Maybe the real problem is that we started letting crap teams that play in junior high gyms into the conference 15+ years ago. Sac would have a bigger budget if you had more than 600 fans at a game. You had the best game finish in all of mens basketball last year and it is a shame that the replays on national news had to show that poor excuse of a facility.
I am sorry but Montana and Weber have carried this conference for years in basketball. You would feel differently if you had the support of 7,000 fans at each home game. The current system on both the mens and womens side has done a decent job of sending the best team to the tournament.[/quote]
Well, the real problem is that football drives everything in college athletics, and Nevada, Boise State and Idaho left the league 20 years ago because of football, and both Montana and Montana State came damn close to leaving a couple of years ago. So the conference, in an effort to build in some long-term membership stability, started adding schools like Sac State, UNC, PSU, SUU and UND. Oh, and Idaho came back in everything but football.
None of the schools in the BSC have top-quality basketball facilities other than Weber. None has built a new arena in the past 30 years. The league has never had an at-large team selected for the NCAA, and probably never will. In many years, the league has gone without a team in the NIT.
So bottom line is, the Big Sky is a bottom-feeder conference and that's not going to change anytime in the near future. Now Weber and Montana can complain about that and the fact that most of the other schools in the conference want a pre-determined site because, well, that will impact Montana and Weber the most. But it won't stop the rest of the conference presidents from doing what they think is in the best interest of their particular school. Whether that turns out to be a pre-determined site remains to be, well, determined.
Just for the record, I liked the set-up we had a couple of years ago, where first-round games were played on the campus of the higher seeded teams, and then the survivors all got together for the semis and finals at the top seed's place. I thought it gave more teams more to play for over a longer period. I understand that caused last-minute travel issues, too, and so I accepted the eight-team tourney at the top seed's place. I, like most Weber fans, wonder just what kind of attendance the tournament will draw in Vegas, or another "neutral site." If we're going to a pre-determined site, I'd rather see it somewhere that is already in the Big Sky footprint -- Billings, Salt Lake, Boise, Spokane, etc. I've been to Vegas a million times, and I have no interest going there to watch a Big Sky Conference basketball game.
But I realize the conference has struggled with this issue forever -- they've changed the format many times, had a pre-determined site for a few years, then went away from it, and now is considering going back. I sincerely doubt they will strike upon the "perfect solution" this time around, either, and I'm fully expecting this issue will be revisited in another five years, no matter what they decide this time around.
