Big South addition of Campbell to help Longwood?

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/...25/267832/

I'd rather have Longwood in the ASUN than LMU or Savannah State.

No matter how you slice this....the atlantic sun is just not a stable conference.

When exactly is our "contract" up with the ASun?

I thought 2011-12 was our last year of our contract.

ETSU Joined in 2005
Since 2005 these schools have left or plan on leaving
Georgia State
GW
Florida Atlantic
Troy
UCF
Campbell

And do you have a point with all your negativity, Mr. Stateman?

Now how do we get UNF and Upstate to leave. I don't see any problem with the conference getting smaller. Atleast that way we'll be open for more non conference games. That is unless they make everyone play each other 3 times during the season.

Homework it's an catch 22...b/c no matter if teams leave or stay...the dynamics of the conference are just poor.

the issue/challenge with the A-Sun is that it is a "transitional" conference. there is very little that binds the various schools with very few exceptions. all are decent schools - several of the new DI schools will have a chance to be very good when they mature (FGCU, UNF) come to mind. the a-sun schools simply do not look like each other. keeping 8-10-12 schools happy and on the same page is difficult in the best of situations. when they have different funding models, different institutional philosophies, etc - it makes it even more difficult. that is a primary reason i would be in favor of etsu making a move to the ovc. those schools look much more like etsu than the a-sun schools do. by the way - the despite brian smith's crack reporting, the ovc never offerred membership to etsu two years ago. etsu begged to get in the ovc six years ago but because of its football rule at the time, could not offer membership. they changed their football rule and reached out to a number of schools to "take their temperature." president stanton embarrassed the ovc by how he made their overature to determine if there was still interest in membership into an a public spectacle to declare an invitation had been delivered. not too smooth.

the problem for the immediate future in the a-sun is that there is very little wiggle room at this point. if it loses a core member - its automatic bids will be at risk.

(05-13-2009 09:16 PM)Buc2002 Wrote:  Agreed. I think we just watched our basketball program go to the NCAAs and give No. 1 Pitt all they wanted. I think Campbell would like to have experienced that.

Don't know or care what Campbell would have liked, for me personally though I would have liked to see us not be a 16 seed, not have to play a #1 seed, and possibly win in the NCAA tourney.

Something not likely within the A-Sun

Campbell wants scholarship football. They hate Elon and want to one up them. I'm waiting on a spin that Campbell really doesn't belong, or it's a good thing for the A-Sun somehow. Someone please bring it out!

(05-13-2009 01:58 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  Wow, we really need to get out of this league. LMU will be the next team in from what I'm hearing.

And since Campbell plays non-scholie football, the Big South just took a non-football school. I wonder if our administration even looked at the Big South.

Maybe I'm wrong....but I don't consider the Big South to be any better than the A-sun.

(05-16-2009 09:42 AM)Goldfinger Wrote:  Maybe I'm wrong....but I don't consider the Big South to be any better than the A-sun.

Gold,

You are absolutely correct on that. The Campbell move really had nothing to do with competitiveness within a conference. Seems like a geographic move alone. I would argue that they probably will compete better in more sports in the Big South.

Campbell left for one primary reason: Travel. They don't want to have to travel to Florida anymore, and the Big South makes much more sense for them from a travel standpoint. The same is really true for us, but for whatever reason, that doesn't seem to be as big of a concern.

(05-16-2009 09:42 AM)Goldfinger Wrote:  Maybe I'm wrong....but I don't consider the Big South to be any better than the A-sun.

I'd agree, Gold. Six of one. Half dozen of another. Except. of course, Big South has football - which is why Stony Brook joined the conference.

Campbell will never amount to anything no matter where they go.

I agree w/ that - I guess never say never, but Campbell will probably always have one or two decent to good players (Rodriguez was pretty good) but never really seriously challenge. Up until a few years ago, I had never heard of them.

If you thow out Belmont and DAVID lipscob (I knew them because I knew Nashville) I had never heard of any of the A-sun schools when we entered the league.

Well, I had heard of most of them and was familiar with the TAAC. But I'm clearly more optimistic for this league than others because of it's close ties w/ schools in FL because of it's wealth of talent. Conferences change over the years, especially at this level.