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GlennMacGrady
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 Posted: 06/09/14 5:46 pm ::: Should the 5 power conferences secede from NCAA? |
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There's talk of this in the football world -- that the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC and ACC should leave the NCAA, form their own association, schedule games among themselves, and hold their own tournament and national championship.
Would this make sense for the sport of WCBB, primarily in terms of increasing parity and the competitiveness and interest in games? |
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 06/09/14 6:03 pm ::: |
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I'll give one reply to my general question.
The P5 NC tournament could be much more competitive and exciting. A set of rules could establish each conference having three tournament entrants, plus a rule to allow one more "wild card" team to make it in.
That would be a 16 team tournament. It could be run on a double elimination basis. It could also probably be run entirely at one neutral location over the course of a week. |
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beknighted
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 06/09/14 8:07 pm ::: |
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| beknighted wrote: |
Count the number of schools in the tournament from those 5 conferences. You're not going to have a 16-team tournament.
Besides, wouldn't it be 3 from each conference plus Notre Dame.  |
I don't understand, but maybe I wasn't understandable.
First, I'm talking about basketball not football.
I was assuming the five conferences stay as they are. They just form a new association, or they could simply be a new Division 0 within the NCAA. Each team would play 30 game regular seasons and each of the five conferences would have their own end-of-season tournaments, just as they do now. Nothing changes, except all the seasonal opponents are from within the ~65 P5 (or D0) schools.
All 65 teams don't enter the P5 (D0) double elimination national tournament. It's made up of 16 teams. Each of the five conferences would enter three teams -- their regular season winner, their tournament winner, whatever. One wild card team from the 65 would be entered based on some stat.
No turkey teams. No waste-of-time 1-16 games. No one-and-done upsets. No home team venues. |
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beknighted
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| Posted: 06/09/14 8:35 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| beknighted wrote: |
Count the number of schools in the tournament from those 5 conferences. You're not going to have a 16-team tournament.
Besides, wouldn't it be 3 from each conference plus Notre Dame. |
I don't understand, but maybe I wasn't understandable.
First, I'm talking about basketball not football.
I was assuming the five conferences stay as they are. They just form a new association, or they could simply be a new Division 0 within the NCAA. Each team would play 30 game regular seasons and each of the five conferences would have their own end-of-season tournaments, just as they do now. Nothing changes, except all the seasonal opponents are from within the ~65 P5 (or D0) schools.
All 65 teams don't enter the P5 (D0) double elimination national tournament. It's made up of 16 teams. Each of the five conferences would enter three teams -- their regular season winner, their tournament winner, whatever. One wild card team from the 65 would be entered based on some stat.
No turkey teams. No waste-of-time 1-16 games. No one-and-done upsets. No home team venues. |
First, in case it wasn't clear (which, in retrospect, it probably wasn't), the Notre Dame thing was supposed to be a joke based on what the football team does.
Anyway, my point was that if you look at this year's NCAA tournament (or any year's tournament since it went to 64 teams), there are more than 16 teams from the major conferences - in fact, this year it was 31. I really doubt that you could convince the schools to cut their tournament participation in half.
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dinkytown
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| Posted: 06/09/14 9:52 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
No turkey teams. No waste-of-time 1-16 games. No one-and-done upsets. No home team venues. |
I don't think turkey teams are the issue. The major schools all want their team in every year. If anything, I could see these conferences form their own 65-68 team tournament.
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ClayK
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| Posted: 06/10/14 9:02 am ::: |
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| dinkytown wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
No turkey teams. No waste-of-time 1-16 games. No one-and-done upsets. No home team venues. |
I don't think turkey teams are the issue. The major schools all want their team in every year. If anything, I could see these conferences form their own 65-68 team tournament. |
I agree. I think they would create a very large bracket (48 teams, maybe) and go from there. They would play at home sites until the Final Four, probably, but the key would be ESPN and whether the network would agree to continue paying the same amount for a tournament drawing from a smaller pool.
