Syracuse and Pitt to ACC - Track and X-C implications

There are no track or xc implications.

Pitt is terrible at both. Syracuse is good in xc recently (though over-rated this year), and they'll eventually be hurt by being in the weak ACC. 2nd or 3rd place team if they're lucky - as long as FSU has a foreign pipeline and N.C. State is in the conference - then nothing really will change.

On the track, both teams suck.

Oh, and the Big East will become a conference based almost completely on basketball.

Villanova has to decide what it wants to do - play big-time football or not (they've been clamoring for years to play D1.)

Otherwise, here's what's going to happen:

Louisville and TCU, Cincy wind up in the Big 12 (re-created.)

Prov, Gtown, St. Johns, Seton Hall, +/- Nova, Marquette, DePaul, look to form a basketball forward conference: Probably add George Mason, Richmond, Xavier. Maybe a few others here or there.

Otherwise, here's what's going to happen:

Louisville and TCU, Cincy wind up in the Big 12 (re-created.)

Prov, Gtown, St. Johns, Seton Hall, +/- Nova, Marquette, DePaul, look to form a basketball forward conference: Probably add George Mason, Richmond, Xavier. Maybe a few others here or there.[/quote]

Hilarious that TCU thinks they are joining a big confrenece for it to crumble before they get there. And that isn't much of a basketball conference....Seton Hall, Providence, Depaul are all terrible at basketball, George Mason had one good year. Nova should decide to play football for the sole purpose of joining th ACC before they lose out on everything.

Side note: Rutgers does not deserve to be in the ACC at all. In cross/track they are horrific, obviously these moves have nothing to do with those sports, but their basketball team is in the bottom of the big east and the football team had one miraculous year and now are back to the good ole Rutgers (Slutgers as we call it in NJ) that we are used to seeing.

Live lIfe wrote:

Hilarious that TCU thinks they are joining a big confrenece for it to crumble before they get there. And that isn't much of a basketball conference....Seton Hall, Providence, Depaul are all terrible at basketball, George Mason had one good year. Nova should decide to play football for the sole purpose of joining th ACC before they lose out on everything.

Side note: Rutgers does not deserve to be in the ACC at all. In cross/track they are horrific, obviously these moves have nothing to do with those sports, but their basketball team is in the bottom of the big east and the football team had one miraculous year and now are back to the good ole Rutgers (Slutgers as we call it in NJ) that we are used to seeing.

Why would the ACC want Villanova? They play 1-AA football, and they're not even doing that well right now (0-3). Their basketball team is good, but they've made 1 final four and have been notable for their losses, not their victories. They are a regional university - not a national one (despite what they tell people), and other than track, none of their other sports are any good. They're not a research institution, they don't have big professional schools (no medical school, a mediocre law school, and a marginal business school.) If you don't think academics are a part of being accepted, you're mistaken.

Rutgers - as terrible as they may be in sports - makes sense from an institutional perspective. Big research institution with lots of state funding, and a committment to sports - even if they suck, they still pour a lot of money into it. Villanova doesn't do that.

Catholic Conference.

Notre Dame (as long as they stay independent in football)

Villanova

Georgetown

Xavier

Seton Hall

Providence

St. John's

Marquette

DePaul

Dayton? St. Joe's? LaSalle? St. Louis?

[quote]Kanye North wrote:

Catholic Conference.

...

/quote]

I was thinking the same thing.

It would certainly help "brand" the conference-- maybe even allow them to come up with special conference rules like the Ivy league.

I am from NJ. Rutgers doesn't deserve the title "State University". No one wants to attend the University. It is in a terrible area (I know I grew up 20 minutes down the road) and their in state tuition is a joke compared to many other states. Probably a big reason they suck at sports. New Jersey is a hot bed for athletes and Rutgers does a terrible job recruiting in state for all sports.

I see what you mean now about Nova. I said they "should move up" based on the last few years in which they were good obviously I don't follow 1AA football that closely. Has to be a better school that fits than those two.

ACC'er wrote:

If the ACC get UConn and Rutgers, the ACC will likely

go to a North and South format.

Meaning what, exactly, for track and xc?

Prerry Ricky wrote:

Why would the ACC want Villanova? They play 1-AA football, and they're not even doing that well right now (0-3). Their basketball team is good, but they've made 1 final four and have been notable for their losses, not their victories. They are a regional university - not a national one (despite what they tell people), and other than track, none of their other sports are any good. They're not a research institution, they don't have big professional schools (no medical school, a mediocre law school, and a marginal business school.) If you don't think academics are a part of being accepted, you're mistaken.

Academics are a small part of being accepted, in so much that a diverse and broad academic profile can ensure ample alumni donations for investing in football. Why would the ACC want Villanova? Simple, add a weak sister in football and get the Philly metro tv market. Of course, I'd say they could get that and do better by going with Temple, instead.

The names I keep seeing tossed about now for further ACC expansion are UConn and Rutgers. If added, the ACC would have a TV presence blanketing North Jersey, New York and Hartford.

