(03-08-2022 12:25 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-08-2022 11:56 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Right - to esayem's point, even if the current top Big Ten rosters aren't NYC/DC-heavy, I'm talking about a steady stream of guys like Oladipo and Garza that probably would have gone to the ACC or old Big East previously.

Note that for my Illini, Kofi Cockburn is a superstar (likely first team All-American and possibly Big Ten Player of the Year) and listed as being from Jamaica, but he grew up and spent his first 3 years of high school in NYC. (He then went to Oak Hill Academy in Virginia for his senior year.) It's a similar thing with Andre Curbelo - he's listed as being from Puerto Rico, but he grew up and went to high school on Long Island. That's just my own team where two of our core "international" players actually grew up in the NYC area. It definitely helps that Illinois and other Big Ten schools are now playing games at Rutgers and Maryland in a way that opens up recruiting opportunities (where these Midwestern state schools are no longer "in the middle of nowhere") that are now much more winnable compared to competing against the ACC and old Big East 10 years ago.

I really think it’s a stretch saying that. Especially for basketball. I mean Duke would always play road games vs Temple and St. John’s for recruiting purposes. That’s more of a sure thing than MAYBE having a conference road game at Rutgers and/or Maryland any given season. Maybe Garza likes farm chicks? Maybe Cockburn wanted to be near Chicago? OR maybe they liked the coach and their role on the team?

I’ve never bought into the “adding team in State A means it will open up recruiting.” The only way that works is possibly elevating a team to a better conference for their own recruiting benefit. For example, Rutgers should be getting better NJ football recruits now that they’re in the Big Ten. It ain’t doing a damn thing for Minnesota.

Well, sure, it's always a mix of coach + program + location + lots of other factors that go into an individual player's school decision. You can't always peg it to one thing.

That being said, adding Rutgers and Maryland did bring a familiarity to the rest of the Big Ten schools in those markets - it got those programs in the conference on the radar of recruits. It's not merely the visits to campus, but (arguably even more important) that every single Big Ten conference basketball game has been shown on TV in the NYC and DC markets via Rutgers and Maryland getting BTN onto basic cable carriage for the past decade, whereas you'd only see Big Ten games in those markets if it was a nationally televised ESPN or CBS game previously. I think that's an even bigger deal than a visit to a campus close to home and it's a large advantage that the Big Ten had to itself for several years. The ACC was still under its syndicated regional Raycom package for most conference basketball games up until 3 years ago (and the ACC Network was launched with cord cutting already in full swing). Up until 2019, the NYC and DC markets were able to see Nebraska vs. Iowa games (just as an example) when they had no guaranteed way to watch even, say, Duke vs. NC State unless it was an ESPN game. We shouldn't discount how massive of a TV exposure advantage that the Big Ten has had (and still has) and that's in large part due to their East Coast expansion.