RutgersGuy
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(02-27-2018 01:46 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:56 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:51 PM)stever20 Wrote: ACC 7 of the 13 others got at least 1 top 100. And one of the ones that didn't is probably #1 overall seed(Virginia)
SEC of the 18 total only 3 went to Kentucky.
P12 of the 15 total only 1 went to Arizona.
And you could say the same about the Big East. Of the Big East 6, 3 went to Villanova. Including the only 5 star guy that the league has gotten in the last 2 cycles.
And yet they are a top 3 conference. Whats that tell you?
The BE got good bounce from the football/C7 divorce (annulment). It benefited from being able to keep MSG and buying the rights to the conference name. Short term, refocusing on basketball and bringing in Butler, Creighton and Xavier were great moves that brought an immediate buzz. Long term may be a different story. In the old BE, the Catholics were slowly loosing ground to the football schools on competitiveness and revenue. The split reversed the trends, but only time will tell if that was temporary or permanent.
The A-10 never got that bounce. It's expansion moves turned out to be subtraction by addition as other than VCU, the new members couldn't replace the pop that was lost. Further the conference has become a far flung, bloated mishmash of private vs public, urban vs rural that that doesn't seem to have any true identity.
Well nothing says that the BE is going to become a mid-major. The short term success seems to have solidified the conference as a top level conference.
There seems to be this weird fascination with the Big East dropping off and becoming a mid-major. Villanova doesn't bring in top 100 players at the level of UK, KU, UNC and Duke and they seem to be doing just fine. Same with X.
As Stever said, UVA doesn't get those players and they are doing just fine.
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02-27-2018 02:06 PM |
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bullet
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(02-27-2018 01:59 PM)billybobby777 Wrote: (02-27-2018 01:46 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:56 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:51 PM)stever20 Wrote: ACC 7 of the 13 others got at least 1 top 100. And one of the ones that didn't is probably #1 overall seed(Virginia)
SEC of the 18 total only 3 went to Kentucky.
P12 of the 15 total only 1 went to Arizona.
And you could say the same about the Big East. Of the Big East 6, 3 went to Villanova. Including the only 5 star guy that the league has gotten in the last 2 cycles.
And yet they are a top 3 conference. Whats that tell you?
The BE got good bounce from the football/C7 divorce (annulment). It benefited from being able to keep MSG and buying the rights to the conference name. Short term, refocusing on basketball and bringing in Butler, Creighton and Xavier were great moves that brought an immediate buzz. Long term may be a different story. In the old BE, the Catholics were slowly loosing ground to the football schools on competitiveness and revenue. The split reversed the trends, but only time will tell if that was temporary or permanent.
The A-10 never got that bounce. It's expansion moves turned out to be subtraction by addition as other than VCU, the new members couldn't replace the pop that was lost. Further the conference has become a far flung, bloated mishmash of private vs public, urban vs rural that that doesn't seem to have any true identity.
I too think they made a mistake adding the 5 Western members. I respect the heck out of Marquette. Creighton too. But growing up I didn’t Differentiate those 5 Big East Western schools from a Northern Iowa or a SW Missouri St. Solid little programs, but a low ceiling. Gonzaga will eventually go to playing in front of 1500 fans instead of 5,800 at some point. And so will Butler. Not sustainable in my opinion. We shall see.
That's because you have an east coast bias. Marquette was big before Georgetown, Providence and Seton Hall were big. And they go back as far as Villanova and St. John's. They have been in 33 NCAA tourneys and have somehow been paired with Kentucky in 10 of them (7 of those 1975 and prior back when seeding was done regionally, winning 6 of 10). DePaul was pretty big. Creighton, Butler and Xavier have long had solid programs but are relatively new to the top level. But they have every bit as high a ceiling, if not more so, than Providence or Seton Hall.
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02-27-2018 02:18 PM |
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stever20
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
I think it's absolutely insane to compare Marquette and Creighton to Northern Iowa or SW Missouri St. I mean, hello, Al Mcguire says hello. 1977 National champions.
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02-27-2018 02:55 PM |
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mikeinsec127
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(02-27-2018 02:06 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 01:46 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:56 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:51 PM)stever20 Wrote: ACC 7 of the 13 others got at least 1 top 100. And one of the ones that didn't is probably #1 overall seed(Virginia)
SEC of the 18 total only 3 went to Kentucky.
P12 of the 15 total only 1 went to Arizona.
And you could say the same about the Big East. Of the Big East 6, 3 went to Villanova. Including the only 5 star guy that the league has gotten in the last 2 cycles.
And yet they are a top 3 conference. Whats that tell you?
