The 7 Catholic private schools in the Big East are readying to secede. Do you think they should invite BC into the fold? If they do, and BC accepts (2 big “ifs”) who would the ACC replace BC with?
That depends on their reasons for wanting to secede from the Big East, and what their plans are from there. If they’re planning on forming their own conference, 8 schools would probably make for a more viable conference than 7. But on the other hand, the ACC might not have any of the same grievances as the Big East, in which case BC (I assume that’s Boston College) wouldn’t have much incentive to join them.
I also imagine that somewhere, somehow, there’s a whole lot of money involved with this decision, too, and that following the money would give significant insight into which way it’ll go.
Do you have a link for an easy background on this? As a Villanova alum, I’m mildly curious.
The Catholic schools are leaving the Big East because they no longer want to play second fiddle to a bunch of football-playing schools. The chances that they invite a school that left the Big East 10 years ago so that it could go to a better football conference are probably somewhere south of zero.
Thanks Prez for the explanation, and I agree Boston College wouldn’t be welcomed. Who would an 8th school be? GW or Xavier maybe?
The rumors include Creighton, Butler, VCU, Gonzaga, St. Louis, and a few others.
My guess, with no real evidence: they’ll demand that any team not play football and that they be Catholic, which rules out Butler and VCU. Gonzaga’s location is a big minus.
Creighton and St. Louis both fit the bill, so they could easily invite them. An odd number for a non-football league isn’t unreasonable. If they want 10, a school like Detroit Mercy could fit.
Huh, when I think of Big East, I think of basketball, anyway, not football. I honestly didn’t even realize that football was organized by the same conferences. I guess that’s an artifact of me being from 'Nova.
By that, I presume you mean that they not have a significantly good football team? Because I’d expect nearly every college to have some sort of football team.
I meant (but didn’t say) at the FBS level. That said, it’s not uncommon for a university to not have a football team. Of the 7 schools in this group leaving the Big East, only Georgetown and Villanova have football teams (both at the FCS level). Neither Creighton nor St. Louis has an active football program.
The rumor I heard was that they would want Gonzaga, only, if they could also get St. Mary’s. It would give them a presence in California and a second team to play on the long road trips.
I personally think most of the rumors are BS at this stage and I can’t understand how/why the west coast teams would want to travel that much.
They could just raid the Atlantic 10. Lots of really good hoops programs without D1 football. Xavier, Dayton, St. Joseph’s, St. Bonnaventure, LaSalle, Butler, Duquesne, etc.
Right now, we have, what:
DePaul
Georgetown
Marquette
Providence
St. John’s
Seton Hall
Villanova
Most of the other possibiities (Catholic schools with good/great basketball programs and no football or just low-level football) have been mentioned. Fordham and Iona are among the few I haven’t seen mentioned, but those have up and down basketball teams, not perennially strong programs. Siena rates a mention, too.
They’d already have a fair amount of commercial appeal, since St. John’s and Seton Hall appeal to the New York City metro area, DePaul gets you Chicago, Georgetown gets you DC, Villanova gets you Philly, and so on.
Xavier makes a lot of sense, as would Dayton, St. Louis, Duquesne, Holy Cross, Creighton, Detroit and/or LaSalle.
Maybe a Catholic West Conference could put together Gonzaga, Loyola Maymount, University of San Francisco, Seattle and St. Mary’s.
It has been an unstated goal of St. Louis to eventually join a catholic league. If they are attractive enough to the “Seven” is still unknown.
Actually, the West Coast Conference is almost a de facto “Catholic West Conference” since the only non-Catholic schools in it are Pepperdine, the recently added BYU, and the University of the Pacific which will join next season.