OT: Big South expansion

[Sean Miller Fan]

They are adding Hampton and USC Upstate to get to 12. Hampton becomes only the 2nd HBCU to play in a D1 non-HBCU conference. Can you name the other?

This leaves the A-Sun at the 8 team minimum once North Alabama joins this summer.

 

[R-M-U-h-o-o-p-s-f-a-n]

They are adding Hampton and USC Upstate to get to 12. Hampton becomes only the 2nd HBCU to play in a D1 non-HBCU conference. Can you name the other?

This leaves the A-Sun at the 8 team minimum once North Alabama joins this summer.

A-Sun teams can look at it from the positive that they have less teams to compete against? Lol. Better chance at making the Tourney.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

They are adding Hampton and USC Upstate to get to 12. Hampton becomes only the 2nd HBCU to play in a D1 non-HBCU conference. Can you name the other?

This leaves the A-Sun at the 8 team minimum once North Alabama joins this summer.

A-Sun teams can look at it from the positive that they have less teams to compete against? Lol. Better chance at making the Tourney.

Yea, I have no idea why a 1 bid league would want more than the 8 team minimum. How much more money/prestige/recruiting markets does Hampton and USC Upstate REALLY bring the Big South?

 

[ameoba defense]

Yea, I have no idea why a 1 bid league would want more than the 8 team minimum. How much more money/prestige/recruiting markets does Hampton and USC Upstate REALLY bring the Big South?

Ten teams allows an 18 game league schedule. 8 teams only gives you 14, which at that level means tons of road games ooc, as few teams are willing to play them at home.

 

[Fk_Pitt]

Ten teams allows an 18 game league schedule. 8 teams only gives you 14, which at that level means tons of road games ooc, as few teams are willing to play them at home.

The Big South footprint is Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. I don't think they go into Georgia or Tennessee. So they market themselves as a conference that requires less travel to road games, and less road costs, limited plane trips for conference games (if any). I know this well. My daughter is an athlete and all conference Big South player!

 

[ameoba defense]

The Big South footprint is Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. I don't think they go into Georgia or Tennessee. So they market themselves as a conference that requires less travel to road games, and less road costs, limited plane trips for conference games (if any). I know this well. My daughter is an athlete and all conference Big South player!

Sounds like a league that knows, and accepts what they are, as opposed to having delusions of grandeur.

 

[Fk_Pitt]

Sounds like a league that knows, and accepts what they are, as opposed to having delusions of grandeur.

Well. I don't know if it's marketing spin. But it's definitely a niche. They take pride in maximizing athletes classroom time instead of flying them all over the country during the season. Coastal Carolina however must not have found value in it, as they bolted for the Sunbelt Conference last year. Football drove that decision as is often the case. That conference footprint now extends from Myrtle Beach all the way to Texas and points in between. My kid has a former club teammate from North Allegheny who plays at Coastal. She now spends half her season on airplanes. Not what she signed up for when she committed, but the travel can be cool.

Bringing in Hampton and Upstate make up for a couple schools like Coastal who left for football reasons.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Yea, I have no idea why a 1 bid league would want more than the 8 team minimum.

Because if you only have eight teams in your league and two of them bolt for somewhere else you are pretty well screwed.

 

[BFo8]

Because if you only have eight teams in your league and two of them bolt for somewhere else you are pretty well screwed.

Similar to what happened to the WAC a few years ago.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Yea, I have no idea why a 1 bid league would want more than the 8 team minimum.

Because if you only have eight teams in your league and two of them bolt for somewhere else you are pretty well screwed.

Yea but then you add in a D2 team and you are back with your auto bid with EVEN less competition because that new team isn't eligible for the NCAAT for like a million years

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Sounds like a league that knows, and accepts what they are, as opposed to having delusions of grandeur.

Well. I don't know if it's marketing spin. But it's definitely a niche. They take pride in maximizing athletes classroom time instead of flying them all over the country during the season. Coastal Carolina however must not have found value in it, as they bolted for the Sunbelt Conference last year. Football drove that decision as is often the case. That conference footprint now extends from Myrtle Beach all the way to Texas and points in between. My kid has a former club teammate from North Allegheny who plays at Coastal. She now spends half her season on airplanes. Not what she signed up for when she committed, but the travel can be cool.

Bringing in Hampton and Upstate make up for a couple schools like Coastal who left for football reasons.

Coastal has high aspirations. It has a pretty great location and probably has aspirations of making a UCF or USF rise to the American one day. It would take further movement but you never know. They grew out of the Big South.

