(09-14-2021 05:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  If Phoenix had a decent sized Catholic school they’d be a sure fire bet.

Phoenix has been a liberal arts college desert - only GCU and a few small colleges, and now some branch colleges.

No Methodist school, no independent Catholic school, nothing. No secular liberal arts colleges.

(09-14-2021 06:00 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(09-14-2021 05:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  If Phoenix had a decent sized Catholic school they’d be a sure fire bet.

Phoenix has been a liberal arts college desert - only GCU and a few small colleges, and now some branch colleges.

No Methodist school, no independent Catholic school, nothing. No secular liberal arts colleges.

Huh. Never really considered that. Prescott College is the only one that even comes to mind in Arizona. Those types of institutions were primarily founded in the 1800s, which is why states like Ohio have a ton, but there are still at least one or two in every other decent-sized western city.

(09-14-2021 06:00 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(09-14-2021 05:54 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  If Phoenix had a decent sized Catholic school they’d be a sure fire bet.

Phoenix has been a liberal arts college desert - only GCU and a few small colleges, and now some branch colleges.

No Methodist school, no independent Catholic school, nothing. No secular liberal arts colleges.

That is mostly due to how few people lived in the Phoenix area historically — only about 200,000 in 1950, which not coincidentally is before large scale use of air conditioning in homes — combined with the fact that most well-established universities with religious affiliations were founded before 1950, or even 1900.

All of the WCC universities were founded before 1950, and all but 2 were founded before 1902.

(09-14-2021 08:17 AM)TDenverFan Wrote:  Looking at Seattle's OOC schedule, they have played Portland pretty much every year for the past few seasons, but otherwise don't seem to have that many games against WCC teams (The most I saw in a season was 3 -Portland, St Mary's, and Pacific). From 2012 - 2016 they didn't play any WCC schools OOC. I don't know that it means much of anything, but I sorta thought I'd see more WCC teams playing Seattle OOC, if there's some level of support for Seattle to the WCC.

I think it means something. Any “certainty” with Seattle may be overstated, or just pumped out from SU itself. I know they’re not in the same spot as Pacific was. And you can look at Pacific’s OOC schedules in years before returning to the WCC and seeing something like 4-5 games against WCC teams some of those years.

As you noted, you don’t really see WCC games for Seattle after 2011-12 until 2017-18 (there was a game against Pepperdine in a post-season tournament in there, though). And while Portland may double up with them in any given year, it’s to Portland and those like them in basketball why Gonzaga threatened to leave unless there were changes.

But, seeing SMC giving them some games in the recent past? I also think them taking games against PAC foes, even if getting beaten like a drum? They’ve been doing some interesting things out there, and playing some good schools. It’s notable at the very least.

(09-17-2021 06:08 AM)Pastasevensamurai Wrote:  Worked at a school in the conference for 15+ years. Gonzaga doesn't care about Seattle's location, irrelevant, the WCC tv money is non-existent. Spokane and Seattle is the same distant by flight as Spokane is to Portland. CBS tv deal is not very good, I can't remember the details.

-Pacific was added because Pacific had strong MBB program before the whole NCAA violations, knowing what we know now, Pacific wouldn't be added, although they're keeping SB alive in the WCC. The commissioner at the time, really pushed for Pacific at the time, Pacific's head coach was very influential.
-BYU was added because of their strong MBB program
-Seattle, Denver, Cal Baptist have 1% chance of being added. All three schools MBB are bad, although Cal Baptist is getting better.
-Denver would need to add 2 men's and women's sports to be considered, how are they going to be compliant with T9 if they're adding 50 men's athletes and not dropping any sports (mih or lax)
-No additional MBB games will be added, Gonzaga doesn't want anymore games, the schedule reduction, NCAA money formula, and format was added to keep Gonzaga in the conference. I could see the conference dropping to 14 games even for MBB.
-Gonzaga Basketball programs, charter everywhere, the location doesn't matter. Olympic sports - would be a challenge. Spokane to Seattle then the destination.
-Adding all three schools above to the conference will only reduce the number of home games of hosting Gonzaga. Gonzaga and BYU are the best gates in the conference, both travel well. St Mary's not so much, losing BYU will hurt the ticket revenue.
-I think if WCC adds any school - Grand Canyon is the school. Grand Canyon's academic profile doesn't matter, SMC has 81% acceptance rate.
-Not sure what the WCC will do with softball, WISL was the landing spot for all those schools but all those schools have homes now.
-I don't think Gonzaga leaves the WCC, flights for their Olympic sports would be brutal, basketball teams charter.
-I do think one of the 9 schools will either close, drop down to D2 or D3 within the next few years, I don't want to mention any names.

Lots of interesting insights, thanks for sharing.

(09-17-2021 06:08 AM)Pastasevensamurai Wrote:  Worked at a school in the conference for 15+ years. Gonzaga doesn't care about Seattle's location, irrelevant, the WCC tv money is non-existent. Spokane and Seattle is the same distant by flight as Spokane is to Portland. CBS tv deal is not very good, I can't remember the details.

-Pacific was added because Pacific had strong MBB program before the whole NCAA violations, knowing what we know now, Pacific wouldn't be added, although they're keeping SB alive in the WCC. The commissioner at the time, really pushed for Pacific at the time, Pacific's head coach was very influential.
-BYU was added because of their strong MBB program
-Seattle, Denver, Cal Baptist have 1% chance of being added. All three schools MBB are bad, although Cal Baptist is getting better.
-Denver would need to add 2 men's and women's sports to be considered, how are they going to be compliant with T9 if they're adding 50 men's athletes and not dropping any sports (mih or lax)
-No additional MBB games will be added, Gonzaga doesn't want anymore games, the schedule reduction, NCAA money formula, and format was added to keep Gonzaga in the conference. I could see the conference dropping to 14 games even for MBB.
-Gonzaga Basketball programs, charter everywhere, the location doesn't matter. Olympic sports - would be a challenge. Spokane to Seattle then the destination.
-Adding all three schools above to the conference will only reduce the number of home games of hosting Gonzaga. Gonzaga and BYU are the best gates in the conference, both travel well. St Mary's not so much, losing BYU will hurt the ticket revenue.
-I think if WCC adds any school - Grand Canyon is the school. Grand Canyon's academic profile doesn't matter, SMC has 81% acceptance rate.
-Not sure what the WCC will do with softball, WISL was the landing spot for all those schools but all those schools have homes now.
-I don't think Gonzaga leaves the WCC, flights for their Olympic sports would be brutal, basketball teams charter.
-I do think one of the 9 schools will either close, drop down to D2 or D3 within the next few years, I don't want to mention any names.

Very, very interesting post - cutting fog into cubes for us. Thanks for coming onto this board and I look forward to you sharing more of your insights here.