Delaney Wants B1G Tourney at MSG and Not a Week Early...

[Toronto Rapture]

What the Big Ten and ACC can offer compared to the Big East is increased inventory of games. Hey MSG, we'll rent the place out for the whole week would be a starting point.

Commence Realignment v.2019 thread

Dayton fans travel pretty good? I wonder how much of a consideration a programs ability to draw fans to the BET could be among other things.

BE has MSG locked up until 2025, but yeah, does not hurt to be proactive in thinking ahead.

[billyjack]

First, I never said we're losing MSG, I agree it's just throwaway lines.

Second, I HATE that I have to be the voice of reason to bring us back down to earth here as opposed to blindly throwing shade because we dislike a conference... especially freaking Wisconsin. Maybe I don't understand your "current state of the B1G argument but let me put it like this:

DREGS = Have you heard of Depaul and St Johns? These programs have done about as well as them recently.
Rugers
Penn State
Nebraska
Norwestern

FORGETTABLE AND/OR IRRELEVENT = I'll agree with you however let's also not forget all three have been ranked recently and one of whom has been ranked in the top 10 multiple times recently.
Minnesota
Iowa
Purdue- Your realise they have more appearances in the NCAA tournament than all of us but NOVA and X since the turn of the century. Idk what your standard for irrelevent or forgettable is.

DID NOTHING IN POST-WAR 20TH CENTURY, HAD GOOD RUN RECENTLY WITH ONE COACH WHO IS NOW RETIRED:
Wisconsin- If your logic is that winning a championship is all that matters because they haven't won one since WW2 then realise that 7 of our programs haven't done anything ever. Or you can realise that in that run they managed to put together more FF, E8s, S16s, and tournament appearances than Providence has all time. Also that run was under two coaches Dick Bennett and then Bo Ryan.

SCANDAL PLAGUED TRAINWRECK
Maryland- won't argue here, but even they have a fairly recent championship and final four, more recent than every final four in this conference other than MU, GT, BU, and Nova x3.

SHOULD BE GREAT BUT ALWAYS UNDERACHIEVES:
- Ohio State- Yes they do, and still managed to get as many Final fours in the last 11yrs as 70% of our conference have all time. So what is your standard for great? and what do your consider the 70% of our conference if it's not OSU?

HAVE BARELY DONE SQUAT IN 21ST CENTURY, LOCATED IN MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, WITH NO MOJO:
- Indiana- Again what is your standard for doing something this century? 11 appearances, 2 s16, a runner up?
- Illinois- Actually slightly more success than Indiana.

GREAT PROGRAMS WITH COACHES CLOSE TO RETIREMENT, ONE OF WHICH HAS AN ATHLETIC DEPT WITH SCANDALS PILING UP:
- Michigan
- Michigan State
Until these two are found guilty of anything or their coaches actually retire it seems to me that that's a pretty weak argument.

Again I hate the B1G but an argument that they're a terrible conference either puts us below them or we can actually be rational that as conference we have some great history but Nova's recent success doesn't mean that we as a conference have become kings of the world.

I'll respond in more detail when i get the chance. But no casual fan in New York or the northeast would go out of their way to watch Purdue, Iowa, Illinois, any more than they'd go watch Texas Tech or Ole Miss.

Again, only one Big Ten session sold out last March, in the first year of using the Garden. How does that happen? This is when the B1G to MSG is a novelty. How can the B1G improve attendance? Can those questions can be given solid and reasonable answers?

I think you're misconstruing my defense of facts to be a defense of the B1G. I pretty much agree with what you're saying. I just believe in this world of flat earthers and every news (and certain politicians) calling news fake that we could stand to use a bit more acknowledgment of the facts than blind hate.

But I will await your longer response

Since we're in agreement on the Big East retaining MSG, let me hit on our disagreement on the Big Ten's Flat Earth Society comment and specific schools.

