(05-03-2018 08:17 PM)panama Wrote:  

(05-03-2018 07:51 PM)The Grape King Wrote:  

(05-01-2018 10:39 AM)templefan1 Wrote:  

(05-01-2018 12:21 AM)The Grape King Wrote:  

(04-30-2018 11:45 PM)panama Wrote:  Maybe UMass after some improvement @ facilities. URI and VCU? Highly unlikely. AAC MBB is fine and football is king.

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Basketball is terrible, and trying to improve it doesn't detract from football. I don't understand where that idea comes from.

I don't think it's likely, I think it's the best possible path for the conference to take.

How does adding URI improve basketball? They have been to two NCAA tournaments since the 1999 season. Yes, they had a coach that improved the program and they couldn't stop an AAC program poaching him. The bottom line is Umass, URI, and even VCU at this point doesn't improve anything because in reality basketball does not increase media revenue.

We need football schools that can play some basketball every 2 or 3 years. Memphis appears to have made a good recruiting hire in Penny. Hurley was a home run for UConn. Having those two programs back in power is really what the conference needs...not URI or VCU.

Hell, Boise State has made 1 more NCAA tournament appearance since 1999 than URI, so I guess they are a power house in Bball!!!

Again, you're not looking more than 5 feet in front of your face. URI not only gives you an up and coming basketball program that has shown a willingness to invest and an ability to succeed, they give you that New England triangle and makes this conference one of the most relevant from Maine to Norfolk (assuming the ODU add). It's a bigger strategy that makes this conference stable and more sustainable in the long run. Boise looks like the more favorable add, but it doesn't help develop the culture, it doesn't give you a market of any notable size or help develop a presence in a particular region, and it doesn't help create any rivalries or add interesting storylines that the conference needs if it wants to be less irrelevant.

VCU and ODU are huge rivals already. Having the 3 biggest public brands in New England is massively valuable. URI and VCU are solid basketball schools that would see a massive recruiting increase by moving up to the AAC. Boise State and BYU are what they are, and make this conference even more of a piece of temporary patchwork every school would jump to leave at any given opportunity.

And again, you can scream about western schools as much as you want, but Aresco has been clear that the conference has no interest in going west.

League isn't going anywhere

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It might go somewhere without Cincinnati, UConn, and Memphis. There's a mid major conference no one wants anything to do with.