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(11-29-2012 02:37 PM)rebounder2u Wrote:  Okay I guess I have kicked this horse as much as possible, if we had stayed the course...
For those of you who believe this is the death of us, dont believe it, we will be okay.
I believe we are perfectly located and now UAB and So. Miss are the bell cows, thats not a bad thing

It's not death, more like purgatory. What we're seeing is the reversal of part of Gene Bartow's legacy at UAB. UAB athletics is back to where it was before the move to the Great Midwest. Can UAB claw its way back? Yes, but it will be done against an ever hostile BOT and without a national figure like Coach Bartow leading our advance.

Nothing is over but it's hard not to be extremely discouraged.

Nothing attractive

(11-29-2012 08:28 PM)LairDweller Wrote:  Nothing attractive

Quote:Meanwhile, the Atlantic 10 is firming up its basketball. The A-10 has added VCU and Butler to the likes of Xavier, Richmond and Saint Joseph's. The A-10 knows what it is, and is trying to get stronger. The Big East knows what it wants to be, but doesn't realize it'll never get there. And so it becomes weaker. Every few days, it seems, another relevant school leaves or another irrelevant school joins. The Big East is a haphazard collection of useless junk. It started out as a designer boutique of basketball; now it's Kmart.

(11-29-2012 02:55 PM)BlazerGreen Wrote:  

(11-29-2012 02:37 PM)rebounder2u Wrote:  Okay I guess I have kicked this horse as much as possible, if we had stayed the course...
For those of you who believe this is the death of us, dont believe it, we will be okay.
I believe we are perfectly located and now UAB and So. Miss are the bell cows, thats not a bad thing

It's not death, more like purgatory. What we're seeing is the reversal of part of Gene Bartow's legacy at UAB. UAB athletics is back to where it was before the move to the Great Midwest. Can UAB claw its way back? Yes, but it will be done against an ever hostile BOT and without a national figure like Coach Bartow leading our advance.

Nothing is over but it's hard not to be extremely discouraged.

Big +1...

You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

(11-29-2012 09:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

Couldn't agree more. The only team that helped UAB with attendance was Memphis in basketball, and even that was beginning to fade. UAB success was and still is predicated on how successful we are against the teams we play. Going 8-4 in football will help, if we beat USM, Tulane, ECU, Rice, SMU, Memphis, Troy & SELA vs beating USM, FAU, FIU, Rice, North Texas, Mid Tenn, Troy & SELA... It won't make a difference to most.

(11-29-2012 09:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

I don't think we are overreacting.

We are now replacing defectors with Sun Belt schools. That's a huge difference. While Louisville has ascended to the Big East and now the ACC, UAB has remained stuck in C-USA which is now becoming the new Sun Belt.

Furthermore, we have seen several of those "bad teams" who came into C-USA after us move on to greener pastures.

I think we are under reacting!

UCF and Marshall came from the MAC. SMU came from the WAC. So what. They moved up and put themselves in position. What conference they played in is irrelevant

Last season the Sun Belt kicked CUSA's ass. CUSA is in no position to look down on the SUn Belt. Middle Tenn could beat 3/4 of the current CUSA roster

CUSA has sucked since 2005. I,m hoping the newcomers might make it stronger

Louisville was not drawing flies (Averaging less than 10,000 a game butts in the seat) playing in an old rundown baseball stadium. There was talk of shutting down their football program. Then moved into C-USA built a stadium and look at them. MB is correct. It does not matter where you came from. It's what you do when you get there.

Reality is the new lineup is not much different from the old one in football and basketball if you throw out Memphis it's an upgrade. Obviously losing Memphis is huge but with the other teams we came out better RPI wise.

To keep from starting a new thread and since this observation is somewhat related to this thread, here I go.
I enjoy seeing the SEC get beaten in just about everything, in fact I enjoy it so much, I find myself cheering for... the ( original ) Big East Basketball teams Vs. SEC.
I believe ESPN should reopen negotiation for the watered down SEC-Big East challenge, because the SEC-Big East Challenge is now, The SEC VS.CUSA-BIG EAST CHALLENGE.

