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Valley Expansion

SaintLouBrave22 said:
A conference with the current teams PLUS 4 would be a great fit for the Valley gaining more national attention...

Add these teams and they're gold:


Xavier
Butler
WKentucky
Marquette


On the bubble:

DePaul
Loyola (simply a Chicago presence)
Kansas (for obvious reasons)
Baylor

Out:

SLU


Main reason SLU is out...I dont want to lose St. Louis at the tournament site.
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That last reason sounds pretty selfish. LOL Really doubt if it would change the tournament site as doesn't SLU have their own center on campus that they play in?
Can't fully agree w/ keeping the Valley as it now stands as they have to many weak teams when you could make such a strong BB market w/ some, or all, of the following.


Xavier
Butler
WKentucky
Marquette
DePaul (also a Chicago presence)
Kansas (for obvious reasons) Would be nice but wouldn't happen unless the BB end was strong enough.
Kansas state (better chance they would want to go independent in football)
BU
CU
WSU
Dayton
SLU
(Kansas & Kansas State would be a long reach but one never knows what these schools are going to thinking.)

The only one of these schools w/o a strong TV market would possibly be WK and I really don't know anything about their market but the people in Kent. love their BB.

These teams would create a BCS type BB conference.
 
If we're going super megaconference all over why not a 16-team private basketball school megaconference like this:

EAST
George Washington (or George Mason)
Georgetown
Massachusettes
Providence
Saint Joes
Saint Johns
Seton Hall
Villanova

WEST
Bradley
Butler
Creighton
Dayton
DePaul
Marquette
St Louis
Xavier

I'd sign up for that. :)
 
SaintLouBrave22 said:
A conference with the current teams PLUS 4 would be a great fit for the Valley gaining more national attention...

Add these teams and they're gold:


Xavier
Butler
WKentucky
Marquette


On the bubble:

DePaul
Loyola (simply a Chicago presence)
Kansas (for obvious reasons)
Baylor

Out:

SLU


Main reason SLU is out...I dont want to lose St. Louis at the tournament site.
Click to expand...

Western Kentucky plays football so I dont think they will align with any basketball only conference. I bet though they wouldnt mind upgrading to a better football conference... conference USA?

Kansas has to get into a football also conference. If all the Pac16 happens they will have to work like heck and try and get into something with TCU, Utah, BYU, Boise etc and hope like heck that this conference gets to eat at the big boys football table. If they were not tied to Kstate they would be with the other Big 12rs in the new Pac 16 and TT would be looking in from the outside.

I wonder what will happen to Iowa State, Baylor and Mizzo?
 
houstontxbrave said:
TAS.

Curious,

If you were in charge of Bradley what would you do?
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I'm honestly not sure. We'd be in no-man's land.

Right now, at this moment, you can't do anything to jeopardize your relationship with the Valley. Pursuing a new conference with no other Valley school can get a bit dicey.

The one thing I'd do is have a little chat with Butler. Like us, they'd be a single school from a conference looking to infiltrate a league filled with current A-10 and Big East members. Sell the two BUs as a package deal. That's probably as much as BU can do right now.

Bradley has to be reactive in this situation. They can't be proactive because they have no clout and the effect could be devastating for us.
 
If this were to happen, I would like to see it stay Missouri Valley and ISUred stays. Can't imagine BU basketball without ISU-BU match ups each year. I still like SLU, Butler, Iowa State, Kansas, and Kansas State with all but Evansville from the valley.
 
As far as a basketball superconference, here's what you'd see:

Georgetown(1), Seton Hall(2), Providence(3), St John's(4), Villanova(5), Marquette(6), and DePaul(7) would be your 7 Big East leftovers, and they ain't splitting.

Butler(8) has to be a part of any new league.

The A-10 would be poached. Xavier(9) and Dayton(10) are surefire.

St Louis(11) probably is too - big, big market, western travel partner with Marquette and DePaul.

