(01-25-2022 11:34 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  Stony Brook out of the 3 have the better basketball.

You might want to research Monmouth, they have been stronger lately.

These are all good adds for lacrosse and baseball as well.

Nice how the three schools fit the footprint while all offering football.

Also, the CAA now has the eastern seaboard well covered. The permanent members new GeoCenter is near Salisbury, MD...in the middle of the Delmarva peninsula. Poor Elon now seems misplaced far-away from the Atlantic Ocean.

(01-25-2022 11:36 AM)Sitting bull Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 09:17 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 09:05 AM)ibby10 Wrote:  https://www.sbstatesman.com/2022/01/25/s...-join-caa/

“Great” article

“ The conference has not received many bids to the NCAA Tournament since 2011 when Old Dominion, George Mason and VCU all made the dance, with VCU advancing to the Final Four as an 11-seed. None of those teams are still in the conference.”

And none of those schools have made the tournament since leaving lol.

Yeah, it’s not like VCU has made it every year, but once since….

(01-25-2022 11:38 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Nice how the three schools fit the footprint while all offering football.

Also, the CAA now has the eastern seaboard well covered. The permanent members new GeoCenter is near Salisbury, MD...in the middle of the Delmarva peninsula. Poor Elon now seems misplaced far-away from the Atlantic Ocean.

Considering how much it has been impacted by conference realignment over the years, the CAA has done a nice job of re-stocking with solid institutional fits. They could have easily turned into a mish-mashed league of outliers (both geographic and institutional), yet that hasn't happened.

Map of the CAA with the additions:

Elon's move to the CAA a decade ago made sense to me a decade ago. They have a whole lot of students and alumni in and from states to the north and all that.

But it has been that way going back more than 20 years. My wife went to Elon back in the early 2000's. I remember the license plates. Elon never needed the CAA to get northern students. That was a total myth. They've been successful recruiting students to their north for quite a long time. I would love to see any data on whether that has changed at all, one way or another, since joining the CAA.

Have Elon sports improved since joining the CAA? Still no NCAA Tournament appearances. Their best FCS teams were in the SoCon.

Also, which state provides more students to Elon than any other? North Carolina.

The SoCon has its games streamed on ESPN+. The CAA has its games on FloSports. The SoCon is pretty clearly the better basketball league. Its travel is better.

The SoCon would really do well to expand by four with Elon, UNCW, CofC, and Campbell. Or sub out one of those four with William & Mary.

Lastly, do students and alumni actually get more excited for their school to play FCS/mid major schools to the school's north? (Keep in mind this is a CAA that won't have easily the most appealing conference game, JMU, anymore.) Or would they enjoy playing schools right down the road like UNCG, Wofford, and Furman, continue playing nearby UNCW and CofC, and a new nearby school like Campbell.

It just seems like a no brainer. Playing Towson appeals to the folks in/from Maryland, but probably not anyone else. Similar story for the rest of the schedule. But the NC schools, Virginia-based VMI, and SC schools would appeal to its largest alumni base in North Carolina.

All that said, mich of realignment is based on emotions. The SoCon, fair or not, may still have hurt feelings from Elon's departure.

Please, anyone, give a rebuttal why Elon shouldn't go to the SoCon (if an offer were to be on the table). Please offer data that membership in the CAA has led to an increase in freshmen from the CAA footprint, where it was getting students aplenty. All due credit if this data exists because I know that was a motivating factor for Wlon's move in the first place.

(01-25-2022 11:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 11:38 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Nice how the three schools fit the footprint while all offering football.

Also, the CAA now has the eastern seaboard well covered. The permanent members new GeoCenter is near Salisbury, MD...in the middle of the Delmarva peninsula. Poor Elon now seems misplaced far-away from the Atlantic Ocean.

Considering how much it has been impacted by conference realignment over the years, the CAA has done a nice job of re-stocking with solid institutional fits. They could have easily turned into a mish-mashed league of outliers (both geographic and institutional), yet that hasn't happened.

Northeastern has always been an outlier. Hofstra was, but they seem to have fit them into the footprint now.

(01-25-2022 11:57 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 11:38 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Nice how the three schools fit the footprint while all offering football.

Also, the CAA now has the eastern seaboard well covered. The permanent members new GeoCenter is near Salisbury, MD...in the middle of the Delmarva peninsula. Poor Elon now seems misplaced far-away from the Atlantic Ocean.

Considering how much it has been impacted by conference realignment over the years, the CAA has done a nice job of re-stocking with solid institutional fits. They could have easily turned into a mish-mashed league of outliers (both geographic and institutional), yet that hasn't happened.

Ummm institutionally that's exactly what the CAA is, even moreso with these additions.

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(01-25-2022 11:38 AM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Nice how the three schools fit the footprint while all offering football.

Also, the CAA now has the eastern seaboard well covered. The permanent members new GeoCenter is near Salisbury, MD...in the middle of the Delmarva peninsula. Poor Elon now seems misplaced far-away from the Atlantic Ocean.

