Frog in the Kitchen Sink Wrote:

In The Know Wrote:Which would still be a better opponent than the PAC10 #4 or #5, or a MAC school.

I dunno. The last three LV Bowls have had UCLA, Cal and Oregon. Of those Cal ended up a top 25 team that year (2005). For me those are attractive opponents and given Vegas is a location I like to visit (as proof, I have been to Vegas 7 times, with another trip planned, and Memphis only once 20 years ago), I'm just saying that I'd be excited to go to Vegas and face one of those teams. Again, I'm not saying the Vegas is a better bowl, only that I'm more likely to go to it. Summarily dismissing it as an unattractive pre-Christams bowl doesn't do it justice, because my guess others feel the same way about looking foward to heading to Vegas with several thousand fans and facing a team like UCLA, Cal or Oregon. What's so bad about that?

BTW, honestly I can't understand the demeaning of the MAC (who filled an at large spot out of necessity) when the second bowl for the CUSA is also against the MAC. That's like cutting off the nose to spite the face.

If you're happy with it because it suits you better personally, fine. I'm glad for you. Just don't come to a CUSA board and claim that it's a better deal, because it's not.

gdayre Wrote:According to RC this morning on the Memphis radio, he said that TCU made overtures about coming back if Tulane was unable to stay at Div. 1. Also told that Boise ST and Fresno ST also contacted us about joinging CUSA. There were several others too. So something must be right about this conference after alll the defections. Congrats to CUSA.

Uh oh, you just opened up a can of worms with that post.

The author of the article in the OP obviously hasn't a clue how these things work. No conference kicks out a member. If there are any departures from C-USA, it will be because a BCS autobid league came calling. Marshall and UCF appear happy as clams. I suppose UTEP could be tempted by the MWC, but it's a lateral move. I suppose ECU could make a wildhair football independent move betting on the come with the Big East. Both are unlikely. Other than that, we aren't losing any members unless the Big East plans a raid.

So, depending on how many we lose, we either focus internally on being the strongest 9 or 10 team league we can be, or we expand back to 12. I don't think that decision is a given.

Now, if we do lose members, we won't be bargaining from a position of strength. TCU and New Mexico would be my top 2 C-USA expansion candidates. But I don't see us wooing them if we get raided again.

If the choice is to go to 12, then the Sun Belt schools + Louisiana Tech from the WAC would be the obvious pool of schools to choose from based on a geographical perspective. I doubt seriously any MAC schools would be considered, and Army and Navy won't be interested.

But all of this is SunBelt pie in the sky. The Big East has agreed to stay a 16 team conference through 2010. I don't see any reports of the Big East basketball schools breaking off to form their own league, and the Big East football conference seems to be doing just fine. They could well remain at 16 for a long while.

Even if the Big East football schools broke off, I can't see them taking more than Memphis initially. It would be a huge blow, losing our best basketball program + the Liberty Bowl, but I can't see the 8 Big East football schools breaking off and expanding to 12 right away.

aTxTIGER Wrote:the short answer is no....the long answer is no....and the compromise is no. end of story.

We have a winner.

A) I think if anyone from Sun Belt should be offered membership it should be Troy.
B) I don't want UTEP out of the C-USA, especially not for some little school like MTSU.

Guys, why are we even discussing this? It should be like the TCU thing, we laugh say "Boys, that was a good joke", and move on about our business. Yeesh!

CougarRed Wrote:Even if the Big East football schools broke off, I can't see them taking more than Memphis initially. It would be a huge blow, losing our best basketball program + the Liberty Bowl, but I can't see the 8 Big East football schools breaking off and expanding to 12 right away.

I still do not understand why a good program would want any changes. Look at Cindy bball is now compared to the old CUSA. Miami and FSU have essentially rendered each other useless. ATM has never regained their stature since the move to the b12.

In CUSA, Memphis could bearly scratch a bid in the old league and now they are a 1 or 2 seed. Why leave knowing you may not get a bid in a tougher league?

Now for a program like USF or Baylor or Texas Tech, making more money while losing is a better deal but those programs have nothing to lose.

we arent better because we have less competition, we are better because our recruits are actually coming to campus now. caliparis first 4 years included amare stoudamire, quentel woods, kendrick perkins all going pro. we were left with 100+ rated recruits. 2 years ago saw the first time all of our recruits came to campus(CDR, Shawne Williams, Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier, Kareem Cooper). that influx is the reason we are better. if we had the 1 year college rule in 2003 we might have won a national title. starting lineup of antonio burks, quentel woods, sean banks, earl barron, and amare stoudamire. i dont think anyone would have a better lineup. id also have to disagree about "scratching a bid". calipari's first two years were cleaning up the mess tic price left this program in. since then weve gone to 4 tourneys in 5 years. 2 of those during the old CUSA. the one year we didnt go, we were 2 free throws with 0.0 on the clock from taking the auto bid. what im trying to say is that we probably would have won the big east last year, and the year before would have been a dog fight between Memphis, UCONN, and Nova. we wouldnt have "scratched" for a bid.

Is Quentel (Qyntel?) Woods the guy that keeps showing up in the Michael Vick dogfighting articles as one of 2 former athletes to have been convicted of involvement in dogfighting?

he does have a past in dog fighting, yes.

aTxTIGER Wrote:we arent better because we have less competition, we are better because our recruits are actually coming to campus now. caliparis first 4 years included amare stoudamire, quentel woods, kendrick perkins all going pro. we were left with 100+ rated recruits. 2 years ago saw the first time all of our recruits came to campus(CDR, Shawne Williams, Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier, Kareem Cooper). that influx is the reason we are better. if we had the 1 year college rule in 2003 we might have won a national title. starting lineup of antonio burks, quentel woods, sean banks, earl barron, and amare stoudamire. i dont think anyone would have a better lineup. id also have to disagree about "scratching a bid". calipari's first two years were cleaning up the mess tic price left this program in. since then weve gone to 4 tourneys in 5 years. 2 of those during the old CUSA. the one year we didnt go, we were 2 free throws with 0.0 on the clock from taking the auto bid. what im trying to say is that we probably would have won the big east last year, and the year before would have been a dog fight between Memphis, UCONN, and Nova. we wouldnt have "scratched" for a bid.