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petrel
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| Posted: 06/10/14 10:36 am ::: |
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Some of the issues with a large (48 or more) tournament:
1. With only five conferences participating, you'd have a very great chance of teams playing each other in that opening round that belong to the same conference. It would be very difficult to avoid.
2. The 48th best Power Five team would be something like Oregon - a 16-16 team that was ranked 70th in the Sagarin Ratings last year. No Gonzaga. No Gonzaga. No James Madison. No DePaul or any of the better AAC teams. Beyond 48th, you take the real chance of getting teams with losing records.
The best way to do it is to make the conference tournaments actually mean something again. After the P5 tournaments are completed, the conference tournament winners get, say, five of the seeds of an eight-seed bracket.
Then you can have x number of teams play for those final three spots. You can drag that out as long as you need to, by having 8, 16, or all of the non-five top teams play for that "second chance" if the P5 conferences want to get all of that money the NCAA formerly got.
If you shortened it, though, the P5 might have to ban its teams from playing in the NIT/WNIT - which would probably reduce the drawing power of the NIT/WNIT.
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summertime blues
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| Posted: 06/10/14 12:04 pm ::: |
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| As a long distance DePaul fan and a a default JMU fan (because I now live where JMU is), I have to say NOOOOOOOO! It would suck horribly for WBB and even for men's (think of Providence, Villanova, Davidson, even St. John's). For football, I could hardly give less of a damn.
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ArtBest23
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| Posted: 06/10/14 12:28 pm ::: |
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The wrong question is being asked. It's not about whether those conference should split off to create a great WBB tournament. It is entirely about how WBB can and should cope with the situation if because of football, and ONLY because of football, 65 teams bolt the NCAA. Make no mistake, it will be entirely a football driven decision.
If they do break away, the NCAA will go broke. Virtually the entire funding for the NCAA and all of its tournaments, compliance activities, clearinghouse, and everything else, comes from the men's basketball tournament. But if the 65 biggest schools leave and set up their own, then the money will follow them, and the NCAA will have no money.
Which is why it almost certainly won't happen. In the end, they can complain, but the NCAA and all the other schools can't afford to have the big five leave, and there's really no incentive for the Big 5 to leave and then have to create their own entirely new structure for performing all the functions the NCAA performs today, especially managing competition and championships in all the other sports. So, in the end, the big 5 will probably get the degree of autonomy they are demanding, and they'll stay a part of the NCAA. Either they will create a new division, or, more likely, they will enact some new relaxed rules leaving it up to each conference to decide whether to adopt them. While there might be a school or two in some other conference that would be willing to incur the expense, I don't see any conference where a majority or supermajority would be willing to allow it within their conference (with the possible exception of the BE).
What will be interesting is how competitive balance will be maintained. When the Big 5 start changing their own recruiting rules, start increasing the number of scholarships and start paying stipends and other increased benefits for scholarships (because they won't be able to limit those benefits to football, for Title IX and other reasons), how is any semblance of competitive balance going to be maintained in all these other sports? How do you have championships among schools playing by different sets of rules? How do non-Big 5 teams recruit top players when the Big 5 schools are paying an extra $5000/yr/player, paying for parents to travel to games and on recruiting trips, etc., and no one else can? .
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ClayK
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| Posted: 06/10/14 1:05 pm ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
The wrong question is being asked. It's not about whether those conference should split off to create a great WBB tournament. It is entirely about how WBB can and should cope with the situation if because of football, and ONLY because of football, 65 teams bolt the NCAA. Make no mistake, it will be entirely a football driven decision.
If they do break away, the NCAA will go broke. Virtually the entire funding for the NCAA and all of its tournaments, compliance activities, clearinghouse, and everything else, comes from the men's basketball tournament. But if the 65 biggest schools leave and set up their own, then the money will follow them, and the NCAA will have no money.
