All Entries Tagged With: "Notre Dame"
Big East Basketball Update
The Big East has released the basketball opponent matrix for the upcoming basketball season. The University of Louisville will play:
- At home: Connecticut, DePaul, Marquette, Pittsburgh, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Syracuse, and West Virginia
- Away: Connecticut, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Providence, Rutgers, South Florida, Villanova, West Virginia
- Twice: Connecticut, Providence and West Virginia.
How About A Basketball-Driven Realignment
None of the recent changes in proposed or actual college conference realignments have had anything to do with basketball. Not even one. In fact, Kansas, one of the leading basketball programs, came perilously close to being relegated to the scrap heap.
Hard to fathom in parts of the country where the following for basketball closely resembles the most fanatical of cults, with an intensity among its frenetic followers that rivals that of some hardened fundamental and radical groups.
Brendan Prunty, of the Star-Ledger in New Jersey, envisions a realignment that would merge the Big East and Atlantic Coast conferences into what he convincingly argues would be the best basketball conference in the nation while also being a respectable football league, as follows:
Big Atlantic Conference
NORTH — Boston College, UConn, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Temple, Villanova, Notre Dame, Georgetown, St. John’s and Maryland.
SOUTH — Wake Forest, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Duke, Louisville, Central Florida, South Florida, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Memphis.
Under this scenario, Villanova, Notre Dame, Georgetown and St. John’s would be basketball-only schools. Miami, Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech would have joined the SEC, and Syracuse, Rutgers and Pittsburgh would have gone to the Big Ten.
The Triangle Hoops Journal, a North Carolina-based blog, has endorsed the concept, noting:
The “Big Atlantic Conference” would be a respectable football conference and would provide sufficient opportunities for the member schools to compete at the highest level. More importantly, it would remain true to the history and tradition of the basketball-centric ACC and Big East by creating perhaps the best college basketball conference imaginable …
State, Duke, UNC and Wake would get to play each other twice each regular season. Traditional rivalries in each league would be respected and promoted …
Imagine a conference tournament arranged as follows: The South division plays two rounds in Greensboro, the North in Madison Square Garden. The four semi-finalists from each division would then play out the tournament in Greensboro or the Garden, alternating each season.
Gotta love the name, The Big Atlantic Conference. However, the South division of the tournament would have to be played in the new 22,000-seat state-of-the-art arena in Louisville. And Notre Dame would not be pressured into playing conference football, enjoying a great new home for its other sports.
This lineup is one that makes a lot of sense and would generate a highly profitable television network, assuring that basketball remains a major power player on the college athletic landscape.
Conference Expansion Footnote
Big East football fans should keep this in mind as the conference expansion soap opera continues:
A source with knowledge of the agreement that was entered into by the Big East schools following the ACC raid of 2003 states that in the event that 2 football members leave the conference, the football and non-football members can split the league without any penalty and retain their respective revenues, such as NCAA Tournament distributions. What is surprising is that the Catholic non-football members comprise the faction that is pushing the issue. If you recall, those schools met back in March to discuss “contingency plans”. Apparently, the Catholic schools have decided that they will exercise the split option if 2 Big East schools leave the conference (no matter who they might be) and have informed Big East commissioner John Marinatto as such.
Therefore, if the Big Ten takes Rutgers and Syracuse, for example, it automatically forces the break-up of the Big East (where it’s not just a hypothetical threat). My understanding is that Notre Dame simply will not join an all-Catholic league for non-football sports when push comes to shove. Notre Dame’s alums may believe that it will be okay only because it would still be a pretty good men’s basketball league, but the problem is for all other sports. The athletic department size disparity between Notre Dame and the Catholic Big East members is the equivalent of USC or UCLA moving their non-football sports to the West Coast Conference. That’s just not going to cut it for an athletic department of Notre Dame’s size and stature, no matter how much its alumni base believes football independence matters more than everything else combined.
Source: Frank the Tank’s Slant
Louisville-Notre Dame Will Play Two Saturday
Rain forces postponement of Louisville-Notre Dame baseball game. Doubleheader scheduled Saturday, starting at noon.
U of L at Notre Dame
Half game out of first place, three games remaining in the regular season for the University of Louisville baseball team. A long way from that frigid opening game in February.
Nuke Option For Big East Expansion
Of all the conference expansion scenarios being tossed around, the one University of Louisville fans would have to favor is the Big East’s Nuclear Option suggested by Matt Keagan:
Pronounced dead when Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College bolted for the ACC, the Big East has rebounded by adding Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida. Don’t be surprised if the Big East does some poaching of its own as the conference recently hired former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue as its special adviser for strategic planning.
That means Tagliabue is looking at firing the first shot, something that could be announced in the coming weeks or month with the Big East announcing that Villanova has agreed to abandon the FCS for the FBS and with Notre Dame signing on for football. But Tagliabue won’t stop there: he may raid Conference USA for two or more schools, too.
Take that and shove it, Big Ten Conference. Let Notre Dame move to the Big East Conference, grabbing all the Eastern media markets, and watch how quickly Pittsburgh, Rutgers and others quit sucking up to the Big Ten.
Keagan may be dreaming, or he just may be on to something.
Tagliabue is no stranger to football expansion efforts, overseeing the NFL’s expanson from 28 teams to 32 during the Nineties. New franchises included Charlotte, Jacksonville, Baltimore and Houston. He has taken on some enormous challenges and been successful. He may have a few more moves up his sleeve.
Read more of Keagan’s analysis here.
Lady Cards Host Wounded Notre Dame
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