(11-01-2010 10:33 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  

(11-01-2010 10:11 AM)JunkYardCard Wrote:  

(11-01-2010 09:29 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I think it's going to be REALLY hard to go up to 20. Remember all of the Big Ten expansion news stories that talked about how expanding to 16 schools was almost a certainty (and I had some very knowledgeable people tell me that directly, too). When push came to shove, though, the conference presidents showed that they are very conservative by nature and they chose to add the bare minimum that will maximize revenues instead of the "world domination" schemes that bloggers (like myself) love to write about. Note that the NY Post article stated that the non-football members don't want to expand the overall league past 16, so jumping up to 20 is unrealistic. We may see 18 (TCU plus one other football school if Villanova doesn't rise), but even that can't necessarily be counted on if the non-football members are as dug in on capping the league at 16 as they seem to be. There's going to be a lot of give and take here if there's any movement at all.

Isn't that really a reflection of how tightly knit the Big Ten is? For example, Iowa not wanting to see OSU take extended breaks from its schedule? The Big East doesn't have this "problem" so to speak. They might welcome divisions. For example, I don't think St. John's would miss having USF of the schedule AT ALL... EVER. Even though it's a good game, would UConn really miss playing Cincy in basketball?

And it's only 20 for basketball. Football would still only be 12. I think the only major problem with 20 for basketball is getting a fair share of bids to the NCAA tournament.

I think that is really a good point. While there are certainly some lessons to be learned from the B10's toe dipping into a 16 team league it is not a perfect analogy just as the WAC's 16-team league wasn't a perfect template for the B10. Every league is unique and every situation is different.

For a myriad of reasons, I'm still not sure that the BE will expand past Villanova much less to 12 teams, but I think it is folly to reason, "Well, this is what happened with the B10 so this is what will happen with the BE." It simply doesn't work that way.

Excellent point. The BE is in it's infancy. The Big Ten is 115 years old. At the same stage of its development that the Big East is at, the Big Ten included the University of Chicago, which was later to leave, & hadn't yet added Michigan State, Penn State, or Nebraska. Ohio State wasn't even part of the league initially & was only added a dozen years down the road.