(03-27-2017 06:20 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(03-26-2017 09:18 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  To answer Shizzle (I have proposed this question before here)

I think the answer is 150 teams on the low side and 250 on the high side.

Ridiculous we have schools putting 500 fans in a gym collecting a check off the tournament. I think the leagues should average about 2500 fans to be D1.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/f..._final.pdf

If:

1. Wichita St, Dayton and VCU moved to the American
2. Gonzaga, BYU and St Marys moved to the MWC

Then you'd have 8 conferences drawing at least 7,000 a game with the next highest conference at 4500.

Within those 8 conferences, you'd have 103 teams including just about all the at-large bids earned over the last few years.

It would be a clean break.

It would also work pretty well for football.

St. Mary's only averages 2,612 fans per game. They don't deserve to be in the top league. They don't have a fanbase or an institutional commitment to sports.

St. Mary's has nothing except Randy Bennett and his .699 lifetime winning percentage.

(03-27-2017 09:22 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 05:48 PM)YNot Wrote:  While performance and NCAA bids are down for the MWC, attendance and fan support is not. New Mexico, SDSU, and UNLV still average 10-13K attendance. That's better than most of the "Power" conference schools.

Even schools like Utah St., Nevada, Fresno, and Boise average attendance as good as or better than a lot of quality "Power" schools, like Baylor, Washington, Florida St., Northwestern, Wake Forest, etc.

This tourney is NW's first. In what world are they a quality power conference school (in the context of basketball)?!

Ok. Remove Northwestern from the list. That wasn't the point. The point is that the MWC has quality support of its basketball programs that is very much in competition with quality schools from the PAC, B1G, B12, SEC, Big East, and ACC...

(03-27-2017 06:20 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(03-26-2017 09:18 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  To answer Shizzle (I have proposed this question before here)

I think the answer is 150 teams on the low side and 250 on the high side.

Ridiculous we have schools putting 500 fans in a gym collecting a check off the tournament. I think the leagues should average about 2500 fans to be D1.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/f..._final.pdf

If:

1. Wichita St, Dayton and VCU moved to the American
2. Gonzaga, BYU and St Marys moved to the MWC

Then you'd have 8 conferences drawing at least 7,000 a game with the next highest conference at 4500.

Within those 8 conferences, you'd have 103 teams including just about all the at-large bids earned over the last few years.

It would be a clean break.

It would also work pretty well for football.

GTFO here with that ****

The WAC is a better basketball conference than several of the above-the-line conferences, notably the Big Sky and Big West, and arguably as good as CUSA. And that is with a couple of real dogs in the line up. And the WAC's trajectory is decidedly upward.

(03-28-2017 09:42 PM)NuMexAg Wrote:  The WAC is a better basketball conference than several of the above-the-line conferences, notably the Big Sky and Big West, and arguably as good as CUSA. And that is with a couple of real dogs in the line up. And the WAC's trajectory is decidedly upward.

Nobody but NMSU and Seattle (theirs nearly 60 years ago) have NCAA tourney wins from the WAC.

This discussion has brought up several criteria:
1) strength of basketball programs;
2) competitiveness in NCAA tournament;
3) attendance;
4) fan support;
5) financial investment (scholarships).

A little less than half are fairly solid on these categories. A few flunk all of them.