Which is why it almost certainly won't happen. In the end, they can complain, but the NCAA and all the other schools can't afford to have the big five leave, and there's really no incentive for the Big 5 to leave and then have to create their own entirely new structure for performing all the functions the NCAA performs today, especially managing competition and championships in all the other sports. So, in the end, the big 5 will probably get the degree of autonomy they are demanding, and they'll stay a part of the NCAA. Either they will create a new division, or, more likely, they will enact some new relaxed rules leaving it up to each conference to decide whether to adopt them. While there might be a school or two in some other conference that would be willing to incur the expense, I don't see any conference where a majority or supermajority would be willing to allow it within their conference (with the possible exception of the BE).
What will be interesting is how competitive balance will be maintained. When the Big 5 start changing their own recruiting rules, start increasing the number of scholarships and start paying stipends and other increased benefits for scholarships (because they won't be able to limit those benefits to football, for Title IX and other reasons), how is any semblance of competitive balance going to be maintained in all these other sports? How do you have championships among schools playing by different sets of rules? How do non-Big 5 teams recruit top players when the Big 5 schools are paying an extra $5000/yr/player, paying for parents to travel to games and on recruiting trips, etc., and no one else can? . |
All excellent points. Rider and Rutgers do not belong in the same division in basketball -- they are not close to playing the same game.
So the NCAA caves, gives the power conferences their own division with its own rules, and most likely its own tournament. Then again, they might decide to keep the tournament as is and invite the top two divisions -- with of course the power conferences getting a guarantee of more slots in the bracket.
We've got a lot of posturing going on at this point, though part of it is related to the various lawsuits aimed at the NCAA. If the NCAA does go bankrupt, or chooses to do so, the power conferences seem prepared to go it alone.
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ArtBest23
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| Posted: 06/10/14 1:26 pm ::: |
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| ClayK wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
The wrong question is being asked. It's not about whether those conference should split off to create a great WBB tournament. It is entirely about how WBB can and should cope with the situation if because of football, and ONLY because of football, 65 teams bolt the NCAA. Make no mistake, it will be entirely a football driven decision.
If they do break away, the NCAA will go broke. Virtually the entire funding for the NCAA and all of its tournaments, compliance activities, clearinghouse, and everything else, comes from the men's basketball tournament. But if the 65 biggest schools leave and set up their own, then the money will follow them, and the NCAA will have no money.
Which is why it almost certainly won't happen. In the end, they can complain, but the NCAA and all the other schools can't afford to have the big five leave, and there's really no incentive for the Big 5 to leave and then have to create their own entirely new structure for performing all the functions the NCAA performs today, especially managing competition and championships in all the other sports. So, in the end, the big 5 will probably get the degree of autonomy they are demanding, and they'll stay a part of the NCAA. Either they will create a new division, or, more likely, they will enact some new relaxed rules leaving it up to each conference to decide whether to adopt them. While there might be a school or two in some other conference that would be willing to incur the expense, I don't see any conference where a majority or supermajority would be willing to allow it within their conference (with the possible exception of the BE).
What will be interesting is how competitive balance will be maintained. When the Big 5 start changing their own recruiting rules, start increasing the number of scholarships and start paying stipends and other increased benefits for scholarships (because they won't be able to limit those benefits to football, for Title IX and other reasons), how is any semblance of competitive balance going to be maintained in all these other sports? How do you have championships among schools playing by different sets of rules? How do non-Big 5 teams recruit top players when the Big 5 schools are paying an extra $5000/yr/player, paying for parents to travel to games and on recruiting trips, etc., and no one else can? . |
All excellent points. Rider and Rutgers do not belong in the same division in basketball -- they are not close to playing the same game.
So the NCAA caves, gives the power conferences their own division with its own rules, and most likely its own tournament. Then again, they might decide to keep the tournament as is and invite the top two divisions -- with of course the power conferences getting a guarantee of more slots in the bracket.