The BE got good bounce from the football/C7 divorce (annulment). It benefited from being able to keep MSG and buying the rights to the conference name. Short term, refocusing on basketball and bringing in Butler, Creighton and Xavier were great moves that brought an immediate buzz. Long term may be a different story. In the old BE, the Catholics were slowly loosing ground to the football schools on competitiveness and revenue. The split reversed the trends, but only time will tell if that was temporary or permanent.
The A-10 never got that bounce. It's expansion moves turned out to be subtraction by addition as other than VCU, the new members couldn't replace the pop that was lost. Further the conference has become a far flung, bloated mishmash of private vs public, urban vs rural that that doesn't seem to have any true identity.
Well nothing says that the BE is going to become a mid-major. The short term success seems to have solidified the conference as a top level conference.
There seems to be this weird fascination with the Big East dropping off and becoming a mid-major. Villanova doesn't bring in top 100 players at the level of UK, KU, UNC and Duke and they seem to be doing just fine. Same with X.
As Stever said, UVA doesn't get those players and they are doing just fine.
I think it is too soon to tell at this point. It's only been three/four years since the split was final. The bell curve for the BE was high strait out of the gate. It had name recognition, good locations, competitive sports, continuity and most importantly - membership who wanted to be there. That gave it instant traction. Compare that to what would become the AAC, which started as a conference with no name and its membership in flux. The AAC lagged behind, because it had to basically rebuild and re-brand from scratch. It will be interesting to see if the slow slide for the C7 that was taking place in the old BE returns. I don't think we will truly know where these two conferences rank compared to each other until at about the ten year mark.
(This post was last modified: 02-27-2018 03:04 PM by mikeinsec127.)
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02-27-2018 02:59 PM |
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RutgersGuy
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(02-27-2018 02:59 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 02:06 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 01:46 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:56 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:51 PM)stever20 Wrote: ACC 7 of the 13 others got at least 1 top 100. And one of the ones that didn't is probably #1 overall seed(Virginia)
SEC of the 18 total only 3 went to Kentucky.
P12 of the 15 total only 1 went to Arizona.
And you could say the same about the Big East. Of the Big East 6, 3 went to Villanova. Including the only 5 star guy that the league has gotten in the last 2 cycles.
And yet they are a top 3 conference. Whats that tell you?
The BE got good bounce from the football/C7 divorce (annulment). It benefited from being able to keep MSG and buying the rights to the conference name. Short term, refocusing on basketball and bringing in Butler, Creighton and Xavier were great moves that brought an immediate buzz. Long term may be a different story. In the old BE, the Catholics were slowly loosing ground to the football schools on competitiveness and revenue. The split reversed the trends, but only time will tell if that was temporary or permanent.
The A-10 never got that bounce. It's expansion moves turned out to be subtraction by addition as other than VCU, the new members couldn't replace the pop that was lost. Further the conference has become a far flung, bloated mishmash of private vs public, urban vs rural that that doesn't seem to have any true identity.
Well nothing says that the BE is going to become a mid-major. The short term success seems to have solidified the conference as a top level conference.
There seems to be this weird fascination with the Big East dropping off and becoming a mid-major. Villanova doesn't bring in top 100 players at the level of UK, KU, UNC and Duke and they seem to be doing just fine. Same with X.
As Stever said, UVA doesn't get those players and they are doing just fine.
I think it is too soon to tell at this point. It's only been three/four years since the split was final. The bell curve for the BE was high strait out of the gate. It had name recognition, good locations, competitive sports, continuity and most importantly - membership who wanted to be there. That gave it instant traction. Compare that to what would become the AAC, which at one point was a conference without a name. The AAC lagged behind, because it had to basically rebuild and re-brand from scratch. It will be interesting to see where these two conferences rank compared to each other at about the ten year mark.
It's been 5 years. The AAC has never been higher than 7th in conference ranking and I think the BE has only been as low as 5th just once in it's first year.
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02-27-2018 03:04 PM |
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CliftonAve
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
^^ The AAC is steadily improving in basketball and that's after starting a race 20 yards behind everyone else and having their shoe strings tied together.
UC and Wichita are always solid and schools like SMU, Houston and UCF have improved a lot in the past few years (UCF will be a serious contender in a few years). The AAC just needs UConn and Memphis to return to their baseline for national credibility. Don't discount Temple and Tulsa as well who always are tough nuts to crack.
(This post was last modified: 02-27-2018 03:10 PM by CliftonAve.)
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02-27-2018 03:09 PM |
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mikeinsec127
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(02-27-2018 03:04 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 02:59 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 02:06 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 01:46 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 12:56 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: And yet they are a top 3 conference. Whats that tell you?
The BE got good bounce from the football/C7 divorce (annulment). It benefited from being able to keep MSG and buying the rights to the conference name. Short term, refocusing on basketball and bringing in Butler, Creighton and Xavier were great moves that brought an immediate buzz. Long term may be a different story. In the old BE, the Catholics were slowly loosing ground to the football schools on competitiveness and revenue. The split reversed the trends, but only time will tell if that was temporary or permanent.
