(06-11-2010 11:58 PM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(06-11-2010 05:32 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Auto bid matters to the non-elite who hope to win the conference tournament and go. When you go to baseball, they aren't good enough to get an at-large bid and only Baylor is good enough in women's hoops.

If they get a 1 year no AQ, that isn't too bad. Since there is no rule in place, maybe they let it slide altogether.

There is a rule in place. The old rule. Only hope conferences getting raided have is a statement that the presidents want to revisit the issue.

(06-11-2010 08:37 PM)dchi72 Wrote:  There is a lot of bad blood between Tech and Wright Waters.

Tech and ULM are 30 minutes apart and are not known for playing nice with each other. The have competed for years over corporate sponsorships, students, athletes, etc.

Most Tech fans, myself included, do not have anything against most Sun Belt schools. Most just do not want anything to do with Waters.

Tech told him to stick it where the sun (belt) don't shine when he reminded them that the constitution and bylaws tech voted for required them to join football or be automatically expelled if the Sun Belt added football.

Tech whined and called him petty and low class when they announced their departure and the women's tournament was taken away from Tech exactly as the league bylaws require of departing teams.

When a school is pissed off that the league commissioner does exactly what the league bylaws require and they throw a public snit about it there is going to be bad blood but the cause of the bad blood is very clear.

Watch Cops sometime, you can see the same story every time someone gets mad at an officer for doing his job.

(06-11-2010 08:30 PM)wvucrazed Wrote:  I hesitate to bring this up because I really don't want to start a flame-fest (although being the interwebs that's probably unavoidable), but I was looking at the La Tech message board... and their biggest fear seemed to be that somehow they'd get sent to the Sun Belt. And yet several of them thought they might end up in a reconstituted Big 12.

Nothing against La Tech at all, but I have no clue why they think they are somehow out of the Sun Belt's league. I guarantee the average college sports fan shares the same opinion. Why wouldn't they want in a more regional league with similarly situation schools that actually make sense from a rivalry standpoint and that seems to be getting better each year.... do they like burning money?

I don't get it, maybe i'm missing something.

It doesn't have anything to do with being "out of someone's league", it has everything to do with wanting to be in the best possible conference. Are MTSU, FIU, FAU, and Troy irrationally arrogant for wanting a CUSA invite? No, they just want their school in the best possible position. I don't know you, so I won't assume you adhere to the typical AQ conference school "know your role" mentality, but your post seems to hint at that line of thinking. I don't fault any school for wanting to be in a better spot than they are now...be it the Sunbelt or the Big 12.

You won't find me being critical of schools wanting better. You will find me jumping all over idiots who think conference membership is the ticket to paradise and the WAC is prime example of that.

La.Tech made the smart play, but it didn't break the way anyone expected and its time to cut losses.

Utah State got left behind when BYU and Utah left the Mountain States to form the WAC. Since 1962 the goal of Utah State has been to be in the WAC. They finally achieved that goal but who did they join? Not BYU and Utah, they ended back in a league with their old Big West buddies plus Hawaii. If the goal was merely to get WAC patches on their jerseys they've been successful, but they aren't affiliated with the schools that caused them to want to be in the WAC. Arizona, Arizona St., BYU, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado St., UTEP, and Air Force are all gone. Except for a short exile in the Sun Belt with inappropriate southern affiliation, Utah State is basically where its been the past forty years and haven't moved forward in affiliation.

Boise has achieved its goal of MWC membership. Does it matter if Utah, BYU, TCU, get raided out or are they pretty much where they were with a new cast?

I would love to see something like the following:

West:
NMSU
UNT
SMU
Tulsa
Rice
La Tech

East:
Ark State
ULL
Tulane
USM
UAB
Western Kentucky/MTSU

Nice regional conference. Could easily add a couple of teams to move to 14 or 16 teams if needed.

(06-12-2010 08:40 AM)dchi72 Wrote:  I would love to see something like the following:

West:
NMSU
UNT
SMU
Tulsa
Rice
La Tech

East:
Ark State
ULL
Tulane
USM
UAB
Western Kentucky/MTSU

Nice regional conference. Could easily add a couple of teams to move to 14 or 16 teams if needed.

Too many egos involved, but you would hope common sense might prevail. The problem for Tech and UL is Tulane doesn't want to be in a conference with either. This is why they refuse to play either program program in FB or BB in recent years. They played UL in BB last season for the first time in many years. They turned down offers to play UL in the Dome and La Tech in Shreveport, both games would have been well attended.

SMU has no interest in being in a conference with UNT, they are similar to Tulane in their views.

Unfortunately I don't see this group comming together, it just makes too much sense.

Honestly, I don't know why a conference would split MT and WKU. 96 miles apart....... heck, we draw a couple of thousand when we play each other in volleyball. 100 Miles of Hate, and an easy way to face both programs via a weekend trip with Nashville (airport, team hotels, tourist draw for fans) in the middle.

(06-12-2010 08:40 AM)dchi72 Wrote:  I would love to see something like the following:

West:
NMSU
UNT
SMU
Tulsa
Rice
La Tech

East:
Ark State
ULL
Tulane
USM
UAB
Western Kentucky/MTSU

Nice regional conference. Could easily add a couple of teams to move to 14 or 16 teams if needed.