(10-04-2019 11:23 AM)Wedge Wrote:  Right, depends on whether you define success by one particular sport, or the athletic department as a whole, or the perceived status of the conference that the school is joining, etc.

St. Thomas can be successful across Olympic sports in the Summit League as long as they find ways to cover the college costs of their athletes who are not on full athletic scholarships. It's the same issues that Denver has -- advantage of being in a major city, disadvantage of being a very expensive private university in a conference where nearly every other school is a public university that is much more affordable for athletes receiving only partial scholarships. St. Thomas will probably be very competitive right away in Pioneer League football.

UC San Diego should have built-in advantages in recruiting for "Olympic" sports in the Big West because many of the athletes that are typically recruited for those sports will be attracted to the school's academic reputation. (So will their parents.) For the university, the important thing is that (given they'll never have a football team) they'll be in their first-choice athletic conference. They might be the only school on your list that can say that.

The programs joining the WAC have the advantage of going into a wide-open league where no one has a dominant athletic program and no one except Grand Canyon can overwhelm them by outspending everyone else.

I think all eight schools are good additions to D1 and the conferences that they are going to. UCSD is great academically and is in a beautiful location. But that alone will not give them a "built-in advantage." The challenge for UCSD at D1 is to continue to find athletes who qualify academically while also raising the overall skill level of their athletic programs. That will not be easy.

I think CBU has the better facilities and not as stringent academic requirements. In the Inland Empire, with a population of 4.5 million, there are only two D1 schools: UCR and CBU. CBU will win that recruiting battle. In their first year at D1, they were the only team in WAC basketball to beat NMSU and in baseball they were conference co-champions. They were also the only NCAA school to beat NMSU in a three-game series.

In basketball, CBU went 4-3 in basketball against UCSD in their brief stay at D2. The games were all close. CBU has improved at D1 and will get better. That is the challenge that UCSD faces at D1.