Brad Stevens leaving Butler for Celtics

[BillikensWin]

Looks like Brandon Miler is the new HC at Butler.

[prebilliken]

I think it is just silly, if not outright stupid, that some people are trying to link the loss of Stevens to expansion.

Is this what we can come to expect now? Anytime a single BE school has any sort of bad news (and every school has bad news from time to time) that the usual suspects (BillEsq and others) will run right over here and somehow claim that the league must expand as a result?

Just stop it. We get that you want your respective teams in. That's nice. But frankly, I almost feel myself wanting SLU less and less with every "you need to add us now" post that I read.

You are misreading SLU fans and misreading the situation.

A) 99% of SLU fans, not sampled here, better sampled on our home forum, are over the BE expansion talk until further notice. Over at Bills.com we are knee deep in recruiting spreadsheets and having a grand ol' time with it.

B) The question "Does Butler's signature coach, and face of the program, leaving the BE hurt the BE's brand equity? Is expansion either now are or later the cure if it is indeed hurt?" Is in no way a stupid question, in fact, it seems like fantastic message board fodder, which is all this really is anyways.

C) Speculation of expansion, in today's world of college sports will always be a topic of conversation, it still is on SEC forums, ACC forums, AAC forums... so on and so forth.

D) Since this (well run) site does not have an upvote or downvote feature, if you are sick of the repetitive nature of any post or topic, ignore it and let it fall to the bottom.

E) To your point of "making deep runs" SLU has and it will continue to. The weakened A10 will make a perfect launching pad for the new BE after our back-to-back conference championships and undefeated title run which will place the 13-14 squad in basketball lore. This post was pure fan madness. Something you need to put up with on message boards.

[Bluejay]

You are misreading SLU fans and misreading the situation.

A) 99% of SLU fans, not sampled here, better sampled on our home forum, are over the BE expansion talk until further notice. Over at Bills.com we are knee deep in recruiting spreadsheets and having a grand ol' time with it.

Fair enough. My comments were only intended to be about the SLU fans here who said that Steven's departure means that the league has to expand now. No offense intended with respect to all other, more logical SLU fans.

B) The question "Does Butler's signature coach, and face of the program, leaving the BE hurt the BE's brand equity? Is expansion either now are or later the cure if it is indeed hurt?" Is in no way a stupid question, in fact, it seems like fantastic message board fodder, which is all this really is anyways.

I disagree. While it may have hurt the league's perception, and certainly hurts perceptions about Butler, any argument that then jumps to, "the BE needs to add teams to make up for the departure" is a pretty significant jump on many, many levels. Perhaps the most significant of those is that there really aren't any schools on the potential add list that would satiate the concerns of those that fear that Stevens' loss hurts the league anyway. I mean really, is someone who thinks the league is that devastated by the Stevens loss really going to have all of their fears calmed if SLU were added? I sincerely doubt it.

It strikes me that the entire line of thought that believes that expansion timing would somehow revolve around one particular coach's tenure at a member school is just plain wacko. Butler hasn't even played a game yet under the new guy for goodness sake!

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have SLU in the league. I have friends and even family that attended SLU. I like SLU's proximity to Creighton and think that Creighton and SLU could develop into a tremendous rivalry. Plus, Creighton has always played well in the city of St Louis. I just don't see how Stevens' departure does absolutely anything to change any expansion timetables. If one wants to argue that Butler wouldn't have been one of the initial adds if Stevens left sooner, knock yourselves out, but that isn't the same thing as saying that someone else should now be added.

[yorost]

You are misreading SLU fans and misreading the situation.

A) 99% of SLU fans, not sampled here, better sampled on our home forum, are over the BE expansion talk until further notice. Over at Bills.com we are knee deep in recruiting spreadsheets and having a grand ol' time with it.

Fair enough. My comments were only intended to be about the SLU fans here who said that Steven's departure means that the league has to expand now. No offense intended with respect to all other, more logical SLU fans.

Fair enough? Prebilliken criticized you only to turn around and do the same thing to you on the opposite side of the spectrum. ...99% from a forum with active Big East discussion.

[prebilliken]

You are misreading SLU fans and misreading the situation.