(11-29-2012 09:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

2005 was horrible. CUSA was a much stronger conference than the Big East the prior year. If teams would have only stayed loyal then none of this realignment crap would have happened.

(11-30-2012 10:32 AM)uab278 Wrote:  

(11-29-2012 09:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

2005 was horrible. CUSA was a much stronger conference than the Big East the prior year. If teams would have only stayed loyal then none of this realignment crap would have happened.

THIS!!!

In the SunBelts infancy, the SunBelt was viewed very positive as a basketball league, it was a 2-3 bid league that was a favorite on a new sports enterprise (ESPN ) born almost with UAB Basketball.
ESPN was hungry to cut out a market for its broadcasts, and the SunBelt, with UAB, VCU, UNCC, OD, ETC.. was just what the doctor ordered, in those days, the Sunbelt was full of teams and Coaches comparable to any basketball league in America, heck UAB was legit, we had just hired the Late Great Gene Bartow, away from UCLA no less.
Then Louisville reared its ugly head, we thought to be legit we had to keep up with teams like ourselves, so on to the Great Midwest following the elite that had sought us out earlier for a merger, then later they seperated themselves from us and merged with BE, because they never really loved us, they just needed what we had, a good solid league.
This is what I see again.. and again.. its the same thing, over and over we built it they come.

Louisville was never in the Great Midwest.

It was UAB, Memphis, Cinncinnati, DePaul, Marquette, and Saint Louis. Dayton was a member in its last year.

It may have been the greatest basketball league ever assembled. One year, 4 teams went to the NCAA tournament (64 teams) and two went to the NIT. It lasted 4 years and Cincinnati pretty much won every year, but we beat Cincinnati most years.

As long as we are pining away for the past, that is what I want back

(11-30-2012 10:21 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  Louisville was not drawing flies (Averaging less than 10,000 a game butts in the seat) playing in an old rundown baseball stadium. There was talk of shutting down their football program. Then moved into C-USA built a stadium and look at them. MB is correct. It does not matter where you came from. It's what you do when you get there.

Reality is the new lineup is not much different from the old one in football and basketball if you throw out Memphis it's an upgrade. Obviously losing Memphis is huge but with the other teams we came out better RPI wise.

And I've got the FN numbers to prove it.

(11-30-2012 11:00 AM)rebounder2u Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 10:32 AM)uab278 Wrote:  

(11-29-2012 09:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

2005 was horrible. CUSA was a much stronger conference than the Big East the prior year. If teams would have only stayed loyal then none of this realignment crap would have happened.

THIS!!!

This was my argument in 2005. I whined about it for a couple of years, but I've moved on now. I DO still hold a grudge against TCU, Louisville, Cincy, and USF, though. If they had stayed, we could have added 'Cuse, Pitt, WVU, and UConn. But we didn't. We need to focus on improving ourselves so we are more attractive going forward.

(11-30-2012 12:08 PM)the Dragon Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 11:00 AM)rebounder2u Wrote:  

(11-30-2012 10:32 AM)uab278 Wrote:  

(11-29-2012 09:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

2005 was horrible. CUSA was a much stronger conference than the Big East the prior year. If teams would have only stayed loyal then none of this realignment crap would have happened.

THIS!!!

This was my argument in 2005. I whined about it for a couple of years, but I've moved on now. I DO still hold a grudge against TCU, Louisville, Cincy, and USF, though. If they had stayed, we could have added 'Cuse, Pitt, WVU, and UConn. But we didn't. We need to focus on improving ourselves so we are more attractive going forward.

We were all complaining then.

The biggest difference between now and then is that the Big East had an undeserved auto-BCS bid. Now they do not.

The new CUSA could work out very well for UAB.

(11-29-2012 09:21 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  You guys are overreacting. This is not as bad as in 2005 when we lost Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati and the others. That was a serious blow. We lost good teams and replaced them with bad teams. Now we are replacing bad teams with bad teams

Just because that was worse doesn't mean this isn't bad too. My own personal overreaction isn't to the most recent departures (East Carolina and Tulane are obviously no great loss); it's over the unmitigated catastrophe that has occurred over the past decade to our conference affiliation. I'm a slow build, but now I've decided to panic.