Gordon on SLU and the Conference Shuffle...

[O Fallon 88]

I agree with most of your points Chesseman, the problem is I don't se Conf-USA staying together.

I see Louisville out of here, with Cincinnati and Marquette not far behind, maybe all three to the Big East. Despite the public love, if Marquette gets an offer, they will not think twice about SLU or DePaul. Then what? Heck, we look down at the MVC but take a look at valleytalk.net, they had a poll of who they wanted and we were way behind both Butler and Western Kentucky. We may not even get an offer there.

Would you prefer to stay in what is left of Conf USA, which does fall below the MVC at that time? A re-creation of the old MCC is a better bet than just joining the Horizon or whatever. This market size does not do it alone, the MCC was getting attention in the late 80s because of smaller market teams like Evansville and Dayton along with Xavier. Loyola and Detroit had the largest markets and no one cared. DePaul is quicky getting to that point as well. Maybe I'm old school and a little to regional, but I would rather see a rivalry develop wiith Bradley versus home and homes with ECU.

[cheeseman]

The reason the Valley poll had others listed ahead of us is because they know we do not want to go there and would not stay if another opportunity came up. Our best bet is stick with CUSA and work to get a good bb situation either within it or as a combination of other top tiered conferences. Who knows we may end up in the A10 even.

[billiken_roy]

ofallon88 said,

"I agree with most of your points Cheeseman, the problem is I don't see Conf-USA staying together.

I see Louisville out of here, with Cincinnati and Marquette not far behind, maybe all three to the Big East."

well i am sorry you are so pessimistic. i prefer to believe our new c-usa commish and the other remaining athletic directors in c-usa are being pro-active and the leaders in this issue. if c-usa can convince the likes of pitt, west virgina and u conn, which i believe is very possible, louisville isnt going anywhere, because c-usa could end up far better than we ever dreamed it could be.

the fact that the big east is at most probably now only interested in two teams to replace virginia tech and miami, i think it tells cincy, memphis and marquette that at least 2 of them are being left behind. i.e. cusa still has most of the echelon teams still staying behind. do you think they will sit back and quietly hope, "gosh i hope we are the other team that gets to go with louisville to the big east"?

i dont. i think they are thinking, "hey there is a damn good chance we are being left behind. maybe we ought to turn the table on this thing." and then everyone is working hard at turning this situation into a positive for c-usa.

the east coast media is doing their best to put the "big east" spin on this thing. thus most of what we hear is pro-big east. however, i refuse to believe that shark athletic directors in conference usa are sitting on their butts letting the east coast dictate what is going to happen. you are talking about a.d.'s that are good enough to convince the likes of calipari to move to memphis, crean take a treading marquette program when it is known he was the best asst coach in america, or be able to convince huggins to turn down far more lucrative offers from the nba and west virginia. these guys are serious athletic directors.

if it turns out i am wrong and the big east tears the league apart and we are left with a horizon clonelike league, i will be shocked and very dismayed. the programs that should be scared are the bottom feeders of conference usa and the big east, but the major tv markets, the top 50 attendance teams assuming the parties to be are doing their jobs will come out ok.

[cheeseman]

I hope you are right - not the CUSA implodes but the rest of your post. I hope Woolard is doing his job.