(07-04-2013 09:26 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(07-03-2013 11:49 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(07-03-2013 10:19 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Re: OP

You're making some wild assumptions to get the SEC and PAC to 16.

If you're going to go through the mental gymnastics to make 3x16 while your conference stays at 14, why not just go the extra mile and add UC and UConn to the ACC? If 16 is the magic number, that's a lot more obvious than KSU to the SEC or SDSU, BYU, and Boise to the PAC.

1. I never said it would happen, but for conversation, what assumptions do you think I'm making which are wild?

2. UC isn't a good fit for the ACC and nobody in the ACC wants UCONN, and some schools really, really don't want UCONN (BC).

3. It was Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, SDSU, and either BSU or BYU to the Pac, not BYU and BSU. However, SDSU could be traded with a number of schools (TCU, Baylor, or SMU) Actually, depending on how willing CU is, and that their athletic dept. looks like, it could be one of BYU, BSU, and CSU.

Exactly. Not a good fit (Boise). And schools really, really, REALLY don't want them (BYU, SDSU).

A school with a 4-year graduation rate of 6% (Boise) is a horrible fit in the PAC. The ultra-liberal PAC schools HATE BYU for providing the political muscle behind prop 8 in California. And UCLA and USC view adding SDSU to the PAC exactly like OSU views adding UC to the Big 10, except that UC is much more of a peer to the rest of the Big 10 schools than SDSU is to the rest of the PAC.

And I missed this before, but TT and Ok St are just so far outside what the PAC is looking for that they didn't even want Ok St (the better of the two) and Oklahoma together when it was offered to them last summer.

How does KSU "fit" into the SEC? Culturally, it's a Northern school through and through. It's a geographic outlier, and academically it would be the lowest ranked SEC school outside of Mississippi. The only school it would have anything in common with is Oklahoma.

As far as "fit", UC actually fits really well in the ACC geographically (slightly West of the middle of the conference), academically (middle of the conference in every rating system except USNWR), and athletically (upper-middle in fb and bb). UC also has several natural rivals in the ACC (particularly Pitt and UL, but we've also shared a conference with VT, FSU, GT, ND, Syracuse, and UConn).

*Lubbock is in western Texas and Stillwater is in central Oklahoma. Neither are extreme geographical outliers for the Pac. Yes, they would be on the frontier, but the west is much less dense than the east, so distance matters a lot less. Don't get me wrong, geography still matters, but it matters a lot less. And really, there aren't that many options out west. This is one of those situations where a school wouldn't have to be a great fit. It would just have to be acceptable and better than the rest. Also, I haven't seen any reports of OSU getting shot down by the Pac. I saw some of Texas, OU, OSU, and TTech getting shot down, but that is a very different scenario. That got shot down because the Pac wouldn't let Texas keep the LHN, Texas wouldn't join without it, and the other 3 didn't want to leave the Big XII if Texas was going to stay in it.

*BSU and SDSU are more out of necessity. There aren't as many major schools in the west.

*The Ultra Liberal Pac schools are OK with Oregon State and Washington State.... Politics and conference affiliation do not go hand in hand.

*Kansas State is not a culturally northern school. Manhattan Kansas and Manhattan NYC are two very, very, very different places. KSU is a Midwestern school, and it has shared conference affiliations with Oklahoma and Texas A&M, and, but for the '91 SEC expansion, would have shared an affiliation with Arkansas. If Mizzou to the SEC was alright last year, why is KSU to a more western-minded SEC suddenly not? KSU academics aren't killer, but the SEC isn't exactly known for caring about academics.

*UL is a HUGE ACC outlier. Taking UL out, UC would be the western-most full member in an eastern conference and on the wrong side of the App Mountains. Even then, although ND (aka the reason why I had to qualify my previous statement with "full member" instead of "member") is located in the Midwest, it has an eastern focus. UC would not be in the upper half of the ACC in basketball, and it would be in the middle of the pack in football most years. UC is not in the middle of the pack in academics. It just isn't and the only ratings that say it is do so because it has an engineering school, a science department, and a medical school, so research dollars are high. Research spending has nothing to do with academics. A university with a #1 business school, a #1 government school, a #1 math department, but no engineering, no med school, and an average science dept. isn't a worse school than a school with an average engineering dept., an average med school, an average science department, a terrible math department, no government department, and no business school. However, it would bring in more research dollars. To pretend like UC would have middle of the road ACC academics is just not factually accurate.

*And no school in the ACC considers UC a rival, except UL. Also, UCONN isn't in the ACC FYI.