St. Louis and Duquesne (OR Detroit Mercy)

[rusty X]

Where is this obsession with expansion coming from? Why can't people accept what is being said by Ackerman? There is no reason to expand from 10. None. A 10 team conference works just fine for basketball, just ask the Big12. Plus, every school gets more money, and that is what this is all about nowadays.

[yorost]

Ackerman's statement was definitive on nothing other than it isn't happening until they settle other more pressing matters. Rumors from other schools still indicate there's stomping going on in the background, and there are past statements which were clear that the conference would go to 12. Those matched up with the numerous early rumors that 10 would be a temporary stop... Many of us simply expect 12 to happen as opposed to being obsessed with arguing it should happen.

Your money statement is confusing. It's long rumored that Fox has $100 million on the table to add two teams. If Fox wants 12 as has been assumed since the deal was leaked, of course they will have to provide incentives to make it happen.

[paulxu]

Since it's the offseason, it's fun to speculate on future expansion.
If they decide to go to 12, it still seems logical to me that Richmond would come after St. Louis.
1 - Private institution to satisfy what seems to be a preference of the presidents for private discussions, etc.
2 - Geographical balance for east/west divisions
3 - New, non-duplicative TV market
4 - Would have the largest endowment of any BE school
5 - Ongoing upgrading of the Robins center
6 - Similar focus on academic program excellence

You will always have differences of opinions on whether 10 is better than 12, round robin vs. potential for more NCAA appearances/units, and the like. I thought they might announce 2 more before July 1st to save the teams a million in exit fees, but maybe that doesn't matter if your annual cut of the pie approaches 3 million. Maybe they will use the next 10 months to get the conference up and running, see how the year pans out, see how many teams get a bid, and still expand to 12 before 2014 play.

In any event, it would behoove Richmond to have a really good year in A10 play, make the tournament, and onto the second weekend.

[BillEsq]

Where is this obsession with expansion coming from? Why can't people accept what is being said by Ackerman? There is no reason to expand from 10. None. A 10 team conference works just fine for basketball, just ask the Big12. Plus, every school gets more money, and that is what this is all about nowadays.

The obsession with expansion comes with the times. Every league in the NCAA is bubbling with expansion rumors including the Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, PAC, BE, ACC, Aten, NEC, America East, Colonial, So Con, Southland, Horizon, MVC, Mountain, Big West, WCC, and Summit and MAAC. If you are not in the Ivy league you have to realize conference realignment can and will happen at any time regardless of what any AD, President, or Commissioner says.

Furthermore while i agree that 10 is a viable number for a conference and that there are several good reasons to stay at 10 I do not get the obsession with using the Big 12 as an example as how it works fine. The Big 12 is one of the most unstable conferences and is only at 10 due to the fact that it was raided and any school with the guts/ability to run from Texas did. The only reason that the B12 even exists today is as a private conference for the longhorns. As soon as texas decides they will be better served financially in the PAC they will go and that will be the end of the B12. The priority of the B12 is Texas football #1, FBS football #2, glorifying Texas football #3, and all else is #4.

[BEX]

I don't see any need to expand. We just settled everything with a terrific deal. Play a couple/three years and see how it goes. I guess if Fox wants to kick in another 100 million for 2 teams, so be it. Who cares what their doing elsewhere? That's mostly all football shit. BE rules in BB.

[billyjack]

Once the Big East shows everyone else how awesome round robins are, they'll all try to copy us. The ACC has such Big East envy, they'll probably split into 2 divisions, put the old Big East teams in one division with a round robin, have them play the other division of old ACC teams once, for a 19 or whatever game season. I almost don't want to post this in case they follow this idea because those clowns don't come up with any original ideas.

[SpiderFan]

Unfortunately the hole in that Big12 argument is that while they may be at 10 and will always say they're happy with the numbers, they just had an article out where their commish admitted to really going hard after Louisville and losing out to the ACC. So while they are at 10, they were trying to go beyond that #.

[Barley]

Unfortunately the hole in that Big12 argument is that while they may be at 10 and will always say they're happy with the numbers, they just had an article out where their commish admitted to really going hard after Louisville and losing out to the ACC. So while they are at 10, they were trying to go beyond that #.

Because they need 12 to have a football conference championship game. That's why they'd go to 12. In a basketball only league 10 teams is ideal.

[aughnanure]

Look, I don't think we are expanding or should anytime soon (unless it's Gonzaga), but who knows what schools will be attractive 5-10 years from now. In the mid-2000s, Southern Illinois looked to be a mid-major powerhouse and no one here would have been calling for Butler. I don't think the idea of Detroit or Drake or even Duquesne is as far fetched as some here make it out to be.

If in ten years we decide to expand, who knows how those schools would have grown. Some newbies are going to step up in the depleted Horizon, A-10, and MVC - so it should be interesting. Davidson will be interesting to watch. Richmond needs start getting going again. VCU and Wichita St need to keep going. St. Louis can't just fall back to middle-of-the-pack again. Dayton has to start doing more than filling their arena. Duquesne has got to start trying. Drake has to take Creighton's place in the MVC hierarchy. Siena has to start dominating its league.

There's a lot of variables. Some of these schools have to make more investments in their programs (looking at you Duquesne - seriously 4,000 seat arena?).

I guarantee you there is one school none of us would consider right now that in 5-10 years may be at the top of our expansion list.

[marquette]

Where is this obsession with expansion coming from?

It's the off season, we're bored.