A) 99% of SLU fans, not sampled here, better sampled on our home forum, are over the BE expansion talk until further notice. Over at Bills.com we are knee deep in recruiting spreadsheets and having a grand ol' time with it.

Fair enough. My comments were only intended to be about the SLU fans here who said that Steven's departure means that the league has to expand now. No offense intended with respect to all other, more logical SLU fans.

Fair enough? Prebilliken criticized you only to turn around and do the same thing to you on the opposite side of the spectrum. ...99% from a forum with active Big East discussion.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. An active Big East discussion DOES NOT equal active Big East expansion speculation. Also, those posts currently make up an incredible minority of the discussion taking place among Bills fans.

Also, since every team forum, is essentially a basketball talk forum containing like minded fans, no doubt we have on going about conversations about the conference, their teams, sprinkled with the hated expansion talk.

I can assure you that usually every conference and their moves are discussed, how will they affect the Bills, how will they affect the game at large. When we talk about the Big East its not always because "Something has happened! Let's speculate about whether or not we get in to the conference now!" It mostly is simply, "Something has happened, what are your thoughts?" That's the entire point I was making.

Most of the Steven's discussion, if you read it, was focused on "how will he do in the NBA" or "who is going to take Brad's place." Seeing that our new head coach, who was 3-0 against Butler, has a home and family life in Indy there were many discussions on the topic concerned with the Bills that had NOTHING to do with whether we get in the conference tomorrow or never.

[prebilliken]

I disagree. While it may have hurt the league's perception, and certainly hurts perceptions about Butler, any argument that then jumps to, "the BE needs to add teams to make up for the departure" is a pretty significant jump on many, many levels. Perhaps the most significant of those is that there really aren't any schools on the potential add list that would satiate the concerns of those that fear that Stevens' loss hurts the league anyway. I mean really, is someone who thinks the league is that devastated by the Stevens loss really going to have all of their fears calmed if SLU were added? I sincerely doubt it.

It strikes me that the entire line of thought that believes that expansion timing would somehow revolve around one particular coach's tenure at a member school is just plain wacko. Butler hasn't even played a game yet under the new guy for goodness sake!

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have SLU in the league. I have friends and even family that attended SLU. I like SLU's proximity to Creighton and think that Creighton and SLU could develop into a tremendous rivalry. Plus, Creighton has always played well in the city of St Louis. I just don't see how Stevens' departure does absolutely anything to change any expansion timetables. If one wants to argue that Butler wouldn't have been one of the initial adds if Stevens left sooner, knock yourselves out, but that isn't the same thing as saying that someone else should now be added.

I don't disagree with your logic. But for fun, let me spell out further what I think most SLU fans were trying (and objectively) to get at with this line of thinking. Brad Steven's departure from Butler hurts Butler's image in the short run, perhaps the long run.

Let's say, hypothetically, that Steven's departure is disastrous (again, hypothetically the argument fails if it is not so we have to, for argument's sake, assume that it is). Butler is no longer a hot commodity, it does not draw the National or Midwestern audience that it would if they were still good. Therefore the Midwestern properties of the league are damaged: DePaul if they do not improve are not a draw, Butler is not a draw, if Creighton does not maintain success post Doug-E-Buckets they are a weakened draw (again, hypothetical), while Xavier has had some down years we can assume they are still a strong property, and Marquette is a staple program nationally. Regardless, the Midwestern market is not pulling the numbers on TV that Fox or the Big East expected. Therefore, they add a market and an intriguing team that is rising nationally to strengthen their Midwestern properties. Renewed rivalries, and more match-up options, allow the Big East to remain strong in territory dominated by B1G media. There is also the larger concern that a weakened West leads to a weakened RPI among the league as a whole, in turn, not giving the Big East as many of the valued NCAA bids they once thought they were going to achieve. If the assumptions play out, then you can only really count on MU from the West, the East is competitive and levels out and may only supply 2-3 more bids. It would be unsettling if for a few years the league reached a ceiling of only 4 bids or so.

