Division I or Division II

[tacitus]

Exactly. The bottom schools are at the bottom for a reason, and maybe some should consider moving to D-II. Just as some competitive schools in the various other lower divisions should be considered, from time to time if they so desire, for the move up. And it is a move up, even if they end up starting at the bottom of the pack. But division I teams do move up and down in terms of success and prestige over time for various reasons, even if certain schools seem as if they will always be on top due to tradition. All it takes is one big time, publicized game, one unexpected victory in the tournament to get things rolling. A good point made above is that Xavier was still middle of the road, in all of our life times. We moved up with a little luck and some hard fought games in the national spotlight early on, and due to undying commitment on the part of alumni and the administration over the past two decades... throw in much earned success. If we can move from the middle to an elite program, then the weakest schools could also at least become competitive, if not become a Xavier of old. If the same commitment isn't there for some schools, and they have no desire to bump themselves down, then they are clearly just in this in order to advertise a D1 basketball team to potential students. I don't think they should be kicked out if they are comfortable with sucking though. Besides, how would the SEC schedule a non-conference home line-up... how would Thad schedule at all? NKU is clearly in this for all the financial and advertising benefits that comes with a D1 team. That's the nature of collegiate athletics in the US. It is a part of a larger business. But if the school is willing to invest in that business and, especially, if they have a desire to become competitive, in order to really capitalize on that investment, then they should be given a chance. It would be nice to have another D1 school in the area to beat up on for a while. Potential new rival in 20 years. As far as the market for it... supply creates its own demand, and the potential demand for D1 basketball is much higher that that for D11...

[wkrq59]

The age old "Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it," applies here.
Under no circumstances should any attempt to demote some teams, yes even conferences to a separate division. For any reason, never, never, never.
Why? Breathern, let's look back to the late 70s and early 80s. The good ole boys of the CFA ( Coaches Football Association) got fed up with having to share the almighty dollar with the Xaviers, the Richmonds, the Fordhams, the Daytons, the Miamis and on and on of the world.
So, they prevailed upon the NCAA and the presidents council to establish Minimum Attendance Standards for all Division IA teams. If your school did not average 17,000 or conform to a number of other arbitrary standards set by the CFA and the NCAA the failing school would be assigned to a lesser division, I-AA for at least a year until the average reached that.
All sorts of evils resulted. Conference schools (if your conference averaged something like 20,000-25,000 or so per year, you were off the hook. So, teams with small stadiums began to buy up the unsold tickets of the conference teams they played on the road, assuring sellouts of the games at the schools with bigger stadiums, like Yager.
At the end of the season, the money sent to school A for its home game of team B would be sent by A back to B and all the teams in the league went their merry way. But then the average was upped to 22,500 and I believe 25,000 and a school like Miami or Eastern Michigan etc had to enlarge the stadium of find a municipal field to play on. Teams like Richmond, Youngstown State and others were screwed and meekly agree to beat up on each other in IAA and have their own playoffs.
Voila, everyone happy. That's one of the basis for formation of the BCS.
Now we come to men's basketball. The six conferences in the BCS system have decided they want to keep all the money for themselves.
They soon will each have their own cable-satellite channels.
At present time their conference tournament champions get the automatic bids to the tournament and it's seldom that each of the six BCS conferences doesn't have at least four or five teams in the tournament in addition to the automatic bid. Throw in the Ivy League regular-season champ and the tournament champions of the other smaller conferences and you've got damn few at large bids left for the schools who are fine teams with fine regular season records but no bid.
The BCS schools will soon get together and push the idea of a separate tournament for the "mid-major" conferences.
There is a chance that they might generously include CUSA, the A10, the MVC and the WAC or the Mountain West. But who knows?
I constantly read here and elsewhere that the A10 is no longer good enough for Xavier. Word of warning, the A10 and fellow conferences like it may soon find themselves on the outside looking in when the talk turns serious as to whom "Do we eliminate from the dance?"

[muskieman]

"Q" I agree and that is what I have been saying in a round about way. We think that X is a major but who would decide that and IF on the chance happening that the BCS schools walk away and start their own division what does that do to Xavier and their chances for success in the future. While Xavier must continue to be bold and daring we must temper that with reason. Thinking it will never happen to Xavier does not secure it.

Sure X has made it mark and separated itself from other schools in the league just like Memphis has done but if a change ever takes place they will not just make a random rule that the top 100 leave but more on the lines of conferences leaving because this or that conference does not fit the profile of the top conferences.

X fans should be concerned with trimming the bottom dwellers in the league to make the league stronger and attractive.

[xutag77]

The thinning of the NCAA basketball money has already happened to XU and non-BCS leagues. In 1990, 4 MCC teams made the NCAA (XU, Dayton, Marquette and SLU) with 2 of them advancing at least one game (XU and Dayton). After that year, a big brouhaha was made about schools making a lot of money from the tournament just for making pressure free throws in a NCAA game.

At that point the formula has been changed several times to include continued success for your league or number of scholarships handed out by the schools athletic program, in every case favoring the football and BCS schools.

Non-BCS schools made obvious choices. SLU. Marquette and UD bolted the MCC to join the Great Midwest with traditional basketball powers and football playing schools of UC, Louisville, and Memphis. As time has passed UD was not able to keep up in basketball and Memphis was not able to keep up in football as the same group then moved to the Big East.

Any discussion of a Big East breakup has to include the reality of the basketball-only schools benefiting by the additional football scholarships being paid by their football brethren as part of the NCAA basketball funding formula.

In my opinion, the Big East will not be broken up by the basketball schools, but by the football schools of Rutgers, Syracuse, West Virginia as they find they cannot keep up in the football funding wars with other BCS conferences while subsidizing mediocre basketball-only programs (St. John's, Seton Hall and Providence).

[CarlosTheJackal]

Xavier was a nothing program at one time. It is amazing that some of us are suddenly so elitist and exclusive about who should be in Div 1 or Super Div 1. We're going to have some bad years, the league is going to have some bad years. Once you start positing super division 1, the BCS leagues and schools will make the argument they are carrying the small schools and conferences, and we would be on the outside looking in.

The assumtion that basketball is the tail that wags the Div 1 dog is faulty. Many schools exel at other Div 1 sports, if not in basketball. Even as basketball nuts, one has to realize and concede that point.

Throw out the RPI??? without it, the schools without publicity machines and huge press followings (thats US) get screwed by media opinions. Our RPI is always better than our poll ranking. Our seeds in past tourneys, our very selection at large in some years, was in large part from the objectivity of the RPI. Argue about the formula some where else, the fact is the RPI helps us.

[muskieman]

Carlos, there are only a few of us old dogs around that remember the Dark ages.

[_LH]

Carlos,

I am talking about throwing out 112 non essential DI members for basketball only that do not and will not contribute to the sport. The NCAA wisely capped entry but did so much too late. It should have been capped years ago at a still huge number of 250 or even 200. That is hardly elitist. 100 would be elitist.

If 112 teams are removed from DI and DI players are not allowed to play more than two DIAA teams in any given year, it would forced the Syracuse's of the world to play better teams. Instead of playing a team from the SWAC, they have to play a tougher team.

I also never wrote to get rid of the RPI anyway.

[somebody]

Of course, the last 25 also look like they should be DII. The point is there will be 3-10 schools on either side of the cutoff point that will have a legit gripe.

Yeah that thing with the "bubble" seems to come up every year! Oh wait, you are talking about something else.