(02-03-2018 10:30 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(02-03-2018 10:21 AM)megadrone Wrote:  Still, somewhat sad that the Metro 16 plan didn't go through. I think it was a little ahead of its time but with the Eastern independents and the football schools already in the Metro it would have been a great conference. Houston would have been a fit there if there was room, if there wasn't room Houston probably would have gone to the WAC with the SWC private schools.

The Metro 16 was an interesting plan but I still think it would be vulnerable as its best schools would still have had better options elsewhere.

South Carolina, Penn St, and the schools who jumped from the Big East to the ACC would all still probably end up bailing.

I don't know that Pitt, Syracuse, and BC would have ever been more than football affiliates. The convenience and allure of the Big East basketball set up that had was simply too good to abandon.

I think the Metro 16 plan was ahead of its time. ESPN didn't have its 20 networks then and the conference was built around football. Still, the basketball would have been good if WVU, Rutgers and Temple left the A10 and joined as full members, leaving Miami, Syracuse, Pitt and BC in the Big East with football in the Metro 16. Had that conference developed it could still be together in some form as a P conference (instead of it and the Big East devolving to their current configurations).

But South Carolina wouldn't have ignored the SEC, and the Big East needed to hold on to Syracuse, Pitt and BC. So the timeline went as it did.

Metro 16 just came along too late.