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A New Conference?


rhagolf

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1 minute ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Not all of this decline is the A10’s fault. The Power 5 Overlords have moved the goalposts. That is the biggest reason the A10 became a 2 and now Juan Bid league. 

That’s true, but the lowest number of at large bids from mid-majors was actually in 2017 with 4. The A10 had 2 of those 4.  How’s the trend line?  Number of at large bids per year since 2014 (not including the 1 Conf Tourney winner everyone gets)

2014 - 10 (5 from the A10)

2015 - 7 (2 from the A10)

2016 - 6 (2 from the A10)

2017 - 4 (2 from the A10)

2018 - 5 (2 from the A10)

2019 - 7 (1 from the A10)

2020 - Covid Year sucked (I’m sticking by that)

2021 - 5 (1 from the A10)

2022 - 7 (1 from the A10)

2023 - 5 (none from the A10)

The A10 has been slowly sinking relative to the other conferences.   2014 seems a bit of an outlier, but since 2015 it’s been bouncing between 7 and 4, even with all the comments about the NCAA and the moving from RPI to NET, but the A10 has been sinking steadily by comparison.

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36 minutes ago, Cowboy II said:

-the biggest reason VCU was the A10's lone participant in the Dance is because no team put themselves in a position to be selected and VCU won the conf tourney

-if a team wants to get in the Tourney then WIN GAMES and a lot of them

It’s not quite that simple, if you mean to get a NCAA at large, Win nearly All your games. SLU probably needed to win 5 more games just to be on the bubble to get snubbed, again. 

VCU received the A10’s automatic bid by virtue of winning the A10 Tourney. 

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3 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

 

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. - George Benard Shaw

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49 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

It’s not quite that simple, if you mean to get a NCAA at large, Win nearly All your games. SLU probably needed to win 5 more games just to be on the bubble to get snubbed, again. 

VCU received the A10’s automatic bid by virtue of winning the A10 Tourney. 

Well I can think of 3 games beside the terrible home loss to SIUE where they blew a huge 2nd half lead. SLU got clobbered by Iona, Maryland, and lost to Auburn on the road in a game that they probably should have won. Now I don't know about you but those games that could have helped SLU's NCAA Tourney resume didn't cut the mustard as far as NCAA honks deciding who should get into the Tourney. SLU simply did not deserve to be in no matter how anyone wants to whine about the selection process!

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1 hour ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

It’s not quite that simple, if you mean to get a NCAA at large, Win nearly All your games. SLU probably needed to win 5 more games just to be on the bubble to get snubbed, again. 

VCU received the A10’s automatic bid by virtue of winning the A10 Tourney. 

vcu wouldnt have got an at large, you are correct

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2 hours ago, Schasz said:

Well I can think of 3 games beside the terrible home loss to SIUE where they blew a huge 2nd half lead. SLU got clobbered by Iona, Maryland, and lost to Auburn on the road in a game that they probably should have won. Now I don't know about you but those games that could have helped SLU's NCAA Tourney resume didn't cut the mustard as far as NCAA honks deciding who should get into the Tourney. SLU simply did not deserve to be in no matter how anyone wants to whine about the selection process!

The whining label is a Power 5 apologist's characterization.  Rather, mine states the new reality, as designed/schemed by the Power 5 Overlords, with more below that destroys the opposing narrative.  

The bottom line is SLU, as is, had an NCAA Tourney at large bid qualifying RPI (the metric previously used by the NCAA) of 53 on Selection Sunday, which would have made SLU the 2nd to last team in the NCAA (and thereby likely would have been snubbed anyway after the Committee needed to service more Power 5 also rans).  In contrast, under the new Power 5 rigged NET, SLU's NET on Selection Sunday was 99, well out of even the NIT, this despite winning 21 games, 20 vs. D-1 competition.

There is virtually no longer any margin for error for SLU as long as it "remains a proud member of the Atlantic 10 Conference."  The Power 5 made its hit on the mid-majors (a pejorative term in the SLU context, but used here for nomenclature) to extract no less than 6 NCAA Tourney at large bids, 2 from C-USA, and 1 each from the A10, MVC, Sun Belt, and ASUN, and transfer them to the Power 5 + 1.  Those extra bids went to the Big XII (1), B1G (3), Pac-12 1, and Big East 1.  The goal posts have been moved.

Sidebar:  Seven (7) of the eight (8) Big Ten teams failed to make the NCAA Sweet 16.  

SLU is not dropping down to change conferences.  SLU needs to be "moving on up" to the Big East.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

The whining label is a Power 5 apologist's characterization.  Rather, mine states the new reality, as designed/schemed by the Power 5 Overlords, of which a certain other school on the Tennessee River is a member, with more below that destroys the opposing narrative.  

