Mid-major expansion stuff
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
The NEC has gone to shit. The only conference in history where its champion hasnt won an NCAAT game. 3 recent D2 additions plus St. Francis, Wagner, LIU, FDU, CCSU, Sacred Heart. Glad RMU escaped that.
Yes. LIU got a 13 seed with that kid thrown out of SHU for rape back in the 90s. CCSU got a 14 seed against us. Wagner a 15 vs us. RMU was jobbed vs Nova as a 15. Those were the glory days
A 13 seed might be an improvement over the current seeds the conference gets, but I would not call it special.
Chicago State finally has a home! The NEC it is. The NEC is losing Merrimack and Sacred Heart to the MAAC. They added LeMoyne in July and now Chicago State in July 2024. Chicago State is probably going to be adding football so that will help the NEC.
My guess on NEC travel partners. They usually play Thursdays and Saturdays.
Chicago St/St. Francis
FDU/LeMoyne
Wagner/LIU
Stonehill/CCSU
My guess on NEC travel partners. They usually play Thursdays and Saturdays.
Chicago St/St. Francis
FDU/LeMoyne
Wagner/LIU
Stonehill/CCSU
Right? I'm going to head over to Loretto the first time Chicago State visits.
I hope someone’s taking action on whether Chicago State launches a football program or dissolves entirely first… OK, maybe that’s a little harsh.
Chicago St 75
#25 Northwestern 73
Saw the post about Chicago St moving to the NEC and was going to comment about how the record wasn’t much better but they had been much more respectable the past 2 seasons. Did not think they were capable of this kind of road win though.
#25 Northwestern 73
Saw the post about Chicago St moving to the NEC and was going to comment about how the record wasn’t much better but they had been much more respectable the past 2 seasons. Did not think they were capable of this kind of road win though.
I wouldn’t be surprised if their head coach, Gerald Gillion, moves up sooner than later. IIRC, they surprised people with how they finished last season as well.
There’s taking a program over from nothing, but what Gillion is trying to do is even a step above that. Hes done a great job there the last couple years.
Washington State and Oregon State to the WCC. They will remain in the Pac 2 for football for now with a scheduling agreement of playing 6 games/year vs the Mountain West.
With Pac 12 basketball officially gone, this opens up another at-large bid.
With Pac 12 basketball officially gone, this opens up another at-large bid.
Oh well, I guess you can't tell the whole story since it doesn't fit your agendas (how many thousands of them are there anyway). THE WHOLE STORY is its only a 2 year deal. But half truths fit you better than the whole story. Please go to the Hugley posts and tell how he humiliated UNC and Bacot. Your silence there is telling.
UMass to the MAC in the first major downgrade of basketball in this expansion era. The A10 is a 1 bid league more often than not but there's always that hope a 2nd or 3rd team can get in and once in awhile they do. I definitely think the A10 has to do more MWC style NET gaming because its no worse than the MWC but they dont have the metrics. UMass leaving A10 basketball is a bit sad, especially going to the MAC. Some of us grew up on UMass basketball being a really good program.
As far as the MAC goes, they also need to be better and need to start gaming. I think some of these leagues should do what the Sun Belt tried a few years ago. You play everyone once, your rival twice, then your last X games are determined by NET, standings, etc.
Example, Akron should play the other 12 teams once plus Kent St. That's 13 games. The final 5-7 games should be based on where they fall in the conference standings and NET rankings. So maybe Akron, Kent, UMass plus 3 more wind up at the top of the league, they play their final 5 games vs each other.
This leaves the A10 with 14, which is more than enough but you still wonder if they would needlessly backfill. I still say they should add a few and break into 2 legally separate conferences with each having an auto bid.
Atlantic 10 East
URI
Fordham
St. Joseph's
LaSalle
GWU
GMU
VCU
Richmond
Atlantic 10 West
St. Bonaventure
Duquesne
Davidson
Dayton
Loyola
Saint Louis
Then add Wichita State and 1 from the CAA (Charleston or Hofstra/Stony Brook for more NY presence or Northeastern to backfill for UMass)
As far as the MAC goes, they also need to be better and need to start gaming. I think some of these leagues should do what the Sun Belt tried a few years ago. You play everyone once, your rival twice, then your last X games are determined by NET, standings, etc.
Example, Akron should play the other 12 teams once plus Kent St. That's 13 games. The final 5-7 games should be based on where they fall in the conference standings and NET rankings. So maybe Akron, Kent, UMass plus 3 more wind up at the top of the league, they play their final 5 games vs each other.
