(08-16-2015 06:39 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(08-16-2015 06:24 PM)Carolina_Low_Country Wrote:  

(08-16-2015 06:14 PM)pablowow Wrote:  

(08-16-2015 12:16 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-15-2015 11:15 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  Don't remember ECU being football only

They were originally given a football only invite at the same meeting where Tulane was offered a full invite. ECU's invite was later upgraded to an all sports invite after the C7 left. It was the C7 that had blocked an ECU all sports invite.

Correct!

For some reason ECU basketball was hated by the Catholic schools. I understand we are not good but Tulane was no better then us in basketball neither is UCF and they got full invites. Also our baseball is pretty good but I do not think the northern catholic schools care for baseball nor football.

I think that ex-NFL commish and Georgetown Board of Trustees president Paul Tagliabue was the most influential figure in C7 (and probably Big East) decision-making, and he was all about the markets. So ECU suffered from bad basketball AND not being in a major metropolitan area, with even Norfolk and Winston-Salem being a real stretch as ECU territory. Tulane was at least in New Orleans, an NFL market and world-famous city, and is a top 50 US News university and is private.

Sorry ECU fans, that's the way it was.

+1

There was only so many struggling basketball programs that could have been added before the C7 couldn't stand pat anymore. Tulane and ECU, unfortunately, were the school additions that pushed the basketball schools to leave. Even though ECU was football only, it was widely known they would be full members at some point soon there after. Decisions were being made for football, plain and simple, and basketball-only schools didn't want to be part of it any longer.