(12-31-2012 11:50 AM)Caltex2 Wrote:  Out of all the venues in LA, LA Sports Arena? You mean to tell me there wasn't a 8,000 seat arena sitting around somewhere at one of the local Cal-State's or something like that? And don't tell me it would be too far, it's not as if UCLA's football team plays anywhere near campus.

Or how about the Fabulous Forum, which I believe is still around.

Anyone checking out the St. Mary's game with Harvard? Its "arena" is as nice as my high school's gym and although it was renovated in 2004, my school's place is still just a gym.

That's what I mean by majors/mid-majors/low-majors. Institution, facility and resource wise, the WCC pales in comparison to the MVC, CAA and even the Horizon and Big Sky to a lesser extent except for BYU and Gonzaga.

Another worthless metric.

Three words: Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Exception to the rule. There's too much tradition and Duke is too small a school for them to have an arena like Rupp or the Smith Center like it actually deserves. Plus Duke's notoriety and all around basketball facilities besides Cameron puts it in another stratosphere compared to the WCC.

Eh, the phrase is useless. It accomplishes nothing. It's sole mission WAS to save time when describing certain conferences during championship week, and conference realignment has thinned that group down a lot.

You'll have 12 multi-bid leagues and 21 one-bid leagues.

While I agree to an extent about the term mid-major, it's still completely not fair, misleading and to certain schools insulting to label them as the same level as others. For example, it's stupid to group the MAC in with the SWAC or even the Northeast as collections of schools from 1-bid leagues when the MAC has actually gotten Sweet 16/Elite 8 teams and at-large bids in the not too distant past and actually stand a solid chance of getting a single digit seed if a team does well from the conference. They, along with the Horizon, Sun Belt and a few others are clearly at a higher level of play than the bottom-tier of D-1.

And not that it'll sway anyone that hasn't been swayed but we have yet another example of a WCC team playing at what could pass for a high school arena in Santa Clara, who's playing at home against San Francisco tonight. Granted, they have possibly the best facility in the conference behind San Diego and of course the Zags and BYU but it still barely passes for the college level.

(01-02-2013 11:33 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  While I agree to an extent about the term mid-major, it's still completely not fair, misleading and to certain schools insulting to label them as the same level as others. For example, it's stupid to group the MAC in with the SWAC or even the Northeast as collections of schools from 1-bid leagues when the MAC has actually gotten Sweet 16/Elite 8 teams and at-large bids in the not too distant past and actually stand a solid chance of getting a single digit seed if a team does well from the conference. They, along with the Horizon, Sun Belt and a few others are clearly at a higher level of play than the bottom-tier of D-1.

And not that it'll sway anyone that hasn't been swayed but we have yet another example of a WCC team playing at what could pass for a high school arena in Santa Clara, who's playing at home against San Francisco tonight. Granted, they have possibly the best facility in the conference behind San Diego and of course the Zags and BYU but it still barely passes for the college level.

The last MAC at-large bid was like, 15 years ago. Yeah, Ohio went to the Sweet 16 this past year.

But that's why the phrase was coined during CHAMPIONSHIP week: Just to save words when talking about if Memphis doesn't win C-USA.


Saint Mary's arena is a lot nicer than it looks on TV. It's old, but it's been updated. It serves their needs. Is it small? Yes. But so is Moraga, Calif. Saint Mary's is like the Miami Ohio of the WCC. They're CLOSE by distance to big cities, but they're geographically isolated. Their town has 16,000 people, as it's nestled in the mountains, surrounded by state parks.

Pacific, BTW, is going to have the second largest WCC facility next year. They have the infrastructure to benefit greatly from the move to the WCC from the Big West.

the 4 cellar-dwellers of the C7 are Mid-majors...hiding within a former elite conference.
Reaping the bennies of afluence-by -association.

If the C7 cannot bring in elite teams, or returns to the BE FBS group, what will occur
(with the inclusion of all the C-USA teams - ECU, Tulane) follows;

Stand alone C7 with elite (UConn, Cincy) or near elite additions (Xavier, Gonzaga) remains a player as
a legit Elite (BCS equivalent) league. If league fails to get multibids, will slowly devolve to Mid-Major level.
C7 goes back to the FBS Big East... League becomes C-USA East and definitely a Mid Major conference.
Any team that has ECU, Tulane, and SMU in conference - plays them twice a year in all sports...Yep, Mid-Major Conference.

Good luck to the C7

That's why I, in my definition for what it's worth, wasn't so willing to group them in with the BCS leagues. Marquette, Georgetown and Villanova still has cachet but other than St. John's playing at the Garden for big games, the other four are living on borrowed time. Like I said, I think in the end they'll end up in between the BCS (Tier-1) and the A-10/MWC (Tier-2).