This leaves the A10 with 14, which is more than enough but you still wonder if they would needlessly backfill. I still say they should add a few and break into 2 legally separate conferences with each having an auto bid.
Atlantic 10 East
URI
Fordham
St. Joseph's
LaSalle
GWU
GMU
VCU
Richmond
Atlantic 10 West
St. Bonaventure
Duquesne
Davidson
Dayton
Loyola
Saint Louis
Then add Wichita State and 1 from the CAA (Charleston or Hofstra/Stony Brook for more NY presence or Northeastern to backfill for UMass)
Another WAC exodus. Grand Canyon and Seattle to the WCC and Texas-Rio Grand Valley to the Southland. The WAC is back to the 8 team minimum so they'll probably backfill.
GCU and Seattle seemed like no-brainers for the WCC forever so they finally made the switch. I'd expect GCU to be the #3 program in the WCC right away with Gonzaga and SMC and maybe they can land some at-large bids if the WCC can figure out a way to game the NET like the Mountain West.
Missouri State is also leaving the Missouri Valley to join CUSA.
GCU and Seattle seemed like no-brainers for the WCC forever so they finally made the switch. I'd expect GCU to be the #3 program in the WCC right away with Gonzaga and SMC and maybe they can land some at-large bids if the WCC can figure out a way to game the NET like the Mountain West.
Missouri State is also leaving the Missouri Valley to join CUSA.
Keep an eye out on the MVC targeting UT-Arlington + St. Thomas and the Summit League looking at Utah Valley.
I dont understand why the MVC doesnt add North Dakota State and South Dakota State. They are already in the league for football (though the football league is a separate entity) and their basketball programs are good.
There are a few elements to this:
1. NDSU and SDSU like being with UND and USD from an intuitional and traveling perspective. If they get the perks of being in the MVFC while still being the favorites to win the Summit every year in MBB, why move?
2. The MVC is a basketball-first conference and their members, especially the smaller schools like Drake, would prefer schools who are basketball schools and aren’t a threat to leave for the FBS like MO State just did. They also want to target schools in large markets for academic recruiting purposes, which is why they went after UTA, UMKC, UNO, UWM, etc. last cycle. And frankly, there’s the issue of Ohio and Indiana schools driving to Fargo and Brookings.
The MVC doesn't have any Ohio or Eastern Indiana schools. The furthest east they go is Western Indiana. Driving to the Dakotas wouldn’t be ideal but they are also considering UT-Arlington, which would require a flight. Can these schools fly to the Dakotas?
Also, do you think NDSU and SDSU would turn down an MVC invite? I dont.
Yeah well they are the only conference in history to have their 2nd place team win a tourney game as an 16 seed and the only conference ever to knock off a 1 seed in the first round.
Thanks for the correction on OH/IN, I was thinking of the Horizon League. Fargo has an international airport but Brookings does not.
Brookings is 1 hour from Sioux Falls, which I am guessing has a decent airport.
A couple really nice pickups for the WCC. Grand Canyon obviously, but Seattle also has built a solid program under Chris Victor the last few years.
St Thomas has a lot of potential as a basketball program.
Absolutely. They see themselves as peers with Marquette and have aspirations for the Big East, or at the very least the A-10. Not to mention the new arena on the way with the capability to play bigger games at the Xcel Center.
What's really crazy is there are only 2 D1 teams in Minnesota, a state with almost 6 million people. Not everyone is a Gophers fan. Seems like they have a lot of potential to develop a very strong fanbase. Marquette has history but I could see them becoming a Creighton.
Yeah, that fanbase has a lot of deep pockets and has been integral to their success moving up from D3 thus far. I follow them from a distance since they’re in the same conference as the local school here (UMKC), and they were just as formidable as the Dakotas and Oral Roberts this year, who took a sharp step backwards from the year before.
Also, since we’re talking about mid-major realignment:
1. Expect more movement in the CAA, specially with William & Mary and Villanova (football only).
2. The WAC might fall apart completely as the last remaining Texas schools are reaching out to the Southland. Utah Valley and Cal Baptist are two very solid basketball programs who might be left in a bad situation moving forward.
1. Expect more movement in the CAA, specially with William & Mary and Villanova (football only).
2. The WAC might fall apart completely as the last remaining Texas schools are reaching out to the Southland. Utah Valley and Cal Baptist are two very solid basketball programs who might be left in a bad situation moving forward.
