5-Year Strategic Objectives

[1972Shocker]

I think he academic and community objectives are achievable. However, the competitive objectives will be very tough. Especially if that includes this year. I suppose our best shot at an AAC Championship this year will be softball and for that to happen we need for our young pitching staff to step up which is fare far from assured although maybe our offense can carry us in the AAC.

I don't know how they define and AAC Championship. Is that a regular season championship (for sports that have a regular season championship) or is that for AAC Tournament chamionships (where those are held) or is it an either/or.

In our previous 5 years in the AAC the Shockers have 6 or 7 AAC Championships depending on how you count them. Granted this included a lost year to Covid but it also included the following Covid disrupted year when the Shocks won a men's basketball regular season championships.

Shocker men have only won 2 of those. Men's basketball won a regular season championship in the Covid disrupted 20-21 year and the men's track and filed team won last year's outdoor track and filed championship by upsetting perennial champion Houston.

Shocker women have 4 or 5. 5 if you count both the regular season and post-season tournament championships won by the softball team in 2021. Volleyball won the volleyball regular season championship with a 20-0 season in 2017. Volleyball does not have a post-seasaon AAC Tournament. The women won a XC championship in 2018 and an outdoor track and filed championship in 2019.

Please correct my count of championships if I have missed any.

Winning 15 championships in the next 5 years would be tremendous progress on the competitive front.

[ShockerDropOut]

One thing that could help on the championship front is when the AAC loses Houston, Cincy, and UCF. Losing top tier programs will weaken the league. It will probably take some time for the replacement schools to get up to speed.

I do like the goals though.

[Atxshoxfan]

Wonder what specific goals are being set for hcib?
financial, wins, conference outcomes, tourney appearances?

[1972Shocker]

One thing that could help on the championship front is when the AAC loses Houston, Cincy, and UCF. Losing top tier programs will weaken the league. It will probably take some time for the replacement schools to get up to speed.

I do like the goals though.

Yes, that wisll certainly make it a bit easier you would think and very likely was a factor in their setting their goals as they did. Still I think getting 15 AAC Championships over the next 5 years will be a challenge, but any worthwhile goals should be a challenge.

[AZ Shocker]

Wonder what specific goals are being set for hcib?
financial, wins, conference outcomes, tourney appearances?

Well...those goals unfortunately won't be made public. Too much financial detail. Remember...these are simply "goals".

[SubGod22]

One thing that could help on the championship front is when the AAC loses Houston, Cincy, and UCF. Losing top tier programs will weaken the league. It will probably take some time for the replacement schools to get up to speed.

This is a little overblown. I can't speak for all sports, but two of the new additions I believe would would have been ranked 2nd and 3rd based on computer rankings and that's with those three programs still in it. I don't know a lot outside of basketball in regards to the newbies, they're not all coming in to be pushovers, even right away. And a couple of them were already better than I at least expected.

It's hard to tell a lot based on records alone, as I don't know their strength of schedules or conferences in other sports. It would appear that North Texas and Charlotte will have decent basketball programs. Charlotte appears to have been the top women's basketball team in CUSA last year.

In baseball, none were 40 win teams, but FAU, UTSA and Charlotte all won over 60% of their games. Looks like they finished 4th, 5th and 6th in conference last year.

In softball, Charlotte and North Texas both won over 65% of their games. UNT was at about 70%.

Men's XC shows Charlotte just getting edged out and finishing 2nd. Followed by North Texas and Rice at 3 and 4.

Women's XC shows Charlotte in 2nd, followed by Rice in 3rd. MTSU dominated the women's side.

Indoor T&F for women had UTSA, Charlotte and Rice finishing 3, 4, 5. On the men's side Charlotte finished 1st, easily, with UTSA 3rd and Rice 5th.

Outdoor T&F for women, Charlotte 1st, UTSA 2nd and Rice 5th. Charlotte and UTSA were only 3 points apart. For men, Charlotte 1st (easily), Rice 3rd, UTSA 4th and North Texas 5th.

Rice appears to have a pretty good volleyball program, or they play a lot of bad teams. Though it doesn't appear that CUSA as a whole wins much in this sport as only four teams were over .500 last year. Rice and North Texas were two of them.

Women's basketball. Charlotte was a 22 win team and top of CUSA. North Texas had 17 and Rice and UAB finished over .500. No idea what kind of schedules they play.

And for reference, men's basketball... North Texas won 25 games. UAB won 27. They were the two best in CUSA based on conference records. FAU won 19 and finished 2nd in the East Division. Charlotte won 17 overall. Rice and UTSA have some work to do, but both were better than expected last year.

There are some solid overall programs. As one would expect, some are better in some areas than others. They're all capable and willing to invest. I think some of you are going to be surprised by some of them.

But we care most about basketball and I get that. UNT and UAB are going to step in and compete right away in the upper portion of the conference. Last year, both were definitely better than us. FAU and Charlotte may be able to compete in the mid-tier, which isn't bad, especially when just stepping in. Rice and UTSA are putting in work, but are probably going to take a little longer to get out of the bottom 3 or 4, if they can. I'm not counting UTSA out though. They're ambitious.

