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A-10 (Atlantic-10 Conference) Crumbling

tornado

tornado

New member
In a recent entry in his premium blog....Andy Katz discussed re-alignment of the MAC and other conferences....
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blo...og/index?entryID=3407841&searchName=katz_andy

In a move that might signal the tip of the iceberg, it looks like Temple of the A-10 wil pull out and join the MAC.
The A-10 is one of the very best non-BCS conferences, and the MAC definitely is NOT, so what gives?

First....not a lot of football powers in the A-10, but with the MAC being pretty strong in football, schools like Temple will find this move an upgrade for football.
BUT, there has been growing resentment by all the eastern teams in the A-10 having to travel out "west" to places like Dayton, Xavier, and Saint Louis, and so some of the eastern teams in the A-10 like Temple find no problems joining the MAC since they are doing all that traveling anyway.
There are also marketing failures and bad TV deals that have some of the A-10 schools fuming.

Also, it appears that Western Kentucky might pull out of the Sun Belt, where they have horrible RPI at the bottom (Arkansas State, Florida International, Denver, Troy, Louisiana-Monroe), and join the MAC also to make the MAC a stronger mid-major conference.

Here are some articles about how a lot of the A-10 members are quite unhappy with their conference leadership, and one article about how the A-10 is trying to do something about it quickly by hiring a new commissioner, Bernadette McGlade, who has been the associate commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference since 1997.
http://blog.mlive.com/fireupchips/2008/05/will_the_mac_expand_to_14_team.html
http://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15166
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/sports/19441029.html
http://www.ay-ziggy-zoomba.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20224&sid=b8579e3df40c32639fd8cb93af84ebfc

A-10 people will reportedly try to go after Butler, Valpo, or possibly an MVC school (the name Bradley & Creighton come up) if Temple bolts.
Some A-10 folks want to jettison St. Bonaventure and maybe even LaSalle



also some talk of Western Kentucky & Temple to CUSA, and Memphis to the Big East...
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college/2008/05/httpwwwnewberns.html
 
Cue another discussion on bringing teams into the MVC, kicking teams out, and adjusting the league's format. Should be interesting to watch in any case.
 
I find it hilarious that they would mention going after Bradley. I don't think we would ever leave the MVC!!

It could be interesting if they go after Butler.
 
Stryker said:
I find it hilarious that they would mention going after Bradley. I don't think we would ever leave the MVC!!

It could be interesting if they go after Butler.
Click to expand...

I would never say never.

Marquette
SLU
Butler
DePaul
Creighton
Bradley

Would be a great start to a very strong Basketball conference. Find two others with like academics and little or no football and there might be something for BU to seriously consider.
 
houstontxbrave said:
I would never say never.

Marquette
SLU
Butler
DePaul
Creighton
Bradley

Would be a great start to a very strong Basketball conference. Find two others with like academics and little or no football and there might be something for BU to seriously consider.
Click to expand...

Really, you think theres even a slight possibility that Marquette and DePaul would leave the Big East? Or that through any maneuvering at all that conference could come together?
 
amckillip said:
Really, you think theres even a slight possibility that Marquette and DePaul would leave the Big East? Or that through any maneuvering at all the conference coudl come together?
Click to expand...

Might as well add Duke to that if we're just grasping at straws. I think that temple jumping might push SLU out of the conference (maybe we can lose E-ville).
 
amckillip said:
Really, you think theres even a slight possibility that Marquette and DePaul would leave the Big East? Or that through any maneuvering at all that conference could come together?
Click to expand...

Purely Hypothical. I understand and know Marquette and Depaul are not going to leave the Big East, unless the Big East asks them to leave.

What I was trying to point out is that to not say never to BU ever leaving the MVC. There might be someone somewhere who thinks putting 8-10 private schools together to play basketball is a great idea.

Who would have thought the Big East would be 16 schools including South Florida and Lousiville when the Conference came together in the early 80's?

Strange things can and do happen when conference begin to realign.

I personally do not think anyone will leave the MVC but would not be surprised to see a team like Butler, SLU, Valpo or Even Western Kentucky one day join the Valley. Either to expand to 12 or add one at the expense of Evansville.
 
Wait a minute, the A-10 would go after Creighton? It's bad enough they've got one team on the wrong side of the Mississippi (SLU), but at least it's on a waterway that connects to the Atlantic!

In the highly, grossly, wildly remote possibility this happens, I would hope the conference would have the sense to rename. However, we all know what's involved with a name change.......
 
houstontxbrave said:
I would never say never.

Marquette
SLU
Butler
DePaul
Creighton
Bradley

Would be a great start to a very strong Basketball conference. Find two others with like academics and little or no football and there might be something for BU to seriously consider.
Click to expand...

