Which Conference Should WSU Join?

[SubGod22]

If you had the choice...

[ccrunner101]

MWC, C7, A10, MVC In that order.

[SirShoxAlot]

If I had the choice? It's totally unrealistic but if I had my way, I'd go B10 or Big 12. As far as what's possible, it's MWC. No questions asked.

[ShockerPrez]

MWC. Hands down, but that may be a pipe dream.

[ShockTalk]

Is there seriously anything other than 2 answers here?

How about:

1) MVC stays at 9 teams
2) MVC adds 1 team
3) MVC adds 3 teams
4) Atl-10
5) MVC + VCU, Richmond, St.Joes
6) MVC + VCU, Richmond, St. Joes, Murray St, Belmont
7) MWC

If we cannot get into the MWC, I think it will take a combination of the "best left" teams from 2, maybe 3, conferences to keep the new "Valley" a top 10 conference.

[jdmee]

Would MWC actually be a consideration without football?

[SubGod22]

Would MWC actually be a consideration without football?

There's been message board talk and a few newspaper/blogger types that believe the MWC may add one non football school so they could have 12 in both football and basketball. We have been mentioned as a possibility should this happen

[60Shock]

Sub, who mentioned us? An MWC official or an existing school there-in? A reliable sports editor or sportscaster? Or just some blogger?

[cjp27]

Whoever voted for Summit and Southland needs to own up to it so the rest of the board can give you unlimited loads of crap.

[CBB_Fan]

Here is what I am thinking:

1. Get into the MWC
2. Find our way into A-10 (roughly equal to MVC, but more expansion candidates and better teams at the top)
3. Make a conglomerate conference with the MWC, MVC, WCC A10, Big East football, and teams picked from the minor conferences. 32 team league, either 4 divisions of 8 or 8 pods of 4.

For example:

East: Connecticut, Temple, VCU, Richmond, Siena, Duquesne, Saint Joseph's, Saint Bonaventure
West: Gonzaga, BYU, Saint Mary's, UNLV, SDSU, Utah State, New Mexico, Nevada
North: Cincinnati, Northern Iowa, Tulsa, Akron, Wichita State, Ohio, Indiana State, Illinois State
South: Memphis, George Mason, UTEP, Belmont, Southern Miss, Murray State, Missouri State, Oral Roberts

Average conference RPI for those members is about 77. That would be good for the third to fourth best conference RPI. In-conference scheduling would fairly simple: 18 games, 9 of which would be against members in your division. Each team would have two protected home and homes that they would play every year, and would play 3 teams from each other conference. For an example of how this would work, here is a possible Wichita State conference schedule with those teams (made mostly randomly, 18 games):

@ Tulsa (protected)
@ UTEP
vs. Northern Iowa
@ Akron
vs. Cincinnati
vs. Belmont
@ Utah State
@ BYU
vs. VCU
vs. Tulsa (protected)
@ Northern Iowa
vs. BYU
vs. Ohio
vs. Saint Bonaventure
@ Illinois State
@ Indiana State
vs. Memphis
@ VCU (protected)

That is mostly just a "throw darts" schedule, not one designed to show off anything. I'll note, however, that Minnesota has the #1 SOS in the nation, averaging an opponent with an RPI with a rank of about 20. We can't do that, but our conference wouldn't hold us back. We would still be a top 40 schedule, with the potential to be even better.

Now, why would this work? Obviously, Belmont playing against UTEP on a Tuesday night probably won't capture many viewers. But people have to realize that basketball money is not made in the regular season; it is made in the postseason. This would give you a large, sexy tournament that you could easily sell to viewers as a mini NCAA tournament. You can either put teams with their division or seed them 1-32 and distribute as such. The tournament would rotate between 4 superstar spots, ideally Las Vegas for the west, Saint Louis for the North, Madison Square Garden or the Pavilion for the East, and hopefully one of Texas's NBA arenas.