(01-03-2013 10:21 AM)gtmoBlue Wrote:  the 4 cellar-dwellers of the C7 are Mid-majors...hiding within a former elite conference.
Reaping the bennies of afluence-by -association.

I disagree. Each "cellar dweller" has been in the NCAA tournament as recently as 2004. [2004 (PC/DU), 2006 (SHU), 2011 (SJU, VU), 2012 (MU, GU)]. Some may not be elite right now, but at least have been or have the potential to be elite. Its hard for a whole conference to be elite at the same time, and its really tough when a conference sends 11 and 9 teams to the tournament. Average looks bad when the rest of the competition is way above average. The BE is a conference where the #9 seed in the conference tournament won the NCAA championship. Tough conference. SEC FB is supposedly so almighty, yet the 2012 version has Arkansas, Auburn, Vandy, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Miss St, Kentucky, Missouri. That makes 8 out of 14 that were nowhere near "elite" in 2012, yet at least 4 of those "not elite" schools had top 10 finishes in the last 10-12 years. 2 have national championships in the last 15 years.

FWIW, I've always thought that the top half of the A-10 in any given year was equivalent to any "major" conference. Heck, if you take Duke and UNC out of the ACC, the A-10 is better than the ACC. If you take Kentucky out of the SEC, the A-10 is better than the SEC.

For the past decade, I've considered the following to be major programs:
Big-6 BCS teams (except Washington State and USF, sorry)
most of the A-10 (basically everyone except Fordham, Lasalle, Duquesne, and the Bonnies)
Gonzaga, BYU, UNLV, Memphis, Creighton, Butler, Wichita State,
maybe St. Mary's, Utah, Western Kentucky, SDSU, New Mexico, UAB, Houston, UTEP, VCU, Kent State, Miami (although they've gone way downhill in the past decade), and a couple MVC teams

(01-03-2013 06:14 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  FWIW, I've always thought that the top half of the A-10 in any given year was equivalent to any "major" conference. Heck, if you take Duke and UNC out of the ACC, the A-10 is better than the ACC. If you take Kentucky out of the SEC, the A-10 is better than the SEC

Ah, so good to hear that.

Fordham and 1-2 teams messing up the OOC scheduling policy has been killing us.

Every year, 1-2 teams do something stupid with their OOC schedules, play way too difficult of a non-conference slate and go 5-9 or 3-10.

Why is URI playing the #24 SOS and going 4-8?
Why is Duquesne playing the #75 SOS and going 7-7?
Why is Fordham playing the #180 SOS and going 4-10?

Last year, it was:
URI 3-12 and GW 5-9

2010-11: SJU 5-9 and SLU 5-8

2009-10: Fordham: 2-10

Take out Fordham's 26-48 over the last six years OOC, and the A-10 probably gets about four more NCAA bids the last six years.

The A-10 would have been that much better if they didn't have RPI anchors in Fordham, La Salle, Duquesne and St. Bonaventure. Since I started following college basketball almost 20 years ago none of them have done anything of consequence except for the Bonnies sneaking into the Dance a couple times.

(01-03-2013 09:45 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  The A-10 would have been that much better if they didn't have RPI anchors in Fordham, La Salle, Duquesne and St. Bonaventure. Since I started following college basketball almost 20 years ago none of them have done anything of consequence except for the Bonnies sneaking into the Dance a couple times.

Actually, outside of the scandal fallout, Bona has actually never been an RPI anchor.

They've still been along for the ride more than actually contributing to the league.

(01-04-2013 10:22 AM)Caltex2 Wrote:  They've still been along for the ride more than actually contributing to the league.

For what it's worth, the Bonnies do get a smidgen of media coverage in NYC--about as much as Fordham, which is impressive considering they're in the middle of BFN.

(01-04-2013 10:33 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-04-2013 10:22 AM)Caltex2 Wrote:  They've still been along for the ride more than actually contributing to the league.

For what it's worth, the Bonnies do get a smidgen of media coverage in NYC--about as much as Fordham, which is impressive considering they're in the middle of BFN.

Having a good journalism program helps for that. We also have cranked out an abnormally large number of SIDs.

(01-04-2013 10:22 AM)Caltex2 Wrote:  They've still been along for the ride more than actually contributing to the league.

I'd dispute that as well, for two primary reasons:
#1 - Obviously everyone can't win the league or go over .500 in conference. You can send all 12-18 teams, it's mathematically impossible... so the way you help the league is by winning OOC games and bringing value to league games. Before hiring van Breda Kolffe, the Bonnies were .500 or beter out of conference for AT LEAST 10-straight seasons (I'm using CollegeRPI.com for data, which is why I've been starting at 1993-94).