Football was the reason Hampton joined the Big South. They want the auto bid to the playoffs. MEAC, SWAC, and Ivy League don't play in the FCS playoffs

 

[R-M-U-h-o-o-p-s-f-a-n]

Yea but then you add in a D2 team and you are back with your auto bid with EVEN less competition because that new team isn't eligible for the NCAAT for like a million years

Lol ya that's what the leagues with 8 or so have been doing. Just add a D2 then ur eligible for the auto-bid again. The new team isn't eligible for the Tourney for at least 4-5 years.

 

[Fk_Pitt]

Coastal has high aspirations. It has a pretty great location and probably has aspirations of making a UCF or USF rise to the American one day. It would take further movement but you never know. They grew out of the Big South.

Football was the reason Hampton joined the Big South. They want the auto bid to the playoffs. MEAC, SWAC, and Ivy League don't play in the FCS playoffs

No they didn't grow out of the big south other than the fact that they want bigger football. They won a baseball national title last year, but that's baseball. Baseball in the south is a bigger deal and big south baseball is pretty good. The baseball stadiums in the Big South are unreal. The football stadiums? I'm not sure. I don't think the football is very good at all. Coastal is essentially a poor school academically that wants bigger time football.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Because if you only have eight teams in your league and two of them bolt for somewhere else you are pretty well screwed.

Similar to what happened to the WAC a few years ago.

In case anyone is interested, the Big West recently poached Cal State-Bakersfield from the WAC and UC-San Diego from D2 which gives them 11 members. Somehow, the UC/CSU Big West (+Hawaii) did not have a school in the San Diego market.

The WAC backfilled with California Baptist which will give them the mandatory minimum of 8.

Its amazing the WAC keeps hanging on but I don't know how much longer it can go. Grand Canyon's crazy good fanbase, arena, and money will have them in a new conference soon. New Mexico State would love to leave if it could. Chicago State may shut down completely and the Summit League could always take back UMKC.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Its amazing the WAC keeps hanging on but I don't know how much longer it can go.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away the WAC was a pretty good conference.

 

[California Panther]

Chicago State may shut down completely

Why, they scored 8 points in the first half against Northwestern tonight, guess they went for the 2-point conversion.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Chicago State may shut down completely

Why, they scored 8 points in the first half against Northwestern tonight, guess they went for the 2-point conversion.

Financial reasons but it runs deeper than that. Truly unbelievable what has happened there and even more unbelievable that they insist on remaining in Division 1. The university only had 86, yes 86 freshmen enroll last fall. Their basketball team is only allowed to recruit in a 200 mile radius so they often make offers based on YouTube videos.

As for the WAC, replying to Joe, I remember those days. They were the first mega-conference at 16 teams but Utah, BYU, and a few others didn't like splitting the revenue 16 ways so they left to form the Mountain West. Ironically, Utah and BYU left their creation, the Mountain West and all 12 of its football members once played in the WAC, 9 of them in the 16 team megaconference.

Speaking of the Mountain West, which only has 11 for basketball, they should read this board more often because I suggested they should add Wichita State and Gonzaga (which don't have football programs), and BYU (with an ND/ACC like deal allowing them to remain independent in football). Those 3 plus UNLV, SDSU, and teams like UNM, Colorado State, and others who are occasionally good would be a really good league.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Why, they scored 8 points in the first half against Northwestern tonight, guess they went for the 2-point conversion.

I think their kicker got hurt so they had to go for two.

 

[TempleBAPittMPA]

Financial reasons but it runs deeper than that. Truly unbelievable what has happened there and even more unbelievable that they insist on remaining in Division 1. The university only had 86, yes 86 freshmen enroll last fall. Their basketball team is only allowed to recruit in a 200 mile radius so they often make offers based on YouTube videos.

From what I recall when I lived in the Chicago area 20 or so years ago, they had serious financial MISMANAGEMENT back then (I think a university president was prosecuted for fraud, embezzlement, or something similar). It's conceivable that they never remedied that.

 

[TempleBAPittMPA]

They are adding Hampton and USC Upstate to get to 12. Hampton becomes only the 2nd HBCU to play in a D1 non-HBCU conference. Can you name the other?

Tennessee State, the alma mater of Joe Gilliam.

 

[goalieman]

Tennessee State, the alma mater of Joe Gilliam.

Ed "Too Tall" Jones was a teammate of Gilliam's at Tennessee State, I believe.