(08-13-2019 07:54 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(08-13-2019 02:47 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(08-12-2019 06:51 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  I grasped as much but it was a dumb move. It barely pre-dates my days of actively watching college basketball, I guess the A-10 hadn't quite arrived like it did in the mid-to-late 90's.

It got the conference into New York, and the affiliation with other private schools seemed to fit. I'm sure, academically, very few say no to Fordham. They were looking, the A10 bought in.

Plus it’s a pretty big school for being private and they fit the profile.

I know the A10 was looking to replace Penn State, and Virginia Tech was way up there on the list, but they ended up staying in the Metro when Louisville committed to stay. I think the actual PSU replacement team was Xavier. Then Rutgers and WVU left and were replaced with Fordham and Dayton. At some point they went expansion crazy and added VaTech, Richmond, and maybe some other school I can’t think of.

Fordham and Xavier were invited in 1994 to replace WVU and Rutgers. Fordham was consistently decent in the decade preceding their invitation to the A10. They fit institutionally and geographically and had the resources to spend on basketball at the level the A10 expected at the time. They’re consistently in the middle of the pack or higher in basketball spending in the A10, have some academic prestige to sell and are in an area loaded with talent yet they’ve proven incapable of making a competent a coaching hire. Their facilities suck but still they ought to be able to outperform La Salle but they haven’t.

La Salle, Dayton and Virginia Tech joined the A10 in 1995 with Fordham and Xavier. Richmond replaced VT in 2000.

Fordham had one NCAA Tournament appearance in the two decades before arriving in the A-10. It was near when they were added, so I guess that was enough. They still had barely any history to speak of. Easy with hindsight being 20/20 but it being the East Coast, there had to be some better candidates out there. It'd be like the A-10 adding Loyola Chicago. That could hypothetically work out but I doubt it.

(08-13-2019 09:14 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Fordham had one NCAA Tournament appearance in the two decades before arriving in the A-10. It was near when they were added, so I guess that was enough. They still had barely any history to speak of. Easy with hindsight being 20/20 but it being the East Coast, there had to be some better candidates out there. It'd be like the A-10 adding Loyola Chicago. That could hypothetically work out but I doubt it.

Fordham went to the NIT 8 times in 10 years before they went to the NCAA in 1992. As I said, they were decent. I didn’t know any A10 fans at the time who thought adding Fordham was a good idea, but their record was defensible at least from the perspective of the member presidents. DePaul had serious discussions with the A10 and would have been invited instead of Fordham had they indicated that they would accept an offer.

At the time I thought there were no good candidates available in the NYC metro and that the A10 should have just passed on that region entirely but the A10 presidents had other ideas.

You can't even argue they penetrate the NYC market. Smaller schools La Salle and St. Joe's actually do in Philly by comparison. Even UMass brings Boston and Worcester to an extent.

(08-14-2019 01:25 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  You can't even argue they penetrate the NYC market. Smaller schools La Salle and St. Joe's actually do in Philly by comparison. Even UMass brings Boston and Worcester to an extent.

Yeah, I'm sure that even back then, if you heard anything about area schools on NY sports radio or television during hoops season, it was the three or four Big East teams in the region.

I used to fall asleep to WFAN when I lived up there over a decade ago...even then, it was UConn and Syracuse. St. John's and Seton Hall could pound sand if they weren't good. All of the other schools in the boroughs and nearby may as well been in another country. You might have heard the score for a Fordham or Iona game, but that was about it. Whereas in Philly, a guy like Martelli at St. Joe's could have a cult following with his tv appearances.

But, it's more than the media presence. If NYC is going to be in your travel schedule on a yearly basis, it gives the coaches a way to network and recruit more effectively than others. You had business being up there, and it was a known talent source. And the A10 back then had such a spread of schools within it; Fordham isn't a dump. As mentioned, Fordham could make the NIT back at a time when the NIT was more about good schools that just couldn't make the dance, rather than the name-on-the-door thing it became before the NCAA took it over. They were competitive then.