I have thought of these 6 schools for a long time as the start of a very strong basketball conference and it might even rank them into consideration as a basketball only BCS strong conference if the BCS would ever consider that type of an arrangement. Some other schools to consider would be UWM, Cleveland State, Wright State, Xavier, Witchita State and Oral Roberts ( and we coudl stretch it a little and go for Gonzaga and/or Notre Dame as they will only be a basketball conf. team-never football). Another thing to consider would be schools that play D2 FB such as an SIU, which would be a great addition to the above schools. I am sure one could easily come up w/ 4 very strong schools among these listed to make a conference of 10 strong BB schools.
The one thing that I could see that would keep that from happening is we are in a conference already that is pretty strong and is very hard to win a conference championship in and how much harder would it become in a confernece like this which for many of you would just make you very upset. Right now the way things sit we have a decent shot at going to a tourn. most years and so does a lot of these other teams because they are in so many different conf. but all being in the same conf. would start to eliminate several of these teams although it would be a strong enough conf to probably get 3 or 4 teams in every year and another 3 or 4 in the other tourn.
Would a conf. like this be fun? I can only say it woudl be a dream schedule to watch fo rmost of us but it could mean a lot more losses on the season but then again it could also mean a lot better chance at the 3,4, & 5 star players we would really like to see come here, especially if we could get a lucrative TV contract for the midwest if not nationally.
Finally my dream BB conf would look like this:
Marquette
SLU
Butler
DePaul
Creighton
Bradley
SIU
Xavior
Wright State
Notre Dame(if not ND then a toss up between WSU, Oral Roberts or even throw in ISU-another strong BB school w/ D2 football
 
Should switch out Wright St. for Dayton in there. Given the other schools you've identified, which are all private, I think you could leave out SIU also, or replace them with another private school, such as... Drake? Loyola Chicago? Or just stick with 9 teams, which would give you a nice 18-game balanced schedule (though a bit of a problem in the postseason tournament).

Bradley
Butler
Creighton
Dayton
DePaul
Drake
Marquette
Notre Dame
SLU
Xavier

That'd be a great conference, and would get a good TV deal I'd think, but as much as I'd love it, I doubt we'll see it.
 
Hehhe, yes nice math error there. Rather than playing a couple of teams twice you could play yourself twice! Sorry. 16-game schedule for 9 teams.
 
thefish7 said:
Should switch out Wright St. for Dayton in there. Given the other schools you've identified, which are all private, I think you could leave out SIU also, or replace them with another private school, such as... Drake? Loyola Chicago? Or just stick with 9 teams, which would give you a nice 18-game balanced schedule (though a bit of a problem in the postseason tournament).

Bradley
Butler
Creighton
Dayton
DePaul
Drake
Marquette
Notre Dame
SLU
Xavier

That'd be a great conference, and would get a good TV deal I'd think, but as much as I'd love it, I doubt we'll see it.
Click to expand...

That would make for some great games and you are right, I doubt we will ever see it happen. Besides we would always have posters wanting to know why we didn't win the league each year which would become even harder w/a schedule like that but it sure would be some fun games to watch. It also could make for some great rivalries as close as some of these schools are to each other and still allow us to have games w/ schools such as ISU and SIU each year.
 
thefish7 said:
Should switch out Wright St. for Dayton in there. Given the other schools you've identified, which are all private, I think you could leave out SIU also, or replace them with another private school, such as... Drake? Loyola Chicago? Or just stick with 9 teams, which would give you a nice 18-game balanced schedule (though a bit of a problem in the postseason tournament).

Bradley
Butler
Creighton
Dayton
DePaul
Drake
Marquette
Notre Dame
SLU
Xavier

That'd be a great conference, and would get a good TV deal I'd think, but as much as I'd love it, I doubt we'll see it.
Click to expand...
As much as I would like it to, that is not going to happen. When they formed the Big East in the early 80's they did it to take advantage of all the big media markets in the East. They knew that the bigger the media market each school is in the bigger a TV deal they could get.
Bradley, Drake and I guess Dayton are in too small of markets. They would never get invited to that party. The deck is kind of stacked against small private schools in small markets.
I am not saying we can't be a consistant top 25 team like Gonzaga, I am just saying we won't get invited to join any conference like the one above.
 
Dayton's actually a big market (bigger than omaha, not sure about milwaukee)... and of course Notre Dame's market is tiny, except for the national following hehe. But your point is well taken, and I see plenty of other obstacles to such a league ever being formed. I just think it'd be a fantastic basketball conference. :)
 
First things first, WKU to the MAC makes sense for football too, so that's happening.

I still think the Big East will crumble. When they push out the basketball-only schools, half of the A-10 will join up with them, while the other half become free agents. The MVC scoops Marquette and DePaul. You heard it here first.

I have PLENTY of realignment thoughts but I won't swallow the thread with them yet.
 
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