I'm looking at these schools from an arrogant northeastern point of view, but this is the way a casual NYC fan would react to these schools playing at MSG... would workers in lower Manhattan skip out of work on a March afternoon to watch some of these B1G teams? It's been shown that they will for the hometown Big East, where they revere our history and respect our teams. I'm going by memory and off the top of my head here... maybe this is misguided but i think (right or wrong) it's what a casual NY fan would feel...

DREGS:
Rutgers:
Obviously a horrible program. A cousin of mine has actually worked at the RAC for 10+ years and I've visited the place a dozen times or so (never gone to a game). Nice facility, small, odd in several ways (reminds me of Davies Voke HS in Lincoln Ri, which was built in like 1972). Athletic offices are off the arena concourse. The RAC itself is located in an industrial park type setting, a long way from, and inconvenient to, the main campus (which I've never been to cuz the roads around there are twisting and windy and a pain). I like Steve Pikiell as a coach but the hole he has to dig out of is so deep that i have a hard time seeing a path to success any time soon. I vaguely remember when they made the Final Four and played in the same place and in the same year where Rocky Balboa fought Apollo Creed in their first bout... wait, that was real right?

Nebraska:
A football school. No one in NY cares about watching Cornhusker hoops. Yes they were ranked preseason several years ago, which was nonsensical, with the Pettway guy. They lost at URI and sucked all year. They got hammered by St John's last year by 20, but somehow went 13-5 in the B1G, and rightfully missed the NCAA's. They've literally never won an NCAA game. Zero NCAA wins. For some f-ckin reason, they're again being promoted this year as some fun upstart team.

Penn State:
Another football school. They were talked-up with the signing of the nice recruit named Carr, and i think they're coach was a Villanova assistant or something. Carr is now gone, and they will suck. They might have made a run in the NIT last year, beating Marquette cuz Rousey took 85 shots... but no one noticed cuz it's the freakin NIT. No one in NYC gives a shit about PSU hoops. They might have maybe 1 NCAA win in my lifetime (not positive) and amazingly it was against Providence (in 2001).

Northwestern:
After burping themselves up like an overfed Gerber baby, which drew some attention under Chris Collins recently, their productive senior class is now gone, and they will go back to completely sucking. The hoops program was known for never having made an NCAA tourney, but i think they might have gotten a bid last year or two years ago, but they got bounced immediately maybe. I really don't know, which is sad cuz that made them kind of lovable losers. But I think Collins is a bad coach, and his players after minimal success acted like d-bags. No one in NYC notices them anyway.

So 4 of 14 schools are horrible dregs. 28% of the B1G is just f-cking putrid with no following or interest in NYC, which is the place that's supposed to support these guys.

FORGETTABLES:
Minnesota. They had a nice team going into last year, and beat Providence, but completely tanked for some reason. Richard Pitino had one solid season and won the NIT. Historically, the Gophers and PC used to occupy the bubble each year in the 90's, but PC put a lot of guys in the NBA, and Minnesota hasn't (unless I'm forgetting someone). The last players ofvany significance that i can remember coming out of Minnesota were from back around 1980 with McHale, Randy Breuer (later a Buck i think), and I'm going to say Mychael Thompson i think. I really can't fill in any other information on their history... i think Clem Haskins coached there and he did well until some scandal or something. Their arena is gorgeous. Not sure why anyone in NYC would think about them as a great drawing card.

Iowa. This is what i know about Iowa: Andre Tippett went there and played linebacker under the legendary Hayden Frye, a great guy. Chuck Long quarterbacked there in the 80's. When i was 12, Iowa hoops made a run to the Final Four with Ronny Lester, beating Georgetown in the Elite-8 by coming back from a 16 point deficit. In 1983, Dr Tom Davis arrived from Boston College, and was known for winning first round NCAA games almost every year. I know recently they've been good under the Siena guy with the glasses, Fran McCaffrey. They have a good player, Jol, whose name i can't pronounce. This is a solid program, but again, do they excite New Yorkers? Is someone in New York going to schedule an evening around Fran McCaffrey? This is a serious question.

