Freshy
1st String
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I Root For: Southern Miss
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RE: UMass emerging as probable #12
(03-14-2013 07:50 PM)ScreamShatter Wrote: (03-14-2013 07:24 PM)Freshy Wrote: (03-14-2013 06:49 PM)ScreamShatter Wrote: (03-14-2013 12:45 AM)Freshy Wrote: (03-13-2013 11:03 PM)ScreamShatter Wrote: Lets put this into perspective. You guys are talking about two teams in the CUSA like they are going to save this conference. Like by adding them that suddenly our football profile is significantly increased. How does inviting them to this new conference make them any better than when they were in the CUSA? How does it make us any better than the CUSA? In reality, this conference can only get stronger if the teams we currently have improved and that while we are improving we need to be good at something, and that something is basketball as our top 4 or 5 basketball teams are MUCH better than our top 4 or 5 football schools.
Not going to bother with UCF-ENG's willful ignorance, but ScreamShatter seems to be missing the point a bit:
No, neither Southern Miss nor Tulsa would save your conference. But then, neither would UMass. It is ok, though, I get it. Your school is located in Philadelphia, and is now in an increasingly southern-oriented conference. That can't be comforting to know you are close to being on an island in conference realignment when that is such a dirty word.
The other thing I think Temple, UConn, and Cincinnati posters are more afraid of than 'Southern' is that 'Mississippi' in our name. It's okay, I get it: You guys use that word to scare your children so they will behave. You don't want anything to do with us, nor do you intend to make any trips down to our backwoods.
Those two things aside, there is still the fact that both schools would enhance your football profile. Tulsa is the winningest program in CUSA since 2005. Southern Miss is the winningest program in CUSA history. Basically, what your conference did when it raided CUSA was to push the cream over to the side, then select three schools from near the top, one that was in the middle, and two more from near the bottom. I'm not saying that they made a mistake in inviting who they did, but that doesn't change what I am about to say next.
Leaving both Southern Miss and Tulsa alone and in CUSA would be a huge mistake. You are essentially setting up that conference to market itself as underdogs and leftovers while leaving its best football schools in place. Or you could invite at least one of those two schools, and the next article ESPN writes about CUSA will be ten years down the road when one of their programs goes 11-1 with at least one guarantee game upset and ESPN feels compelled to explain away why that team has the auto-bid.
I can't make this any clearer: Tulsa and Southern Miss have been consistently the best teams in CUSA, and at times they have been outright dominant (for example, Southern Miss went 8-0 in conference in 2003 while beating six teams that you will share a conference with next year as well as TCU). Leave the two of them where they are, and CUSA will build itself back up around them.
You think Memphis has a great basketball history? That's how many Memphis posters on this board view Southern Miss football. It is one of the craziest rivalries out there: Normally, they can't beat us in football and we can't beat them in basketball.
Even beyond that, Southern Miss is sitting at #33 in RPI right now...both they and Tulsa seem to have made very good hires as head basketball coaches. CUSA just added Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, and Charlotte...they have building blocks in place to make that conference relevant in basketball in the future.
In conclusion, you can simultaneously hurt CUSA and help yourselves athletically by inviting one or both of those schools...or you can take on a project in UMass and hope they turn out to be worth the effort in the end.
FYI....I'm from South Carolina so I'm not hating on Mississippi. All I'm saying is I think the argument that adding two decent CUSA teams that really aren't known nationally for football are going to elevate our football profile much. I told my mom (still living in SC and a big football and basketball fan) that we were talking about adding USM and Tulsa and she gasped and said, "Ewww. Why?" Then I asked some people up north and they said, "Who's that? Are they any good?" I'm willing to bet we could ask a lot of people that same question and people would have the same reaction as these schools are not nationally known. UMass, however, is nationally known. And they do have a basketball reputation. It doesn't matter what anyone's record is. All that matters is the way people perceive the schools that are in the conference. That's why some conferences have academic requirements because they know people will perceive their school with the other schools that are in the conference.
I'm not saying there aren't good things about having these schools in the conference. What I'm saying is that everyone's argument about them increasing our football profile is pretty debatable and a weak argument, at best.
UMass is not a national presence outside New England and the Atlantic states. Tulsa is also known historically as a basketball school, for all that history matters in realignment.
I get that perception is why a lot prefer UMass over Tulsa and Southern Miss. Perception may truly be all that matters in the end. If so, Southern Miss truly has reached its cap. My point is that perception isn't necessarily correct.
It isn't debatable at all...if you believe ECU or UCF or Houston or Cincinnati increase your football profile, then you have to believe at the very least that Tulsa and Southern Miss won't hurt it. UMass would, at least at first.
The fact that some people in this thread seem to think UMass is located near Boston should tell you a thing or two about what people know about them (this should help them find it).
Perception matters a lot when we are re-branding a conference without the Big East name anymore. And making this CUSA 2.0 isn't going to increase football nor basketball profiles.
You can debate all you want about if our current member schools increase our football profile, but they are already admitted. This is about schools that we are seeking at add that could help us build a new conference. My argument is adding more CUSA schools damages the fact that we are trying to build a new brand. Once ESPN starts saying "this is the old Big East schools and starts saying this is all CUSA schools," it kills the hope of this conference being anything more than average. Adding more average football schools that have lame hoops programs isn't going to our basketball creditably either, which is much stronger and has more potential than our football profile will ever have. UMass and VCU with Temple, Cinci, Memphis, and UConn make this a potentially great basketball conference with 6 members constantly on the potential of being Top 25. USM and Tulsa give us a league with maybe 2 teams that could crack the Top 25 every few years. The choice is pretty clear. We'd be better off adding UMass and VCU and having a very competitive basketball conference with football that builds itself and plays solid OOC schedule than any other option that exist.
We are at an impasse over football I suppose. At least I made some people think a little, which is all I was really trying to do. My point is still valid, which is that Southern Miss and Tulsa would help you competition-wise while putting some distance between yourselves and CUSA, while your point that UMass would help the league's presence and perception as an East Coast-oriented conference is also valid.
About the "lame hoops programs" thing:
Forget about the name on the front of the jersey, anything that happened in previous years, or what conference the teams play in, and just tell me which of the following two resumes you would put in the NCAA tournament:
Team One has an RPI of 29, SOS of 89, home record of 10-1, road record of 9-7, and neutral site record of 4-0. They are 0-4 versus RPI top 50, 5-2 versus RPI 51-100, and 18-2 versus RPI 100+.
Team Two has an RPI of 55, SOS of 76, home record of 9-4, road record of 8-4, and neutral site record of 4-2. They are 2-6 versus RPI top 50, 7-2 versus RPI 51-100, and 12-2 versus RPI 100+.
If I understand the mock selection exercise correctly, that is how the tournament selection committee will choose the last few teams: blind, with only their resumes before them.
Do either of those two teams seem 'lame' to you?
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