What do you guys think the chances are of a scheduling alliance for non-revenue sports with the Big East? I mean we have an informal one already just being in the same region.

Wisconsin/Marquette
Nebraska/Creighton
Ohio St./Xavier
Rutgers/Seton Hall
Ill-NW/DePaul
PSU/Villanova
Indiana-Purdue/Butler
Maryland/GTown

But maybe we can get the other schools involved with some games.

You have Michigan, MSU, Iowa, Minny left in the B1G and St. John's and Providence in the Big East. I'm sure we can get some non-revenue games set up with them. And just so you know St. John's is quite good in Soccer and Baseball so you will be getting a quality opponent.

And once you guys come one over from ESPN to Fox in three year, we can set up the Big East/Big Ten challenge.

Good luck getting Georgetown to play Maryland. We've (stupidly) blacklisted them from all sports until they agree to play us in basketball.

(06-10-2013 12:13 PM)AtlanticLeague Wrote:  Good luck getting Georgetown to play Maryland. We've (stupidly) blacklisted them from all sports until they agree to play us in basketball.

Well now that you guys are now in a league with more travel you might reconsider that blacklisting.

(06-10-2013 01:40 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  

(06-10-2013 12:13 PM)AtlanticLeague Wrote:  Good luck getting Georgetown to play Maryland. We've (stupidly) blacklisted them from all sports until they agree to play us in basketball.

Well now that you guys are now in a league with more travel you might reconsider that blacklisting.

Or they could just agree to play us in basketball.

(06-10-2013 02:34 PM)AtlanticLeague Wrote:  

(06-10-2013 01:40 PM)NJRedMan Wrote:  

(06-10-2013 12:13 PM)AtlanticLeague Wrote:  Good luck getting Georgetown to play Maryland. We've (stupidly) blacklisted them from all sports until they agree to play us in basketball.

Well now that you guys are now in a league with more travel you might reconsider that blacklisting.

Or they could just agree to play us in basketball.

I could see both sides coming back to the table and agree to a scheduling agreement after both conference shake ups. GTown needs to beef up it's OOC in BBall and Maryland needs close OOC games in the non-revs to help it's teams from traveling too much.

I think both conferences can benefit from this since we basically overlap each other.

I posted this in another thread. I think a baseball series between the two leagues all played neutral sites in the south could really help both conferences. We're both at a disadvantage when we have to play these southern and western schools on their home fields for a good 2 months before we can return home.

I have no problems with Rutgers playing the 3 Big East schools local to us every year in some form.

I have nothing against playing any Big East teams, but I'm not sure I see the need for a scheduling alliance. If it makes sense for a Big Ten team to play a Big East out of conference they will. Without this involving the major sports or a challenge of some kind, I don't think we need an alliance at the conference level.

(06-10-2013 09:40 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  I have nothing against playing any Big East teams, but I'm not sure I see the need for a scheduling alliance. If it makes sense for a Big Ten team to play a Big East out of conference they will. Without this involving the major sports or a challenge of some kind, I don't think we need an alliance at the conference level.

Yeah, if a scheduling alliance in a particular sport makes sense to both sides, then it makes sense independent of any broader framework ... if there is supposed to be a situation where the alliance in one sport is in the interest of the Big Ten and the alliance in a second sport is in the interest of the New Big East ... I'm not sure that's a stable arrangement anyway.

I like the idea of a baseball and softball challenge between the conferences. Do it down in Florida each spring. Rutgers will probably continue to play Seton Hall in those sports anyway.

(06-11-2013 09:53 AM)brista21 Wrote:  I like the idea of a baseball and softball challenge between the conferences. Do it down in Florida each spring. Rutgers will probably continue to play Seton Hall in those sports anyway.

Yeah, each school will look at each sport separately. Though to me the baseball idea makes too much sense. Why give the SEC and ACC all of these home games against us?

Personally, I kind of like the idea but I am going to play devil's advocate here for a bit.

