Big East News

[DC Muskie]

Would you rather have Wake Forest (sans Football and with Jeff Bezdelik (Sp)) or Saint Louis (with Jim Crews)?

I take SLU personally.

I'd take Wake. When's the last time we ever landed someone from the St. Louis area?

And Bezdelik won't be there much longer.

[X-Fan]

I'd take Wake. When's the last time we ever landed someone from the St. Louis area?

And Bezdelik won't be there much longer.

Yep and Yep.

[PMI]

Would you rather have Wake Forest (sans Football and with Jeff Bezdelik (Sp)) or Saint Louis (with Jim Crews)?

I take SLU personally.

Herpes. I'll take herpes if the other choices are those two coaches. Luckily, they're both old and shouldn't be at their spots much longer. I would take Wake Forest as a program over SLU 11 times out of 10. It may have been a little while, but they have a lot of basketball history and support. There's no reason they can't return to significance if they can cut that dead weight of a coach they have. But if my choice is Wake WITH Bzdelik, then herpes.

[MHettel]

I think they should go to 12 as soon as possible. On year from now seems most likely. I think we should strike while the iron is hot. The MVC, A10, and "old BE" are all in need of some rationalization of their membership, and will scramble to create stability.

UCONN, UC, Memphis and Temple make up a formidable core for the old BE. There are several other crappy fball schools in there as well. But, those 4 could try to make a play to grab some of the other decent BBall Schools available. Imagine if they hooked up with (any of) VCU, Richmond, UD, SLU, or St. Joes. Imagine if you are one of those schools are are faced with waiting for the BE to expand, or could bite the bullet and hook up with these guys. Suddenly, anything that MIGHT have been attractive is now unavailable for the BE, so they stay at 10, which isn't terrible but limits their markets and flies in the face of the conference expansion trend which is very apparent.

I think you gobble up as many markets as possible while you have the ability to do so. I'd personally take SLU and Richmond to go to 12. If ND ever comes available (I still think the FOX relationship could help them create more leverage for their fball deal), then you take them and either add one more (UD) and get to 14, or add 3 more and try to figure out a way to expand West to grab Gonzaga.

[PMI]

I think they should go to 12 as soon as possible. On year from now seems most likely. I think we should strike while the iron is hot. The MVC, A10, and "old BE" are all in need of some rationalization of their membership, and will scramble to create stability.

UCONN, UC, Memphis and Temple make up a formidable core for the old BE. There are several other crappy fball schools in there as well. But, those 4 could try to make a play to grab some of the other decent BBall Schools available. Imagine if they hooked up with (any of) VCU, Richmond, UD, SLU, or St. Joes. Imagine if you are one of those schools are are faced with waiting for the BE to expand, or could bite the bullet and hook up with these guys. Suddenly, anything that MIGHT have been attractive is now unavailable for the BE, so they stay at 10, which isn't terrible but limits their markets and flies in the face of the conference expansion trend which is very apparent.

I think you gobble up as many markets as possible while you have the ability to do so. I'd personally take SLU and Richmond to go to 12. If ND ever comes available (I still think the FOX relationship could help them create more leverage for their fball deal), then you take them and either add one more (UD) and get to 14, or add 3 more and try to figure out a way to expand West to grab Gonzaga.

I strongly disagree. I don't think they should ever go to 12 unless there's a Notre Dame-type no-brainer. I realize I probably won't get my wish, but taking Richmond and SLU just to get to 12? You may be picking the two bottom feeders of the future, and for what?

[_LH]

I strongly disagree. I don't think they should ever go to 12 unless there's a Notre Dame-type no-brainer. I realize I probably won't get my wish, but taking Richmond and SLU just to get to 12? You may be picking the two bottom feeders of the future, and for what?

I agree. There is no reason to expand just to expand. I also don't see anyone that just plays bball joining the American 12. You can't trust any of them to stay in that league. Houston wants to go to the B12 as I'm sure Memphis would. UC, UCONN and Temple want to get in the ACC.

On a side note, why are UC and UCONN considered no brainers if the ACC needs to add teams. The ACC will be 14 teams, so to me they would need to lose 4 programs before entertaining UCONN and UC. Even with that, why not Temple over UC? Is it because Santa Ono sent the ACC a Christmas gift?

[coasterville95]

Santa Ono sent the ACC a five pound box of money?

[Masterofreality]

Hey did you guys know that MOR had a meeting with "high level Xavier peeps" on Monday? I think this is the third or fourth time I have read that.

No brag, just fact.

I know you're just funning with me '95, but I'm just wanting to let everyone know that this stuff didn't come out of my delusional head and that it comes from credible sources. If someone wants to investigate who the folks were, I'm sure that it can be found out but not my place to disclose.

[MHettel]

I strongly disagree. I don't think they should ever go to 12 unless there's a Notre Dame-type no-brainer. I realize I probably won't get my wish, but taking Richmond and SLU just to get to 12? You may be picking the two bottom feeders of the future, and for what?

You take slu and Richmond to get St. Louis and Richmond marks. It's been about money, it's currently about money, and it will always be about money. The most money comes from tv broadcasts, and the more markets you have the more leverage Fox has in negotiating the deals with cable / satellite providers. That how fox gets paid. You need national programming interest, and you get that by connecting to as many markets as possible, and the wider the net the better the coverage. I think 12 for sure. Anything beyond that really requires a situational dependent analysis. ND availability would have to be something to consider, but few other situations would prompt those discussions

[DC Muskie]

Why the need to expand so quickly?

We better hope we get good ratings right off the bat. Fox better have their marketing shit together from Day 1.