C-USA Jumped The Gun

CBS has an article predicting Catholic Big East Basketball schools will split from the Big East further plummeting future Big East TV contract value. They indicate that UCONN and Cinci would bolt to the ACC in a heartbeat and will lobby to join up with the BB only Big East schools if that fails. But who knows where they would park their football teams - Indy maybe.



They also indicate that MWC was smart to stay at 10 teams with room to grow. They could easily take SDSU and BSU back and even BYU back if SDSU and BSU are finding the BEAST less attractive with FB defections and BB Only defections or if BYU decides Indy is not working and especially if Gonzaga bails on the WCC. They could take Houston or SMU if they want



But CUSA added a bunch of Sunbelt Schools and probably could not take back BEAST defectors. Sun Belt and MWC expected to benefit from all of this homelessness according to CBS.



I think Indy might. Also C-USA could get further raided by BEAST if the FB schools stick it out.



No matter how you look at it - C-USA is poorly positioned because they already have 14 and many real bottom of Barrell programs.



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I had this same thought this morning. And the C-USA replacements are FBS newcomers Charlotte and Old Dominion! Hahaha. My hunch is that the Big East will be fine without the 7 Catholic bball schools. The Big East already has 6 of the current C-USA members joining the conference next year. Worst case scenario is that the Big East really does become the C-USA 2.0...and the C-USA becomes the new landing ground for FCS schools moving up to FBS (ie, Sun Belt 2.0).



If the Big East is smart, it should sell the Big East name, the Madison Square Garden bball tournament venue, and some of the future NCAA tourney revenue to the 7 Catholic bball schools and invent a better national conference name. It should go full throttle after some western schools and realize that UConn and likely Cincinnati are probably only short term members - and be okay if the two schools are football only members. They should go after BYU, Air Force, and UNLV for sure. With New Mexico, CSU, and perhaps Nevada or Fresno St. as alternates.



Big East football schools have to go all in on this and form a national all-sports conference. A strong western division will be essential.



(Still not sure BYU should even consider this, however)

Sure glad that BYU didn't act hastily and make a very bad decision to join the Big East back when some people here thought they should. It's clearly been a sinking ship for the last couple of years, and it's only going to get worse.

hawkwing wrote:
Sure glad that BYU didn't act hastily and make a very bad decision to join the Big East back when some people here thought they should. It's clearly been a sinking ship for the last couple of years, and it's only going to get worse.

That would have been very bad. Luckily ESPN helped us out by paying us so much to broadcast some games and giving us all second tier rights. Being spoiled like that has really prevented us from making some very bad choices that we probably would have made otherwise. For example, if ESPN had not partnered with us, there is no doubt in my mind that we would have jumped to the Big East. And that is not a ship we would want to be sailing on. The Big East is the Titanic and its about 11:00 at night.

hawkwing wrote:
Sure glad that BYU didn't act hastily and make a very bad decision to join the Big East back when some people here thought they should. It's clearly been a sinking ship for the last couple of years, and it's only going to get worse.

The Big East has never been more than a stepping stone. Nothing is forever. What is sinking it is the jumping UP of programs to the ACC, Big 12, and now The Big 10. If BYU is capable of better, they too could have leveraged it to jump up. If BYU is not capable of leveraging it up - it probably does not matter where BYU parks the car because the car ain't goin nowhere.



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