As a basketball fan, I 100% understand the flaws and assumptions of the argument: Why won't Creighton/Butler reload? Who says not enough people aren't satisfied with watching Marquette dominate the West? Do we really expect X to not start acting like X again? Who says that the East won't level out and supply a constant stream of at large bids? I recognize all of this.

Either way, my point is, I don't think everyone on the SLU side is taking it as personally as everyone believes, its not "This sucks now and will forever so add SLU because SLU will solve all of your problems" rather "If this doesn't hold as much buying power as originally planned, perhaps adding SLU is a logical solution. Wouldn't that be nice?" The thing is, if the West isn't as competitive as planned, I don't think adding SLU and the St. Louis market is the worst idea in the world, granted, if SLU keeps playing well, it ties back in to the RPI argument.

Also, I'm honored by your thoughts of SLU. I think many Bills/Blue Jays already consider this a "cultural" rivalry between to schools of similar makeup, geographic location, and much inter-mingling between St. Louis kids going to Creighton and Omaha kids going to SLU. Not to mention that CU fans regularly invaded our bars and slept on our apartment floors so many years during your old conference tournament, while we had to trek out to the coast to see ours. On a personal note, my GF is from Omaha and went to SLU, long before BE talk I enjoyed much spirited banter about the two programs. I would love to settle it on the court one day. Obviously, any right minded SLU fan wants to be in the BE one day, but most of us are not grasping at straws for hope, rather content in knowing that winning basketball and solid recruiting is the only to get ahead in any conference. Rooting for our team, and hopefully watching them win, is a fine enough distraction to pass the time until (if ever) the Big East comes calling.

[yorost]

@pewbilliken: My issue was primarily you saying 99% right after criticizing what you felt was a generalization of your fans, I didn't even have to look at your site to know I disagreed with the statement, 99% is overselling in an environment where there is bound to be some interest.

[BillEsq]

Will someone please show me one post by one SLU fan who said that because Stevens is leaving the BE HAS TO EXPAND IMMEDIATELY !!!!!!

As far as I know there are three SLU fans that post here regularly Billwin, Dump, and myself. I know of no posts from anyone who presents themselves as a SLU fan who said that the BE now has to expand.

The only person who has posted anything about the BE needing to expand due to Stevens leaving was Bewannabe. BEwannabe is a troll and has never been connected in anyway with SLU fans. If you go back through and read the thread you'll see that he is the only person who said such nonsense. Unfortunately somehow someone confused my posts with his posts and this turned into a SLU fan said thing.

NO SLU FAN HAS SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE BE NOW NEEDS TO EXPAND. Go to their site outside of a few trolls the BE expansion concept is a non-starter. Jesus, sure SLU would love to be in the BE with 3 million a year but no one is delusional enough to think that just because Stevens left the league will simply expand.

[ChicagoX]

Perhaps the biggest question is why is a fan of SLU, an Atlantic 10 program, the most prolific poster on a message board for Big East programs? I know how badly you want to join our conference, but posting more than everyone else on this message board is not going to do anything help your cause.

Once Xavier joined the BE, I was hoping to get away from reading the complete and utter dross that can be found on our previous conference's board. Hopefully he'll go away once the season starts and post on a board that is actually relevant to his school.

Relax dude, if the conference expands, you'll likely be in. I just don't understand why you spend so much time here.

[BillEsq]

Perhaps the biggest question is why is a fan of SLU, an Atlantic 10 program, the most prolific poster on a message board for Big East programs? I know how badly you want to join our conference, but posting more than everyone else on this message board is not going to do anything help your cause.

Once Xavier joined the BE, I was hoping to get away from reading the complete and utter dross that can be found on our previous conference's board. Hopefully he'll go away once the season starts and post on a board that is actually relevant to his school.

Relax dude, if the conference expands, you'll likely be in. I just don't understand why you spend so much time here.

A good question.... why because i was on here pretty early... and most of my postings were pre official expansion. I'm still here as no one has asked me to leave, and i have interest in non-revs. You can note i usually just post in non-revs. I'll step in on the expansion threads but its pretty much always to say everything has been said and there is no reason to say anything else. I got confused with BEwannabe recently and wanted to clear things up. I'll just leave it at that. I have also never said that SLU should be added nor have i advocated for anyone particular school.