Big East Basketball Coaches

[West Coast Johnny]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10294/1096896-142.stm?cmpid=sports.xml

NEW YORK -- Three of the game's premier coaches were inside Madison Square Garden Wednesday for the Big East Conference's basketball media day. Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, Jim Calhoun of Connecticut and Rick Pitino of Louisville, with a combined 2,224 victories and four national championships, are three of the most powerful people in college basketball.

But those who wield power without peer within their sport were powerless this spring when their bosses were engrossed in the conference-expansion talks that dominated the college sports landscape for weeks in the spring.

College basketball is a distant second to college football when it comes to producing revenue for universities. So, even though the basketball portion of the Big East is as good as it has ever been, the coaches know the league remains at risk of being raided by other conferences looking to expand in the future.

 

[West Coast Johnny]

The big east makes the big 12 look functional.

 

[HG73]

They think their basketball league is already too big. And these were three coaches at football schools. Wonder what they'll be thinking after the next round of conference expansion leaves them with no football conference? That money that they take for granted will be gone. I hope Seton Hall and Providence are not keeping us out of the big east.

 

[mtmedlin]

There are talks of the league splitting. I woudnt doubt this happens. Up until now, the basketball school called the shots but as soon as 1 more football school is added, the power will shift to the football schools. Truth is, the Big East has a few teams that we need to let go. They just arent competitive. Also, they complain we are too big, yet they have over 20 games that they play in conference. Instead of playing the same teams twice, all they would have to do is play once. Easy fix. This is about power and control and the basketball schools know there about to lose it.

 

[fanatical frog]

. Instead of playing the same teams twice, all they would have to do is play once. Easy fix.

Another easy fix = form two divisions like the 12 team conferences do and have a championship game = another excuse for a big game money maker. Easy fixes are available. Must be something else going on.

 

[Waccy Frog]

Welcome to the world of basketball coaches. They run elite level programs and the Big East is a national force, yet all of that takes a back seat to football. It is incredibly frustrating to them, and I don't blame them. If you are a National Champtionship winning coach like Jim Boeheim or Jim Calhoun, how would you like to see your league and schedule jerked around to add . . . South Florida. Just a testament to how even in the Big East football rules everything.

 

[TexanMark]

Another easy fix = form two divisions like the 12 team conferences do and have a championship game = another excuse for a big game money maker. Easy fixes are available. Must be something else going on.

There are no easy fixes in the Big East...Actually for Syracuse the basketball program recruits nationally but Coach Boeheim knows his core of his program is built in the northeast. The Orange own Madison Square Garden dispite being 4 hours away from the city. He is very afraid of the conference losing a NYC connection/identity.

Many Big East FB only fans understand that bringing along Notre Dame, Georgetown, Nova, St Johns and Providence might be necessary to get votes from schools like Syracuse, UConn, etc...

The Big East is slightly offcenter dysfunctional family with competing interests and they may never change.

 

[BABYFACE]

I am of the belief that the basketball only schools need to split off and do their own thing and the Big East for it's future needs to be an all sports conference.

 

[TexanMark]

I am of the belief that the basketball only schools need to split off and do their own thing and the Big East for it's future needs to be an all sports conference.

I agree but a 12/16 hybrid might be the best we can hope for.

If we could get TCU, KU/KS and Mizzou then it might be strong enough to stand without the BB onlies. Basketball is very important to the Big East. However, I still see Notre Dame, Nova, St Johns and Georgetown still attached.

Bottomline: The Chancellors/Presidents might see adding TCU and upgrading Nova as a compromise than can approve. TCU being a private school actually plays well in the Big East.

 

[HG73]

Another easy fix = form two divisions like the 12 team conferences do and have a championship game = another excuse for a big game money maker. Easy fixes are available. Must be something else going on.

This seems like the most logical solution. Two divisions for basketball, schedule home and home in division, four or five strategic crossover games per team, the big free-for-all conference tournament at the end of the year. Divisions could be split football schools in one division and basketball schools in the other or even mixed to save travel expenses and preserve rivalries. Nobody has to be booted out of the conference, and football could even add a tenth team if they had mixed divisions. What's the holdup?

 

[West Coast Johnny]

Hello, Coach Dixon! Do you have anything nice to say about TCU to the Big East?