We've got a lot of posturing going on at this point, though part of it is related to the various lawsuits aimed at the NCAA. If the NCAA does go bankrupt, or chooses to do so, the power conferences seem prepared to go it alone. |
I think they would prefer to keep all of current Div 1 in the basketball, baseball, golf, volleyball, lacrosse, and all the other tournaments. I haven't really seen any strong sentiment for breaking those up into the haves and the have nots. Indeed, I think keeping those together is the main reason for staying in the NCAA. That does leave the problem of how to play tournaments among teams playing by different rules.
I suppose it could be argued that with a few exceptions in each sport, that imbalance largely exists already today.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 06/10/14 1:36 pm ::: |
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The driving force for this change would certainly be football.
I'm just trying to explore its effects on WCBB.
I talked about the P5 NC Tournament just as one example. I like a smaller NC tournament, the double elimination concept, and the single non-home-team venue concepts. You wouldn't need a SelComm and probably not even seeding. But the NC tournament could obviously be run many different ways.
More importantly, I think this "secession" would result in the average P5 WCBB game being more competitive and interesting than it is today. Sure, there are some weak teams at the bottom of these conferences, but no longer could one team schedule the equivalent of eight Southwest North Carolina Baptist Military Seminary types of opponents. That's a favorite gambit of even the very top WCBB coaches.
There would still be 280+ schools left in NCAA D1, and they could all still compete for the same D1 National Championship. And by removing the 65 P5 schools, a lot more D1 schools will have a shot at the title. More importantly, the average D1 game should become more competitive and interesting without the schools that sop up 95% of the high school AA's.
Sounds like a reasonable idea to me. |
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beknighted
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| Posted: 06/10/14 1:40 pm ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
All excellent points. Rider and Rutgers do not belong in the same division in basketball -- they are not close to playing the same game.
So the NCAA caves, gives the power conferences their own division with its own rules, and most likely its own tournament. Then again, they might decide to keep the tournament as is and invite the top two divisions -- with of course the power conferences getting a guarantee of more slots in the bracket.
We've got a lot of posturing going on at this point, though part of it is related to the various lawsuits aimed at the NCAA. If the NCAA does go bankrupt, or chooses to do so, the power conferences seem prepared to go it alone. |
I think they would prefer to keep all of current Div 1 in the basketball, baseball, golf, volleyball, lacrosse, and all the other tournaments. I haven't really seen any strong sentiment for breaking those up into the haves and the have nots. Indeed, I think keeping those together is the main reason for staying in the NCAA. That does leave the problem of how to play tournaments among teams playing by different rules.
I suppose it could be argued that with a few exceptions in each sport, that imbalance largely exists already today. |
Just for the record, the only time Rutgers and Rider played, the score was 90-42. After the game, CVS made the team work on defensive drills. [I'm making that part up, although being CVS that probably was standard procedure.]
Anyway, assuming the NCAA doesn't get crushed in the antitrust suit that just went to trial, I think the most likely result is some kind of super-division for football with the structure of everything else staying more or less the same, as suggested above. Basketball, where teams outside the power conferences do well in the tournament all the time - including, it's worth mentioning, this year's women's champions - probably is the big reason that the power conferences wouldn't break up with the NCAA, because a separate basketball championship wouldn't be viewed as legitimate. While football definitely is the golden egg, men's basketball is a silver egg, and they wouldn't want to mess it up.
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GEF34
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| Posted: 06/10/14 7:47 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
There would still be 280+ schools left in NCAA D1, and they could all still compete for the same D1 National Championship. And by removing the 65 P5 schools, a lot more D1 schools will have a shot at the title. More importantly, the average D1 game should become more competitive and interesting without the schools that sop up 95% of the high school AA's. |
It would be interesting to see how this all plays out with Connecticut, will they still have the appeal over the top recruits.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 06/10/14 11:50 pm ::: |
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| GEF34 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
There would still be 280+ schools left in NCAA D1, and they could all still compete for the same D1 National Championship. And by removing the 65 P5 schools, a lot more D1 schools will have a shot at the title. More importantly, the average D1 game should become more competitive and interesting without the schools that sop up 95% of the high school AA's. |
It would be interesting to see how this all plays out with Connecticut, will they still have the appeal over the top recruits. |
UConn is admittedly in a uniquely oddball situation in the sport of WCBB -- the dominant team in a mediocre mid-major conference. However, lots of people seem to believe that UConn still has a chance of getting into the ACC or Big Ten.