Purdue: My Iowa write-up could be copied in this Purdue space. Except i can't think of a Purdue linebacker, and replace Chuck Long with Drew Brees. I'm too young to have seen Rick Mount play. I always disliked Bob Greise cuz he hates the Patriots. When i was 12 they made a run to the Final Four under Lute Olson and center Joe Barry Carroll. The Celtics traded the rights to Carroll to get Robert Parish (i think)... anyway somehow he is related to the Celtics Big Three. I think of grumpy Gene Keady, a great coach, and the early 90's with Glenn Robinson and his great teams. At some point in that era they had some big bruiser guy named Scheffler that cried after an NCAA loss and Gene Keady yelled into a microphone about the refs. One of Glenn Robinson's teams lost to URI (say 1993), which sucked for me cuz i had Rhody fans busting my balls over it, thanks to Purdue losing. Of course i know they've had some good teams under Painter and Swanigan and a giant German dude or two. They beat Butler in a tight game in the NCAA's, aided by a bad ref call on a play near the Purdue bench. Purdue has some good recruits arriving or maturing and is in a good position. With all this being said, again i come back to whether or not a New Yorker would really care about them. I just cannot believe that Purdue can really help displace the Big East.

ONE COACH, POOR 20TH CENTURY:
Wisconsin.
From my birth thru the year of my marriage in 1999, Wisconsin hoops was awful. Non existent. I can't think of one Badger player to have made the NBA. They never would make the NCAA's. Stu Jackson had a good year or two in the 90's, but in one of those early 90's years the Big Ten went 1-7 in the NCAA's, so maybe the conference just was weak. Tony Bennett's father made a Final Four in 2000 or 01 maybe... that year Wisconsin had a ton of losses but went on an NCAA tourney run by completely avoiding having to face a Big East team (i think). Bennett stepped down cuz he was exhausted and Badger fans had been critical of the poor guy. Wisky had made like zero NCAA's from Truman til Clinton... a complete nothing. Bennett later coached Wazzu. Bo Ryan had an amazing run over 15 years or so. In Greg Gard's first full season, the Badgers tanked... Xavier and Marquette both beat UWM and a win against them in 2018 wasn't even considered to be of much quality. Not sure they have any good recruits on the horizon. Can Gard pick things back up, or will they revert to their weak history pre-2000? I realize that Wisconsinites must get completely flooded with Badger-hype, deservedly so in recent years. I'm not sure how long-lasting the attention will be back East, where we're mostly a-holes, especially New Yorkers. Two more bad years for Wisconsin and they'll be fall back to Iowa Hawkeye status.

(continued in another day or two)...

[MUBoxer]

Since we're in agreement on the Big East retaining MSG, let me hit on our disagreement on the Big Ten's Flat Earth Society comment and specific schools.

I'm looking at these schools from an arrogant northeastern point of view, but this is the way a casual NYC fan would react to these schools playing at MSG... would workers in lower Manhattan skip out of work on a March afternoon to watch some of these B1G teams? It's been shown that they will for the hometown Big East, where they revere our history and respect our teams. I'm going by memory and off the top of my head here... maybe this is misguided but i think (right or wrong) it's what a casual NY fan would feel...

DREGS:
Rutgers:
Obviously a horrible program. A cousin of mine has actually worked at the RAC for 10+ years and I've visited the place a dozen times or so (never gone to a game). Nice facility, small, odd in several ways (reminds me of Davies Voke HS in Lincoln Ri, which was built in like 1972). Athletic offices are off the arena concourse. The RAC itself is located in an industrial park type setting, a long way from, and inconvenient to, the main campus (which I've never been to cuz the roads around there are twisting and windy and a pain). I like Steve Pikiell as a coach but the hole he has to dig out of is so deep that i have a hard time seeing a path to success any time soon. I vaguely remember when they made the Final Four and played in the same place and in the same year where Rocky Balboa fought Apollo Creed in their first bout... wait, that was real right?

