The Cutter of Bish
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
(02-10-2017 12:42 PM)Minutemen429 Wrote: (02-10-2017 12:04 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: If Metro was sending three or four teams, Big East was sending six or seven. Even the most robust years for the Metro, Great Midwest (too small and too short-lived to be that significant), and original CUSA couldn't match what the Big East was doing.
ACC, though...that was what the Big East wanted to be. That was like, always the aim. A northeastern version of ACC basketball, which was just the five or six coastal states. So, even when the Big East clearly owned the sport...I bet even the best members would have dumped BE for ACC.
No Big East teams would have left the Big East for the ACC for basketball purposes.
Villanova.
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02-10-2017 02:46 PM |
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DawgNBama
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
I always thought the South's equivalent to the Big East was the SoCon, but I'm not really sure now. Opinions?
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02-26-2017 12:18 AM |
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NoDak
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
(02-26-2017 12:18 AM)DawgNBama Wrote: I always thought the South's equivalent to the Big East was the SoCon, but I'm not really sure now. Opinions?
The SoCon was formerly a southern equivalent of the A10, but Davidson, Richmond, and George Washington left it for the A10. Now the SoCon isn't even an equivalent to the Horizon. The south half of the CAA is much higher in bball than the SoCon now.
The privates in the SoCon are just tiny.
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02-26-2017 12:36 AM |
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Curtisc83
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
(02-09-2017 03:56 AM)DawgNBama Wrote: I know that the West Coast Conference is the western equivalent to the BE, but I was curious at to what the southern equivalent would be. The SoCon maybe?
That would be The Big South
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02-26-2017 06:07 AM |
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Native Georgian
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
(02-10-2017 09:53 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: I think that we're mistaking particularly high interest in a sport relative to the rest of the country (e.g. baseball in the SEC or hockey in the Big Ten) as actually being outright more popular than basketball. When LSU sells a ton of baseball tickets or Michigan sells a ton of hockey tickets and their fan bases are particularly intense, I think that we can fall into the trap into perceiving that those sports are actually more popular than basketball at those campuses.
All true.
I attended the Michigan/Ohio State hockey game last night at Value City Arena. Announced attendance = 8,737 and the crowd was very much into it from start to finish (UM 1, #12 OSU 0). But nothing like what a MBB game would've been.
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02-26-2017 01:13 PM |
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p23570
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
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02-26-2017 02:16 PM |
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NoDak
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
The old Metro was the southern equivalent, but some of those schools are P5 now because football is so important then and now in the South. The American is mostly southern now and effectively was birthed from the Big East and has many former Metro schools. The South lacks major Catholic schools so the comparison is off to begin with.
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2017 02:20 PM by NoDak.)
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02-26-2017 02:18 PM |
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Attackcoog
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
(02-09-2017 11:22 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (02-09-2017 09:52 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote: (02-09-2017 08:59 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (02-09-2017 08:20 AM)ValleyBoy Wrote: (02-09-2017 07:56 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: We really don't do BB in the South.
BB in the South is just something to do to past the time when football season ends.
Really? I know that this is a football-biased board, but did everyone forget that the ACC exists?
I wouldn't say the ACC is equivalent to the Big East. If anything, the ACC is more like the Big Ten - only with more smaller, private schools.
Oh, I'd agree. I just disagree with the "SOUTH = FOOTBAWL" bias that we sometimes see here. If you look at the 6 bluest of the blue bloods in basketball (Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana and UCLA), 3 of them are located in the South. Plus, the ACC was built on basketball fandom.
I see what your saying. That said, once you move from east---there isn't much in the way of significant southern basketball first schools. I just see no real southern book end for the Big East. Hell, I don't even see a southern match for the A-10. So, while it may be somewhat simplistic to say the south is all about "FOOTBAWL"---there is certainly more than a grain of truth in that statement.
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2017 08:40 PM by Attackcoog.)