 

[mtmedlin]

We already have a tournament for basketball. Its about power and control BUT what the basketball coaches seem to forget is that FOOTBALL makes their existance. Without the football money, the rest of the sports would die on the vine. Expanding and dropping some dead weight is the necessary action. Doing a split isnt necessarily the best. If we lose Depaul, we lose Chicago market, ...thats a BIG selling point on our contract negotiations. Providence needs to get kicked out but the last four commisioners have been providence guys, so that aint happening. Seton Hall we can live without. Upgrading Nova gives us a football team and retains a good basketball team.
I am really not worried. Commisoner Tagliabue is a very smart man and along with the BE commish will come up with a way to maximize profit while still keeping the flavor that is unique to the Big East. Basketball is very important to us. TCU will be invited for many reasons and one is that your basketball team has the potential to improve and return to being strong. I havent been in your stadium but from pictures it looks to be a decent facility. At first you will get slaughtered in the Big east but when you join the premier basketball league it should be expected BUT your recruiting should pick up. The BE in basketball is like being in the SEC in football, recruits want to play at that level. The more I learn about TCU the more it becomes logical that you are perfect in the Big East. We are the conference that takes in smaller private schools And those schools excel. I wouldnt worry about what the basketball coaches want. They will be heard but in the end, we either expand and increase revenue, or we die.

 

[HG73]

I guess the basketball coaches see splitting into divisions as the first step toward a seperate conference for football which they don't want. Add TCU for nine football teams, and if Villanova can take the step up (four year process) then ten is just as good.

 

[FrogAbroad]

Okay, I think I *may* be making sense out of these arguments from the BE power structure.

They want Villanova to make the jump from FCS (where they are a top-ranked team) to FBS because, evidently, basketball is the big passion at Nova, not football, and therefore (stopping to catch my breath and clear my brain) the roundball guys can have more votes than the ovoid ball guys when important conferece issues come up.

Meanwhile, Villanova is automatically 3,000 seats below the FBS minimum, they have to add 20+ football scholarships, and they'll need to increase their Title IX funding to balance those new men's scholarships.

And they don't want football-is-king TCU added to the mix because potentially it would mess up the power structure.

Is THAT what the rest of you get out of all this?

 

[HG73]

Okay, I think I *may* be making sense out of these arguments from the BE power structure.

They want Villanova to make the jump from FCS (where they are a top-ranked team) to FBS because, evidently, basketball is the big passion at Nova, not football, and therefore (stopping to catch my breath and clear my brain) the roundball guys can have more votes than the ovoid ball guys when important conferece issues come up.

Meanwhile, Villanova is automaciaclly 3,000 seats below the FBS minimum, they have to add 20+ football scholarships, and they'll need to increase their Title IX funding to balance those new men's scholarships.

And they don't want football-is-king TCU added to the mix because potentially it would mess up the power structure.

Is THAT what the rest of you get out of all this?

Yep. It's a basketball conference. They view TCU as a shift in power to the football side, which by the way makes the most money. They better wake up, next time the big10 or acc comes calling for a few of their football teams that cash cow football conference may go bye-bye. I sure hope Paul Tagliabue can make some sense of this for those basketball idiots, or Seton Hall will torpedo our move.

 

[Despite the odds Frog]

I think TCU needs to keep winning in football. Basketball will settle itself. Actually I believe with Jim Christian as our head coach, a New York guy, this is the best scenario that could ever happen for him.

Even though TCU has had troubles in basketball in the past, if TCU gets in the Big East through its reputation in baseball and football and other sports, basketball will become increasingly better. What Texas kid or for that matter any kid nationally doesn't want to play in the Big East (basketball)? Those kids making commitments or thinking about committing to the Big 12 will suddenly start committing to TCU. With NY Jim Christian, who knows the east coast, I think TCU will start becoming a force in basketball gradually.

And if Jim Christian doesn’t work out I see with the Big East connection Billy Gillespie really considering coaching TCU.

 

[HFrog1999]

BB coaches scared of Football.

 

[WVUFan]

BB school dont care if B10 ACC or SEC raids the BE they are going to remain together. ND is not going anywere and niether is Seton Hall. SH is one of the founding schools.


BB school really dont care about Football they dont get any money from it, All they see is a way to keep Uconn, SU, WVU, and Pitt for basketball thats it.