Nebraska:
A football school. No one in NY cares about watching Cornhusker hoops. Yes they were ranked preseason several years ago, which was nonsensical, with the Pettway guy. They lost at URI and sucked all year. They got hammered by St John's last year by 20, but somehow went 13-5 in the B1G, and rightfully missed the NCAA's. They've literally never won an NCAA game. Zero NCAA wins. For some f-ckin reason, they're again being promoted this year as some fun upstart team.

Penn State:
Another football school. They were talked-up with the signing of the nice recruit named Carr, and i think they're coach was a Villanova assistant or something. Carr is now gone, and they will suck. They might have made a run in the NIT last year, beating Marquette cuz Rousey took 85 shots... but no one noticed cuz it's the freakin NIT. No one in NYC gives a shit about PSU hoops. They might have maybe 1 NCAA win in my lifetime (not positive) and amazingly it was against Providence (in 2001).

Northwestern:
After burping themselves up like an overfed Gerber baby, which drew some attention under Chris Collins recently, their productive senior class is now gone, and they will go back to completely sucking. The hoops program was known for never having made an NCAA tourney, but i think they might have gotten a bid last year or two years ago, but they got bounced immediately maybe. I really don't know, which is sad cuz that made them kind of lovable losers. But I think Collins is a bad coach, and his players after minimal success acted like d-bags. No one in NYC notices them anyway.

So 4 of 14 schools are horrible dregs. 28% of the B1G is just f-cking putrid with no following or interest in NYC, which is the place that's supposed to support these guys.

FORGETTABLES:
Minnesota. They had a nice team going into last year, and beat Providence, but completely tanked for some reason. Richard Pitino had one solid season and won the NIT. Historically, the Gophers and PC used to occupy the bubble each year in the 90's, but PC put a lot of guys in the NBA, and Minnesota hasn't (unless I'm forgetting someone). The last players ofvany significance that i can remember coming out of Minnesota were from back around 1980 with McHale, Randy Breuer (later a Buck i think), and I'm going to say Mychael Thompson i think. I really can't fill in any other information on their history... i think Clem Haskins coached there and he did well until some scandal or something. Their arena is gorgeous. Not sure why anyone in NYC would think about them as a great drawing card.

Iowa. This is what i know about Iowa: Andre Tippett went there and played linebacker under the legendary Hayden Frye, a great guy. Chuck Long quarterbacked there in the 80's. When i was 12, Iowa hoops made a run to the Final Four with Ronny Lester, beating Georgetown in the Elite-8 by coming back from a 16 point deficit. In 1983, Dr Tom Davis arrived from Boston College, and was known for winning first round NCAA games almost every year. I know recently they've been good under the Siena guy with the glasses, Fran McCaffrey. They have a good player, Jol, whose name i can't pronounce. This is a solid program, but again, do they excite New Yorkers? Is someone in New York going to schedule an evening around Fran McCaffrey? This is a serious question.

Purdue: My Iowa write-up could be copied in this Purdue space. Except i can't think of a Purdue linebacker, and replace Chuck Long with Drew Brees. I'm too young to have seen Rick Mount play. I always disliked Bob Greise cuz he hates the Patriots. When i was 12 they made a run to the Final Four under Lute Olson and center Joe Barry Carroll. The Celtics traded the rights to Carroll to get Robert Parish (i think)... anyway somehow he is related to the Celtics Big Three. I think of grumpy Gene Keady, a great coach, and the early 90's with Glenn Robinson and his great teams. At some point in that era they had some big bruiser guy named Scheffler that cried after an NCAA loss and Gene Keady yelled into a microphone about the refs. One of Glenn Robinson's teams lost to URI (say 1993), which sucked for me cuz i had Rhody fans busting my balls over it, thanks to Purdue losing. Of course i know they've had some good teams under Painter and Swanigan and a giant German dude or two. They beat Butler in a tight game in the NCAA's, aided by a bad ref call on a play near the Purdue bench. Purdue has some good recruits arriving or maturing and is in a good position. With all this being said, again i come back to whether or not a New Yorker would really care about them. I just cannot believe that Purdue can really help displace the Big East.

