(03-28-2021 05:53 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The lessons from CUSA and the Big East are clear. The only way to improve conference perception and value is to build the best performing conference you can. Full members--hybrid---it doesnt matter. There are only two lessons you should learn from the Big East and CUSA. One--Assembling the best "basketball" playing non-football members with your football schools can enhance the value of both and this combination will stay together as long as they continue to enhance each others value. Two---Because football generally has more value than basketball, never allow your percentage of hybrid "non-football" members to get so large that they exert control over your conference.

There is nothing wrong with the thoughtful and judicious use of the hybrid in building a conference as long as you understand and adhere to those two basic principals.

See, that sounds reasonable but it becomes more difficult in practice.

In the ESPN documentary "Requiem for the Big East" the old Georgetown AD specifically talked about how he passed on Penn State because the football issue wasn't his problem. He wan't the only one either, as Penn State didn't make the cut and instead it was Pitt who got the invite.

Let me repeat this: They turned down Penn State. For Pitt.

It was over the football needs of the conference as to why the Nittany Lions were asked and the second the Big East decided to play football as a conference any questions of quality of football would have been over, adding to long term stability. Long term interests to the conference were lost to individual mandates and while this no doubt happens elsewhere the magnitude of this loss comes from the simple idea that schools simply wouldn't work to together and came up with a half-****ed solution, no offense to Pitt. If they had all been on the same page that blunder NEVER would have happened.

This heavily underscores the idea that football and basketball schools have different needs and how they can get in the way. It also doesn't begin to discuss the same old money arguments that exist between football and basketball schools that go on to this day, especially in places like the ACC.

We need the schools on the same page or we have nothing long term. Looking ahead at the instability that is coming - because this conference will be raided at some point - we are setting ourselves up for a lot of needless pain if we start building separate agendas now.