The bottom line, whether or not you care to volunteer to accept it, is SLU, as is, had an NCAA Tourney at large bid qualifying RPI (the metric previously used by the NCAA) of 53 on Selection Sunday, which would have made SLU the 2nd to last team in the NCAA (and thereby likely would have been snubbed anyway after the Committee needed to service more Power 5 also rans).  In contrast, under the new Power 5 rigged NET, SLU's NET on Selection Sunday was 99, well out of even the NIT, this despite winning 21 games, 20 vs. D-1 competition.

There is virtually no margin for error for SLU as long as it "remains a proud member of the Atlantic 10 Conference."  The Power 5 made its hit on the mid-majors (a pejorative term in the SLU context, but used here for nomenclature) to extract no less than 6 NCAA Tourney at large bids, 2 from C-USA, and 1 each from the A10, MVC, Sun Belt, and ASUN, and transfer them to the Power 5 + 1.  Those extra bids went to the Big XII (1), B1G (3), Pac-12 1, and Big East 1.  The goal posts have been moved.

Sidebar:  Seven (7) of the eight (8) Big Ten teams failed to make the NCAA Sweet 16.  

SLU is not dropping down to change conferences.  SLU needs to be in the Big East.

 

 

 

We agree on your final statement about SLU being in the Big East as they had two Jesuit U's that made it the 2023 NCAA Tourney in Marquette and Xavier. Then their is the other Jesuit U Gonzaga who has been in their own world as far as NCAA Tourney Appearances...24 straight for HC Mark Few. Do the Gonzaga fans complain about the current pecking order for choosing Schools for the NCAA. Only way would be in their seeding if even that.

IMHO SLU would have made the Big East expansion if and only if Rick Majerus had still been HC when it happened. Unfortunate but for us SLU fans that was how the cookie crumbled in more ways than one. A lot of things went downhill with his passing.

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18 minutes ago, Schasz said:

We agree on your final statement about SLU being in the Big East as they had two Jesuit U's that made it the 2023 NCAA Tourney in Marquette and Xavier. Then their is the other Jesuit U Gonzaga who has been in their own world as far as NCAA Tourney Appearances...24 straight for HC Mark Few. Do the Gonzaga fans complain about the current pecking order for choosing Schools for the NCAA. Only way would be in their seeding if even that.

IMHO SLU would have made the Big East expansion if and only if Rick Majerus had still been HC when it happened. Unfortunate but for us SLU fans that was how the cookie crumbled in more ways than one. A lot of things went downhill with his passing.

Gonzaga built its program over decades by dominating the mid-major WCC and later getting a number of WCC concessions, including (1) multi-byes to the extent the top 2 WCC teams only have to play 2 games and one of them win 2 games in the WCC Tourney to snare the WCC's automatic bid;  (2) reduction in WCC conference games for Men's BKB (not Women's) from 18 to 16 games, thereby giving Zags 2 additional games to schedule big time non-conference opponents:  (3) scrapping former WCC shared revenue of NCAA Units, thereby allowing Zags to keep more of the NCAA Units it earns:  (4) permitting Gonzaga to blackball (fellow Jesuit) SeattleU from readmission into the WCC.

The problem for SLU is it doesn't have 10, 20, 30, 40 years to pull a Gonzaga in a mid-major or low con conference.  The Marquette Method (outlined by Torch above) is the only one available for SLU.  

With a $1.8B endowment, 4th highest (or at worst 5th) among Catholic Universities, with 1 of the mere 4 Catholic medical schools, while playing in the #21 TV market (Fox), SLU has a lot going for it, a lot to put in its Big East application and prospectus. 

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1 hour ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

 

With a $1.8B endowment, 4th highest (or at worst 5th) among Catholic Universities, with 1 of the mere 4 Catholic medical schools, while playing in the #21 TV market (Fox), SLU has a lot going for it, a lot to put in its Big East application and prospectus. 

I hear people reference SLUs endowment quiet often.  But does that really matter?Yes there is money there that could build a program.  But do you think SLU can stomach what it takes to get there and stay there?  

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48 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Gonzaga built its program over decades by dominating the mid-major WCC and later getting a number of WCC concessions, including (1) multi-byes to the extent the top 2 WCC teams only have to play 2 games and one of them win 2 games in the WCC Tourney to snare the WCC's automatic bid;  (2) reduction in WCC conference games for Men's BKB (not Women's) from 18 to 16 games, thereby giving Zags 2 additional games to schedule big time non-conference opponents:  (3) scrapping former WCC shared revenue of NCAA Units, thereby allowing Zags to keep more of the NCAA Units it earns:  (4) permitting Gonzaga to blackball (fellow Jesuit) SeattleU from readmission into the WCC.

