Realignment thoughts considering basketball

[Matt from A700]

Disclosure: I know it's hard to find any information on Twitter right now that isn't just pure speculation. But admittedly, speculating is fun.

I have long been in the boat to move to a rebuilt Pac-12 as long as there were enough teams to have several travel partners this far east.

But there's been some rumblings that we aren't pursuing moving conferences again. I assume our exit fee may not be paid for, but also rising travel costs are being considered. The strong rumors now are Memphis, Tulane, and a combination of UTSA/UNLV/USF.

While losing our next biggest rival after SMU, leaving Rice as our next closest regional rivalry, would suck, there should also be considerations about basketball taken into account for how the AAC can keep up.

If the PAC gets at least Memphis and Tulane, I assume UNLV (and there's even talks of Gonzaga/St. Mary's for basketball), the AAC needs to not only go after Air Force, but work on doing its part in annihilating the MWC. We need to go after Nevada, Utah State, and New Mexico - three NCAAT teams in 2024. (If you really want to irk some Mempiss fans on Twitter, you could even argue these moves would replace the "dead weight" in basketball.) 

We are in our greatest period of sustained success in men's basketball and we need to reward our coaches and players - we should be in a conference where 22/23 regular season + conference tourney wins gets us into the NCAAT even if we don't win the conference tournament.

 

[UNTFan23]

I don't see how USF would think of moving to a heavily west coast based conference. You will inevitably have late game starts in all sports, especially on weekdays. This will be especially true for the main three sports, FB, MBB, & WBB. A 7pm PT start time translates to an 11 pm start in the eastern time zone. The PAC can promise to try to accommodate USF all it wants but for some sports (namely both basketball sports) such a late start is a high probability for weekdays.

[Wag Tag]

20 hours ago, UNTFan23 said:

I don't see how USF would think of moving to a heavily west coast based conference. You will inevitably have late game starts in all sports, especially on weekdays. This will be especially true for the main three sports, FB, MBB, & WBB. A 7pm PT start time translates to an 11 pm start in the eastern time zone. The PAC can promise to try to accommodate USF all it wants but for some sports (namely both basketball sports) such a late start is a high probability for weekdays.

You wonder how 3 time zones impact the players ?

[MrAlien]

The PAC is starting to look like it will be a very strong basketball conference, could be a 5-6 bid conference.  From a basketball perspective I think UNT would benefit, right now the AAC is a 2 bid conference at best.  

[Jonnyeagle]

1 minute ago, MrAlien said:

The PAC is starting to look like it will be a very strong basketball conference, could be a 5-6 bid conference.  From a basketball perspective I think UNT would benefit, right now the AAC is a 2 bid conference at best.  

Let em have it.  I love basketball but it does not move the needle like football does.  AAC is much better in football overall and better in time zones.  They have just split up the Mountain West if you ask me.  I think of it as a sugar high conference, meaning they have all this money at their disposal from the exit fees but it is artificial in that they will not command a commensurable TV contract so the high will drop off.

[MrAlien]

1 hour ago, Jonnyeagle said:

Let em have it.  I love basketball but it does not move the needle like football does.  AAC is much better in football overall and better in time zones.  They have just split up the Mountain West if you ask me.  I think of it as a sugar high conference, meaning they have all this money at their disposal from the exit fees but it is artificial in that they will not command a commensurable TV contract so the high will drop off.

Would you rather be in a G5 football conference or a high major basketball conference?

AAC might be a better football conference for now, but its only 8 games a year, and it will not ever hang with the Power 4 conferences.  Plus you could always schedule out of conference games with good programs. 

The PAC is looking like it will be a High Major basketball conference, and every conference game would be a high profile game.  Granted it would be in the pacific and mountain time slots, but there would be no other conference that could compete for ratings in those time slots. 

 

[EAGLE83]

The pac needs 1 more basketball  2 more softball 1 more soccer.the MWC 2more Basketball 2 more volleyball 2 more soccer 4 more softball to qualify for NCAA

[ColoradoEagle]

7 hours ago, MrAlien said:

The PAC is starting to look like it will be a very strong basketball conference, could be a 5-6 bid conference.  From a basketball perspective I think UNT would benefit, right now the AAC is a 2 bid conference at best.  

Maybe. The top 5 programs in the new Pac have NET rankings of 44 or better. Top 5 in the AAC have 104 or better. But if you compare the average ranking of the top 7 in each conference, it's 80 vs. 90, so not that much difference.

What really kills the AAC is the bottom half of the conference is 00's Sun Belt level bad. To top it off, we as a conference schedule such a breezy OOC schedule most years that there's just nowhere to go but down once conference play starts. Not sure what the rest of the conference is doing this year, but we're definitely doing our part to drag down that average with scheduling.

Edited 2 hours ago by ColoradoEagle