Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

Until the broadcast rights fees, network rights fees and accompanying sponsorships and apparel deals for the schools' athletic departments dry up, they won't.

It will mean that Notre Dame's tennis team will have make its way to Coral Gables. Nebraska's softball team will have to trudge across the country to Piscataway and College Park. And soon, swim programs from L.A. will have to make their way to the East Coast for Big Ten meets.

It's lunacy. But until we seen the money spigot better regulated or somehow turned off altogether, welcome to the new D-I landscape.

 

East Carolina's game against Tulane postponed:

East Carolina athletics legendary radio voice Jeff Charles dies

 

Not to mention NMSU is joining Conference USA full-time which means outside of UTEP, their closest league rivals are Sam Houston and Louisiana Tech.

 

Appears to be hazing.

NMSU men's hoops halted amid 'new allegations'

How thrilled must Conference USA honchos be to welcome New Mexico State into the fold at this time?

 

The people running C-USA have their heads so far up their asses that they probably haven't even heard yet.

 

Bizarre. I thought the Hokies were gonna start rolling. Their win over Virginia was one of the best performances by any ACC team this year. Legit. Not a weird or fluky game, I didn't think.

 

Even more absurd: Davidson College (enrollment: < 2,000) sending its teams to Rhode Island and Dayton in the Atlantic 10.

 

Murder and hazing. Not a good mix.
In my lifetime, the Aggies have been MVC, Big West, WAC and now CUSA?

 

True. But it's a little easier to do so with smaller teams in every sport other than American football. On that front, Davidson is still Pioneer League (D-I, but non-scholarship, which means trips every other season to face the University of San Diego, not to mention Dayton, Butler and Marist).

 

RIP. He stayed there another 30 years after Jeff Blake's miracle comeback in the 1992 Peach Bowl, a game that still infuriates most Wolfpack fans to this day. Talk about damning with faint praise, or just not caring to find a better gig.

Only Mike Grizzard (and Kim) might have stuck around Greenville longer, which is saying something. Not sure where the Pirates are going to find someone willing to put up with the pay, the town, the weather and the unrealistic expectations of ECU fans.

 

I was at that game. The "prevent" defense backfired after going up 17. Just ... dumb. Terrible coaching decision by a staff that usually didn't make mistakes of that caliber.

And ... ECU fans, expectations and delusion? Nah ... never ...

 

I've long been an advocate of letting the megaconferences grow in football and hoops, but forming regional conferences in tennis, swimming and the like. No reason for UCLA to send the tennis teams to Morgantown or College Park. But until the TV bubble burst - and we may be seeing that with Bally's on the brink of bankruptcy- just a dream.