Imagine the Big East, Coast to Coast NYTimes Article

[gosports1]

so the writer suggests a school in every time zone..so for the mountain zone that would be...???? byu plays fb so they are out. that leaves?......Denver?

[Omaha1]

This is so dumb. Not going to happen.

Open door for Gonzaga but no one else in my opinion.

[NJRedman]

This is so dumb. Not going to happen.

Open door for Gonzaga but no one else in my opinion.

Well Gonzaga can't be out on an island.

[aughnanure]

Gonzaga perspective. Interesting seeing their read on St. Mary's vs Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount.

http://guboards.spokesmanreview.com/sho ... -expansion

[aughnanure]

This is so dumb. Not going to happen.

Open door for Gonzaga but no one else in my opinion.

Well Gonzaga can't be out on an island.

Yeah, it's too much. Add Gonzaga AND BYU, now you're talking.

[aughnanure]

so the writer suggests a school in every time zone..so for the mountain zone that would be...???? byu plays fb so they are out. that leaves?......Denver?

Wait, why is BYU out? Its not like they're getting into a major conference for football anytime soon (word is the Big XII his going east, working out the Sunday rule is too much and they need to bridge the WVU gap with Cincy and another eastern team first).

[admin]

I can imagine a secanrio where Gonzaga could be added. It would require GU to commit serious money to travel, however, and they'd probably need to find a different home for their other sports which doesn't sound very likely. An 11 team Big East playing round robin would still be doable. Each current team traveling to Spokane once a year isn't much to ask and the travel for GU could be worked out in blocks equating to an NBA team making an eastern road swing playing several times over the course of a week.

Now, if you're talking about adding anyone else - SMC, BYU, Santa Clara - I can all but assure you every league president would scoff at the idea.

[notkirkcameron]

An outside the box idea that I heard was to set up some kind of a relationship with Gonzaga similar to the relationship Notre Dame football has with the ACC.

Gonzaga remains a member of the WCC, but commits to playing 3-5 Big East teams in the nonconference each season. Not sure if it's practical, but at least theoretically, Gonzaga would get more pre-March exposure from playing Georgetown than from playing Pepperdine, and the Big East teams would get to beef up their nonconference schedules.

[aughnanure]

I can imagine a secanrio where Gonzaga could be added. It would require GU to commit serious money to travel, however, and they'd probably need to find a different home for their other sports which doesn't sound very likely. An 11 team Big East playing round robin would still be doable. Each current team traveling to Spokane once a year isn't much to ask and the travel for GU could be worked out in blocks equating to an NBA team making an eastern road swing playing several times over the course of a week.

Now, if you're talking about adding anyone else - SMC, BYU, Santa Clara - I can all but assure you every league president would scoff at the idea.

I don't get this. What is the problem with BYU? Seems the other Catholic institutions in that conference get along with them just fine, and Gonzaga fans seem to want them the most as well. BYU is a national brand, has fans across the country, supports strong sports programs all around, and is in no threat of leaving for a major conference. They're kind of the like the West Coast Notre Dame. Now, if you said beyond BYU? then yeah, it would be silly. But Zags and BYU are a strong pair and would not dilute the conference.

[stever20]

An outside the box idea that I heard was to set up some kind of a relationship with Gonzaga similar to the relationship Notre Dame football has with the ACC.

Gonzaga remains a member of the WCC, but commits to playing 3-5 Big East teams in the nonconference each season. Not sure if it's practical, but at least theoretically, Gonzaga would get more pre-March exposure from playing Georgetown than from playing Pepperdine, and the Big East teams would get to beef up their nonconference schedules.

i think some BE schools would balk at this...

I mean take nova.....

they would have an exempt tournament. 3-4 games.
Big 5 games. 4 games.

so right there is 7-8 of the 12 OOC games- with only 2 home games. Maybe they could have 1 more road game but that would be it. And frankly, I think they would be looking for a much bigger opponent than Gonzaga.

Also, Gonzaga doesn't hurt for OOC schedule. They had exempt tourney(with Washington, Texas A&M, UConn), Arizona, UCLA, Tennessee, and SMU this year. Last year they had SMU, St John's, Arizona, UCLA, and Memphis. So they are getting 4-5 quality OOC games each year. The problem has been their conference going awful.