Similar quotes were made by Cindy fans. The BE is by far the most difficult league in the nation. There is absolutely no way you could proclaim a title in that league. imo

Kingwoodcoog Wrote:

aTxTIGER Wrote:we arent better because we have less competition, we are better because our recruits are actually coming to campus now. caliparis first 4 years included amare stoudamire, quentel woods, kendrick perkins all going pro. we were left with 100+ rated recruits. 2 years ago saw the first time all of our recruits came to campus(CDR, Shawne Williams, Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier, Kareem Cooper). that influx is the reason we are better. if we had the 1 year college rule in 2003 we might have won a national title. starting lineup of antonio burks, quentel woods, sean banks, earl barron, and amare stoudamire. i dont think anyone would have a better lineup. id also have to disagree about "scratching a bid". calipari's first two years were cleaning up the mess tic price left this program in. since then weve gone to 4 tourneys in 5 years. 2 of those during the old CUSA. the one year we didnt go, we were 2 free throws with 0.0 on the clock from taking the auto bid. what im trying to say is that we probably would have won the big east last year, and the year before would have been a dog fight between Memphis, UCONN, and Nova. we wouldnt have "scratched" for a bid.

Similar quotes were made by Cindy fans. The BE is by far the most difficult league in the nation. There is absolutely no way you could proclaim a title in that league. imo

Have you actually been paying attention to Cincinnati in the last couple of years? Their downfall hasn't been because of the move to the BE, but rather because of issues surrounding what happened with Huggins. Marquette and Louisville seemed to do okay in the BE this year.

aTxTIGER Wrote:what im trying to say is that we probably would have won the big east last year

Somehow I think Georgetown (the Big East regular season & tournament champ) would disagree with that. Whatever was said against them, they'd probably just point to the Final 4 banner from April!

i said probably. thats my homer opinion. they were good, but not unbeatable. same as us. besides, with the way you guys schedule, we probably wouldnt even play them in the regualr season.

CollegeCard Wrote:

aTxTIGER Wrote:what im trying to say is that we probably would have won the big east last year

Somehow I think Georgetown (the Big East regular season & tournament champ) would disagree with that. Whatever was said against them, they'd probably just point to the Final 4 banner from April!

And I'll show them the video of Green traveling against Vanderbilt. I kid, I kid. Anyways its pointless to argue over whether Memphis would've won the Big East last year or not. However, I do believe you can make an argument that Memphis could've at least competed for the Big East title last year.

Frog in the Kitchen Sink Wrote:

UTEPDallas Wrote:Liberty Bowl payout: $1.6 million
Las Vegas Bowl payout: $950k

Nice spin but the Pac-10 #4 is not impressive. Usually it's a team that had a disappointing season and it's a bowl that's rarely well attended by Pac-10 schools. MWC fans usually criticize C-USA's champ playing the #6 SEC team in the Liberty Bowl. Well, to put it this way......

SEC #6>>>>>>>Pac-10 #4

I still stand by my POV. How in the world a conference that considers itself "BCS worthy" has two ranked teams playing before Christmas? How come a ranked TCU played a MAC team? That really is evidence on how pathetic the MWC's bowl tie ins are and how the MWC will always be treated as a midmajor. All your bowls are in MWC cities and the ratings are usually low. Also, LV bowl can move the date after New Year's.....just like the GMAC did last year. BTW, the MWC only played one BCS school (BYU vs Oregon) while C-USA played two: Liberty (Houston vs South Carolina) and Birmingham (ECU vs South Florida). Need I say more?

While C-USA has work to do to improve our football and basketball.....I like C-USA chances better to be the best nonBCS conference than the MWC's. We have rising programs in football and Memphis is head and shoulders above each MWC school in basketball.

Couple of points of correction:

The LB is against the #6 or #7 SEC team:

http://www.secsports.com/index.php?s=&ch...icle_id=44

The LV bowl is a 1 million payout:

http://www.lvbowl.com/media.php?id=4

Also, remember, the SEC has sent two teams to the BCS several times; the PAC-10 only twice in 8 years, so the SEC is more likely to be an additional spot further down the rankings.

Finally, I'm not arguing the LV Bowl is a better bowl- it is most certainly not. I am saying that for me, I would prefer to go to Vegas on a direct flight and hang out and see my team play the #4/5 PAC-10 team than have to connect on two flights and see them play #6/7 (or 8, if two SEC teams in the BCS) SEC.

Frog: where the heck do you live? Memphis is a major hub (Northwest; and is the headquarters for Northwest Airlink/Pinnacle) so there are hundreds of daily flights into Memphis from most major and mid-sized cities throughout the country. The other airlines and just recently Frontier fly into Memphis, so its hard to believe (not meaning I don't) you can't get a direct flight. Heck, there is a nonstop to Amsterdam!LOL

klg316 Wrote:

CollegeCard Wrote:

aTxTIGER Wrote:what im trying to say is that we probably would have won the big east last year

Somehow I think Georgetown (the Big East regular season & tournament champ) would disagree with that. Whatever was said against them, they'd probably just point to the Final 4 banner from April!

However, I do believe you can make an argument that Memphis could've at least competed for the Big East title last year.

No argument, I agree.