The A-10 never got that bounce. It's expansion moves turned out to be subtraction by addition as other than VCU, the new members couldn't replace the pop that was lost. Further the conference has become a far flung, bloated mishmash of private vs public, urban vs rural that that doesn't seem to have any true identity.
Well nothing says that the BE is going to become a mid-major. The short term success seems to have solidified the conference as a top level conference.
There seems to be this weird fascination with the Big East dropping off and becoming a mid-major. Villanova doesn't bring in top 100 players at the level of UK, KU, UNC and Duke and they seem to be doing just fine. Same with X.
As Stever said, UVA doesn't get those players and they are doing just fine.
I think it is too soon to tell at this point. It's only been three/four years since the split was final. The bell curve for the BE was high strait out of the gate. It had name recognition, good locations, competitive sports, continuity and most importantly - membership who wanted to be there. That gave it instant traction. Compare that to what would become the AAC, which at one point was a conference without a name. The AAC lagged behind, because it had to basically rebuild and re-brand from scratch. It will be interesting to see where these two conferences rank compared to each other at about the ten year mark.
It's been 5 years. The AAC has never been higher than 7th in conference ranking and I think the BE has only been as low as 5th just once in it's first year.
It's only been five years for EIGHT memberships. Even then, those eight where two distinct factions (Old BE vs C-USA new comers) with an odd man Temple thrown in for fun. This current line-up has only been playing together for - well actually one year if you consider that Wichita State just joined. Other wise, three of members of the AAC didn't join until 2014/15 school year. Let's not forget the conference suffered two losses to P5 conferences right out of the gate. And the rest of the membership spent the first couple of years lobbying the P5 for invites rather than building a league identity.
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02-27-2018 03:17 PM |
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RutgersGuy
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(02-27-2018 03:17 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 03:04 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 02:59 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 02:06 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 01:46 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: The BE got good bounce from the football/C7 divorce (annulment). It benefited from being able to keep MSG and buying the rights to the conference name. Short term, refocusing on basketball and bringing in Butler, Creighton and Xavier were great moves that brought an immediate buzz. Long term may be a different story. In the old BE, the Catholics were slowly loosing ground to the football schools on competitiveness and revenue. The split reversed the trends, but only time will tell if that was temporary or permanent.
The A-10 never got that bounce. It's expansion moves turned out to be subtraction by addition as other than VCU, the new members couldn't replace the pop that was lost. Further the conference has become a far flung, bloated mishmash of private vs public, urban vs rural that that doesn't seem to have any true identity.
Well nothing says that the BE is going to become a mid-major. The short term success seems to have solidified the conference as a top level conference.
There seems to be this weird fascination with the Big East dropping off and becoming a mid-major. Villanova doesn't bring in top 100 players at the level of UK, KU, UNC and Duke and they seem to be doing just fine. Same with X.
As Stever said, UVA doesn't get those players and they are doing just fine.
I think it is too soon to tell at this point. It's only been three/four years since the split was final. The bell curve for the BE was high strait out of the gate. It had name recognition, good locations, competitive sports, continuity and most importantly - membership who wanted to be there. That gave it instant traction. Compare that to what would become the AAC, which at one point was a conference without a name. The AAC lagged behind, because it had to basically rebuild and re-brand from scratch. It will be interesting to see where these two conferences rank compared to each other at about the ten year mark.
It's been 5 years. The AAC has never been higher than 7th in conference ranking and I think the BE has only been as low as 5th just once in it's first year.
It's only been five years for EIGHT memberships. Even then, those eight where two distinct factions (Old BE vs C-USA new comers) with an odd man Temple thrown in for fun. This current line-up has only been playing together for - well actually one year if you consider that Wichita State just joined. Other wise, three of members of the AAC didn't join until 2014/15 school year. Let's not forget the conference suffered two losses to P5 conferences right out of the gate. And the rest of the membership spent the first couple of years lobbying the P5 for invites rather than building a league identity.
This is the 5th season of this set up for the Big East.
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02-27-2018 03:18 PM |
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ken d
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(02-27-2018 03:17 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 03:04 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 02:59 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: (02-27-2018 02:06 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote: (02-27-2018 01:46 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote: The BE got good bounce from the football/C7 divorce (annulment). It benefited from being able to keep MSG and buying the rights to the conference name. Short term, refocusing on basketball and bringing in Butler, Creighton and Xavier were great moves that brought an immediate buzz. Long term may be a different story. In the old BE, the Catholics were slowly loosing ground to the football schools on competitiveness and revenue. The split reversed the trends, but only time will tell if that was temporary or permanent.
