(04-02-2021 10:05 AM)DeeHee33 Wrote:  

(03-31-2021 11:31 PM)jedclampett Wrote:  

(03-31-2021 05:07 PM)Memphis Yankee Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 07:31 AM)vick mike Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 12:30 AM)Memphis Yankee Wrote:  
We have a commissioner who could care less about basketball. In a perfect world, I wish Memphis could be in the AAC in football and the Big East in BB.

In a perfecter world I'd like to see them get in a P5 conference. Disgusted with this league in BB. It's CUSA with better teams who get to kick the **** out of each other and get viewed as CUSA.

If this keeps going on. None of us will be able to recruit anymore. Memphis had the #1 class last year and the #6 class this year. Nobody else is bringing in recruits at that level. We're a "G5" program recruiting at a P5 level.

Memphis BB is in a bad spot right now. I love what our program is doing in football, but I'll always be a BB fan first, and I hate what's going on with Memphis in BB.

So Memphis, with 2 consecutive top 10 classes, is being held back by the other American teams? You’re not maybe being held back by mediocre coaching? By not doing well OOC? By not winning enough to leave no doubt you should be in? Your take on this is a really bad look.

Imagine you're a coach with the #1 class and the top player in that class who's the #1 player in the country can't play. You can't blame the coach for that. Has he gotten better as coach? Sure he has. This isn't about Penny.

We had two teams in the tournament. Two in the NIT. That looks like every other conference outside of the P5/Big East conferences.

How is the American helping Memphis, Cincinnati, Houston in basketball?

Football, we're doing great.

I guarantee ya when the selections were being made, They realized the AAC only had one team in, and made a second pick with Wichita.

What's weird is this is a conference of basketball schools. Memphis/Cincinnati/Temple/Wichita are and always will be, basketball schools first.

I realize football is the driver, and kudos to all of the schools for improving their football programs. I just hate seeing us trending down as a conference in BB.

Selfishly I'm bothered by people saying this years Memphis team was good enough to play with anybody. Yet we didn't get invited. Playing in the AAC didn't help any of our schools in basketball. It certainly didn't help Memphis.

Look at Uconn. They were basically like they were last year in the AAC. They probably would have finished in the 3-6 range here. Because their conference is called the Big East, they end up as a 7 seed. All they had to do was move to another part of the neighborhood.

Aresco has done a very good job for our football teams. Seems disinterested with basketball.

Not sure that he is quite so aloof as to be "disinterested" in basketball, and he may have been as jazzed as most of us have been during 2021 tournament play, due to Memphis and Houston's successes.

He also cared enough about basketball to bring Wichita State aboard, in perhaps the most important move that has ever been made in advancing his and the conference's strategic plan.

One of the reasons for the period of stasis that followed was that most of the conference schools never seemed to show any interest in expanding beyond 12 members, and also seemed to show little interest in replacing UConn until the negotiations with Boise St. began last August.

Perhaps what we may perceive as a lack of interest in basketball may actually be Aresco's belief that conference expansion has to start by adding schools with strong football programs.

It's also possible that - - now that the majority of AAC schools now seem to support going beyond replacing UConn to an expansion to 14 - - he may be hesitating to add any basketball schools until he nails down the football side of an expansion deal.

However, adding three football schools while remaining stuck at 11 basketball schools might not be the wisest possible move, given the uncertainties about Cincy, WSU, SMU, Tulsa, etc. basketball.

If the AAC plans to replace UConn before expanding - - for example, if the rumor that BSU has found an acceptable conference for their BB/olympic sports to play in is true - - then, the next step should probably be to bring a BB school aboard to replace UConn BB.

We agree that it would be best to add a good BB school for every FB school that is added.

Not only that, but since he has been criticized for showing too little interest in AAC basketball recently, it would probably be a good move on his part to at least make a reassuring statement during his next press conference that the conference's replacement/expansion plans will include the addition of high level BB schools as well.

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Why bring VCU or Dayton basketball only? If the AAC conference offered Boise or San Diego State it should be all sports. Both San Diego State and Boise have just as good basketball program as Dayton and VCU ?? Plus they both have P6 qualities in football.

It's not "basketball-only." It's all other sports except football, commonly referenced as "Olympic sports." So that means every team would end up traveling to Boise or San Diego St. regularly, which is a lot of travel for teams that don't charter. Dayton and VCU are much closer to the AAC footprint for travel purposes.

Football travel is meaningless because teams charter, but Olympic sports travel across the country adds up in both time and cost.\

Also, while Boise basketball is good right now - made the NIT this year after choking away an NCAA bid - that's very much an aberration. Dayton isn't quite as consistent as we make them out to be in these threads, but they've made the tourney 4 times in the last 9 seasons (excluding 2020 for this purpose), and they were poised to be a #1 seed last year. Disappointing that they fell off so much this year, but it's still a weird year. Nevertheless, Dayton has strong fan support...they averaged just a hair under 13,000 per game in 2019, which was good for 22nd overall in the country.

VCU has made the tourney 8 out of the last 9 years. They are a model of consistency and keep making the tourney even after they lose coaches. They averaged a bit over 7,500 per game in 2019, which puts them comfortably in line with the AAC.

Boise averaged 5,000, which isn't bad. They've made the tourney twice in the past 9 years, losing in the 1st round both times. Which isn't meant to say they're bad, because they're definitely better than some AAC programs in that regard. But nothing about it is screaming that they need to be all-sports addition when taking travel into consideration.

SDSU has fallen off slightly from where they were under Steve Fisher, but they've still made the tourney 6 out of the last 9 seasons (excluding 2020). Unfortunately for them, like Dayton, they were stacked in 2020 and would have been a #1 or #2 seed. Attendance was just under 11,000/game. They'd be a strong addition in terms of perception and tourney credits, but the travel is something. It will take its toll on their team and ours. To say nothing of the non-chartering non-revenue sports.