And this is forgetting about a school like Tulane who is making moves to push towards the top of the conference.

Houston will be a loss to basketball. Cincinnati probably is too, even though they haven't been the same since Cronin left. One would expect them to get back to a higher level and they seem to be on the verge of that with the current staff. UCF has been a mid-pack team for the most part. They're not near as big a loss in basketball and football hasn't been quite the same since Frost left for Nebraska.

[JayPak]

You guys might be interested in this.

[BostonWu]

You guys might be interested in this.

Did you read the comments? We are not on the radar.

[Topshock]

You guys might be interested in this.

This is what the Commissioner gave as the criteria:

"A school that is invested in basketball is at the top of the list, one that not only has a tradition of success, but a path to a future of success. Getting schools that are like-minded matters, too"

Seems like we fit that as well as anyone.

The school mentioned in the comments was mostly St. Louis. While they are obivouslly a catholic school, on the basketball side I think we would easily be a better addition.

[SubGod22]

This is what the Commissioner gave as the criteria:

"A school that is invested in basketball is at the top of the list, one that not only has a tradition of success, but a path to a future of success. Getting schools that are like-minded matters, too"

Seems like we fit that as well as anyone.

The school mentioned in the comments was mostly St. Louis. While they are obivouslly a catholic school, on the basketball side I think we would easily be a better addition.

We are invested in basketball. We have a tradition of success. Path to future success I'd say probably. Like-minded we get a big fat F which automatically drops us down quite a bit.

The BE isn't happening.

And as I've said before, it doesn't have near the positive impact on traditional student recruitment as our current conference, even after the moves.

[Topshock]

We are invested in basketball. We have a tradition of success. Path to future success I'd say probably. Like-minded we get a big fat F which automatically drops us down quite a bit.

The BE isn't happening.

And as I've said before, it doesn't have near the positive impact on traditional student recruitment as our current conference, even after the moves.

While I wouldn't say your wrong. I will say that when I first started touting the American as a possibility, about 95% of people thought that was a pipe dream as well.

Also want to add, I agree with you, the American even after the moves is not a bad place to be.

[Ashockalypse]

Still I think big East opponents would pack the arena every game.

[pogo]

I can only suffer a certain number if sweater vest opponents myself.

[SubGod22]

While I wouldn't say your wrong. I will say that when I first started touting the American as a possibility, about 95% of people thought that was a pipe dream as well.

The big difference there is we fit the American mold, outside of football. Urban research university and we had top level basketball at the time. We were also close to a lot of the western schools with Tulsa, Memphis and Dallas all being fairly easy drives, with Houston and New Orleans being a little more challenging, but drive-able. Those things matter to the non-revenue side of things. From out perspective, we were already trying to establish student recruiting drives/ties to Texas and Oklahoma and on top of being a better basketball conference, that along with being with more like minded academic institutions made sense for us as well.

The BE did take UCon, but they had a long history with them and they don't increase travel costs for most of the BE schools. We don't have that history and we're not a private/religious based university and we don't offer much to the east coast schools. Creighton is drive-able and SLU would be as well. You start stretching things with DePaul and Marquette. But all of those schools are focused on eastern recruiting mostly and adding Wichita doesn't do much. We would lose our heavy presence in OK and TX as well and heavily increase travel costs. Will it be a better basketball conference? Sure. Does it make sense for anything other than men's basketball? No. Do we make sense for them? Not really, even if we get basketball turned around.

The only question that ever really existed with the AAC was if they'd take a non-football school. Many didn't think they would because of what had happened with the BE. But many others pointed out that as long as they didn't add a large group of non-football schools there would never be the power dynamic that existed in the BE that caused friction. The NBE is in a different position where we make almost no sense when it comes down to it. They'd much rather have a city like STL with a like minded school like SLU that strives to be good in basketball and has had some success at times. Large city. Similar school makeup and SLU heavily recruits the east coast which is why they were never interested in the MVC.

The American always made more sense than the BE and still does. And for the record, the A10 doesn't make much sense for us either if they were to add. Outside of having public schools, they have all of the same drawbacks and a lesser TV deal. There's simply not another conference at the moment, or in the foreseeable future that makes better sense than the American for us, or us for them. I suppose one could try to argue the MWC, which could be debated on some level, but they face an unsure future as well.

[pogo]

While I wouldn't say your wrong. I will say that when I first started touting the American as a possibility, about 95% of people thought that was a pipe dream as well.

Also want to add, I agree with you, the American even after the moves is not a bad place to be.

Back in the day the two most plausible conferences were the AAC and the Mountain West. I was always against the MWC in that the TV exposure would have been horrible because of the time zones involved and the lack of coverage the day following games. And as you point out even with the desertion of two notable schools (I don't consider ucf to be notable) the AAC is not a bad conference and still better than the MWC. Of some note Tulane is the only AAC football team ranked this week after all of the hubris thrown around about by Houston about how good Houston was going to be this year in football. Go Shocks