That's just the nature of North Carolina's population distribution. Outside of Wilmington, which itself isn't exactly a metropolis, the entire NC coast is sparsely populated. The whole eastern third, east of I-95, is pretty lightly populated (by the standards of eastern states), with only Wilmington's County topping 200,000, and that one just barely does. The majority of NC's population lies in a near contiguous series of cities from Gastonia (west of Charlotte) in crescent shape extending through Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and finally to Fayetteville, with many cities and decent sized towns adjacent along the way. Therefore, most of the D1 schools in NC are in the middle on westward.

(01-25-2022 12:04 PM)ibby10 Wrote:  Map of the CAA with the additions:

Colonial Atlantic Association + Elon

(01-25-2022 11:30 AM)ShakeNBake Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 10:28 AM)The Cats Wrote:  I can't see how CoC, Elon, & UNCW will be happy with these adds....

You got that right. As an Elon alum please have mercy on us and let us back to the SoCon!

You would know this better than me as an alum, but my understanding is that Elon gets a LOT of Northeast students (sort of the downstream version of Duke). According to the Elon website, after North Carolina (which is only 25% of enrollment), the top home states for its students are MA, NJ, NY, VA and PA. It's essentially the northern half of the CAA footprint. Considering this, Elon may be quite happy with the setup. CoC and UNCW are public schools with a lot higher in-state enrollment, so they're in a different boat.

(01-25-2022 12:18 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 12:04 PM)ibby10 Wrote:  Map of the CAA with the additions:

Colonial Atlantic Association + Elon

to me looking at the map, going to divisions the team that will be hurt the most is Towson. They're the 7th north team that would have to be in the south.

If they could "trade" Northeastern for a southern school, they'd have perfect divisions just about.

The CAA is still a bit of a mish-mash, but not many programs are true outliers. Northeastern is a geographic outlier, but institutionally they fit very well with Drexel and Hofstra (and when discounting football, W&M and Elon as well). Monmouth is a bit of an institutional outlier, but they're located right near the center of the conference, and should provide solid athletic programs.

The main outliers at this point are UNCW and Charleston. I don't think the SoCon has much interest in adding non-football schools at this point, so their only alternative might be the Big South. I think that could be a good move for them, and it would put them with a nice core of southeastern basketball-only schools, but administration probably views that as a downgrade, for better or worse.

(01-25-2022 12:06 PM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  Elon's move to the CAA a decade ago made sense to me a decade ago. They have a whole lot of students and alumni in and from states to the north and all that.

But it has been that way going back more than 20 years. My wife went to Elon back in the early 2000's. I remember the license plates. Elon never needed the CAA to get northern students. That was a total myth. They've been successful recruiting students to their north for quite a long time. I would love to see any data on whether that has changed at all, one way or another, since joining the CAA.

Have Elon sports improved since joining the CAA? Still no NCAA Tournament appearances. Their best FCS teams were in the SoCon.

Also, which state provides more students to Elon than any other? North Carolina.

The SoCon has its games streamed on ESPN+. The CAA has its games on FloSports. The SoCon is pretty clearly the better basketball league. Its travel is better.

The SoCon would really do well to expand by four with Elon, UNCW, CofC, and Campbell. Or sub out one of those four with William & Mary.

Lastly, do students and alumni actually get more excited for their school to play FCS/mid major schools to the school's north? (Keep in mind this is a CAA that won't have easily the most appealing conference game, JMU, anymore.) Or would they enjoy playing schools right down the road like UNCG, Wofford, and Furman, continue playing nearby UNCW and CofC, and a new nearby school like Campbell.

It just seems like a no brainer. Playing Towson appeals to the folks in/from Maryland, but probably not anyone else. Similar story for the rest of the schedule. But the NC schools, Virginia-based VMI, and SC schools would appeal to its largest alumni base in North Carolina.

All that said, mich of realignment is based on emotions. The SoCon, fair or not, may still have hurt feelings from Elon's departure.

Please, anyone, give a rebuttal why Elon shouldn't go to the SoCon (if an offer were to be on the table). Please offer data that membership in the CAA has led to an increase in freshmen from the CAA footprint, where it was getting students aplenty. All due credit if this data exists because I know that was a motivating factor for Wlon's move in the first place.

University presidents are the ones that make these decisions, so I think that we can't underestimate the East Coast (and specifically Northeast) bias in academia in particular. The Acela corridor is to academia as Hollywood is to entertainment or Silicon Valley is to tech. That's where the highest concentration of elite institutions is located, so every institution outside of that region wants to strengthen their ties there.

We see this all of the time when people on these forums ask, "Doesn't SLU want to go to a Midwestern league like the MVC instead of staying in the A-10?" The point is, no, SLU (or more particularly, the leadership of SLU) absolutely doesn't want to go to a Midwestern league. The fact that the A-10 is an Eastern-oriented league is a 100% feature for SLU instead of a bug.