I could see the Big Ten really wanting to work out a second event with the ACC in Lacrosse since the basketball event seems to go over pretty well. Politically speaking, if the Big Ten is going to try to work out some kind of arrangement with the conference that is clearly better at Lacrosse then they probably shouldnt do anything to irritate the ACC such as making a similar basketball challenge as to the one the ACC and Big Ten have.

I wish it wasn't like that but Ego's and Politics at the University level do come into play.

Seems like I wasn't so far off!

"2. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has charged the basketball staff to look at some scheduling options to help out incoming members Maryland and Rutgers on the East Coast. One challenge or scheduling agreement that was circulated in infancy stages was with the Big East. But like the once and failed proposed deal with the Pac-12, figuring out how to schedule with another conference can be cumbersome. The Big Ten already has the marquee challenge with the ACC. Some schools in the Big Ten have locked in nonconference rivalry games, or neutral-site commitments. It leaves little room for another forced challenge. The other problem with doing a Big Ten-Big East deal is that games already exist. Creighton-Nebraska, Marquette-Wisconsin, Rutgers-Seton Hall are games between the two conferences (Rutgers will join the Big Ten in 2014-15). Butler-Indiana and Butler-Purdue are on a rotation of playing against each other every other year (Notre Dame plays Indiana/Purdue the other year). DePaul has played Northwestern and could ensure that game occurs, or one against Illinois for DePaul. Having Ohio State play Xavier, Villanova-Penn State (not a reach) and then the holy grail of trying to convince Maryland and Georgetown to play could actually be recast as a challenge. The problem would be finding two teams that make sense to play Providence and St. John's. This is all still a reach and the Big Ten isn't going to look at any of this until after a year of watching the new Big East."

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketbal...dome-issue

Ohio State is not going to want to play Xavier in the regular season much. As a general (although not absolute) rule, the school avoids playing in-state schools with significant followings in a sport as it would rather Ohioans be able to be fans of both teams. For similar reasons; Woody Hays wanted to avoid playing Notre Dame so as not to divide Ohio Catholics. We're played Cincinnati once in basketball in the last several decades in the regular season (in an early season game in Indiana where they were going to get killed; its was Oden's year and UC was a mess). Other than that one game, I don't ever remember Ohio State playing Cincinnati, Dayton, or Xavier in the regular season at all (all three in the the NCAA or NIT at points though).

In football meanwhile, the games with Cincinnati were scheduled a long way back when UC was still in Conference USA. Ohio State was just going to buy out the contract (the cost was cheap and games at home were going to be more profitable than ones in Cincinnati), but UC really wanted them to go anyway so the contract was scrapped and instead they became a million dollar or so set of one and dones.

Edit: Thing to take from this: The Big Ten is very serious about getting an east coast presence.

I dont see why for this to happen every team from both leagues would have to take part. Seems there are plenty of quality local/regional match ups to take advantage of. I don't see why an unnecessary forcing of match ups that dont matter should keep the situation from happening.

For the Buckeyes, establishing a series with St. Johns in basketball would be a New York trip every other year. That seems more interesting in terms of playing in front of Buckeyes fans who can't normally get to Columbus for a game than playing in Cincinnati every second year.

And that could be pursued as in incremental step toward a "Big Ten / Big East Challenge".

Similarly, for X, playing Northwestern in Chicago might be more interesting than playing in Columbus.

Also, the New Big East is not likely done expanding. If SLU joins the New Big East, they might play the Illini or the Hawkeyes.

The Big Ten often takes a patient approach to these kinds of things, and it could well make sense to just nudge individual schools to establishing a New Big East series, to get visibility for the Big Ten BBall on the Fox Sports network, until it gets to the point of just UMD/Georgetown and the Friars to be able to have a branded challenge, and only then put a challenge on the front burner.

