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Just thought I'd start a thread specifically for Summit League blue sky speculation. Because it's fun, and the odds are no one will know you're wrong for at least three years!
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UNO & DU are on the Sun Belt watch list (they have until 2012 to meet a mandated minimum number of sports), and while the DU Clarion says that DU is most interested in the Valley, the MWC, the WAC, the Big Sky, and the WCC, I don't consider any of them to be likely. The WCC has already been discussed (in the USD visit thread), so let's look at the others
The Valley: Almost without a doubt, out of the question. The Valley is a geographically compact bus league. No way they'll invite a school with a basketball program that loses to SDSU at home.
MWC, WAC: Both conferences sponsor FBS football. They are unlikely to admit any school that does not. Any school that doesn't sponsor FBS football would be likely be viewed as a leech.
Big Sky: Possible, but extremely unlikely, IMO. Again because of football. Also because of the Big Sky's mandate that schools participate in all of its sanctioned sports (a requirement even more stringent than the Sun Belt's).
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Another one:
University of New Orleans
Still very much recovering from Katrina. They inked a pretty good class of recruits for MBB a year ago, and their athletic budget, pre Katrina, was inline with SDSU & NDSU (and, thus, presumably, the rest of the Summit). However, it's an open question, IMO, if they can recover their enrollment enough to sponsor the minimum number of sports required to participate in D-1.
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Louisiana Tech (since Hammersmith brought them up).
Could be adopted by the Sun Belt in place of UNO: La Tech is an FBS school. I don't think the WAC would let them compete as a football only member, and thus, they go to the Sun Belt. La Tech's WBB team was in the first 25 NCAA tournaments ('82-2006)
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General Summit reflections....
Currently the Summit is looked down on as a 'low' mid major, and one with an exceedingly young (at D-1) and geographically scattered base of institutions. However, it's not exactly headed down hill.
- SDSU WBB looks to be a top shelf program for the foreseeable future
- Oral Roberts baseball is legit as well
- The Summit is (surprisingly) a pretty solid conference for men's soccer (which DU sponsors, by the way).
- MBB is definitely improving across the board.
- WBB may turn into a marquee sport for this conference, provided Oakland and UMKC continue to improve and NDSU gets its house in order.
Areas where the Summit could improve include track and field and VB, IMO.
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Considerations on a 14 school Summit (picking up the two Sun Belt 'outcasts'):
Travel Pairings:
Denver/SUU
UMKC/ORU
Centenary/UNO
IPFW/Oakland
IUPUI/WIU
UND/NDSU
USD/SDSU
The problem, obviously, is you need a two division structure, and with that, you have to break up one of the travel pairings.
Then you have to break up the divisions so that the East conference has a pair of "Yikes that's a long ways away" schools to match DU & SUU.
Possible E/W alignment:
E: Oakland/IPFW, IUPUI/WIU, Centenary/UNO, UMKC
W: NDSU/UND, SDSU/USD, SUU/Denver, ORU
You'd then schedule a 19 game conference schedule with home and homes and one rotating home/away in the other conference. Likely you and your travel partner would pair up with travel partners in the other division and rotate home/away trips. Yeah. It creates an unbalanced home/away schedule, but you can make up for that with your non-conf schedule.
Best part is that the 'sprawling Summit' would turn into two very tidy 4-team units (IUPUI, IPFW, WIU, Oakland and NDSU, UND, SDSU, USD) with two fairly close pairs of outliers (DU/SUU, UNO/Centenary), and two oddballs (UMKC & ORU) that are fairly close to each other.
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UNO & DU are on the Sun Belt watch list (they have until 2012 to meet a mandated minimum number of sports), and while the DU Clarion says that DU is most interested in the Valley, the MWC, the WAC, the Big Sky, and the WCC, I don't consider any of them to be likely. The WCC has already been discussed (in the USD visit thread), so let's look at the others
The Valley: Almost without a doubt, out of the question. The Valley is a geographically compact bus league. No way they'll invite a school with a basketball program that loses to SDSU at home.
MWC, WAC: Both conferences sponsor FBS football. They are unlikely to admit any school that does not. Any school that doesn't sponsor FBS football would be likely be viewed as a leech.
Big Sky: Possible, but extremely unlikely, IMO. Again because of football. Also because of the Big Sky's mandate that schools participate in all of its sanctioned sports (a requirement even more stringent than the Sun Belt's).
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Another one:
University of New Orleans
Still very much recovering from Katrina. They inked a pretty good class of recruits for MBB a year ago, and their athletic budget, pre Katrina, was inline with SDSU & NDSU (and, thus, presumably, the rest of the Summit). However, it's an open question, IMO, if they can recover their enrollment enough to sponsor the minimum number of sports required to participate in D-1.
-----
Louisiana Tech (since Hammersmith brought them up).
Could be adopted by the Sun Belt in place of UNO: La Tech is an FBS school. I don't think the WAC would let them compete as a football only member, and thus, they go to the Sun Belt. La Tech's WBB team was in the first 25 NCAA tournaments ('82-2006)
-----
General Summit reflections....
Currently the Summit is looked down on as a 'low' mid major, and one with an exceedingly young (at D-1) and geographically scattered base of institutions. However, it's not exactly headed down hill.
- SDSU WBB looks to be a top shelf program for the foreseeable future
- Oral Roberts baseball is legit as well
- The Summit is (surprisingly) a pretty solid conference for men's soccer (which DU sponsors, by the way).
- MBB is definitely improving across the board.
- WBB may turn into a marquee sport for this conference, provided Oakland and UMKC continue to improve and NDSU gets its house in order.
Areas where the Summit could improve include track and field and VB, IMO.
-----
Considerations on a 14 school Summit (picking up the two Sun Belt 'outcasts'):
Travel Pairings:
Denver/SUU
UMKC/ORU
Centenary/UNO
IPFW/Oakland
IUPUI/WIU
UND/NDSU
USD/SDSU
The problem, obviously, is you need a two division structure, and with that, you have to break up one of the travel pairings.
Then you have to break up the divisions so that the East conference has a pair of "Yikes that's a long ways away" schools to match DU & SUU.
Possible E/W alignment:
E: Oakland/IPFW, IUPUI/WIU, Centenary/UNO, UMKC
W: NDSU/UND, SDSU/USD, SUU/Denver, ORU
You'd then schedule a 19 game conference schedule with home and homes and one rotating home/away in the other conference. Likely you and your travel partner would pair up with travel partners in the other division and rotate home/away trips. Yeah. It creates an unbalanced home/away schedule, but you can make up for that with your non-conf schedule.
Best part is that the 'sprawling Summit' would turn into two very tidy 4-team units (IUPUI, IPFW, WIU, Oakland and NDSU, UND, SDSU, USD) with two fairly close pairs of outliers (DU/SUU, UNO/Centenary), and two oddballs (UMKC & ORU) that are fairly close to each other.
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