They know if the four above leave then they still have a great conference with Nova Georgetown, Marquette ST Johns, ND, + the BBall schools mention if the Football splits that they will bring in some big [Deleted] teams.

ND now votes for football and they want Nova to vote for football to both schools can stop any action the FB schools want make.

 

[fanatical frog]

We already have a tournament for basketball. Its about power and control BUT what the basketball coaches seem to forget is that FOOTBALL makes their existance. Without the football money, the rest of the sports would die on the vine. Expanding and dropping some dead weight is the necessary action. Doing a split isnt necessarily the best. If we lose Depaul, we lose Chicago market, ...thats a BIG selling point on our contract negotiations. Providence needs to get kicked out but the last four commisioners have been providence guys, so that aint happening. Seton Hall we can live without. Upgrading Nova gives us a football team and retains a good basketball team.
I am really not worried. Commisoner Tagliabue is a very smart man and along with the BE commish will come up with a way to maximize profit while still keeping the flavor that is unique to the Big East. Basketball is very important to us. TCU will be invited for many reasons and one is that your basketball team has the potential to improve and return to being strong. I havent been in your stadium but from pictures it looks to be a decent facility. At first you will get slaughtered in the Big east but when you join the premier basketball league it should be expected BUT your recruiting should pick up. The BE in basketball is like being in the SEC in football, recruits want to play at that level. The more I learn about TCU the more it becomes logical that you are perfect in the Big East. We are the conference that takes in smaller private schools And those schools excel. I wouldnt worry about what the basketball coaches want. They will be heard but in the end, we either expand and increase revenue, or we die.

Quote from the Villanova BB Coach, Jay Wright......"The presidents are very pleased with where this conference is right now". Prospects for expansion seem somewhat dim if that's really true.....in which case your "or we die" could easily come to pass.

 

[WVUFan]

if you want to look more into this take this statement by Oliver Luck WVU AD

LINK

"I think the Big East, certainly, needs to move beyond eight (football members)," Luck said. "Eight is just not enough, and in my mind, our short-term goal should be, 'What do we need to do to get to 10?' I think that's realistic, but we can't just add for the sake of adding schools.

"They have to be the right fit. They need to be quality schools, ones that bring value, have a good fan base, good (TV) viewership, some tradition. We certainly don't want to further dilute the already relatively small (compared to other BCS conferences) TV contract for Big East football."

That's $80 million over six years, ending with the 2013 football season, or $1.67 million per school annually. That's way short of covering WVU's football coaching staff's annual salaries (around $2.9 million).

I think some of what we need to do to make ourselves attractive is to do much of what we've been doing," Luck said. "I think it's attractive, in this day, that we're a self-sustaining athletic department that's financially (in the black).

"Clearly our football legacy helps. The success in recent times, what's happened not just since Mountaineer Field was built (in 1980, when Luck was playing), but going back to the Sam Huff days. History matters. I'm a history major. I hope it matters.

"I think our legacy in basketball says a lot, and we continue to grow that, and we have Olympic sports that are successful. I think facilities are enormously important, because they are the physical manifestation of your department, your university, your alumni, your state.

Luck pointed to the fact that when WVU builds it, supporters come and shell out for premium seating, and "the margins on upscale (seating) is important. Money is a metric."

The West Virginia AD said that he doesn't believe the Mountaineers can tell others what's there until those inside the program fully understand.

"We need to really understand, as an institution, what we bring to the table, so we can fully explain that," Luck said. "Only then can we tell others what we bring to the table, and I mean even in talking to other schools in the Big East."

In other words, if there is movement that makes a major impact on the Big East, expect a Luck-led West Virginia to be a player in the forefront, and not one simply holding its cards as schools make a Miami-, Virginia Tech- or Boston College-style dash for richer quarters.

Luck pointed to telecast ratings that reveal WVU as an attractive commodity, and said the school ranks 13th nationally in merchandise sales through the Collegiate Licensing Co. (Most schools are part of CLC, although a few major programs sell merchandise independently, like Ohio State).

"You wouldn't think a school in a state our size would be 13th," Luck said. "So, we do have a brand. And that's a good thing to know. We do really well in the D.C. TV market. You'd think that in the Pittsburgh market, where we do very well. But we do well in Charlotte and Atlanta, too.

"If you take the ACC and Big East schools and lumped them in together, the only one that outperforms us in ratings in the Atlanta market is Virginia Tech."