ONE COACH, POOR 20TH CENTURY:
Wisconsin.
From my birth thru the year of my marriage in 1999, Wisconsin hoops was awful. Non existent. I can't think of one Badger player to have made the NBA. They never would make the NCAA's. Stu Jackson had a good year or two in the 90's, but in one of those early 90's years the Big Ten went 1-7 in the NCAA's, so maybe the conference just was weak. Tony Bennett's father made a Final Four in 2000 or 01 maybe... that year Wisconsin had a ton of losses but went on an NCAA tourney run by completely avoiding having to face a Big East team (i think). Bennett stepped down cuz he was exhausted and Badger fans had been critical of the poor guy. Wisky had made like zero NCAA's from Truman til Clinton... a complete nothing. Bennett later coached Wazzu. Bo Ryan had an amazing run over 15 years or so. In Greg Gard's first full season, the Badgers tanked... Xavier and Marquette both beat UWM and a win against them in 2018 wasn't even considered to be of much quality. Not sure they have any good recruits on the horizon. Can Gard pick things back up, or will they revert to their weak history pre-2000? I realize that Wisconsinites must get completely flooded with Badger-hype, deservedly so in recent years. I'm not sure how long-lasting the attention will be back East, where we're mostly a-holes, especially New Yorkers. Two more bad years for Wisconsin and they'll be fall back to Iowa Hawkeye status.

(continued in another day or two)...

While you're keep bringing this back to how they'd be viewed in the North East and getting people into MSG, I am arguing objectively against your claim that their conference sucks.

And the Big Ten is a complete embarrassment, with scandal following scandal and the conference blows in hoops.

While I truly enjoy the humour in these write ups I think that until you have done an equally dismissive write up of the Big East programs you aren't being objective here. Here's the numbers since 2000 which is what I consider recent, if you'd like a different date let me know.

64 16 8 4 2 1
B1G
Illinois 11 4 2 1 1 0
Indiana 11 4 1 1 1 0
Iowa 6 0 0 0 0 0
Michigan 8 4 3 2 2 0
Michigan St 19 11 8 6 1 1
Minnesota 5 0 0 0 0 0
Nebraska 1 0 0 0 0 0
Northwestern 1 0 0 0 0 0
Ohio State 13 5 3 2 1 0
Penn State 2 1 0 0 0 0
Purdue 12 5 1 0 0 0
Wisconsin 18 10 4 3 1 0
Rutgers 0 0 0 0 0 0
Maryland 11 4 2 2 0 1
118 48 24 17 7 2

Big East
Marquette 11 4 2 1 0 0
Xavier 16 7 3 0 0 0
Geogetown 9 3 1 1 0 0
Butler 13 5 2 2 2 0
Villanova 13 6 4 3 0 2
Providence 5 0 0 0 0 0
Seton Hall 6 1 0 0 0 0
Depaul 2 0 0 0 0 0
Creighton 11 0 0 0 0 0
Saint Johns 4 0 0 0 0 0
90 26 12 7 2 2

From this list I believe 9 of the BE would trade for the success of MSU, UW, and Maryland; 8 likely would trade for the success of OSU, UofM, Illinois; 7 for IU's success (potentially 8 depending who you ask at MU); likely 5 would trade for Purdue's success. Right there you have 8 programs that have recent success clearly head and shoulders above 50% of our conference.

You can make arguments for the future all you'd like, and we can review it when we see the results, but until it happens it's all just conjecture. There's also an argument that they have four more teams but would our four magical additions account for a success difference of 28 22 12 10 5 0? I don't think so.

