(09-30-2015 01:21 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-30-2015 12:50 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(09-30-2015 11:22 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-29-2015 07:00 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(09-29-2015 06:40 PM)Jet915 Wrote:  I'd like Gonzaga/BYU added to the Big East. Gonzaga is a top flight program and BYU has a huge following. Gonzaga AD in the past has said they they are interested. The east coast Big East presidents are not though....

That I don't get. It's only one trip to the West Coast every season, and probably not even that since the double round-robin would surely be gone with expansion past 10, and the East Coast teams likely would not see a yearly home-and-home with them. If Gonzaga is willing to take a few trips to the Midwest and occasionally the East Coast, why not?

The problem is that there is no such thing as a "basketball-only" membership - unlike football, a school must place all of its sports into the same conference where its a basketball member (assuming that the conference sponsors a sport - i.e. Arizona State can place its hockey team in the Big Ten or NCHC because the Pac-12 doesn't sponsor the sport).

So, you can't just look at it as Gonzaga just being a men's basketball-only member in the Big East, where you could conceivably make the argument that it's "only" one trip to the West Coast per year taking a direct charter jet. You have multiply those trips to the West Coast for all of the non-revenue sports where they have to fly commercial where they almost assuredly have to make connecting flights because Spokane is such a small airport and/or fly into a place like Seattle and then drive several hours. That's simply untenable.

People make such a big deal out of "bad geography" when we're talking about the Big Ten adding Rutgers and Maryland or the SEC adding Missouri, but those were all contiguous additions to those leagues' existing footprints. In contrast, Gonzaga in the Big East is BAD GEOGRAPHY, and BAD GEOGRAPHY invites instability (which is exactly what the Catholic 7 were running away from). Even West Virginia in the Big 12 is a cakewalk geographically by comparison.

Maybe the Big East schools can make a concerted effort to schedule a few games with Gonzaga in the non-conference season, but making them a member is an entirely different matter altogether. University presidents are willing to stretch geographic boundaries, but not completely obliterate them.

From what I can tell, Gonzaga plays six Big East-sponsored sports (men's/women's basketball, men's/women's soccer, baseball, women's volleyball) that involve full conference schedules (they also have cross country, but there's only the one conference meet). Obviously there's more financial considerations than if it were just men's basketball, but it's certainly feasible.

The Big East has already obliterated geographic boundaries with schools in Illinois, Wisconsin and now Nebraska. Now it's a matter of what degree are they willing to expand them? And is Gonzaga enough of a basketball asset and institutional fit to make the extra miles worth it? I say yes, understanding that it may well never happen.

Let's put it this way: Gonzaga gets in before VCU.

But it's NOT obliterating geographic boundaries. Many people here make a big distinction between the East Coast and Midwest in our brains because of cultural differences, but in terms of sheer mileage, it's still manageable overall (i.e. around 2 hours on a plane and generally accessible by direct flights). This is quite different than flying (a) cross-country to a airport hub like Seattle for 6 hours and (b) THEN having to drive over 4 more hours to Spokane after that. A lot of fans tend to overrate how far apart the Eastern and Midwestern schools are from each other while underrating how far apart all of the Western schools are from each other (especially the ones that aren't near a major international airport, such as Gonzaga is with Spokane).

I know that university presidents pay only cursory lip service to student-athlete concerns (and I call them out on their hypocrisy as much as anyone), but even they understand that any of the East Coast-based Big East schools going to Spokane is an insane trip to have to make every year for non-revenue sports.

But again, how often are the East Coast teams going to Spokane? I think it's safe to presume that Gonzaga's addition would mean the Big East was going to at least 12, which means no double-round robin and thus either divisions or pods. In either case, the East Coast teams would make the cross-country trip once every other year, or maybe three years out of five. Plus, assuming that they don't charter, they'd fly to Spokane with a layover instead of trying to bus from Seattle.

I'm well aware how far Spokane is from the major East Coast cities (3,000 miles, give or take). But it's not as though these schools don't play on the West Coast (hell, Villanova's playing Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor this season). I think the benefits in terms of further establishing the Big East as a national conference while not conceding institutional fitness far outstrip the costs of adding a couple of West Coast trips to the schedule.