Meanwhile, a Big Ten / Big East classic in Lacrosse seems a natural. A Classic is normally a pair of games played back to back so that the costs of using the stadium and of setting up the field for Lacrosse are spread over the gate for four teams. But with the Big Ten, we could put together a Big Ten / Big East classic in Baltimore with a rotation of Big Ten teams as the first game, then UMD and JHU as the anchors, playing three Big East Lacrosse teams in some agreed rotation.

(06-15-2013 04:01 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  For the Buckeyes, establishing a series with St. Johns in basketball would be a New York trip every other year. That seems more interesting in terms of playing in front of Buckeyes fans who can't normally get to Columbus for a game than playing in Cincinnati every second year.

And that could be pursued as in incremental step toward a "Big Ten / Big East Challenge".

Similarly, for X, playing Northwestern in Chicago might be more interesting than playing in Columbus.

Also, the New Big East is not likely done expanding. If SLU joins the New Big East, they might play the Illini or the Hawkeyes.

The Big Ten often takes a patient approach to these kinds of things, and it could well make sense to just nudge individual schools to establishing a New Big East series, to get visibility for the Big Ten BBall on the Fox Sports network, until it gets to the point of just UMD/Georgetown and the Friars to be able to have a branded challenge, and only then put a challenge on the front burner.

Meanwhile, a Big Ten / Big East classic in Lacrosse seems a natural. A Classic is normally a pair of games played back to back so that the costs of using the stadium and of setting up the field for Lacrosse are spread over the gate for four teams. But with the Big Ten, we could put together a Big Ten / Big East classic in Baltimore with a rotation of Big Ten teams as the first game, then UMD and JHU as the anchors, playing three Big East Lacrosse teams in some agreed rotation.

Thank you for explaining a lacrosse classic. I'd heard that term elsewhere and wasn't sure exactly what the set-up was. I'd definitely be in favor of that.

For the rest, I'm still not sure I see a reason for a conference level commitment across sports. Something like a classic in lacrosse makes sense. Basketball series can already occur though if the two schools want them and the only reason for a conference-conference tie instead of a school-school arrangement is if we wanted a full challenge to sell to ESPN or someone. Since we already have that with the ACC, I would be surprised if the schools want to give up another game (especially since they only want a couple road non-conference games a year).

To put this in perspective, this (including football though) was what we were trying for with the PAC-10. The reason for it though was to expand the conference following across the nation without expansion. The hope was more people on the west coast would watch the Big Ten a little closer and people in the Midwest would watch the PAC-12 a little closer. The conference said it wouldn't have expanded had that worked.

(06-18-2013 08:43 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(06-15-2013 04:01 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  For the Buckeyes, establishing a series with St. Johns in basketball would be a New York trip every other year. That seems more interesting in terms of playing in front of Buckeyes fans who can't normally get to Columbus for a game than playing in Cincinnati every second year.

And that could be pursued as in incremental step toward a "Big Ten / Big East Challenge".

Similarly, for X, playing Northwestern in Chicago might be more interesting than playing in Columbus.

Also, the New Big East is not likely done expanding. If SLU joins the New Big East, they might play the Illini or the Hawkeyes.

The Big Ten often takes a patient approach to these kinds of things, and it could well make sense to just nudge individual schools to establishing a New Big East series, to get visibility for the Big Ten BBall on the Fox Sports network, until it gets to the point of just UMD/Georgetown and the Friars to be able to have a branded challenge, and only then put a challenge on the front burner.

Meanwhile, a Big Ten / Big East classic in Lacrosse seems a natural. A Classic is normally a pair of games played back to back so that the costs of using the stadium and of setting up the field for Lacrosse are spread over the gate for four teams. But with the Big Ten, we could put together a Big Ten / Big East classic in Baltimore with a rotation of Big Ten teams as the first game, then UMD and JHU as the anchors, playing three Big East Lacrosse teams in some agreed rotation.

Thank you for explaining a lacrosse classic. I'd heard that term elsewhere and wasn't sure exactly what the set-up was. I'd definitely be in favor of that.