They'll capitalize a bit on the Philly market - hello, St Joseph's(12)

The Boston market is available - hello, UMass(13)

After this, you begin to have options. Both Richmond(14) and Charlotte(15) are sitting available and help penetrate the south. However, they do play football. But couldn't they play in the CAA in football and the new league in all other sports, including basketball? That's what would happen.

The 16th team could be anyone. I'll take Temple out of the equation for simplicity, since there's a relatively decent chance they could be part of a new Big East. The last A-10 school I could see involved is Duquense. Hofstra for the New York market is technically feasible. Then there's Bradley and Drake.

As much as it'd piss off everyone here, Duquesne(16) would be a more attractive option than Bradley. Pittsburgh > Peoria.
 
TAS, sadly, is right. Bradley's best hopes now are to find someone willing to go to bat for us as a package deal, and that also plays football.

Our best bets:

Butler-stock will never be higher than it is right now. Has football, which offers leverage. However, Butler and Bradley are directly in competition with one another for name recognition in the region and nationally, and a partnership here is unlikely. It is also rare to see partnerships with schools who are not part of your conference. Also, Butler is likely looking East and the East would likely not want any part of another SLU.

Creighton-Along with Wichita offers the best the Valley possibly can. Both have the same problem: No football. So they are therefore faced with the same fate of possibly being relegated to a lower division when the dust settles without some help.

Drake-Has football. Has an eternal link to Bradley as being the longest standing members of the MVC, shared unity during the Johnny Bright days, etc.

This is all another reason why this decade has been a great travesty for Bradley, despite one great moment. The big picture is important.
 
houstontxbrave said:
Let me ask you a question about attendance. If a conference had the option of Bradley and its attendance but Peoria/BN populuation Comcast etc or Depaul and it terrible attendance but Chicago population who would that conference choose?

Dishonesty not sure that is the right word, I think it is more of freedom to make as much money as possible and not share it with the NCAA or the non BCS's of the world.

Money is the method right now to this madness. But there has to be more. And to me the more is that big March Carrot of the NCAA basketball tourney. That money is huge but these huge BCS super conferences are not going to want to share that money with the likes of the MVC. Why would they want too other then the NCAA mandating it.

I think a spin off of the super conferences for football is the divorcing of the BCS's from the NCAA. If they can do their own thing in Football, Basketball and Baseball why be part of an organization they I bet most BCS's look at as a complete nusience then a viable helpful partner.

4 years from today the whole "college" athletics landscape will be completely different.
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Have to agree that MONEY is the reason all of this is happening. It won't take 4 years as the SEC and ACC are already talking and as the B10 & Pac 10 expand to 16 teams those 2 conferences will follow for football reasons which will break up the BE although the BE is a BB Conf but time will tell if the BCS will keep a BB only type BCS school.
As you watch all of this happening it is the Football powers that are driving this frenzy and these conferences will break off from the NCAA in all sports and develop their own TV pkg and tournaments that will bring in more money then we can fathom. Look what the B10 tv network has already done. Each team in the conference are getting several million (I beleive I heard that it is 22 million a piece but not positive of that #). Now enlarge that out to BCS only cable pkg and guess what happens.

Your other comment about about BU to Depaul is if BU expands to include all of thir games to the Chicago market it would really matter as DePaul has lost a lot the luster they once had in Chicago, but honestly I would want a BB only conf. that would include DePaul. Check out an previous post on this subject.
 
TheAsianSensation said:
As much as it'd piss off everyone here, Duquesne(16) would be a more attractive option than Bradley. Pittsburgh > Peoria.
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You had me right up until here. I agree that Pittsburgh is greater than Peoria, but I don't think Duquesne is more attractive than Bradley by any measure-- basketball or money. That's fairly akin to saying Detroit Mercy is more attractive because it's in Detroit. Heck by that logic Detroit is probably more attractive than Duquesne because Detroit (despite all its problems) is probably > Pittsburgh.
 
TAS-I think LaSalle and St. Joseph's would both be in that above league. Even though Duquesne offers the Pitt market, I do think the two Philly's are a package.