The A-10 never got that bounce. It's expansion moves turned out to be subtraction by addition as other than VCU, the new members couldn't replace the pop that was lost. Further the conference has become a far flung, bloated mishmash of private vs public, urban vs rural that that doesn't seem to have any true identity.
Well nothing says that the BE is going to become a mid-major. The short term success seems to have solidified the conference as a top level conference.
There seems to be this weird fascination with the Big East dropping off and becoming a mid-major. Villanova doesn't bring in top 100 players at the level of UK, KU, UNC and Duke and they seem to be doing just fine. Same with X.
As Stever said, UVA doesn't get those players and they are doing just fine.
I think it is too soon to tell at this point. It's only been three/four years since the split was final. The bell curve for the BE was high strait out of the gate. It had name recognition, good locations, competitive sports, continuity and most importantly - membership who wanted to be there. That gave it instant traction. Compare that to what would become the AAC, which at one point was a conference without a name. The AAC lagged behind, because it had to basically rebuild and re-brand from scratch. It will be interesting to see where these two conferences rank compared to each other at about the ten year mark.
It's been 5 years. The AAC has never been higher than 7th in conference ranking and I think the BE has only been as low as 5th just once in it's first year.
It's only been five years for EIGHT memberships. Even then, those eight where two distinct factions (Old BE vs C-USA new comers) with an odd man Temple thrown in for fun. This current line-up has only been playing together for - well actually one year if you consider that Wichita State just joined. Other wise, three of members of the AAC didn't join until 2014/15 school year. Let's not forget the conference suffered two losses to P5 conferences right out of the gate. And the rest of the membership spent the first couple of years lobbying the P5 for invites rather than building a league identity.
And some are still doing that, to the detriment of the league IMO. The Big East is fortunate they will never face that problem. They know exactly who they are.
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02-27-2018 03:49 PM |
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The Cutter of Bish
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
Yeah, and when you have chatter about schools on the Pacific coast and former members who play football still possibly fitting into that conference, you have a strong conference. They also collectively made football a second class citizen at their institutions, if they field it at all. You CAN'T say that about the A10...not with UMass still in that cluster, and perhaps others with football who juggle with it among their athletic portfolio.
I'm not as warm on the AAC's potential. It has a lot of growing to do, but, I do feel like football drives that conference's bus, and may explain why nobody's really killing it with both sports there consistently. After the first Big East raid on CUSA, there were still A LOT of good basketball programs in the conference. Apparently, only Memphis ever really bothered to take it seriously. It's kind of odd, really, that now depleted, and resembling Sun Belt, it's a more competitive basketball conference...like this year, we have MTSU, but WKU and Old Dominion hanging out in the fringes of the bubble...when's the last time CUSA had three teams in the tournament discussion? Shift the frame over to AAC, and we had a ton of potential this year...it's probably a three-bid season. It's a good conference, don't get me wrong...but don't let the hype get in the way of what it winds up being.
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02-27-2018 05:03 PM |
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McKinney
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
Well the A10 got in three teams in a down year. It may not have been pretty in how they got there and it's odd not having any NIT representation, but three bids is three bids.
Same as AAC and Pac-12 and more than MWC.
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03-12-2018 12:51 PM |
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MKPitt
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
Yes, the A-10 got three bids or more for the 11th year in a row. Not bad for a “mid-major”.
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03-12-2018 01:49 PM |
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GoldenWarrior11
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
As much as a few want to see the MWC and A-10 go away, neither conference appears to have gotten that memo. If the MWC adds Gonzaga, they close the gap significantly between them and the AAC. Gonzaga, UNLV, New Mexico, San Diego State and Nevada have all demonstrated strong commitments to men's basketball over the years. The A-10 currently has VCU in a rebuilding mode, but they have recently reached a Final Four. Dayton is, too, rebuilding. Saint Louis has a 5* recruit coming in next year. Add that to Rhode Island, St. Bonaventure and Davidson, all of whom made the tournament this year, and that conference is no lightweight either.
I'm not sure how anyone can continue to argue how the Big East will suddenly lose its association with being a top-basketball conference, but they aren't going anywhere. The PAC was really down this year, and the B1G wasn't as strong from its historical members (Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin).
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03-12-2018 01:58 PM |
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bostonspider
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
(This post was last modified: 03-14-2018 01:32 PM by bostonspider.)
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03-12-2018 03:23 PM |
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bostonspider
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
A10 is 2-0 so far in the tourney. I could see SBU knocking off Florida tonight, but think DC has a tough game in UK..
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03-15-2018 01:45 PM |
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GoldenWarrior11
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
I'll be rooting for the Bonnies tonight.
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03-15-2018 02:18 PM |
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Tom in Lazybrook
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RE: Whither the A10 and Big East?
We're barely into Thursday afternoon, and the A-10 has already put up a credible performance. Anything from here on out is gravy.
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03-15-2018 02:42 PM |
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