According to McMurphy's sources Western Kentucky will be moving to CUSA to replace Tulsa in 2014. James Madison or Liberty are the rumored candidates to replace WKU in the Sun Belt.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/...ource-says

Tulsa must be a done deal with this news.

Please not Liberty

(03-30-2013 04:59 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Tulsa must be a done deal with this news.

In the first thread that contained this news, it was pointed out that this could formally be a replacement for ECU, which just announced it was leaving CUSA for Olympic Sports last week.

But given the kind of reporting its been getting in the press, I think that Tulsa went from being on the inside track to the Big TBA to being a done deal, sometime this past week.

I think its a big mistake if JMU doesn't go now. The CAA has taken lots of hits and may take a couple more whenever the BE goes to 12 and the A10 replaces them.

http://www.bgdailynews.com/sports/wester...963f4.html

(03-30-2013 05:10 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 04:59 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Tulsa must be a done deal with this news.

In the first thread that contained this news, it was pointed out that this could formally be a replacement for ECU, which just announced it was leaving CUSA for Olympic Sports last week.

But given the kind of reporting its been getting in the press, I think that Tulsa went from being on the inside track to the Big TBA to being a done deal, sometime this past week.

ECU/Tulane's replacements were MTSU and FAU. those 2 were already all sports. ECU had already left for all sports(even though they weren't in the Aresco conference yet).

i think wku should go to the tba conference... fills louisvilles void pretty well

Quite the revolving door in CUSA. Still seems to me like they've added too many schools too quickly.

(Departing schools in strikeout, incoming schools in underline.)

Marshall
UAB
USM
Rice
UTEP

UCF
ECU
Memphis
Tulsa
SMU
Houston
Tulane

ODU
Charlotte
FAU
FIU
MTSU
La Tech
UNT
UTSA
WKU

(03-30-2013 07:04 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Quite the revolving door in CUSA. Still seems to me like they've added too many schools too quickly.

(Departing schools in strikeout, incoming schools in underline.)

Marshall
UAB
USM
Rice
UTEP

UCF
ECU
Memphis
Tulsa
SMU
Houston
Tulane

ODU
Charlotte
FAU
FIU
MTSU
La Tech
UNT
UTSA
WKU

really surprised they did not try to hold at around a constant 12. Sure glad the MWC did not overreact and invite a bunch of FCS schools with the new pay for performance rules coming into play

Congrats to CUSA and WKU. Awesome basketball with a growing football program.

(03-30-2013 05:31 PM)stever20 Wrote:  ECU/Tulane's replacements were MTSU and FAU. those 2 were already all sports. ECU had already left for all sports(even though they weren't in the Aresco conference yet).

OK, thanks.

Of course, when the conferences decide to schedule their press conferences doesn't matter ~ if Tulsa told CUSA, CUSA can go ahead and move whether the Big TBA has announced it yet or not.

MWC and CUSA should have merged as originally planned.

Now CUSA is just the Sunbelt. UTEP, Rice, Marshall and Southern Miss deserve better.

I think to some degree the MWC pushed the leverage and CUSA backed away not wanting to give the MWC what they wanted. Wound up probably killing CUSA long term.

(03-30-2013 10:18 PM)PistolChad Wrote:  MWC and CUSA should have merged as originally planned.

Now CUSA is just the Sunbelt. UTEP, Rice, Marshall and Southern Miss deserve better.

This was the best plan around to maintain the quality and enhance the profile of both leagues. Instead, CUSA chose to take a step back and move to a much more limited regional model. Given that the exit fees were pretty limited (as little as 500k per CUSA team and about 1 million per exiting MW team, it's hard to see how fear of losing exit fees was the issue). It would have been a nice 16 team league with very workable eastern and western divisions with limited crossover. The conference would have been a better football conference than they are now and a MUCH better basketball conference. Things would be even better if Boise and SDSU had come back.

(03-31-2013 10:35 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 10:18 PM)PistolChad Wrote:  MWC and CUSA should have merged as originally planned.

Now CUSA is just the Sunbelt. UTEP, Rice, Marshall and Southern Miss deserve better.

