Inside the Big East [1/10/2016]

[MUBoxer]

To Novaball, a team has 22NCAA appearances 16NIT appearances, and is coming off of an ncaa appearance do you take them instead of DePaul?

I would like to know a little more, such as location, institutional profile, recent NCAA success, etc.... So tough to answer that.

But my general answer is that I like DePaul in the conference and it is frustrating to see them so bad. I would rather DePaul get good than replace them with another school.



DemonLS talks about how Leitao needs to step up recruiting. My question is how does he plan to do that? By going on Inside the Big East and saying that you can only win big at state schools? Why would a kid opt for DePaul over Illinois or Wisconsin or Michigan if Dave Leitao himself thinks that you can only win at state schools?

That's what I don't understand about this hire. The guy clearly isn't committed to winning at DePaul, he clearly does not think DePaul is the type of job one can succeed at. Last time around he left DePaul to go to a lower level state school. Would be similar to Chris Holtman leaving Butler this year to go to Penn State or Nebraska or Washington State. And then when he gets fired he comes back and is welcomed with open arms, and that's the excuse he gives for leaving?


Look, I'm not going to have a back and forth with DemonLS, as I respect the moderators' request that this doesn't turn into a DePaul bashing site. We all want DePaul to do well. This was a very frustrating interview on this week's Inside the Big East, so I brought it up. I fully understand that DePaul is not going to fire Leitao anytime soon, for a variety of reasons. It's just disappointing to see a school with so much potential put such a poor effort into their program while others are working their tails off to be good.

Private school, urban. Fits well regionally. Just blind answer 22 appearances, coming off a bid, not a geographic outlier would you take this school?

[NovaBall]

Private school, urban. Fits well regionally. Just blind answer 22 appearances, coming off a bid, not a geographic outlier would you take this school?

DePaul has 22 tournament appearances with multiple final fours and is in one of the most important cities in our conference. So just that another school that has 22 appearances, I don't know. Is the school in a real city, like Chicago, NY, DC, Philly, St. Louis, Cincinatti. Or is it in a minor league urban area like Providence, Dayton, Omaha, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Newark? Also, how did they come about these 22 appearances? Schools like Penn and Princeton and Western Kentucky have boatloads of appearances, but they are doing so out of small conferences and never seriously making a run at winning games.

Bottom line:
I think having DePaul in the conference is a good thing and I think having the Chicago presence is important. So I would not lean towards replacing them with another school.

[MUBoxer]

Private school, urban. Fits well regionally. Just blind answer 22 appearances, coming off a bid, not a geographic outlier would you take this school?

DePaul has 22 tournament appearances with multiple final fours and is in one of the most important cities in our conference. So just that another school that has 22 appearances, I don't know. Is the school in a real city, like Chicago, NY, DC, Philly, St. Louis, Cincinatti. Or is it in a minor league urban area like Providence, Dayton, Omaha, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Newark? Also, how did they come about these 22 appearances? Schools like Penn and Princeton and Western Kentucky have boatloads of appearances, but they are doing so out of small conferences and never seriously making a run at winning games.

Bottom line:
I think having DePaul in the conference is a good thing and I think having the Chicago presence is important. So I would not lean towards replacing them with another school.

Basically I'm curious what your reaction was when Depaul came in. They were coming off an NCAA appearance, loads of history, Dave was still in his first stint and seemed like an up and coming coach. Trying to gauge how your reaction to Dave in 2005 is different than your reaction to a very similar circumstance (minus the coming off an ncaa appearance) now.

[NovaBall]

Oh, you should have just asked what my reaction was when DePaul came in.

I was happy to have them on board. We grabbed the major metro team from the biggest city in the Midwest, a team that had just come off a tourney bid, a team that had been a powerful program in the early 80's (which at that time seemed like a while ago, but not like it does now), a team with strong brand recognition, and was a good addition to a group that included Marquette, Cincy and Louisville (although I never liked the Cincy add and wished we added Xavier then, but I understood the BB/FB numbers meant Cincy was going to be picked). I had hope that they would help increase exposure for the league as our foundation in the Midwest and prove to be a very valuable member.

If you were to tell me that a team with DePaul's credentials as they stood in 2004 was available for expansion today I would say grab them in a heartbeat and don't look back. And then just hope they live up to their end of the deal and try to remain competitive.


Anyway, the moderators prefer if I don't talk about DePaul because it offends DemonLS, so I am going to try to stop participating on this topic for now. This thread is about this week's Inside the Big East, not about DePaul's place in our conference.

[ivet]

NovaBall is picking up the void that Stever has left behind.