(03-07-2013 12:43 PM)stever20 Wrote: (03-07-2013 12:37 PM)billyjack Wrote: I always thought of Bloomington, Indiana as College Hoops Central. Basically make a 150-mile-radius circle around IU. This probably goes back to when "Hoosiers" came out. It's also got me psyched to have Butler and Hinkle as part of the conference.
"I play, Coach stays. He goes, I go."
Point being... adding another school in a college basketball hotbed isn't a bad thing (say, including Dayton). It'd be like the NHL returning to Quebec City.
If they were good, then yes. But otherwise, you have a possible DePaul situation all over again. We don't need that at all, hotbed be damned.
The DePaul fear gets overused.
In the 33 years of the Big East, it's been known as a conference where programs get better. Someone wrote the other day that the 1980 Big East had only 3 or 4 great programs... ok, well, by 1990, 6 of our 9 programs made a Final Four... of the other three, 2 made Elite Eights in that time... and the 9th team (Pitt) had a 1-2-or-3 seed in 1988...
Miami was added and they basically started from scratch in hoops. Within 10 years they had 4 NCAA bids, a Sweet 16, and a Big East Regular season title.
West Virginia had only made 1 NCAA in its last 6 seasons in the A-10, but within 3 years in the Big East they made a Sweet 16, and within 10 years they became a perennial tourney team.
Notre Dame in its last 5 indy years hadn't made the NCAA's. Within 5 or 6 years they became a perennial tourney team.
Rutgers hadn't had much success in its later A-10 years, and they've been the only school to not thrive in the Big East.
South Florida has struggled but last year won 2 NCAA games.
Cincinnati struggled at first in the Big East, but now has a great program with recent NCAA bids.
Marquette and
Louisville continued having great success.
Virginia Tech steadily improved in their 4 years with us.
DePaul started fine in the Big East, but made a bad coaching hire to set them back.
So of the 19 teams to ever play Big East hoops, only 2 have really struggled for an extended period.