There's no (non-scandal related) valleys in the Bonnies OOC win pct. They are .640 OOC in non-scandal years.

Over the last five seasons entering this year, (I'm stealing data from a different thread, so forgive the time-frame difference), Xavier's at .696 OOC, St John's .641, SLU .643, DePaul .574... and seven other A-10 teams have worse OOC win pct than .640.

And even DURING the scandal fallout, they had winning OOC records twice. Their OOC win pct is .557 INCLUDING scandal years. Over 22 seasons (including this one). The first year with sanctions and roster defections, they were 2-26. The next season, they scheduled for a 7-4 OOC record... before going 1-15 in conference. THAT is helping the league: When you know you can't win, your primary goal needs to be helping your conference.

#2 - Both years they made the dance, no one else in the conference was in a position to make the dance in their place. It was like there were two bubble teams and the Bonnies knocked out the other one. In 2000, they played Dayton in the A-10 semis. If Dayton won, the Bonnies might not have made the dance. But Bona won and BOTH UD and Bona made it, picking up an extra unit for the league. the next highest RPI team was Xavier at #88.

And last year, if Xavier, Temple or Saint Louis won the A-10 tourney, it would have been a three-bid league. By beating Xavier in the finals, an extra bid and another extra NCAA unit.

We can agree to disagree, I know you're sticking up for them and that's perfectly fine. The reason I say so is because I follow college hoops every year and St. Bonaventure is almost never in the race for an at-large. Rhode Island and UMass, for all of their choking, at least get themselves in position more often than not to have an outside chance.

At least the Bonnies have been to the Dance in the past couple decades, which is more than Duquesne, Fordham and La Salle can say. Duquesne hasn't even been to the Dance since 1977 and only once came close, when they made the A-10 Tournament title game five years ago or so.

(01-04-2013 04:09 PM)Caltex2 Wrote:  We can agree to disagree, I know you're sticking up for them and that's perfectly fine. The reason I say so is becaus eI follow every year and St. Bonaventure is almost never in the race for an at-large. Rhode Island and UMass, for all of their choking, at least get themselves in position more often than not to have an outside chance.

At least the Bonnies have been to the Dance in the past couple decades, which is more than Duquesne, Fordham and La Salle can say. Duquesne hasn't even been to the Dance since 1977 and only once came close, when they made the A-10 Tournament title game five years ago or so.

Yeah, I'm a little biased in this regard, considering if I had to choose between a Bona Final Four and killing my mother... come to think of it, my mom would probably say "I've had a good run. If I get to see it and can die in April...I'm in."

But that's also the reason I can't let this go.

In the race for an at-large is a very subjective term. Would you say Bona was "in the race" for an at-large last season? On one hand, I'd say no: They weren't getting one if they didn't win the A-10 tourney. But on the other hand: they lost two road games on buzzer-beaters (one was complete BS since the dude was out-of-bounds before shooting) and winning those two games would have made them 22-9, #48 in the RPI, 5-3 vs the Top 50 of the RPI and an NCAA at-large.

So let's say Top 85 RPI puts you "in the race" for one, with screwing up a couple games keeping you off the bubble.

It sounds REALLY ridiculous for Top 85 to be our benchmark, but looking at Bona vs URI and UMass, they've only cracked the top 50 once each since 1999 (Bona's 2000 At-Large, UMass 2008 and URI 2010 getting screwed), and the top 60 like five times.

Since 1994 (CollegeRPI.com goes back to 1993-1994), the teams have been in the race for an at-large:
7 UMass (2 At-large bids, 1 Auto bid)
7 URI (2 At-Large bids, 1 Auto bid)
4 Bona (1 At-Large bids, 1 Auto bid)

But we're also tied in "Number of Scandals" with one apiece. The difference is that Calipari and Harrick racked up NCAA sanctions during their NCAA seasons and the Bonnies NCAA bids are both squeaky clean (Which frustrates me. If you're gonna cheat, get guys like Camby and Odom instead of a role player. We should have hired Chris Duhon's mom… like Duke did!)

So, last 13 years, "in the race."
4 URI (no bids)
4 UMass (no bids)
4 Bona (1 At-large, 1 auto)

Yeah but after a brief dark age between Harrick and Jim Barron, the latter had URI competing and looking strong for an at-large bid more often than not only for them to lose steam at the end. Regardless of the numbers, that's what I remember. UMass hasn't done as well but I still remember them more than the Bonnies.

But like I said, at least SBU has been relevant every now and then so it is what it is. And you guys need a new Bob Lanier.