I'd speculate UConn would have an even better chance of getting full or partial P5 membership if the P5 secession happens. First, the P5 Association may not think 65 teams are enough, so they may be more inclined to extend additional full invitations after a secession than before.
Second, it's not unheard of for the same school to be in different conferences or even NCAA divisions in different sports. While the P5 group is mainly focused on the golden egg of football, men's basketball is, as beknighted nicely put it, the silver egg. Hence, it would seem quite sensible for the P5 to invite UConn in for basketball membership after secession even if not for full membership. |
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GEF34
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| Posted: 06/11/14 12:56 am ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| GEF34 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
There would still be 280+ schools left in NCAA D1, and they could all still compete for the same D1 National Championship. And by removing the 65 P5 schools, a lot more D1 schools will have a shot at the title. More importantly, the average D1 game should become more competitive and interesting without the schools that sop up 95% of the high school AA's. |
It would be interesting to see how this all plays out with Connecticut, will they still have the appeal over the top recruits. |
UConn is admittedly in a uniquely oddball situation in the sport of WCBB -- the dominant team in a mediocre mid-major conference. However, lots of people seem to believe that UConn still has a chance of getting into the ACC or Big Ten.
I'd speculate UConn would have an even better chance of getting full or partial P5 membership if the P5 secession happens. First, the P5 Association may not think 65 teams are enough, so they may be more inclined to extend additional full invitations after a secession than before.
Second, it's not unheard of for the same school to be in different conferences or even NCAA divisions in different sports. While the P5 group is mainly focused on the golden egg of football, men's basketball is, as beknighted nicely put it, the silver egg. Hence, it would seem quite sensible for the P5 to invite UConn in for basketball membership after secession even if not for full membership. |
Most schools that have sports in difference conferences is because the main conference doesn't have that sport, of course not always the case, but that is generally the reason.
And as far as them being invited, it will really depend on that the schools thoughts are about Connecticut, if say they don't like Connecticut, they may see this as the perfect out so they don't have to play them. Or say Connecticut Athletics feels slighted for not having all of their sports invited so they don't allow some of their sports to go.
I have no idea how things will turn out and what people involved are thinking, but I wouldn't think it's outside the realm of possibility Connecticut Women's Basketball will not be part of the new division. And it would be interesting to see how it all developed if this happened.
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petrel
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| Posted: 06/11/14 9:38 am ::: |
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Just for grins, here is a list of all of the sports that the NCAA had a national championship. I decided to list the 2012-13 academic year champions because their championships are complete.
All championships are DI championships unless indicated in parentheses. All schools with a ***** next to them are non-P5 conference schools.
Baseball: UCLA
Men's golf: Alabama
Women's golf: USC
Men's Lacrosse: Duke
Women's Lacrosse: North Carolina
Rowing: Ohio State
Softball: Oklahoma
Men's Tennis: Virginia
Women's Tennis: Stanford
Men's Outdoor Track and Field: Florida, Texas A&M
Women's Outdoor Track and Field: Kansas
Men's Volleyball: UC Irvine (NC) *****
Women's Water Polo: USC (NC)
Men's Basketball: Louisville
Women's Basketball: Connecticut *****
Bowling: Nebraska (NC)
Fencing: Princeton (NC) *****
Men's Gymnastics: Michigan
Women's Gynastics: Florida
Men's Hockey: Yale *****
Women's Hockey: Minnesota (NC)
Rifle: West Virginia (NC)
Skiing: Colorado (NC)
Men's Swimming and Diving: Michigan
Women's Swimming and Diving: Georgia
Men's Indoor Track and Field: Arkansas
Women's Indoor Track and Field: Oregon
Wrestling: Penn State
Men's Cross Country: Oklahoma State
Women's Cross Country: Oregon
Field Hockey: Princeton *****
Football: Alabama (FCS)
Men's Soccer: Indiana
Women's Soccer: North Carolina
Women's Volleyball: Texas
Men's Water Polo: USC (NC)
Given the fact that the P5 schools dominate the championships anyway, it's not impossible for them to make the decision to exclude Connecticut. But, as said earlier, it's untelling what they'll actually decide.
