More realignment coming -- driven by hoops?

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Jason Svoboda

The Bird Level
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Interesting to see this as it is definitely being decided by hoops and not football. I think UConn would be foolish to go to the ACC. The Big East is such a better fit. I hadn't thought about this but it shows you the power of being in a named conference:

The Huskies won 17 regular season and tournament titles in the old Big East, but their program has had to fight to stay nationally relevant since joining the American Athletic Conference despite winning the 2014 national title.
http://www.fanragsports.com/cbb/rothstein-uconn-big-east-recent-discussions-expansion/
 

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Also begs the question if they'll be going after a 12th member. If so, who?

The article doesn't make it sound like 12 is a given. It seems the Big East likes the idea of a 20-game conference season with complete double round robin scheduling. If that's the goal, then 11 is perfect. Once you go past 11 you're forced to split into divisions and/or having unbalanced scheduling, which doesn't necessarily always help you come tournament selection time.

Of course, every WSU fan just got a semi at the thought of the Big East expanding to 12.
 
The article doesn't make it sound like 12 is a given. It seems the Big East likes the idea of a 20-game conference season with complete double round robin scheduling. If that's the goal, then 11 is perfect. Once you go past 11 you're forced to split into divisions and/or having unbalanced scheduling, which doesn't necessarily always help you come tournament selection time.

Of course, every WSU fan just got a semi at the thought of the Big East expanding to 12.
True. ACC is moving to 20 conference games and the next member they get will put them at 16 members I believe.
 
UCONN is moving to the Big East, some speculation Loyola may join the A10 if the AAC takes VCU
 

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Loyola of Chi? Well....then it's time to go hard after Murray State or Belmont.

I have nothing against Loyola, but I hope they leave if the A10 calls with the condition that the MVC adds Murray State. We need another MVC football school for the MVFC and traditionally they've had way better basketball than Loyola. I also like that Murray has a baseball program.
 
UCONN is moving to the Big East, some speculation Loyola may join the A10 if the AAC takes VCU

Wonder if this allows UConn to move their FB back to FCS or kill the program. I know they had made that public that they were considering it and I assume they will have to pay a sizable exit fee to the AAC.

I also don't think the AAC takes another program without football. They now have an odd number of football programs that will make scheduling difficult. I wouldn't be surprised if they went after Army since they have Navy.
 
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It's a dumb move in my opinion. RMU moving to the HL has been in the works ever since Valpo joined the Valley. I never thought it would happen though because of football. Supposedly RMU will play football in the Big South who apparently will take anyone to bring their numbers up. The NEC only allows 45 scholarships for football so I hope they are ready to spend some more money if they don't want to be a perennial doormat.

Not sure if this was ever mentioned on here but Florida A&M is leaving the MEAC to join the SWAC, which leaves the MEAC at 7 schools, while the SWAC now has 11 members. The MEAC has now lost 4 members in the past few years. Hampton and NC A&T went to the Big South, while Savannah State is no longer D1.
 
Someone mentioned the Fl A&M move to me a few days ago. Maybe the swac can get all the meac schools to join them and they can play their bowl as the conference championship game. They then could keep all the money to themselves and split it up 18 ways instead of having to split it up 18 ways.
 

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It's a dumb move in my opinion. RMU moving to the HL has been in the works ever since Valpo joined the Valley. I never thought it would happen though because of football. Supposedly RMU will play football in the Big South who apparently will take anyone to bring their numbers up. The NEC only allows 45 scholarships for football so I hope they are ready to spend some more money if they don't want to be a perennial doormat.

Not sure if this was ever mentioned on here but Florida A&M is leaving the MEAC to join the SWAC, which leaves the MEAC at 7 schools, while the SWAC now has 11 members. The MEAC has now lost 4 members in the past few years. Hampton and NC A&T went to the Big South, while Savannah State is no longer D1.

Definitely a headscratcher... RMU goes from NEC with virtually every conf foe a peer, smallish, private universities to the HL where they'll have the smallest enrollment (5th in NEC) and the 3rd lowest endowment... the gain is a cut in travel... they'll knock about 1,000 collective miles off their travel distance.

NEC membership could stand pat as NJIT will be joining the America East Conference... a better fit for the Highlanders than the Atlantic Sun...
 
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Yeah the NEC just added Merrimack last year so they are in good shape. The NJIT move is good for all 3 parties involved. With Bellarmine joining the ASUN, I wonder if that would be the conference that could invite USI up to D1.
 
Just saw where SIUE is joining the MVC for men's Soccer. I guess when Valpo dropped their program a few weeks ago it put the conference at 5 teams and you need 6 for an auto bid. You also have to have a certain number of sports get auto bids to qualify for the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I couldn't tell you if we have men's Soccer, but I found it interesting that SIUE will be an associate member.
 
Just saw where SIUE is joining the MVC for men's Soccer. I guess when Valpo dropped their program a few weeks ago it put the conference at 5 teams and you need 6 for an auto bid. You also have to have a certain number of sports get auto bids to qualify for the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I couldn't tell you if we have men's Soccer, but I found it interesting that SIUE will be an associate member.

I think there was a Men's club soccer team in the early 80s and SIUE is no more interesting an associate member than Stony Brook is (?!) in women's tennis
 
Yeah the NEC just added Merrimack last year so they are in good shape. The NJIT move is good for all 3 parties involved. With Bellarmine joining the ASUN, I wonder if that would be the conference that could invite USI up to D1.

I think more schools will step down from Div I vice more moving up --- full effect of COVID-19 on intercollegiate athletic $$$ won't be felt for some time
 

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Would it be smart for Indiana State, Missouri State, Illinois State, Southern Illinois to joIn together and find a League or conference where the student athletes could take busses to the games .. To save money
 
I think more schools will step down from Div I vice more moving up --- full effect of COVID-19 on intercollegiate athletic $$$ won't be felt for some time

Yeah, it seems like the grim reaper is out in the garage practicing with his scythe. Was reading an article that believed quite a few colleges will be closing their doors over the next couple years -- not just axing athletics. I think the first wave will be private schools with insane tuition but I could see some of those with smaller endowments start to shutter, especially if state aid is diverted elsewhere.

Sometime I saw proposed in a couple of the articles was schools merging. I thought that was an interesting concept since the it was the splitting off of regional campuses that exploded numbers in the first place. The Cal school system is probably one that will have to do that if any publics do, especially after paying out millions to ransomware attacks.
 
Would it be smart for Indiana State, Missouri State, Illinois State, Southern Illinois to joIn together and find a League or conference where the student athletes could take busses to the games .. To save money

It only works in the NCAA allows for new conferences to form but highly unlikely because the conferences themselves are individual businesses and wouldn't go down without a fight.

That said, it would make sense for several schools in the MVC, MAC and OVC to merge and do just that. Would require too much leadership and balls to get it done though.
 
I could not be in more agreement. It makes zero sense to take a plane to the Dakotas to play football. A merger of select MVC and OVC schools to form a bus travel only conference does make sense. Not sure about the MAC schools however. What schools do you think would be a fit?
 
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