Doing this does a lot of things. It gives you an absolutely vast TV inventory, especially for your tournament (31 games from that alone). It creates sexy matchups (Cincinnati vs Gonzaga for example), and helps each team maintain a sense of security. A long tournament inflates RPIs and helps prepare teams for the NCAA, and everyone would have a huge recruiting network to use.

There are problems associated with this, of course. Non-revenue sports would probably be kept almost entirely within divisions, and football probably wouldn't be covered (unless the Big East/MWC football merger happens as part of this deal). Travel budgets could get large, even with a fair number of divisional games and travel partners reducing flights. This conference lacks a true heavy hitter, but could get a lot of teams into the tournament and into the RPI Top 100. These issues, and the extremely high amount of logistical and persuasive work necessary for the conference to come to fruition, mean it almost certainly will never happen. For one, it will be hard to persuade BE and MWC teams to make the jump, even if they aren't getting much money now. An alternative would be to do something similar with just the A10, MVC, and WCC, along with selected teams like Belmont and Denver.

Still, I think this would be a viable path forward, if there were enough influential people pushing it. It helps keep all of the smaller conferences competitive with teams receiving major football money, as well as the Catholic 7. It kills off most of your potential competitors from the smaller conferences as well. I think the framework is such that it could last a long time, with each division possessing both very strong teams and weaker teams that could improve or simply inflate our top team's numbers.

[SubGod22]

Sub, who mentioned us? An MWC official or an existing school there-in? A reliable sports editor or sportscaster? Or just some blogger?

I don't recall exactly. I first heard it a couple of months ago and want to say it allegedly came from a MWC official. Not sure if it was on the record or not, it's been awhile. Someone claimed the MWC official isn't happy with a 20 game conference schedule so it would make sense to go to 12 and limit that to 16 conference games by going E/W. We'll see if there's really anything to it, but I would assume that Bardo/Sexton have made some sort of contact with the MWC to at least gauge interest from them and express our interest there.

[Ricardo del Rio]

My preferences:

1. Catholics
2. MWC
3. A10
4. MVC

I have a feeling that we are stuck.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

Sub, who mentioned us? An MWC official or an existing school there-in? A reliable sports editor or sportscaster? Or just some blogger?

Mostly message board speculation, but recently the Colorado Springs Gazette's AFA reporter suggested us as possibility.

There's been conflicting information whether the MWC wants to add a non-football school. As recently as last year the commissioner said they're not interested in a non-football program. However, recent word (past couple of months or so) is that it's been very difficult for the conference to schedule an uneven number of teams so the idea of adding a basketball school is gaining traction.

San Jose St and Utah St join the league next year as the 10th and 11th teams. Gonzaga is speculated as the obvious first choice for #12, but there's serious doubts whether they would be interested. Believe it or not, they are also more distant from the rest of the league than we are, making travel more difficult for the Olympic sports.

[SubGod22]

I forgot to put A10 as an option, but I don't see it. Outside of VCU, I'm not impressed with what remains. A couple of OK schools and still some pretty bad ones. Distance is an issue as well.

[Rlh04d]

As I said in the other thread:

Divorce our basketball from the Olympic sports and create a national conference. Wichita State, Gonzaga, VCU, George Mason, Bradley, BYU ... and four to six others. It doesn't really matter from that point.

We would get a TV deal similar to the Catholic deal, although likely a little less. We would earn significant money from NCAA tournament shares. We would play quality teams with solid RPIs divorced from the distraction of football. We would all be able to fly charter to every game, and be free from the limitations placed on having to transport Olympic sports to play across the country. Is there any reason we can't just keep our other sports in the MVC, other than the bitterness that would naturally be created by taking our basketball out?

I can't see any negative to this, other than the possibility that bitterness over basketball programs leaving that the Olympic sports can't find another home. If all of those teams can have their basketball programs in this one conference and stash their Olympic sports elsewhere, everyone benefits dramatically.