tell me another like program that this strategy has worked for?  Just one?  Marquette I guess?  They got the Wade final four and an alumni base that poured millions of dollars into their program.  They spend like a BCS football program, Marquette was spending more than our current budget 10 years ago.

Where are all the other transient programs that we've been around?  Charlotte, once a powerhouse now an also ran.  UAB, same.  Tulane, please.  Southern Miss, Temple, East Carolina, South Florida just to name a few.  The success story is Marquette.  Even the blue bloods we played with Cincy, Louisville, Memphis, all seem to have their best days behind them.  All of it stems from consistency, jumping from conference to conference.

Again the schools we envy have all played the game one way, but our fanbase is convinced that the way we have done it for 50 years will win out in the end.  It won't.  

Look at the MCC conference we used to play in.  We jumped ship once we established ourselves as a top 4 team in the conference, much like we have in the A10.  We left to greener pastures, not once, not twice, but 3 times.  We rivaled Xavier back then, we were much better than Butler & Loyola.  We've been in much better conferences than these other schools for the majority of the time?  Where is the success?  Xavier 20 something NCAA bids, multiple sweet sixteens, Butler multiple final fours, Loyola a final four.  We only have 8 NCAA tourney appearances since we joined the MCC.  Oral Roberts has 6.  

If playing in a better conference is the answer why did the teams that stayed in the lower conferences do better than us?  Why has one of them now gotten up to our level?  This should be an embarrassment, not a time to dig in even more on a plan that never worked.

I was a "strong" conference proponent for many years but with the A10's demise, the NETs' obvious bias against mid major conferences, and the promotion of the best mid major schools into major status it is time to consider a reset.  Either that or increase our budget to top of the Big East like numbers.

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1 hour ago, thetorch said:

I do blame SLU for not keeping Spoon.  We nickel and dimed him into an early retirement and then magically he gets the coaching bug again at UNLV.  Should have never hired Brad, should have never hired Crews.

X's coaching history more or less follows my strategy.  Pete Gillen coached there for 10 seasons, 7 NCAAs, Skip Prosser 7 seasons, 4 NCAAs, Thad Matta, just 3 but he was not an outside hire 3 NCAAs,  Sean Miller 5 seasons 4 NCAAs, Chris Mack 9 seasons 8 NCAAs.  All these guys were in the same coaching tree.  Xavier had a long term strategy for success and it worked, just Gonzaga, Creighton, & Butler.  SLU has never had one.  We've jumped at every opportunity to make a splash and its failed.  We need a new plan.  This one works.

Oh okay so we want to keep coaches who get taken away by programs with deeper pockets. Finally we agree on something. Romar is the last guy we had seized from us.

We have been having to can guys who couldn't get it done or had the coach die in office. OK.

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23 minutes ago, Soderball said:

Oh okay so we want to keep coaches who get taken away by programs with deeper pockets. Finally we agree on something. Romar is the last guy we had seized from us.

We have been having to can guys who couldn't get it done or had the coach die in office. OK.

When your Power 5 alma mater offers you the job you take it. We didn't really have a chance to keep Romar.

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