He didn't post that meme, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

I don't think two top programs going to the Sun Belt makes it a better conference at all. It'd just be two more established basketball programs running through teams that just aren't up to par. Conference USA as a whole is down. I fully agree with that, but we have a more competitive collection of more traditionally solid basketball programs. To believe that likes of WKU, ODU, UTEP, La. Tech, Charlotte, etc. are consistently going to be down and that the Sun Belt programs at the top of the standings right now are going to consistently trend up over a good stretch of time doesn't seem that likely to me.

I'm not trying to throw shade or anything, either. I respect the work UALR is putting in, but the position they're in says a lot about UALR, not the Sun Belt.

(03-02-2016 04:28 PM)Hopeful Wrote:  He didn't post that meme, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

I don't think two top programs going to the Sun Belt makes it a better conference at all. It'd just be two more established basketball programs running through teams that just aren't up to par. Conference USA as a whole is down. I fully agree with that, but we have a more competitive collection of more traditionally solid basketball programs. To believe that likes of WKU, ODU, UTEP, La. Tech, Charlotte, etc. are consistently going to be down and that the Sun Belt programs at the top of the standings right now are going to consistently trend up over a good stretch of time doesn't seem that likely to me.

I'm not trying to throw shade or anything, either. I respect the work UALR is putting in, but the position they're in says a lot about UALR, not the Sun Belt.

CUSA is "down"
Sun Belt is "a one bid league"

You do understand that CUSA has been "down" for a number of years and hasn't had two teams in since 2011-12.

At some point that is the new reality.

Right now its emotionalism driving the bus not the reality of what is going on. CUSA added NINE new teams in very short order and all since it was last a two bid league. Only five of the current 14 were in CUSA last time it was a two bid league.

Saw a comic once who juggled. He had a hatchet and announced it was the hatchet George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree. Pauses and adds, "Of course the handle has been replaced and the head but it occupies the same space".

Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

(03-02-2016 04:25 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 03:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 03:26 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 02:36 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 02:13 PM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  If you're going to reach out for teams that "used" to be in your conference then C-USA will have Memphis and Tulsa to call on. It won't be a fair comparison. The SBC is higher rated than C-USA this season but it's the worst season C-USA has had in quite a while. We'll see how it plays out over time and I feel confident C-USA, as currently configured, will do better than the SBC.

No reach. Sorry that is too hard to understand. Maybe this is plainer and more understandable.

Between the 28 teams in Sun Belt and CUSA the last of any of those 28 to earn at-large berth is Middle Tennessee State and they last managed that feat as a member of the Sun Belt. That is not offered to say the Sun Belt as currently constructed is superior to Conference USA. That is offered to say there isn't much difference between CUSA hoops and Sun Belt hoops today.

When touting that Conference USA as presently constructed is a superior basketball conference to the Sun Belt I think it is useful to note that NEITHER conference was good enough to put a team into the NCAA Tournament at-large in 2013-14, 2014-15, and the only way it happens in 2015-16 is if Arkansas-Little Rock wins out to the Sun Belt final and loses the championship. Between the 28 schools there is ONE with ANY chance of an at-large and it is a Sun Belt team. CUSA has three sub 300 RPI teams with one knocking on the door, Sun Belt has none but one still has shot to get there.

Units earned the past few years are also identical.

Sun Belt adding top two CUSA basketball produces a better basketball conference than doing the reverse and moving the top two Sun Belt to CUSA because CUSA is so bad at the bottom.

Well, we usually converse pretty well together but that's getting a little pissy for no particular reason.

Wasn't meant to be pissy, was trying to rephrase to be clearer but fine.

In that case I apologize. It must be that time of the month for me.

When you threw out Memphis I knew my point hadn't been made clearly.

(03-02-2016 04:49 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 04:28 PM)Hopeful Wrote:  He didn't post that meme, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

I don't think two top programs going to the Sun Belt makes it a better conference at all. It'd just be two more established basketball programs running through teams that just aren't up to par. Conference USA as a whole is down. I fully agree with that, but we have a more competitive collection of more traditionally solid basketball programs. To believe that likes of WKU, ODU, UTEP, La. Tech, Charlotte, etc. are consistently going to be down and that the Sun Belt programs at the top of the standings right now are going to consistently trend up over a good stretch of time doesn't seem that likely to me.

I'm not trying to throw shade or anything, either. I respect the work UALR is putting in, but the position they're in says a lot about UALR, not the Sun Belt.

CUSA is "down"
Sun Belt is "a one bid league"

You do understand that CUSA has been "down" for a number of years and hasn't had two teams in since 2011-12.

At some point that is the new reality.

Right now its emotionalism driving the bus not the reality of what is going on. CUSA added NINE new teams in very short order and all since it was last a two bid league. Only five of the current 14 were in CUSA last time it was a two bid league.

Saw a comic once who juggled. He had a hatchet and announced it was the hatchet George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree. Pauses and adds, "Of course the handle has been replaced and the head but it occupies the same space".

Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

The big difference you have multiple fanbases in CUSA that actually care about basketball, in the Sun Belt you might have one and that is stretching it. The current conference will probably never be as good as it was the first time we were in it but there are multiple schools that are committed to their programs.

