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Has the sunbelt surpassed conference usa? They had 6 bowl teams this year and they are ranked 13th in RPI rankings while CUSA is ranked 23rd..

Ask the teams that recently left the Sun Belt for C-USA.

Maybe that's why they have surpassed.

Pretty obvious looking at the numbers that they are better right now. Whether that is long term remains to be seen.

Since the G5 conference teams serve as proving grounds for P5 programs, it is likely that the top teams in both conferences will fluctuate in strength over several seasons. As successful coaches are skimmed off by needy P5 schools, the G5 schools must take chances on their replacements (as UAB is doing this BB season) and if they guess wrong, the conference SOS/RPI will suffer. It is likely that the G5 member schools and their conferences will rise with good choices and fall with poor ones. One season does not make a trend or final judgement of quality.

We hope UAB provides an additional C-USA bowl team in fall 2017.

I think its more than one season. CUSA for the most part didn't want FCS upstarts and made decisions like taking Charlotte instead of GSU and North Texas over Texas State. Neither of those CUSA additions seems to have shown much of a hearbeat while the two SBC additions have been bowl eligible in football and in GSU's case has won 100 MBB games in 5 years in the SBC plus a tournament win.

I'd take the Sun Belt over CUSA, especially for UAB. More natural rivals, better geographic fit and really just a better conference.

The Sun-Belt is ranked higher than CUSA primarily due to the bottom feeders in CUSA. While in the SB every team can beat every other team CUSA is top heavy and bottom light and has been for years. CUSA has 9 of 14 teams with RPIs 200+, while SB has only 4 of 11. I have no hesitancy is saying that the top 4 teams in CUSA would beat the top 4 teams in the SunBelt...

CUSA
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_cusa_Men.html

SunBelt
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_sbelt_Men.html

Maybe the P5 will start hiring away all the Sun Belt coaches and give CUSA some stability for a little while.

(03-07-2017 04:44 PM)panama Wrote:  I think its more than one season. CUSA for the most part didn't want FCS upstarts and made decisions like taking Charlotte instead of GSU and North Texas over Texas State. Neither of those CUSA additions seems to have shown much of a hearbeat while the two SBC additions have been bowl eligible in football and in GSU's case has won 100 MBB games in 5 years in the SBC plus a tournament win.

If C-USA had an equal shot at those four, Charlotte and GSU make the most sense with either of the two Texas teams coming in third in terms of markets. The two Texas teams seem primarily about recruiting areas.

(03-07-2017 05:32 PM)WesternBlazer Wrote:  The Sun-Belt is ranked higher than CUSA primarily due to the bottom feeders in CUSA. While in the SB every team can beat every other team CUSA is top heavy and bottom light and has been for years. CUSA has 9 or 14 teams with RPIs 200+, while SB has only 4 of 11. I have no hesitancy is saying that the top 4 teams in CUSA would beat the top 4 teams in the SunBelt...

CUSA
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_cusa_Men.html

SunBelt
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_sbelt_Men.html

I agree. It's interesting how things have trended, but wasn't it just a year ago that cusa owned them in football? Basketball is an issue in cusa, and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. It was the main reason I strongly opposed the utsa and f_u additions.

CUSA is too big. Trying to be something that it isn't. Geographic rivalries are going to keep G5 around/relevant longer.

Florida and Texas schools are being maintained by rising wealthy state support. FAU may have pulled off a major coup by its FB hire and FIU may grow stronger as well. In the near future, both schools may become successful athletic factors for C-USA in revenue sports. They have both the state funding and enrollment to become major players in FBS.

Going into 2018, Alabama's public universities are still a half billion dollars below SETF funding levels in 2008. (OK, If the SETF for 2018 gets the estimated $90 million increase from 2017, the deficit will shrink to only $410 million since 2008)