My educated guess is that Elon may be in a similar position. It's not a local school in the same sense as UNCW or UNCG. This is a top 100 university with 75% out-of-state students and the fact is that the prestige in academia is disproportionately concentrated in the Northeast, so it's natural for a school to want strong ties to that region. An athletic conference is one way of achieving those ties.

Now, we can keep arguing over and over again here on whether a conference membership actually results in quantifiable boosts in enrollment, academic rankings, etc. It seems to come up in discussions every single day on this forum and applies from the top of the conference realignment food chain in the P5 down to the bottom. However, the point is that university presidents completely believe this to be the case in the same way that football coaches completely believe that having a conference opponent in a certain region will increase their ability to recruit in that same region. You will pretty much never get those parties to believe otherwise.

(01-25-2022 12:25 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 12:18 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 12:04 PM)ibby10 Wrote:  Map of the CAA with the additions:

Colonial Atlantic Association + Elon

to me looking at the map, going to divisions the team that will be hurt the most is Towson. They're the 7th north team that would have to be in the south.

If they could "trade" Northeastern for a southern school, they'd have perfect divisions just about.

That map is why rumor that the CAA wants to go to 14 has so much traction. Adding two schools in the vicinity of the southern five would allow Towson to go north, and would give the conference two pretty compact divisions of seven teams. It's basically trading a lower share of tourney money for the chance to have a "small conference" without the instability of worrying that you might lose a member and scramble to avoid your conference falling apart completely.

Is it larger than a mid-major conference should be, yeah, probably. But in the age of raid and be raided, having that safety net is a priority.

(01-25-2022 12:41 PM)jcohen42 Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 12:25 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 12:18 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 12:04 PM)ibby10 Wrote:  Map of the CAA with the additions:

Colonial Atlantic Association + Elon

to me looking at the map, going to divisions the team that will be hurt the most is Towson. They're the 7th north team that would have to be in the south.

If they could "trade" Northeastern for a southern school, they'd have perfect divisions just about.

That map is why rumor that the CAA wants to go to 14 has so much traction. Adding two schools in the vicinity of the southern five would allow Towson to go north, and would give the conference two pretty compact divisions of seven teams. It's basically trading a lower share of tourney money for the chance to have a "small conference" without the instability of worrying that you might lose a member and scramble to avoid your conference falling apart completely.

Is it larger than a mid-major conference should be, yeah, probably. But in the age of raid and be raided, having that safety net is a priority.

Yeah if they could add someone close to where East Carolina is(not saying ECU) and then one more in the Fayetteville to Florence area- that would be a very compact situation.

(01-25-2022 11:45 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 11:36 AM)Sitting bull Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 09:17 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 09:05 AM)ibby10 Wrote:  https://www.sbstatesman.com/2022/01/25/s...-join-caa/

“Great” article

“ The conference has not received many bids to the NCAA Tournament since 2011 when Old Dominion, George Mason and VCU all made the dance, with VCU advancing to the Final Four as an 11-seed. None of those teams are still in the conference.”

And none of those schools have made the tournament since leaving lol.

Yeah, it’s not like VCU has made it every year, but once since….

That was a very strange comment for sure. Also the one year VCU didn't make it since moving to the A10, ODU made it from C-USA.

(01-25-2022 11:30 AM)ShakeNBake Wrote:  

(01-25-2022 10:28 AM)The Cats Wrote:  I can't see how CoC, Elon, & UNCW will be happy with these adds....

You got that right. As an Elon alum please have mercy on us and let us back to the SoCon!

You gotta ask first... then eat some humble pie for the way Elon departed, yeah it was ugly,

....but I don't see Elon's leadership wanting back in, they think about all those Yankee dollars...

(01-25-2022 12:28 PM)jcohen42 Wrote:  Monmouth is a bit of an institutional outlier, but they're located right near the center of the conference, and should provide solid athletic programs.

In terms of standard academics that's correct, but Monmouth has been steadily increasing increasing in academic prominence in recent years (Top 20 in Northeastern regional universities and Top 400 Nationally on the Forbes "America' Best Colleges" list for the first time in 2020/2021)so its at least trending in the right direction. I'd expect the "cheerleader effect" of the other CAA institutions to give it a bump in future years as well.

The university also has an ace up its sleeve thanks to its its on campus polling institute, which is one of the most well known and respected political pollsters in the country, (FiveThirtyEight has it graded at an "A" in its poll grades FWIW), so that may give it some extra street cred in academic/higher education circles.

To me, I think CofC and UNCW are the 2 schools that would attempt to bolt for the SoCon. SoCon I think takes pride in having 9 football teams (4 home/4 away, everyone plays everyone), and any time I've seen someone mention adding a football team, there's pushback, but if the SoCon thinks adding the 2 southern non-football CAA schools or other non-football schools improve their chances in the NCAA Tourney (better seeding or better chances of receiving at-large bids), I could see them expanding back to 12 outside of football, but football stays at 9. That makes me think Elon and W&M are off the table for the SoCon.