This was the best plan around to maintain the quality and enhance the profile of both leagues. Instead, CUSA chose to take a step back and move to a much more limited regional model. Given that the exit fees were pretty limited (as little as 500k per CUSA team and about 1 million per exiting MW team, it's hard to see how fear of losing exit fees was the issue). It would have been a nice 16 team league with very workable eastern and western divisions with limited crossover. The conference would have been a better football conference than they are now and a MUCH better basketball conference. Things would be even better if Boise and SDSU had come back.

Hoops money would have been a much larger factor. To do what they would have needed to do, dissolve both conferences to get able to go out on the free market, they would have lost about 20 million dollars at least.

Hooray for the Hilltoppers! With Petrino as head coach and with a move to CUSA their program is starting to take off.

(03-31-2013 10:47 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(03-31-2013 10:35 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 10:18 PM)PistolChad Wrote:  MWC and CUSA should have merged as originally planned.

Now CUSA is just the Sunbelt. UTEP, Rice, Marshall and Southern Miss deserve better.

This was the best plan around to maintain the quality and enhance the profile of both leagues. Instead, CUSA chose to take a step back and move to a much more limited regional model. Given that the exit fees were pretty limited (as little as 500k per CUSA team and about 1 million per exiting MW team, it's hard to see how fear of losing exit fees was the issue). It would have been a nice 16 team league with very workable eastern and western divisions with limited crossover. The conference would have been a better football conference than they are now and a MUCH better basketball conference. Things would be even better if Boise and SDSU had come back.

Hoops money would have been a much larger factor. To do what they would have needed to do, dissolve both conferences to get able to go out on the free market, they would have lost about 20 million dollars at least.

They only had to dissolve one conference. Plus, they could have negotiated a deal with the exiting schools. They could have negotiated a 50-50 deal with Memphis. That would have allowed CUSA to keep half of the Memphis NCAA credits. Memphis would have received far mor than they were expecting. With that deal, CUSA could have been dissolved and merged with the MW--while still holding on to half of thier NCAA credits. That's far better fate than morphing into a Sunbelt like conference. Once the MW was able to open TV negotiations, it was clear that the MW would have been the entity to house the merger.

(03-31-2013 10:51 AM)gocards#1 Wrote:  Hooray for the Hilltoppers! With Petrino as head coach and with a move to CUSA their program is starting to take off.

Hopefully, Petrino will keep his pants on this time around...

(03-31-2013 10:52 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-31-2013 10:47 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(03-31-2013 10:35 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 10:18 PM)PistolChad Wrote:  MWC and CUSA should have merged as originally planned.

Now CUSA is just the Sunbelt. UTEP, Rice, Marshall and Southern Miss deserve better.

This was the best plan around to maintain the quality and enhance the profile of both leagues. Instead, CUSA chose to take a step back and move to a much more limited regional model. Given that the exit fees were pretty limited (as little as 500k per CUSA team and about 1 million per exiting MW team, it's hard to see how fear of losing exit fees was the issue). It would have been a nice 16 team league with very workable eastern and western divisions with limited crossover. The conference would have been a better football conference than they are now and a MUCH better basketball conference. Things would be even better if Boise and SDSU had come back.

Hoops money would have been a much larger factor. To do what they would have needed to do, dissolve both conferences to get able to go out on the free market, they would have lost about 20 million dollars at least.

They only had to dissolve one conference. Plus, they could have negotiated a deal with the exiting schools. They could have negotiated a 50-50 deal with Memphis. That would have allowed CUSA to keep half of the Memphis NCAA credits. Memphis would have received far mor than they were expecting. With that deal, CUSA could have been dissolved and merged with the MW--while still holding on to half of thier NCAA credits. That's far better fate than morphing into a Sunbelt like conference. Once the MW was able to open TV negotiations, it was clear that the MW would have been the entity to house the merger.

The problem was though that there's a clause in the CUSA contract that allows Memphis to use their units as payment for the exit fees.

Also- BOTH conferences would have had to dissolve in order to get the TV deal on the open market. If they did what you said, CBS would have had control of the tv deal and while they would have gotten some improvement, not what they needed to happen.