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Ok... I'll preface this by saying that the name is a joke, but the idea is deadly serious. In my most humble opinion I believe that Bradley needs to get the ball rolling on a conference set up that will take the bits and pieces of a number of conferences as everything falls apart.
Bolded teams are added at each step, as this group of teams will have to be built up, or this plan will fail.
First, Take CU and DU and lock with them tighter than anything...
BU
CU
DU
Second, get the little members of the Philly Big 5 and promise them a return to glory, this rivalry matters, and the promise of a bigger stage for this basketball might attract these three.
This is step two, and while not the sexiest group of teams it provides a building block for the next phase.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Thirdly, you need to pick up some excellent Midwestern teams that help connect the dots geographically. This will be the toughest step as Xavier and Duquesne will probably take some convincing to leave the A-10, but with the Philly 5 already on board this will help, and one of the reasons you need that pairing in the first place. Butler will hopefully leap at this chance to jump up the competition and audiences that the group assembled would reach and provide. We want Duquense because this school is a big deal in Pitt, they equate this school to Yale and Harvard in that city and I am not kidding.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Xavier
Duquesne
Butler
Next, you add the two cornerstone programs that will make this conference. Hopefully the big east will be imploding and we can take on the three schools below, if the steps above are accomplished there will be no conference close to the Rust Belt Conference that can offer a home to the Midwestern BigE teams.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Xavier
Duquesne
Butler
Depaul
Marquette
Finally, we add Villanova, the prize of these school in my mind, will consider a conference like this because of the rivalries that it shares with the rest of the Philly 5 (for those of you who are asking who the 5th Philly 5 member is, it's Penn of the Ivy League, we will just let it stay where it is...), and the other two Big East Teams.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Xavier
Duquesne
Butler
Depaul
Marquette
Villanova
Yes, this make this conference Philly centric, but hey, better a fantastic Philly centric conference than the alternative...
Now, we are staring at a 12 team conference that spans every state from Penn. to Nebraska.
To look at the negatives, we would have to deal with whatever forms from the rest of the big East and A-10, that is why building around the Philly big 5 is crucial, because otherwise Villanova is gone to play with Georgetown, and the other players in the Big East which will no doubt turn into a powerful NYC centric grouping.
This group is a stretch, and it's not ideal, but it is realistic as to where I think Bradley is, and I have serious doubts as much as I love BU that we could end up with any better grouping, we flat out don't compete trying to go against the remnants of the A-10 and Big East for prestige this century, and we would be left out of the top level of conferences that forms out of that. The conference presented here is designed to compete with that grouping, but better to compete than be left out...
Honestly, I don't like our chances if V-nova, G-town, Cuse, Xavier, Butler, St. John's and the like mount up together, so the above is in my mind the best alternative for us.
The TV deal here actually makes sense, you hit every major market from Philly to Omaha, (Sans Cleveland and St. Louis) grabbing schools that don't play football but absolutely are the best schools on the face of the planet to individuals that live in those cities.
Bolded teams are added at each step, as this group of teams will have to be built up, or this plan will fail.
First, Take CU and DU and lock with them tighter than anything...
BU
CU
DU
Second, get the little members of the Philly Big 5 and promise them a return to glory, this rivalry matters, and the promise of a bigger stage for this basketball might attract these three.
This is step two, and while not the sexiest group of teams it provides a building block for the next phase.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Thirdly, you need to pick up some excellent Midwestern teams that help connect the dots geographically. This will be the toughest step as Xavier and Duquesne will probably take some convincing to leave the A-10, but with the Philly 5 already on board this will help, and one of the reasons you need that pairing in the first place. Butler will hopefully leap at this chance to jump up the competition and audiences that the group assembled would reach and provide. We want Duquense because this school is a big deal in Pitt, they equate this school to Yale and Harvard in that city and I am not kidding.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Xavier
Duquesne
Butler
Next, you add the two cornerstone programs that will make this conference. Hopefully the big east will be imploding and we can take on the three schools below, if the steps above are accomplished there will be no conference close to the Rust Belt Conference that can offer a home to the Midwestern BigE teams.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Xavier
Duquesne
Butler
Depaul
Marquette
Finally, we add Villanova, the prize of these school in my mind, will consider a conference like this because of the rivalries that it shares with the rest of the Philly 5 (for those of you who are asking who the 5th Philly 5 member is, it's Penn of the Ivy League, we will just let it stay where it is...), and the other two Big East Teams.
BU
CU
DU
Temple
La Salle
St. Joe's
Xavier
Duquesne
Butler
Depaul
Marquette
Villanova
Yes, this make this conference Philly centric, but hey, better a fantastic Philly centric conference than the alternative...
Now, we are staring at a 12 team conference that spans every state from Penn. to Nebraska.
To look at the negatives, we would have to deal with whatever forms from the rest of the big East and A-10, that is why building around the Philly big 5 is crucial, because otherwise Villanova is gone to play with Georgetown, and the other players in the Big East which will no doubt turn into a powerful NYC centric grouping.
This group is a stretch, and it's not ideal, but it is realistic as to where I think Bradley is, and I have serious doubts as much as I love BU that we could end up with any better grouping, we flat out don't compete trying to go against the remnants of the A-10 and Big East for prestige this century, and we would be left out of the top level of conferences that forms out of that. The conference presented here is designed to compete with that grouping, but better to compete than be left out...
Honestly, I don't like our chances if V-nova, G-town, Cuse, Xavier, Butler, St. John's and the like mount up together, so the above is in my mind the best alternative for us.
The TV deal here actually makes sense, you hit every major market from Philly to Omaha, (Sans Cleveland and St. Louis) grabbing schools that don't play football but absolutely are the best schools on the face of the planet to individuals that live in those cities.
and 2. They steal the central IL thunder just a touch, making us near obsolete...
Keeping even #'s and Adding to make the NEW MVC
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