(10-20-2021 12:02 PM)LostInSpace Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 10:20 PM)VCE Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 09:16 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 05:02 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 03:25 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  These sorts of analyses should take into account how populous the state is to begin with. California itself has more people than the states of FL, IL, and CT combined.

Not by much. California has about 1.6 million, or 4 percent, more people than those three states combined.

Connecticut outdoes California on a per capita basis:



https://www.smu.edu/Provost/IR/Statistic...-year_2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U....population

People from outside New England and the tri state area SEVERELY underestimate the disdain for big public U in favor of privates, even if not elite. (And SMU is pretty elite).

UCONN has done a bit to mitigate this in the past 10 years, but it’s still a reason why BC is more popular than UMASS, Providence than URI, Nova than Temple, etc etc.

Nova and Temple were roughly equally popular in the Philadelphia metro until Wright began elevating Nova to truly elite status and Temple started descending in the later Chaney years to its current status. I’m guessing you aren’t from the area because even with all Villanova’s success there are still a large number of Nova haters in the PHL metro area. Villanova’s popularity isn’t the result private versus public. It’s the result of being far and away the best local team with the best conference affiliation.

As a Georgetown fan whose two closest cousins went to Nova in the mid 80s (I was at GU in the 90s), I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the dynamics as well as the reason GU became a top brand in the country after their championship while VU did not. Nova may have won the championship, but Chaney seemed to go S16/E8 every other year. Chaney was the JT Jr of Philly. VU had a huge uptick in the Kittles years, but then fell off until Wright.

Of course, VU has done a much better job (no, a far superior job) over the past decade of increasing brand value. When the Big East was re-forming, Nova was the weak partner and GU the tentpole. How times have changed.

(10-20-2021 01:54 PM)BKTopper Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 10:25 PM)VCE Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 09:53 PM)JSchmack Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 09:46 PM)VCE Wrote:  

(10-19-2021 02:23 AM)JSchmack Wrote:  There's $6 million reasons why Temple ain't leaving.

Why would the Big East add Saint Louis when the #23 St. Bonaventure Bonnies are a superior basketball program and Western New York has 2.7 million people in it?



Army isn't playing by the same set of principles as everyone else.

You don't have to chase the TV dollars when you're funded by the Pentagon.

Army joined C-USA in the 90s when the C-USA membership put Army football within 2 hours of 26 major Army installations. When C-USA 1.0 got raided, Army bailed.

Army football is Independent because there's so many Army bases around the country that plenty of schools will sign home & home contracts with them to bring Army out and get the nearby base to buy tickets. They do not need a conference.

Navy, who has far fewer bases because WATER; And Air Force, who's in the sparsely populated Mountain Time Zone, need a conference to schedule a season.

Here’s a list of 15 schools I’d put ahead of the Bonnies. I believe all would join if invited.

Northeastern
BU
Holy Cross
UMass
URI
Siena
Fordham
Duquesne
VCU
Richmond
Davidson
Dayton
St Louis
Loyola Chicago
Gonzaga

All of those offer brand or academics or markets (or 2 or even 3 of those) better than St B.

St Bonaventure has under 2500 students, a tiny endowment and no market. You travel around various message boards making conflicting arguments in favor of BE inclusion, but it will never happen.

I know it won't ever happen.

But listing Fordham is still very stupid.

Fordham has elite academics and is not at all a duplicate market in NYC. The Bronx is very different than Queens and northern Jersey. As a Big East alum, Manhattan is for the tourney/everyone; the rest of the boroughs and other areas are up for grabs and plenty populated to support multiple teams.

But they’re not even the best basketball program in The Bronx are they? Without looking it up I wanna say the Jaspers (Manhattan College) are a stronger program, no?

Correct. But Fordham is like 5 times the size of Manhattan with an equivalent gap in endowment. And Jesuit. I think it’s easier to fix performance than other, institutional fit issues. Ymmv.