Those schools leaving the Southland for the WAC never made much sense to me. I think I posted that in this thread. If they go back, I'd guess the WAC backfills again as they've always done. Probably from D2s but I'm not sure who is left. Just for kicks, I'd like to see Alaska-Anchorage and Alaska-Fairbanks and the D2 Hawaii schools (Chaminade, Hawaii Pacific, and Hawaii-Hilo) go D1 but the WAC schools that are left wont want to that expense. The WAC may only be left with the 3 Utah schools (SUU, UVU, and UTU) and Cal Baptist so they may not have many options.
Probably part of the reason why the Dakota schools have been dominant at the FCS football level.
Stephen F Austin from the WAC back to the Southland.
WAC down 7. 3 Utah Schools (Tech, Valley, SUU), 3 Texas schools (Tarleton, UT-Arlington, Abilene Christian) and California Baptist.
Not sure the WAC can survive this time as the Utah schools have options in the Big Sky, Summit, or other leagues. UT-Arlington could find themselves in the Missouri Valley and ACU and Tarleton could have options in the Southland or Summit. I could see the WAC finally dying and Cal Baptist going back to D2. Unless.....they become the most fun league in D1 by adding the 3 Hawaii D2 schools, the 2 Alaska D2 schools, and the only Canadien NCAA school (Simon Fraser in British Columbia). This seems far-fetched and I dont even know if these schools would be interested in D1 but from the WAC's perspective, you'd never lose those schools to other conferences. Could be hard to recruit new teams though to make 1 Hawaii and 1 Alaska trip per year.
WAC down 7. 3 Utah Schools (Tech, Valley, SUU), 3 Texas schools (Tarleton, UT-Arlington, Abilene Christian) and California Baptist.
Not sure the WAC can survive this time as the Utah schools have options in the Big Sky, Summit, or other leagues. UT-Arlington could find themselves in the Missouri Valley and ACU and Tarleton could have options in the Southland or Summit. I could see the WAC finally dying and Cal Baptist going back to D2. Unless.....they become the most fun league in D1 by adding the 3 Hawaii D2 schools, the 2 Alaska D2 schools, and the only Canadien NCAA school (Simon Fraser in British Columbia). This seems far-fetched and I dont even know if these schools would be interested in D1 but from the WAC's perspective, you'd never lose those schools to other conferences. Could be hard to recruit new teams though to make 1 Hawaii and 1 Alaska trip per year.
The Summit League wants Utah Valley (driven by Denver) but not Utah Tech or Southern Utah. If the Summit was going to go after a football school, Northern Colorado of the Big Sky would be their first choice.
UVU isn't far from SLC, a pretty good media market. Utah Tech and SUU are in the middle of nowhere in the southern Utah desert, close to the AZ/NV borders. The Summit has some pretty good media markets and can add 2 more if they take UVU and UTA. They have Minneapolis, Omaha, Denver, KC, and Tulsa.
All good points. The one thing I’ll add is that from talking with a few people in the UMKC athletic dept, Denver has wanted a “traveling partner” for a while now, and the Summit wasn’t really opposed to that, but they didn’t want to add a school for that sole purpose and then have the Pios leave for the WCC soon after, creating another isolated school.
Now that the WCC is likely done with expansion for a while, and given what’s happened to the WAC, I think it now makes sense for all parties involved to move forward with it.
Mountain West adds UTEP from CUSA, Hawaii from the Big West and Grand Canyon from the WAC. GCU was supposed to join the WCC next year but have changed their plans. Hawaii was already playing football in the MWC so now they are a full member. GCU doesn't have football but will play all other sports in the MWC. You'd think that being in Phoenix and having the great fanbase that they have, GCU would eventually start up football.
New Mountain West
"Mountain teams"
Wyoming
Air Force
New Mexico
UTEP
"West teams:
UNLV
Nevada
Grand Canyon
San Jose State
Hawaii
The hope for the ACC is that this new Mountain West is only a 1 or 2 bid league. And then with the WCC having lost BYU a few years ago, and now Gonzaga, and not getting GCU, hopefully they turn into a 1 bid league. But then the Pac 12 is like the old Mountain West + Gonzaga so they'll probably game the NET all the way to 6 bids.
New Mountain West
"Mountain teams"
Wyoming
Air Force
New Mexico
UTEP
"West teams:
UNLV
Nevada
Grand Canyon
San Jose State
Hawaii
The hope for the ACC is that this new Mountain West is only a 1 or 2 bid league. And then with the WCC having lost BYU a few years ago, and now Gonzaga, and not getting GCU, hopefully they turn into a 1 bid league. But then the Pac 12 is like the old Mountain West + Gonzaga so they'll probably game the NET all the way to 6 bids.
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