Villanova or Temple would add Philly's market but neither school really fits the profile of other ACC schools.

As to implications for cross country and track, I can't see any unless someone like Pitt decides it's too expensive to sned their teams to the conference championships and drops the sports. Thar seems unlikely because Pittsburgh isn't really thatf ar from most of the ACC's campuses.

I am from NJ. Rutgers doesn't deserve the title "State University". No one wants to attend the University. It is in a terrible area (I know I grew up 20 minutes down the road) and their in state tuition is a joke compared to many other states. Probably a big reason they suck at sports. New Jersey is a hot bed for athletes and Rutgers does a terrible job recruiting in state for all sports.

I see what you mean now about Nova. I said they "should move up" based on the last few years in which they were good obviously I don't follow 1AA football that closely. Has to be a better school that fits than those two.

--How are the boys/girls xc / track teams?

Syracuse has had some good cross teams lately. They don't do as well in track because of the focus on distance. I think they will compete well right away.

Pitt has been pretty embarrassing lately on the men's side in both XC and track. The women basically don't even have an XC team. They only keep it so they can count 30-40 girls for title IX. The women's track team has been good recently and they won a few Big East and ECAC titles. A lot of that was because there were no sprinters left in the conference after Miami and VT left.

Hopefully they will use the conference switch as an opportunity to jettison Alonzo Webb. They can't be taken seriously while he's still there.

Nova's pretty good in basketball....that's why

bob knight wrote:

Nova's pretty good in basketball....that's why

Since you haven't been paying attention, no one cares about basketball.

That's the point of all this conference shuffling: it's driven purely by football.

'Nova adds nothing in football. Zero. Actually, less than zero, as they don't even play D-1A ball. They play 1-AA, and while they had some success, they're 0-3 this year. They just lost to Monmouth. Monmouth.

Remember the Wayne Szoke days?

Neither does anyone else.

The point of conference realignment is football but there's also a basketball motive behind it too. The Big East will add Kansas, Kentucky and Duke to make itsself a basketball super conference.

No way Kentucky leaves the SEC profit sharing....Duke has zero motivation to leave the ACC.KU MAY be forced into a move such as this...

stick with match.com wrote:

The point of conference realignment is football but there's also a basketball motive behind it too. The Big East will add Kansas, Kentucky and Duke to make itsself a basketball super conference.

rutgers wrote:

I am from NJ. Rutgers doesn't deserve the title "State University". No one wants to attend the University. It is in a terrible area (I know I grew up 20 minutes down the road) and their in state tuition is a joke compared to many other states. Probably a big reason they suck at sports. New Jersey is a hot bed for athletes and Rutgers does a terrible job recruiting in state for all sports.

"No one wants to attend the University".

I laugh at that. This is more of social class issue rather than actual education. So many spoiled rich/upper middle-class North Jersey folk who think they are too good for a state university and don't want to attend school 20 minutes from home. Mommy and Daddy spend bank on sending them to some private school out of state.

Besides that, I agree with you for their lack of sports success. They really should be focusing on improving the basketball program over football. Way better prospects from North Jersey and New York City in basketball instead of FB. They just hired a new head coach last season and had a top 15 recruiting class in BB. They have blown hundreds of millions on football and it has done nothing.

The remaining BE(assuming sans UConn/Rutgers) should annex some of the stronger A-10 BBall schools and Memphis.

Also, there is no such thing as a NYC/Philly market that I keep on hearing in the news. Philly is a college basketball town, and broken apart into many factions(Nova, LaSalle, Temple, Drexel, St. Joe's etc). College football is all Penn. State. Rutgers doesn't have enough tradition in sports to grasp fans, so no one cares in NJ. NYC doesn't have a "power" school in the local area and is combined with lack of a single strong state school. UConn and Rutgers are not substitutes either.

ACC'er wrote:

I feel for schools like

G'twn, Nova, PC and maybe even ND. Where are they going to go?

I don't know why you would feel bad for any of these guys. Since they only have basketball, they can land anywhere and it won't matter. They can form a super basketball conference with the A-10, it really doesn't matter because football is all that matters.

As for ND, the arrogant idiots think that being independent is so hot. Well, Indiana (that's right Indiana) made more money off of their football team over the last decade than, Notre Dame did. If they had any sense they would have joined the B1G a long time ago. Good luck with that...

I know this is not related to running, but running has nothing to do with the realignment. The effects will be collateral and not any direct planning.

This isn't a bad idea, its a east coast version of the West Coast Conference. Except for the fact that WCC isn't strictly all catholic schools anymore since they let BYU in the conference this year. Its cool, Jesus loves everyone.

[/quote]Catholic Conference.

Notre Dame (as long as they stay independent in football)

Villanova

Georgetown

Xavier

Seton Hall

Providence

St. John's

Marquette

DePaul

Dayton? St. Joe's? LaSalle? St. Louis?[/quote]