(03-02-2016 04:58 PM)wh49er Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 04:49 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 04:28 PM)Hopeful Wrote:  He didn't post that meme, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

I don't think two top programs going to the Sun Belt makes it a better conference at all. It'd just be two more established basketball programs running through teams that just aren't up to par. Conference USA as a whole is down. I fully agree with that, but we have a more competitive collection of more traditionally solid basketball programs. To believe that likes of WKU, ODU, UTEP, La. Tech, Charlotte, etc. are consistently going to be down and that the Sun Belt programs at the top of the standings right now are going to consistently trend up over a good stretch of time doesn't seem that likely to me.

I'm not trying to throw shade or anything, either. I respect the work UALR is putting in, but the position they're in says a lot about UALR, not the Sun Belt.

CUSA is "down"
Sun Belt is "a one bid league"

You do understand that CUSA has been "down" for a number of years and hasn't had two teams in since 2011-12.

At some point that is the new reality.

Right now its emotionalism driving the bus not the reality of what is going on. CUSA added NINE new teams in very short order and all since it was last a two bid league. Only five of the current 14 were in CUSA last time it was a two bid league.

Saw a comic once who juggled. He had a hatchet and announced it was the hatchet George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree. Pauses and adds, "Of course the handle has been replaced and the head but it occupies the same space".

Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

The big difference you have multiple fanbases in CUSA that actually care about basketball, in the Sun Belt you might have one and that is stretching it. The current conference will probably never be as good as it was the first time we were in it but there are multiple schools that are committed to their programs.

That's a stretch argument and it has a number of flaws.
First unless fan interest = way to pay for it, there are going to be problems. Assuming (and I think it remains to be seen) that per team league revenue is falling $500,000 per, and the units earned continue to fall off, and given the change in the CFP distribution you are looking at having to replace conference money in operating budgets.

Conversely Sun Belt schools are experiencing the opposite with per member share of CFP revenue climbing and NCAA revenue and TV money being relatively constant.

Fan interest tends to be more a function of success and relevance.

When Arkansas State hoops was a regular contender for the old NIT and at times entered the at-large conversation AState attendance was consistently in the top third of the nation for more than a decade. When the good old boy network got the coach extended when he didn't deserve it attendance fell of the map and has sucked for 11 straight years because the administration was content with a program that could crack RPI 120 or better.

Is Arkansas State a fan base that doesn't care about basketball or is it a fan base that does care but won't support a half-hearted effort. John Brady is leaving at the end of the season. Let's see what our current AD does about the hire

Arkansas-Little Rock used to fill up the old Statehouse Convention Center and occasional Barton Coliseum. At Verizon Arena AState-UALR could top 12,000 fans when both teams were good. In their new place ($24 million price tag, $22 million from one donor) they have struggled to sell 5600 seats when they weren't very good. They sold out for AState last night.

Fan base doesn't like hoops or doesn't like irrelevant hoops?

I remember when Memphis had a decades long waiting list for tickets at Mid-South Coliseum. They moved into the Pyramid and weren't very good and attendance fell below what it had been at the Coliseum because there were so many seats you knew you could buy your way back in to the Pyramid, at the Coliseum you had to hold on and hope for the best. Was Memphis not a hoops fan base when their attendance plunged or does Memphis have a fan base that LOVES good basketball?

We've not seen what much of the Sun Belt is capable of in basketball because of pressing football expenditure needs, now that those are being met, logically at least some administrators are going to want basketball to carry more of the financial weight than they currently do. Terry Mohajir at Arkansas State has been plain spoken that most of football's needs are now met and its time for basketball to carry some of the financial load by selling tickets.

(02-28-2016 07:37 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Wichita State (especially if they add football). No preference for a #2 but if others say Georgia State, then I guess they have some potential.

I think they would burn in hell before they played CUSA basketball....

(03-02-2016 05:26 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  

(02-28-2016 07:37 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Wichita State (especially if they add football). No preference for a #2 but if others say Georgia State, then I guess they have some potential.

I think they would burn in hell before they played CUSA basketball....

I think it is pretty much a given that Wichita believes they need FBS football to go anyplace else on the food chain.

What we can deduce is that the Mountain West and American do not see Wichita State basketball as a sufficiently valuable property without football to invite them since both leagues have 11 in hoops which makes for awkward scheduling.

So that leaves them apparently thinking they need football else why pay for a study and why have a helmet made BEFORE the study begins?

Unless one of AAC and MWC is prepared to give them a straight path to FBS (and that doesn't seem likely since they'd be #13 in football in either case so ought to be more valuable to either league without football) they are going to have to go someplace else first.

They can hang around in FCS and play MVFC football hoping for that direct path from there or they can go to a league that they don't care as much for and try to be in striking distance when opportunity arises.

If they want FBS because FBS is their ticket to moving up the ladder they may not have a direct path to where they want to go (ie. the TCU model, take the best option available TODAY).