For the rest, I'm still not sure I see a reason for a conference level commitment across sports. Something like a classic in lacrosse makes sense. Basketball series can already occur though if the two schools want them and the only reason for a conference-conference tie instead of a school-school arrangement is if we wanted a full challenge to sell to ESPN or someone. Since we already have that with the ACC, I would be surprised if the schools want to give up another game (especially since they only want a couple road non-conference games a year).

To put this in perspective, this (including football though) was what we were trying for with the PAC-10. The reason for it though was to expand the conference following across the nation without expansion. The hope was more people on the west coast would watch the Big Ten a little closer and people in the Midwest would watch the PAC-12 a little closer. The conference said it wouldn't have expanded had that worked.

I don't totally buy that line. I think that they may have waited longer between additions than 3 years, but I still think they go after Rutgers and Maryland before the end of the decade.

(06-18-2013 10:39 AM)brista21 Wrote:  

(06-18-2013 08:43 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(06-15-2013 04:01 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  For the Buckeyes, establishing a series with St. Johns in basketball would be a New York trip every other year. That seems more interesting in terms of playing in front of Buckeyes fans who can't normally get to Columbus for a game than playing in Cincinnati every second year.

And that could be pursued as in incremental step toward a "Big Ten / Big East Challenge".

Similarly, for X, playing Northwestern in Chicago might be more interesting than playing in Columbus.

Also, the New Big East is not likely done expanding. If SLU joins the New Big East, they might play the Illini or the Hawkeyes.

The Big Ten often takes a patient approach to these kinds of things, and it could well make sense to just nudge individual schools to establishing a New Big East series, to get visibility for the Big Ten BBall on the Fox Sports network, until it gets to the point of just UMD/Georgetown and the Friars to be able to have a branded challenge, and only then put a challenge on the front burner.

Meanwhile, a Big Ten / Big East classic in Lacrosse seems a natural. A Classic is normally a pair of games played back to back so that the costs of using the stadium and of setting up the field for Lacrosse are spread over the gate for four teams. But with the Big Ten, we could put together a Big Ten / Big East classic in Baltimore with a rotation of Big Ten teams as the first game, then UMD and JHU as the anchors, playing three Big East Lacrosse teams in some agreed rotation.

Thank you for explaining a lacrosse classic. I'd heard that term elsewhere and wasn't sure exactly what the set-up was. I'd definitely be in favor of that.

For the rest, I'm still not sure I see a reason for a conference level commitment across sports. Something like a classic in lacrosse makes sense. Basketball series can already occur though if the two schools want them and the only reason for a conference-conference tie instead of a school-school arrangement is if we wanted a full challenge to sell to ESPN or someone. Since we already have that with the ACC, I would be surprised if the schools want to give up another game (especially since they only want a couple road non-conference games a year).

To put this in perspective, this (including football though) was what we were trying for with the PAC-10. The reason for it though was to expand the conference following across the nation without expansion. The hope was more people on the west coast would watch the Big Ten a little closer and people in the Midwest would watch the PAC-12 a little closer. The conference said it wouldn't have expanded had that worked.

I don't totally buy that line. I think that they may have waited longer between additions than 3 years, but I still think they go after Rutgers and Maryland before the end of the decade.

Maybe, but the PAC-12 agreement meant the Big Ten scrapped their plan to go to 9 conference games (announced after Nebraska was added). Practically I don't think the conference would have gone to 14 without 9 conference games being feasible so if Maryland/Rutgers (or two others) were added later, I think the PAC-12 agreement would have been scrapped then. I know the ACC and SEC have taken that approach, but the Big Ten has emphasized playing each other more too many times for me to buy that. Regardless, it was an attempt to add value without the need for expansion.

The other one raised that seems interesting on a single-sport basis would be a Big Ten / Big East baseball set-up in early season neutral-stadium games. Maybe they could be played at MLB spring training parks.