Look for Division 4 to revolutionize college athletics

[Bluejay]

http://www.athleticscholarships.net/2013/07/25/basketball-conferences-make-best-partners-for-power-5.htm

A NCAA expert's take on how the top basketball conferences might be useful to the p5 if forming a new division for all sports.

I think the Big East is in a great position to be invited by the power 5. The main reason? We have no football (at least not at the FBS level) so the power 5 can keep all of their FB money. The onus is on us to show that our hoops teams are set up to compete at the highest level going forward. If we do so, they will want our programs, our TV markets, etc.

Let's be frank here for a moment. Like Bowlsby said, there are too many D1 schools (350!!!!), it is too easy to become D1 and too easy to stay there. SWAC and MEAC schools, for example, should not be competing at the D1 level. Their athletic departments are severely underfunded, they struggle to regularly comply with APR requirements and they spend their entire noncon schedules playing all roads games to collect checks. Their programs stay at the D1 level purely because of political reasons, they make no realistic effort at competing and generally make a sham of D1 college athletics. Programs like that should be relegated to D2 or a similar level.

[marquette]

A NCAA expert's take on how the top basketball conferences might be useful to the p5 if forming a new division for all sports.

I'll take this-

In order to add another 50-80 teams without having to share any more football revenue, the simplest solution is to add schools that do not play FBS football. The Power 5 might cherry pick their partners here, but nothing in the last 10 years of college athletics suggests that such big moves deal with smaller units than a single conference. So one plan might be to invite the five best FCS or non-football conferences along for the ride.

There has been as much or more movement, raiding and re-raiding, below the FBS level that simply using revenue distribution numbers is too blunt an instrument. Basketball prowess will be the big driver though. Massaging it a bit for geography, we get this set of conferences:

- Big East
- Atlantic-10
- Missouri Valley
- West Coast Conference
- Colonial

Not only are you getting most of the best basketball programs below the FBS level, but you also have rough geographic pairs:

- Big Ten/Big East
- ACC/A-10
- Big 12/Valley
- Pac-12/WCC
- SEC/CAA

It might mess up the "partnership" aspect, but there are definitely conferences I would rather see taken than the CAA (no arguments on the others, though). The Horizon might be a better option than the CAA from a competitive standpoint. CAA has been in a downward spiral. Hell, the America East was a better ball conference than the CAA last year.