(03-02-2016 04:49 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

I sure hope this comment comes back to haunt you very soon. If you are unfamiliar with what Mike Rhoades has already accomplished at Rice, how his super freshman (from his first recruiting class) are playing, and the quality of his second recruiting class, you might want to take a look.

(03-02-2016 04:49 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 04:28 PM)Hopeful Wrote:  He didn't post that meme, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

I don't think two top programs going to the Sun Belt makes it a better conference at all. It'd just be two more established basketball programs running through teams that just aren't up to par. Conference USA as a whole is down. I fully agree with that, but we have a more competitive collection of more traditionally solid basketball programs. To believe that likes of WKU, ODU, UTEP, La. Tech, Charlotte, etc. are consistently going to be down and that the Sun Belt programs at the top of the standings right now are going to consistently trend up over a good stretch of time doesn't seem that likely to me.

I'm not trying to throw shade or anything, either. I respect the work UALR is putting in, but the position they're in says a lot about UALR, not the Sun Belt.

CUSA is "down"
Sun Belt is "a one bid league"

You do understand that CUSA has been "down" for a number of years and hasn't had two teams in since 2011-12.

At some point that is the new reality.

Right now its emotionalism driving the bus not the reality of what is going on. CUSA added NINE new teams in very short order and all since it was last a two bid league. Only five of the current 14 were in CUSA last time it was a two bid league.

Saw a comic once who juggled. He had a hatchet and announced it was the hatchet George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree. Pauses and adds, "Of course the handle has been replaced and the head but it occupies the same space".

Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

ODU was last four out last year, La Tech had a tournament quality team last year as well but not the resume. I know we're not playing horseshoes but if you're talking about likelihood of an at-large coming out of either of these conferences, the smart money is on CUSA there are better programs there now. If you're talking about a better overall basketball conference then yeah we've got a lot of dead weight.

Who was the last team currently in the Sun Belt to receive an at large bid?

(03-02-2016 05:57 PM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 04:49 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

I sure hope this comment comes back to haunt you very soon. If you are unfamiliar with what Mike Rhoades has already accomplished at Rice, how his super freshman (from his first recruiting class) are playing, and the quality of his second recruiting class, you might want to take a look.

Someone always going to get their panties in a wad.

Good luck to Rice sorry you got miffed.

(03-02-2016 07:27 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 05:57 PM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 04:49 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

I sure hope this comment comes back to haunt you very soon. If you are unfamiliar with what Mike Rhoades has already accomplished at Rice, how his super freshman (from his first recruiting class) are playing, and the quality of his second recruiting class, you might want to take a look.

Someone always going to get their panties in a wad.

Good luck to Rice sorry you got miffed.

Your premise that C-USA is destined to forever be a one-bid league is incorrect. And from that you leap into generalities about the conference. You have not done your homework before posting, and absolutely no one in C-USA would equate the UTSA basketball program with the trajectory Mike Rhoades has Rice on.

The Rice boosters got on a plane with suitcases full of money last year when Texas hired Shaka Smart away from VCU, and Mike Rhoades emerged as a leading contender for the VCU job. Rice kept Rhoades. It is very possible that Rhoades will have Rice at the NCAA tournament level in another two years, like the transformation that has happened at SMU.

(03-02-2016 07:40 PM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 07:27 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 05:57 PM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(03-02-2016 04:49 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Sewing patches on didn't turn Rice basketball into DePaul basketball and it hasn't made UTSA basketball into Memphis basketball.

I sure hope this comment comes back to haunt you very soon. If you are unfamiliar with what Mike Rhoades has already accomplished at Rice, how his super freshman (from his first recruiting class) are playing, and the quality of his second recruiting class, you might want to take a look.

Someone always going to get their panties in a wad.

Good luck to Rice sorry you got miffed.

Your premise that C-USA is destined to forever be a one-bid league is incorrect. And from that you leap into generalities about the conference. You have not done your homework before posting, and absolutely no one in C-USA would equate the UTSA basketball program with the trajectory Mike Rhoades has Rice on.

The Rice boosters got on a plane with suitcases full of money last year when Texas hired Shaka Smart away from VCU, and Mike Rhoades emerged as a leading contender for the VCU job. Rice kept Rhoades. It is very possible that Rhoades will have Rice at the NCAA tournament level in another two years, like the transformation that has happened at SMU.

Now you are saying I said things I did not say.

I said CUSA hasn't been two bid for some time and at some point you can no longer brush it off as simply "a down year". If CUSA is one bid in 2017 that's half a decade of one bid.

I appreciate you defending your school because I tossed it out as an example when I said putting a CUSA patch on the uniforms didn't make Rice basketball DePaul basketball.

Great that Rice is investing but the last NCAA appearance was 1970 and in five appearances no wins other than in the now discontinued consolation games.

That's a bit different from DePaul who has 16 appearances since the last Rice NCAA appearance, six Sweet 16's since Rice last made the tournament, two Elite Eights, and a Final Four in that span.

I'm an AState fan, I don't believe a down program is destined to stay there but seriously getting offended for pointing out that merely being a member of a conference doesn't make a program improved? That's awful defensive and incredibly myopic if you don't think what I said is true.