I don't think it's that far-fetched because I think if you can poach all six of those teams you have a conference attractive enough to get you a national TV deal that covers maybe 40% of your games... Or even maybe (this is a longer shot) a chance to partner with someone like Comcast (who hates the Big Ten Network) for a dedicated network. The advantages in building a conference like that are that it would be a serious basketball contender, and likely send 4-6 teams to the Dance every year (if not a couple more in a big year), may command good TV money, would be quite strong in some other sports (particularly soccer), and has excellent geography. The only problem I see is the obvious one of playing good enough chess to get the Big East teams to join you-- they don't make much money in the Big East and have to hate the travel, so maybe it's possible.
So how would it shake out? I see a couple of options, but discount the Big East 16 teams all in one division model so that members can save some money with reasonable travel. They are detailed below:
Two Division Solution
Bradley Creighton
Butler Drake
Dayton Evansville
DePaul Missouri State
Illinois State Northern Iowa
Indiana State Saint Louis
Marquette Southern Illinois
Xavier Wichita State
You would play 18 conference games: 14 against your division mates (one home and one away) and 4 games against out of division opponents. Problems with this alignment is the lack of games against your out of division opponents and a major gulf in conference strength between East and West.
Four Division Solution
Bradley Butler
DePaul Dayton
Illinois State Indiana State
Marquette Xavier
SOUTH (black) WEST (green)
Evansville Creighton
Missouri State Drake
Saint Louis Northern Iowa
Southern Illinois Wichita State
In an arrangement like this one you'd play a home and away against each other team in your division and one game against each non-division team. I think this gives you your best scheduling and would work out quite nicely. You still have a monster of an MVC East in this one, but it's not as pronounced with more games being played outside of each division.
The private schools outside of the MVC are going to have no interest in joining a conference with any of the public schools in the MVC
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's a good point. The football at most of those state schools, albeit FCS football, is also a problem as I think football schools and basketball schools will get along less and less over time. That being said, the A10, Big East, and Horizon League teams mentioned above are already in conferences with a bunch of state teams. All of those conferences also have an academic profile as mixed as the MVC's.
ReplyDeleteBut, my favorite outcome for Bradley is one with a 10 or 12 team conference of all private all basketball all midwestern schools. I'll be posting some of those ideas in the next few days-- particularly since it looks like the megaconference scare is at least delayed with the unlikely last minute (and maybe temporary) survival of the Big XII.