ToledoRambler wrote:
Being in the A-10 would be awesome as it would be great to play other catholic universities, but i would think the extended travel would call for a massive athletic budget increase.
I, personally, love The Valley and don’t want to see us move unless for some reason we are consistently winning the regular season conference for 5 out of 7 years and don’t make the tourney.
C-USA would be a lateral move at-best. I’m not interested in that at all.
I agree 100% with each point. Joining the A-10 would create a nice rivalry with St. Louis and Dayton. I don't think the A-10 wants to expand past 14, so it would probably require some team leaving before we were considered..... And my guess is if any teams leave the A-10, the first candidates would be St. Louis and Dayton. Yes, the overall athletic department budget would have to go up about 1.5 million to compensate for a lot of travel to expensive markets like New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. So there's not much of a point to think about the A-10, unless something serious/unusual happens.
I also love the MVC, and I would prefer to make it better than go elsewhere. I know the Billiken fans probably look way, way down on the MVC, but St. Louis would be a natural add to the conference. In fact, if St. Louis and Dayton could both join the MVC together, I think we'd instantly have a better men's basketball conference than the A-10, with a tighter footprint, a huge improvement in media markets, and some possible fierce rivalries. But both St. Louis and Dayton have budgets that are already high for the A-10, and (at least in the case of St. Louis) are set that high to give them a smoother pathway to the Big East.
So it's pretty much MVC or bust, and I don't even like to consider options. I'd like to see our budgets in the conference drift up closer to where the A-10 is, because over the long term it shows in non-con match ups, scheduling, recruiting, and non-revenue sports that build the brand.
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