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purduefanatic
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| Posted: 06/11/14 10:10 am ::: |
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How many P5 teams even play hockey, men's or women's? I mean, you have Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio State, Boston College, Penn State, Notre Dame...certainly not a big sport for SEC, Big XII, Pac-12 or most ACC schools.
Other than some Pac-12 schools (Stanford, UCLA, USC), the only P5 men's volleyball programs I see are Ohio State and Rutgers (competes at the D-III level). In fact, looked like there are only about 50-60 schools that even have this sport and compete at the D-I level.
79 schools participate in Division I field hockey and there are 17 P5 schools that compete: Boston College, Cal, Duke, Indiana, Iowa, Louisville, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Stanford, Virginia and Wake Forest.
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ArtBest23
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| Posted: 06/11/14 11:00 am ::: |
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| GEF34 wrote: |
Most schools that have sports in difference conferences is because the main conference doesn't have that sport, of course not always the case, but that is generally the reason. |
Actually, I think it's always the case. I believe the rules prohibit a school from playing a sport in a different conference if the sport is offered by the school's conference.
As for hockey, it's traditionally had its own conference structure. The main conferences were traditionally the WCHA, CCHA, ECAC and Hockey East (with one or two minor Eastern conferences. The Big 10 altered that by making it a league sport, so the CCHA disappeared, there's a new NCHC, ND moved to Hockey East, etc. But because of this history, Hockey is largely irrelevant to conference realignment discussions, and I would bet it would remain seperate even if the P5 split away.
Women's hockey is far far smaller in scope.
By the way, mens hockey is generally a money maker for the major players. People forget about it when talking about revenue sports. And it is a great source of desirable programming for conference networks which is what prompted the B10's move.
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purduefanatic
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| Posted: 06/11/14 12:47 pm ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| By the way, mens hockey is generally a money maker for the major players. People forget about it when talking about revenue sports. And it is a great source of desirable programming for conference networks which is what prompted the B10's move. |
This is very true...men's hockey is the premier sport and cash cow at several schools, such as Maine, New Hampshire, Boston University, North Dakota, Denver, etc. The Big Ten realized that there was another opportunity there given the success and traditions of members Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan State. College hockey is actually a lot of fun and pretty intense...worth the price of admission.
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GEF34
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| Posted: 06/12/14 12:58 am ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| GEF34 wrote: |
Most schools that have sports in difference conferences is because the main conference doesn't have that sport, of course not always the case, but that is generally the reason. |
Actually, I think it's always the case. I believe the rules prohibit a school from playing a sport in a different conference if the sport is offered by the school's conference.
As for hockey, it's traditionally had its own conference structure. The main conferences were traditionally the WCHA, CCHA, ECAC and Hockey East (with one or two minor Eastern conferences. The Big 10 altered that by making it a league sport, so the CCHA disappeared, there's a new NCHC, ND moved to Hockey East, etc. But because of this history, Hockey is largely irrelevant to conference realignment discussions, and I would bet it would remain seperate even if the P5 split away.
Women's hockey is far far smaller in scope.