To your point about the casual fan taking an afternoon off to watch a game do you think that the casual fan is taking an afternoon off to see CU? BU? MU? DPU? XU? If your next thought is "well last year they certainly would've taken off because XU was ranked so high" then why is it that they would take off to see highly ranked X but not highly ranked Purdue if the only factor is ranking?

The B1G has been extremely successful in every department but winning the actual championship and we should aspire to be able to accumulate FFs at the rate they do before saying that their conference sucks.

I look forward to the write ups about the other B1G teams. I wonder what your unbiased write ups about Big East programs would say?

[paulxu]

I think Delaney was being defensive, and reaching for some positive PR.
All the hype about the B1G coming to MSG and he didn't deliver the average attendance that the BE did.
And he only had one sellout.
Where were all the B1G fans in the NE that were suppose to show up?
With the alumni base of all those giant state schools, should have been easy. And it didn't happen.

[Savannah Jay]

Iowa. This is what i know about Iowa: Andre Tippett went there and played linebacker under the legendary Hayden Frye, a great guy. Chuck Long quarterbacked there in the 80's. When i was 12, Iowa hoops made a run to the Final Four with Ronny Lester, beating Georgetown in the Elite-8 by coming back from a 16 point deficit. In 1983, Dr Tom Davis arrived from Boston College, and was known for winning first round NCAA games almost every year. I know recently they've been good under the Siena guy with the glasses, Fran McCaffrey. They have a good player, Jol, whose name i can't pronounce. This is a solid program, but again, do they excite New Yorkers? Is someone in New York going to schedule an evening around Fran McCaffrey? This is a serious question.

Purdue: My Iowa write-up could be copied in this Purdue space. Except i can't think of a Purdue linebacker, and replace Chuck Long with Drew Brees. I'm too young to have seen Rick Mount play. I always disliked Bob Greise cuz he hates the Patriots. When i was 12 they made a run to the Final Four under Lute Olson and center Joe Barry Carroll. The Celtics traded the rights to Carroll to get Robert Parish (i think)... anyway somehow he is related to the Celtics Big Three. I think of grumpy Gene Keady, a great coach, and the early 90's with Glenn Robinson and his great teams. At some point in that era they had some big bruiser guy named Scheffler that cried after an NCAA loss and Gene Keady yelled into a microphone about the refs. One of Glenn Robinson's teams lost to URI (say 1993), which sucked for me cuz i had Rhody fans busting my balls over it, thanks to Purdue losing. Of course i know they've had some good teams under Painter and Swanigan and a giant German dude or two. They beat Butler in a tight game in the NCAA's, aided by a bad ref call on a play near the Purdue bench. Purdue has some good recruits arriving or maturing and is in a good position. With all this being said, again i come back to whether or not a New Yorker would really care about them. I just cannot believe that Purdue can really help displace the Big East.

When you were writing up the Iowa piece and copying it for Purdue, you may have accidentally included Iowa's final four coach, Lute Olson, in the Purdue write up. The coach who took Joe Barely Cares and the Boilers to the final four was Lee Rose (who actually looked a lot like Lute). It was Rose's second trip to the final four (he took UNCC in 1977). Lute was at Iowa from 1974-1983. He was replaced by George Raveling. Dr. Tom came in 1986 after Raveling left for USC. He did a stint at Stanford in between BC and Iowa.

I know you don't care but just thought I'd throw that out there in case it came up in trivia somewhere down the road...

[billyjack]

MUBoxer... i will walk back my "completely suck" statement, as the B1G is one of the Top-6 hoops conferences. However, for all their hype over the years, they've been underwhelming A LOT of the time (based on their built-in advantages and their student body sizes, etc), say after the 1981 Indiana champion team. i will continue my write-up and i will totally enjoy doing one for our 10 Big East teams (and some former BE teams). However I don't want to bore the shit out of everyone.

Savannah-- thanks for the corrections, i hate when i mix stuff up. I'm operating with 50-year-old scatterbrained brain cells. I had totally remembered it (incorrectly) as Davis going straight to Iowa. The Iowa-Purdue mix-up from similar 1980 runs has always confused me. For example, one of them, probably Iowa, had a big guy named "Crafcissen" whose name i can picture Dick Enberg repeating a lot.

