Have you considered WKU as a viable member? there is a possibility of wku getting an invite to the mac. this is great for football, but is worse than the sun belt in basketball. my solution would be to join the Mac as a football only member and find a good fit for the other sports.

Before you bounce me out of here, consider what we have to offer. While we have never won a national championship, western has made 3 final fours the last in 71. as for recent success, we most recently made the sweet sixteen in 2008. we made a terrible coaching hire following that season and are just now recovering. last season we fired Horn's replacement and hired Ray Harper (if you do not know him, you soon will). With harper at the helm we took a team with a losing record and marched to the NCAA tournament. We beat MVSU in the first four and went on to play UK.

In the last 10 years we have made the tourney 5 times and earned 4 tourney wins. during that stretch we averaged a seed of 12.4.

We have a significant commitment to athletics. our facilities are nice, but undersized. plans are ready for expanding the football stadium in the future and there are some preliminary processes on re-expanding diddle. Diddle at one point had nearly 14k seats, with reductions and the addition of suites that number is below 8k.

just take a look at the numbers and tell me what you think. the C7 might not even be interested in a team playing fbs football.

No. About the only FBS schools we'd consider are UConn and Cincinnati, and that's if they asked nicely as conference bros. (Some would consider Notre Dame, but that would be a temporary thing which I would vote No on.)

Your basketball resume in isolation is worthy of Big East consideration with the other candidates. HOWEVER:

1. You're an FBS school. That's a headache we don't need. A school that will hire Bobby Petrino is a school that would leave us for the Aresco League given the chance, or even for full MAC membership if they demanded it. Either way, you don't bring enough to the table to make that worth our while.

2. You're in a 100-150,000 metro.

I respect what the Hilltoppers have done in basketball, but you are absolutely not a fit.

(02-03-2013 08:51 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  No. About the only FBS schools we'd consider are UConn and Cincinnati, and that's if they asked nicely as conference bros. (Some would consider Notre Dame, but that would be a temporary thing which I would vote No on.)

Your basketball resume in isolation is worthy of Big East consideration with the other candidates. HOWEVER:

1. You're an FBS school. That's a headache we don't need. A school that will hire Bobby Petrino is a school that would leave us for the Aresco League given the chance, or even for full MAC membership if they demanded it. Either way, you don't bring enough to the table to make that worth our while.

2. You're in a 100-150,000 metro.

I respect what the Hilltoppers have done in basketball, but you are absolutely not a fit.

I'm with you John. I enjoy the Hill Toppers and their awesome mascot, but we are not inviting FBS schools.

(02-03-2013 04:44 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  

(02-03-2013 08:51 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  No. About the only FBS schools we'd consider are UConn and Cincinnati, and that's if they asked nicely as conference bros. (Some would consider Notre Dame, but that would be a temporary thing which I would vote No on.)

Your basketball resume in isolation is worthy of Big East consideration with the other candidates. HOWEVER:

1. You're an FBS school. That's a headache we don't need. A school that will hire Bobby Petrino is a school that would leave us for the Aresco League given the chance, or even for full MAC membership if they demanded it. Either way, you don't bring enough to the table to make that worth our while.

2. You're in a 100-150,000 metro.

I respect what the Hilltoppers have done in basketball, but you are absolutely not a fit.

I'm with you John. I enjoy the Hill Toppers and their awesome mascot, but we are not inviting FBS schools.

I respect the fact that the c7 wants to avoid the fbs deal. if it was up to me and most of toppernation we would drop back to fcs for an invite to the C7/ Real big east.

I think we would go independent before we went to the MAC in basketball. We may play football, and we may play darn good football but WKU is still in Kentucky.

As for our market: a google search of BG metro will show up a pop. of 150,000. What you are missing is that the state of Kentucky is all about good basketball. that is 4.7 mil. then you talk about bringing in the Evansville market (great alumni density and north of bg, brings familiarity with the other conference programs.). We are also heavily involved in the Nashville market. We play a home football some seasons and a home basketball game there every year. played UL this season. We also have our own sateltite sports network. all of our bball games arebroadcast locally in bg, Louisville, and nationwide (previously on Fox Sports but espn3 pays more, go figure).

I just wanted to feel out the league. I wish you guys the best of luck.

(02-03-2013 04:44 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  

(02-03-2013 08:51 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  No. About the only FBS schools we'd consider are UConn and Cincinnati, and that's if they asked nicely as conference bros. (Some would consider Notre Dame, but that would be a temporary thing which I would vote No on.)

Your basketball resume in isolation is worthy of Big East consideration with the other candidates. HOWEVER:

1. You're an FBS school. That's a headache we don't need. A school that will hire Bobby Petrino is a school that would leave us for the Aresco League given the chance, or even for full MAC membership if they demanded it. Either way, you don't bring enough to the table to make that worth our while.

2. You're in a 100-150,000 metro.

I respect what the Hilltoppers have done in basketball, but you are absolutely not a fit.

I'm with you John. I enjoy the Hill Toppers and their awesome mascot, but we are not inviting FBS schools.

Thanks guys, Big Red is a beast. I respect the direction that you guys are going.

I want to make a few points real quick, not pimping just discussing. as for the aresco league Memphis and Cinn will make sure that does not happen. both schools have been in a pact to lock out western a long as they have been affiliated with Louisville. this goes back to the metro days.

As far as the MAC, I would never set foot in diddle if they painted M A C on John Oldham Court. The mac, while obviously a good mid major football conference is a joke with the orange, round, ball. Let's face it WKU is in KY, that orange ball is what we all care about.

I do not see the petrino hire as a desperate grasp at straws. Someone was going to hire him, probably a sun belt/cusa school. If we cannot beat him, hire him (for next to nothing I might add).

I for one would be all for dropping fball back to FCS for the sake of joining the number one basketball conference in the land, it would absolutely kill the fans of that school in Lexington.

as for our market size. this is a hotly debated issue, mainly among fans trying to smear our good name for the sake of advancing their own school...

WKU is situated in the BG market. approx. 140k I believe in the metro. What no one wants to admit is that good basketball in Kentucky always wins out. meet our new 4.4m market share. BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE: wku is also full of out of state students from music city usa. We have a hotbed of alumni living in the Athens of the south. Nashville has a metro of >1.5m.

We also claim to have a good sector in Evansville in, which is a metro of 300k. I do not know about that so I wont count it. I will say that I know we have good representation and respect across the state and in Nashville.

All of our bball games are broadcast live locally in bg and in Louisville. We also play a basketball game in Bridgestone arena in Nashville every other year as a home game. we also have played the blue team in Nashville in football twice.

I do not know if this would ever work because of the football thing, but from a basketball perspective we match up very well. from a tv market perspective we bring a potential 5.9m subscribers in 2-4 major metropolitan areas.

Football is what caused this.

So to echo NJRedman, ain't nobody with FBS football getting in. (Except for Notre Dame, but I don't think they're on the table).

(02-03-2013 08:51 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  No. About the only FBS schools we'd consider are UConn and Cincinnati, and that's if they asked nicely as conference bros. (Some would consider Notre Dame, but that would be a temporary thing which I would vote No on.)

Well probably BYU too if it meant adding Gonzaga. I don't think Notre dame would be temporary at all however.