Impact on Recruiting

[Phantom Warrior]

I'm guessing I may be in the minority, but I think that a basketball-centric league would be better for recruiting than the hybrid conference as it presently stands.

I think a lot of potential recruits would find the idea of playing in a conference in which basketball, not football, is Top Dog pretty appealing. In fact, I think many recruits would find that idea exciting.

A league that includes USF, UCF, Tulane, Houston, and SMU is pretty much a Big Yuk, even with UConn, Cincy, and Memphis.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I think it's a no-brainer that this helps recruiting. You can sell recruits that they are coming to a conference where basketball rules the roost. You also have stability as there's no more worry of the conference falling apart at a moment's notice. And you can also sell top basketball programs as the opposition.

You will still have the Dukes, Kentuckys, and North Carolinas of the world as the top destinations, but I think we're in a better place with a new more stable model in place than trying to simply sell our history and staff.

[Goose85]

Not playing Louisville, Syracuse, ND, UConn, etc does hurt recruiting. To offset this we will need to upgrade our non conference schedule.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Not playing Louisville, Syracuse, ND, UConn, etc does hurt recruiting. To offset this we will need to upgrade our non conference schedule.

I guess it depends on the timetable you look at it from. We knew that of those 4, UConn was the only one we would still be playing. If you look at it from right now, is it that much of a difference to replace UConn, Cincy, Temple, and Memphis with Butler, Xavier, Creighton, and Gonzaga? If recruits view it differently, it isn't by much.

[unclejohn]

We'll see. When BC left the Big East, they were the conference basketball champions. Since then, they have fared poorly. The big concern with the first departures was that Miami was leaving. They were the center piece of the conference, and a national football power. The ACC couldn't wait to get them. There was talk of law suits from the Big East football schools, because losing Miami was going to harm them so badly. They have declined since. Va. Tech was the other really good football school. They have been good, but not spectacular.

I do not sell Syracuse, Pitt, ND, and Louisville short. They are good programs with good traditions, and it was great to have them all in the same conference. But they were not all good every year. Each one had some down years in the time we were in the conference together. (Maybe not Pitt. Not sure about that.) So we'll see. I think the thing that hurts the most is that there were so damn many good teams in the BE that it was almost inevitable that several of them would be in the top ten, and about half of them would be in the top 25. Any team's RPI was going to be up there, any team finishing .500 or better was pretty much assured a tournament bid, and every team could point to a couple of really good teams they played that year. Remember when the Big East had three of the number one seeds in the tournament? That is not going to happen again.

[WindyCityGoldenEagle]

If you look at it from right now, is it that much of a difference to replace UConn, Cincy, Temple, and Memphis with Butler, Xavier, Creighton, and Gonzaga? If recruits view it differently, it isn't by much.

Not a HUGE difference but I think UConn swings the pendulum to that group's favor.

[MUMac]

Not a HUGE difference but I think UConn swings the pendulum to that group's favor.

Depends upon how UCONN fares without Calhoun. I think they may drop a bit on that alone.