[Savannah Jay]

MUBoxer... i will walk back my "completely suck" statement, as the B1G is one of the Top-6 hoops conferences. However, for all their hype over the years, they've been underwhelming A LOT of the time (based on their built-in advantages and their student body sizes, etc), say after the 1981 Indiana champion team. i will continue my write-up and i will totally enjoy doing one for our 10 Big East teams (and some former BE teams). However I don't want to bore the shit out of everyone.

Savannah-- thanks for the corrections, i hate when i mix stuff up. I'm operating with 50-year-old scatterbrained brain cells. I had totally remembered it (incorrectly) as Davis going straight to Iowa. The Iowa-Purdue mix-up from similar 1980 runs has always confused me. For example, one of them, probably Iowa, had a big guy named "Crafcissen" whose name i can picture Dick Enberg repeating a lot.

Yes, Iowa had the "twin towers" Steve Waite & Steve Krafcisin (I believe both were 6'11" which is a lot of tall on one team in 1980). When Iowa and Purdue lost in the semis to Louisville and UCLA, respectively, they played in one of the last ever consolation games. Purdue won...I don't believe Ronnie Lester played in the consolation. He was playing on one leg in the semis (and the latter half of the year). There may have been a consolation game in 1981, too, but I think that was the end of it.

I get the fuzzy brain thing...I think I am a few years ahead of you in that regard. : )

[GoldenWarrior11]

What the Big Ten and ACC can offer compared to the Big East is increased inventory of games. Hey MSG, we'll rent the place out for the whole week would be a starting point.

Commence Realignment v.2019 thread

Dayton fans travel pretty good? I wonder how much of a consideration a programs ability to draw fans to the BET could be among other things.

BE has MSG locked up until 2025, but yeah, does not hurt to be proactive in thinking ahead.

Dayton was rated #1 by the NCAA in traveling fan bases (https://www.daytondailynews.com/sports/dayton-flyers-lauded-for-traveling-fan-base/LRV7iBIMSODbMFEOSQdGWN/). In addition, they consistently average 12/13k per game on campus, even when they are down. I have consistently said when conferences considered expansion, you need to acquire members that offer value even when they do not compete in the revenue sports. For the Big East, obviously every member is a Private school, mostly Catholic, with a non-FBS athletic program in strong college basketball markets. For Dayton, they check all of those boxes. Not only would the league be acquiring a peer institution, but it would be acquiring a great fan base that would help sell tickets at away games and at MSG for our tournament. And, in expanding in advance of our next TV/MSG contract, you would be providing more content for viewership, as well as more games to attend at the tournament.

I have long believed that expansion for the Big East would take place in advance of our next deal, in order to give a bump to our annual revenue. Delaney's comments, among heavy program and stadium investments from Dayton (and even SLU), from appearances, appear to align with that projection.

[GoldenWarrior11]

While the B1G, as a whole, is not an "embarrassment", the recent scandals at Penn State, Maryland, Ohio State and Michigan State certainly do not paint a positive light in the conference. However, in men's basketball, the league has absolutely under-performed in recent years. Indiana has not advanced to the Elite Eight since 2002. Illinois has not advanced to the Sweet 16 since 2005. While Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State have all advanced to the Final Four within the past ten years, the B1G has not won a men's basketball tournament since 2000 (MSU). In addition, by historical standards, Penn State, Northwestern, Rutgers and Nebraska are all very weak programs.

[kayako]

I think expansion may be an absolute must.....

I mean ACC and Big Ten have 3 more sessions than the Big East tourney has. That's pretty big. In a 5 year period that's like having 2 extra tournaments just about.

Going to 12 teams would create an extra session on Wednesdays without taking up an extra day. But I'm not very familiar with stadium booking management, so I don't know if an extra day is a plus or minus.