(03-15-2018 05:41 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  I'm not sure that this 'raid the A-10 thing' is really still a thing. The problem for the Big East is this....is there really a program that is consistent like Xavier? Dayton might get there. But the A-10 teams tend to rotate amongst themselves. No one program dominates consistently. Even VCU, Davidson, and Dayton can be streaky.

Basically, St Louis is a 'fill in the geographic blank' team. But they're really up and down. Dayton is probably blocked by Xavier. UMass is not a real option because they have a football team to take care of. And to be honest, they've been one of the WORST programs in the A-10 recently. They've had exactly 2 decent seasons in the last 20 years (a one and done NCAA bid (blowout loss) and two NIT runs). That's not much of a BE call up resume. Richmond or VCU? VCU has the basketball resume (barely) of a call up but the institutional fit stinks. Richmond does have a good institutional fit but just hasn't been very good recently. They haven't had a 'we'd finish in the top 5' of the BE is 7 years or so. Davidson? They fit institutionally, and they've been mid range BE competitive recently, but how much of it is "coach" vs program? There's a DePaul risk there. And does the BE want another geographic outlier?

I also think that since St Louis just makes a lot of sense with Creighton and Marquette and DePaul in the league, and the league HASN'T asked them, that its a sign that you have to be a higher profile program than SLU to get a call.

So I think there's really not any teams East of Spokane that really fit that profile.

I agree with your points. Dayton, St. Louis, VCU, Richmond, Davidson, and others are fine basketball programs. I think, though, that the Big East is, for lack of a better word, happy with the status quo. Their contracts with MSG and FS1 go for another seven years after this year, so there is nothing pressing for expansion. They also have recent memories of an ever expanding conference that was fun and had a lot of great basketball, but that fun came at a cost. Their old rivalries we're diminished under the old version of the Big East because double round robins we're gone. They also saw a bunch of long time partners walk away not long after the conference reached 16 members. They are doing really, really well just as they are. I think they'd really hesitate even with UConn.

Unlike five years ago, the BigEast is now a league that no one will leave. Only the Ivy, Big Ten, and SEC can say that about themselves definitively. So, I can understand if the Big East is extremely cautious about expanding beyond their ten.