gister Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 Here is the link: http://www.nypost.com/sports/37627.htm Of course there are a lot of news stories out there about this and some are more encouraging. A Charlotte story today indicates that something should be known by the end of the month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mobile-iken Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 I am going to take the opposite approach and say that this is encouraging. If the break-up is truly in the works that is what we want isn't it? I just don't see how SLU would get left out of a new baksetball league. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gister Posted July 10, 2003 Author Share Posted July 10, 2003 I hope you're correct. Here is another link which basically says that there is plenty of time to work things out. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/200...expansion_x.htm Here is yet another link out of Memphis with more detail: http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/other_sports/...2098501,00.html Also, as Nark points out below, with the new arena opening, Biondi, et al, have a huge stake in seeing that SLU remains in a top tier league. I'm sure they will be doing everything they can to see that that happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 According to this article, CUSA/Big East conference changes will not go into effect until the 2005-2006 academic year. Coincidentally, that is the year SLU's new $70 million athletic facilities are expected to open. I would expect Biondi and Woolard to repeatedly point this out during conference negotiations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjray Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 This is really not new news. The Big East football and B-ball schools are heading for a divorce. Everyone knows it. The only question is who was going to hold on to the Big East name--the football or b-ball schools? According to the article, the b-ball schools shall. The one piece of news was the statement that ND was leaning toward aligning itself with the football schools from the Big East as opposed to the B-ball schools as had been previously speculated. The article (an NYC publication you have to remember with an east coast slant) speculates about the teams that shall fill the void in the Big East b-ball league and leaves out SLU. If ND leaves the Big East, that opens another slot and I feel comfortable that SLU shall be selected for the new Big East. Existing BE b-ball schools (minus ND): Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's and Villanova. Note: all east coast teams. The article speculates the following western teams for the Big East: Marquette, Xavier, DePaul and Dayton. Note: that's only 4 and they need 5 new teams. Marquette, DePaul are locks IMHO. If Marquette and DePaul are going to the BE and have influence in forming the new group of Big East replacements, who do you think they will want to bring along? Gotta have SLU in the mix. Actually, if it is a 10 team conference and they are looking for any sort of geographic balance, I would expect the 5 new teams shall all be western rather than adding someone like Temple or St. Joseph's. Villanova will never accept St. Joe's into the league and Temple is already slated to leave the BE (and I see no reason for that to change). Also, I would not be surprised to see the new Big East b-ball league go to 12 teams with two 6 teams divisions: they could take Charlotte or UMass for the east and the west would be Marquette, DePaul, SLU, Dayton, Xavier and one wild-card (maybe Butler ... Creighton just does not seem like a geographic fit under the name "Big East" but it's profile would fit the other western teams). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 I think these east coast papers just overlook us. Face it Marquette is sexy right now, XU a strong program every year, but why is DePaul always mentioned? Cripes, two years ago they had thirty or forty people leave a game that only had about 300 in attendance. Of course they do have the Chicago thing going for them. One other thing that makes no sense is only 4 teams from the midwest and the rest from the east? I have to think there will be a midwest division of this league, to ease the travel burden on the midwest schools. How does adding Rhode Island and UMass improve them? They have been down programs for the last 5-6 years. Also, I can't imagine Fr.Biondi is not on the phone with his Jesuit brethren saying "hey, you can't leave SLU out of the mix." Now if this were to come to pass, what do we do then? Pick the bones of the A-10 and what remains of CUSA? I think the best we could hope for if we are not included with MU and DePaul, is a conference slightly above a mid major level. This is not appealing. LIKE ROSANNA ROSANNADANA USED TO SAY,"IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING, AND IT AIN'T EASY BEING A BILLIKEN FAN." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 Or Temple or Umass for that matter. I think CHarlotte and SLU have better programs at the current time than those three schools. UMASS was nothing before calipari and is nothing after him, rhode island had lamar odom for two seconds, and cheney will retire sometime or croak on the bench one or the other, and temple will be left w/crazy Bill Cosby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted July 10, 2003 Share Posted July 10, 2003 UMass has been worse than SLU the last few years and have had problems (lost 5 players to transfer in the last two years) but they have got some good players and recruits coming so they have some optimism(Anderon, Bowers, Viggiano can play and they have a lot of interchangable parts for "bigs"). Rhodey just signed a guy named "Lucky" so they gotta be going up (they were terrible the last few years and having an assistant coach sexually assault a recruit's younger sibling during a home visit cannot be good). Temple will have a great program after Cheney. Probably better. In related news the A-10 did hold a conference call today to discuss realignment scenarios amongst its members. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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