By the way, mens hockey is generally a money maker for the major players. People forget about it when talking about revenue sports. And it is a great source of desirable programming for conference networks which is what prompted the B10's move. |
I do know some schools have sports in different conferences for example when Cal State Fullerton had wrestling and gymnastics, wrestling was in the Pac-10, gymnastics was in the WAC and all other sports were in the Big West. I know the Pac-10 has gymnastics, but the WAC doesn't have wrestling, but I don't know why gymnastics was in the WAC as opposed to the Pac-10, I mean competitively the WAC was a better fit, but I don't know if that's the reason why. And I figured that was always the case, but since I didn't know all of the reasons for all the schools I choose to use the word generally as opposed to always.
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Michael
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| Posted: 07/01/14 6:22 am ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| GEF34 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
There would still be 280+ schools left in NCAA D1, and they could all still compete for the same D1 National Championship. And by removing the 65 P5 schools, a lot more D1 schools will have a shot at the title. More importantly, the average D1 game should become more competitive and interesting without the schools that sop up 95% of the high school AA's. |
It would be interesting to see how this all plays out with Connecticut, will they still have the appeal over the top recruits. |
UConn is admittedly in a uniquely oddball situation in the sport of WCBB -- the dominant team in a mediocre mid-major conference. However, lots of people seem to believe that UConn still has a chance of getting into the ACC or Big Ten.
I'd speculate UConn would have an even better chance of getting full or partial P5 membership if the P5 secession happens. First, the P5 Association may not think 65 teams are enough, so they may be more inclined to extend additional full invitations after a secession than before.
Second, it's not unheard of for the same school to be in different conferences or even NCAA divisions in different sports. While the P5 group is mainly focused on the golden egg of football, men's basketball is, as beknighted nicely put it, the silver egg. Hence, it would seem quite sensible for the P5 to invite UConn in for basketball membership after secession even if not for full membership. |
There is no chance of UConn in the Big Ten, UConn doesn't meet the Big Ten's academic standards. Unlike any other conference, the Big Ten also has an academic/research arm, the CIC, that shares many millions of dollars every year in research grants. Membership in the CIC was the biggest sticking point when Notre Dame asked to join the Big Ten a decade or so ago. There are only a few schools that the Big will consider for membership at this point, and AAU (American Association of Universities) membership is one of the non-negotiable criteria.
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Michael
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
Posts: 11050
Location: Lost in D.C.
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| Posted: 07/01/14 9:32 am ::: |
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| Michael wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| UConn is admittedly in a uniquely oddball situation in the sport of WCBB -- the dominant team in a mediocre mid-major conference. However, lots of people seem to believe that UConn still has a chance of getting into the ACC or Big Ten. |
There is no chance of UConn in the Big Ten, UConn doesn't meet the Big Ten's academic standards. Unlike any other conference, the Big Ten also has an academic/research arm, the CIC, that shares many millions of dollars every year in research grants. Membership in the CIC was the biggest sticking point when Notre Dame asked to join the Big Ten a decade or so ago. There are only a few schools that the Big will consider for membership at this point, and AAU (American Association of Universities) membership is one of the non-negotiable criteria. |
I've always thought that UConn was a better fit for the ACC than the B1G, particularly after the B1G took Rutgers. (Let me say that again because it sounds so good, especially today: particularly after the B1G took Rutgers.) The ACC is much more basketball-centric than the B1G, and UConn's really a basketball school.
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dinkytown
Joined: 18 Sep 2011
Posts: 2591
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| Posted: 07/01/14 10:50 am ::: |
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| Michael wrote: |
There is no chance of UConn in the Big Ten, UConn doesn't meet the Big Ten's academic standards. Unlike any other conference, the Big Ten also has an academic/research arm, the CIC, that shares many millions of dollars every year in research grants. Membership in the CIC was the biggest sticking point when Notre Dame asked to join the Big Ten a decade or so ago. There are only a few schools that the Big will consider for membership at this point, and AAU (American Association of Universities) membership is one of the non-negotiable criteria. |
Is Nebraska close to re-joining the AAU? I know they fell off right after they accepted Big Ten membership and thought they were close to re-joining. Didn't see them on the AAU list yet though.
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