Houston, DePaul's attendance has only really stunk the past few years. That is for a variety of reasons, their non-con has been less than stellar and as the team has been bad, interest dwindled. However, in the first few years of Big East play, they were easily getting 18-20K+ for their home dates against the likes of Syracuse, UConn, G'town, 'Nova etc. So it's a not a completely lost cause, and offers much greater potential than a Bradley.
 
thefish7 said:
You had me right up until here. I agree that Pittsburgh is greater than Peoria, but I don't think Duquesne is more attractive than Bradley by any measure-- basketball or money. That's fairly akin to saying Detroit Mercy is more attractive because it's in Detroit. Heck by that logic Detroit is probably more attractive than Duquesne because Detroit (despite all its problems) is probably > Pittsburgh.
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It's close. But I think marketability is the new rage these days, and that tilts in their favor, unfortunately. But it's close, and Bradley's basketball program > Duquesne's basketball program, but I don't think the difference is large enough to sway other factors.

LaSalle a package deal with St Joe's? I'll take squirrel's word for it, although I'm skeptical.
 
It'd be interesting, for the sake of these arguments, to know something about revenue of the programs in question-- tickets, TV, advertising. I think Bradley would end up quite a bit higher in the list than we tend to give it credit for. I'm not foolish enough to compare Bradley to DePaul-- DePaul is in a MUCH larger market and actually has fan interest, but location is not the only thing and that's the problem with a school like Duquesne which is near zero interest.
 
Well, Duquesne interest has increased the past few seasons as the program has rebounded from decades of dormancy.

Sometimes being good at the right time is all it takes.

Or if you are Bradley, just the opposite.
 
The one thing we have to think about is will the BCS have BB only conf. as the BE is now or will they get really picky and go to 4-6 conf makeup of 12-16 teams that then will play their own tournaments and develop their own tv pkgs as individual conf and/or as a BCS tv rights for cable or possibly both.
I really think as this aligns out these schools will seperate from the NCAA completely and have all of their own tournaments. Then the rest of schools will be governed by the NCAA and we will have a major crack down on what these schools can and can't do. Only time will tell but this is how it is shaping up.
One other thing if these schools break off from the NCAA will the benefits change for the student athlete? Just something to ponder.
 
TAS seems to think there will be room.

I am firmly in the camp of "No."

A couple reasons for my view:

1) This is about closing the door. The end game here is consolidation of power. At present, it looks like there will be more than 64 teams, but football will still be a requirement.

2) Short-term, in order to salvage itself, the NCAA will do everything it can to prevent a split by the BCS members, which may mean they have to rule that you must play BCS/FBS level football in order to play basketball at that level. I've been saying this for 3 years and I am even stronger in this belief than ever before. The one caveat I always add is that there *MAY* be a window that states "Your league or a certain % of your league must play football at the FBS level" to play at that level for hoops which means that the window remains open for schools like DePaul and Marquette, but Valley schools would all have to commit to making the jump in order to remain relevant.
 
squirrelgotdead said:
This is about closing the door. The end game here is consolidation of power. At present, it looks like there will be more than 64 teams, but football will still be a requirement.
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I do disagree with this on one front: The current Big East members that don't play FBS football (Marq, DePaul, G'town, et al) will be allowed to join the 64 football members in the liftoff. There is far too much value in some of those schools.

And Bradley's hope would be to somehow find a place in there.

And you're also assuming the NCAA is competent enough ;) to make a power play to attempt to keep everyone in their organization.
 
Duquesne's increased fan interest resulted in an average attendance of just over 3000 fans/game, squirrel. I just don't buy it. Not saying we have a place at the table, because I'm not sure we do, but as far as basketball programs as a package go, I think we're probably top 75 or a little better.
 
thefish7 said:
Duquesne's increased fan interest resulted in an average attendance of just over 3000 fans/game, squirrel. I just don't buy it. Not saying we have a place at the table, because I'm not sure we do, but as far as basketball programs as a package go, I think we're probably top 75 or a little better.
Click to expand...

Basketball with NO football means you have zero leverage. I can not stress that enough.
 
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