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02-26-2017 02:58 PM |
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CrazyPaco
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
(02-10-2017 02:46 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: (02-10-2017 12:42 PM)Minutemen429 Wrote: (02-10-2017 12:04 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote: If Metro was sending three or four teams, Big East was sending six or seven. Even the most robust years for the Metro, Great Midwest (too small and too short-lived to be that significant), and original CUSA couldn't match what the Big East was doing.
ACC, though...that was what the Big East wanted to be. That was like, always the aim. A northeastern version of ACC basketball, which was just the five or six coastal states. So, even when the Big East clearly owned the sport...I bet even the best members would have dumped BE for ACC.
No Big East teams would have left the Big East for the ACC for basketball purposes.
Villanova.
No. None.
Teams only left, or expressed interest in leaving, to secure the viability of their football programs and/or when the overall viability of the conference came into question.
Post-1984 or 1985, the Big East never internally felt they were looking up at anyone as a basketball league. When schools left, they left in spite of what they had on the basketball side of the league.
The closest thing that has existed to Big East basketball is probably Hockey East.
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2017 07:25 PM by CrazyPaco.)
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02-26-2017 07:22 PM |
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Rabonchild
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
I would say the CAA with ten teams of which two teams in Virgina, two in NC, and one in SC are about as close as it gets to a Southern Big East. Wilmington & Charlestion are in first and second place and Elon and & William & Mary are in fourth and fifth place.
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02-26-2017 09:52 PM |
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Fighting Muskie
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
The South's basketball first, nonfootball schools are all scattered across a few leagues. If you were to try to put them all together I think your top tier is:
VCU
UNC Wilmington
UNC Greensboro
Davidson
Charleston
Belmont
To fill out the rest of the league you could either use some Big South schools, the Florida ASUN schools, or stretch it out to include schools like UALR and UTA.
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02-26-2017 10:08 PM |
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Rabonchild
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
(02-26-2017 10:08 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: The South's basketball first, nonfootball schools are all scattered across a few leagues. If you were to try to put them all together I think your top tier is:
VCU
UNC Wilmington
UNC Greensboro
Davidson
Charleston
Belmont
To fill out the rest of the league you could either use some Big South schools, the Florida ASUN schools, or stretch it out to include schools like UALR and UTA.
Winthrop, Murry St & UNC - Ashville would be three good additions
(This post was last modified: 02-26-2017 11:55 PM by Rabonchild.)
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02-26-2017 11:51 PM |
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DawgNBama
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
Actually that would be Murray St, and some other good ones would be ETSU (they do love their football, but their basketball is very top-notch!!), Chattanooga, Lipscomb, FGCU, Mercer, Samford, (not sure on Stetson, but they would be good for baseball), Elon, NC Central, Norfolk State, UT-Martin--I'm not saying that the South has a collection of Catholic or even private schools not Catholic that would be like the BE, but rather a mixture of public & private schools having the mentality of the BE: basketball first. I guess that would make it the A-10 of the South, oh well.
(This post was last modified: 02-27-2017 01:10 AM by DawgNBama.)
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02-27-2017 01:02 AM |
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megadrone
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RE: What is the South's equivalent to the Big East?
To go back to the OP, you have to look at why the Big East was formed. Independence ruled the day in the Northeast, and access to the basketball tournament would have been limited if the Big East wasn't formed. All the schools were in a loose confederation (the ECAC) but otherwise ran as independents -- in the South, schools allied themselves in conferences at a much earlier time. Jake Crouthamel (Syracuse AD) led the efforts to get like minded schools together along basketball lines. He wrote a good history of the Big East here: http://cuse.com/sports/2001/8/8/history.aspx It has a Syracuse slant (for obvious reasons) but it was his and Dave Gavitt's vision that built the Big East to what it became in the 80s.
The Eastern 8 formed for pretty much the same reason -- just different schools (PSU, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Rutgers, et. al.) -- and later became the Atlantic 10.
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02-27-2017 09:09 AM |
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