Curious piece of speculation about Conference USA.
http://www.ncaabbs.com/forums/bigeast/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=23252&start=0
Key word: speculation.
It partly makes sense. There are rumblings that the far flung schools in this conference are losing money. That would certainly cause schools to look elsewhere.
There's also a hitch. Whomever leaves must consider finding an established conference. Division 1 (currently overlorded by BCS schools) has sort of warned people the last few years that a new conference would not necessarily gain immediate support... specifically an automatic bid to March Madness. The main reason the current alignment has 65 schools is because BCS schools wanted to protect the number of at-large bids. A portion of the TV revenue is distributed to conferences based on the number of teams appearing and how far they go in the tournament.
Any redirection of C-USA schools, of course, invites the possibility that Louisiana Tech will get membership, bringing the WAC to 8 schools (a position that's a little too precarious for them given other NCAA regulations).
I doubt that anything manifests from this for at least a couple years, but if there's a time to start thinking about the future, this seems to be it.
http://www.ncaabbs.com/forums/bigeast/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=23252&start=0
Key word: speculation.
It partly makes sense. There are rumblings that the far flung schools in this conference are losing money. That would certainly cause schools to look elsewhere.
There's also a hitch. Whomever leaves must consider finding an established conference. Division 1 (currently overlorded by BCS schools) has sort of warned people the last few years that a new conference would not necessarily gain immediate support... specifically an automatic bid to March Madness. The main reason the current alignment has 65 schools is because BCS schools wanted to protect the number of at-large bids. A portion of the TV revenue is distributed to conferences based on the number of teams appearing and how far they go in the tournament.
Any redirection of C-USA schools, of course, invites the possibility that Louisiana Tech will get membership, bringing the WAC to 8 schools (a position that's a little too precarious for them given other NCAA regulations).
I doubt that anything manifests from this for at least a couple years, but if there's a time to start thinking about the future, this seems to be it.