The problem for SLU is it doesn't have 10, 20, 30, 40 years to pull a Gonzaga in a mid-major or low con conference.  The Marquette Method (outlined by Torch above) is the only one available for SLU.  

With a $1.8B endowment, 4th highest (or at worst 5th) among Catholic Universities, with 1 of the mere 4 Catholic medical schools, while playing in the #21 TV market (Fox), SLU has a lot going for it, a lot to put in its Big East application and prospectus. 

All they need to do is have people running the financial part of the program with a vision of what is possible...not sure they have that now as living in Florida this SLU Grad is not familiar who the movers and shakers money people are at SLU. My non-knowledge of them leads me to believe at least many of them don't give a hoot or have a vision for what their top revenue sport could be. Yes, in Chaifetz they have the mortar commitment, but how about the ability to hire the correct people to run the whole show and in the instance of mens basketball IMHO that person is not on board now as HC. Certainly, hope the rumor from yesterday holds true as SLU hoops need a new leader! 

Noticed you mentioned Decades when referencing Gonzaga. Well Mark Few has been their for 24 years and has Never missed a NCAA Tourney. I know they had HC's before him as I was their in Seattle for the one right before Mark who left after them for a Big Ten job. IMHO while Mark's accomplishments were a build on to HC's before him, he has far exceeded his predecessors. His resume is building him for the Hall of Fame once he's finished coaching the Zags. Since he's been close I personally hope he does not leave their without a National Championship team. They are a fun team to watch! That game last night was another great game.

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Just now, Schasz said:

All they need to do is have people running the financial part of the program with a vision of what is possible...not sure they have that now as living in Florida this SLU hoops fan is not familiar who the movers and shakers money people are at SLU. My non-knowledge of them leads me to believe at least many of them don't give a hoot or have a vision for what their top revenue sport could be. Yes, in Chaifetz they have the mortar commitment, but how about the ability to hire the correct people to run the whole show and in the instance of mens basketball IMHO that person is not on board now as HC. Certainly, hope the rumor from yesterday holds true as SLU hoops need a new leader! 

 

Fixed it for you.

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47 minutes ago, Bills71 said:

Wake Up!!! if we can't win the A10 why would they want us?  When we are top A10 and always win against Dayton, and VCU and Davidson et al., we can look for where we want to be.

though the decision might be weighted towards mens basketball, many other factors involved

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For what it's worth, there are some rumblings that Brett Yormark may be looking to add one or more schools to the Big 12 as basketball-only members, which may include Villanova, St. John's and/or UConn. The idea here is that Yormark believes basketball is undervalued in the current media landscape and may look to sell basketball as a separate package in the Big 12's next deal. In support of these rumblings are (i) the Big 12's confirmed talks with Gonzaga, (ii) Yormark's statements regarding his view of basketball's value and (iii) the Big 12's newly-announced partnership with Rucker Park.

Obviously just Twitter rumblings for now - and it isn't clear how, if at all, any PAC-12 defections to the Big 12 might impact the Big 12's appetite for basketball-only schools - but it's an interesting thought exercise if nothing else. I've gotta believe SLU (and Dayton?) would be at the top of the list if the Big East needs to backfill.

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Not knocking the information but if I'm any of these three Big East schools, why am I giving up rivalries with Marquette, Xavier, Butler and each other to move on to matchups with Texas Tech, Kansas State and TCU?  I guess it's all about money but I for one don't see it.  

Of course, I felt the same way about West Virginia, who, many many moons ago, was in the A10.

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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

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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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1 hour 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

Getting of the ACC is next to impossible because of the granting of rights situation in that conference.

The crazy thing is that UConn appears to all of a sudden be a hot commodity with both the ACC and the Big 12 checking them out.  Maybe not dropping football was the smart thing to do.

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On 3/19/2023 at 2:19 PM, 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.

With the current level of spending, there’s no reason why SLU can’t dominate the conference with the right coach. It’s either the Big East or stay in the A-10.

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Excluding the Big East, and ignoring all of the logical reasons why it would not work, if you could pick one conference for SLU to play in outside of the A10 what would it be? Pretty easy decision for me: The West Coast Conference. We've done the East coast tour now let's do the West coast tour.

Pros (for me and SLU) - Basketball-centric league, smaller Catholic universities, 4 (?) Jesuit institutions, quality teams at the top (BYU, St. Mary's, and Gonzaga - assuming they stay), BAB behind the SLU bench during every away game, locations, locations, locations (experiencing some of America's finest culinary and art institutions on one road trip, while skiing down some black diamond runs or sunbathing on the beach in a thong the next), no Olean.

Cons (for me and SLU) - travel times, travel costs, 9 and 10pm tipoffs for those not on the West Coast, Mormons

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