Conference Realignment thread

[HawaiiMongoose]

On 5/25/2024 at 1:44 PM, jdgaucho said:

 

The Bows are currently a middle of the pack program in a middle of the pack league. If CSUN's giving the Bows fits, what would Fresno do (okay, scratch that)? Or anybody in the top seven? Once Ganot leaves, then you can talk full membership.

 

Iron sharpens iron.  Playing hoops in the MWC would pose more challenges, but also more opportunities.  I believe Hawaii would make a coaching change, we would be able to attract better candidates to fill the head coach position, and our recruiting would improve.  IMHO it would be worth a try.

[HawaiiMongoose]

On 5/25/2024 at 1:21 PM, jdgaucho said:

As an aside @HawaiiMongoose, I talked to UCSB's AD about my disappointment that we didn't invite OSU for baseball only. Without getting into specifics, she said they were discussed at great length but got passed on for "other concerns" as I'll put it.

I don't know if full membership - excuse me, "affiliate" membership with a dozen sports including basketball - was ever brought up. 

I'm kinda bummed. Even for only two years a Big West baseball league with OSU, UCSB, UCI and UH at the top would have produced at least three bids.  And maybe another bid for volleyball and men's soccer.

 

I agree.  Missed opportunity.  Makes me wonder what those "other concerns" were.

[jdgaucho]

On 5/25/2024 at 4:58 PM, HawaiiMongoose said:

I agree.  Missed opportunity.  Makes me wonder what those "other concerns" were.

 

I know what they are. Just didn't want to divulge.

We go back. She began at UCSB my senior year ('08-'09) as an assistant wbb coach to Lindsay Gottlieb. I was streaming basketball games for the Big West at the time. 

[818SUDSFan]

On 5/25/2024 at 2:57 PM, Headbutt said:

Hawaii has been "subsidizing" travel costs, and I'll need a link before I believe that SDSU hasn't been a beneficiary of that along with everyone else.

I'm almost sure I heard that somewhere but it's not important enough to check around so I'll just defer to you and say I stand corrected.

[renoskier]

On 5/24/2024 at 11:22 PM, Loyal Coug said:

Geezus Christ. Why are some of you so -f-ing contrarian? ...

 do you even MWC Board?

 

oh wait, never mind, I forgot you're a new arrival, carry on

[Loyal Coug]

On 5/25/2024 at 6:22 PM, renoskier said:

 do you even MWC Board?

 

oh wait, never mind, I forgot you're a new arrival, carry on

Good lord I happened to meander over to the Non-sports board. Talk about a shit show! Think I will refrain from posting over there. You guys are plenty mean enough on this board. :)

[NorCalCoug]

On 5/25/2024 at 7:59 PM, Loyal Coug said:

Good lord I happened to meander over to the Non-sports board. Talk about a shit show! Think I will refrain from posting over there. You guys are plenty mean enough on this board.

You should refrain.  It’s a progressive echo chamber so unless your opinions align accordingly I would highly recommend avoiding it like the clap trap it is.  
 

However, I will surely spend some time there with popcorn if Trump wins in November - loss for us all regardless of political persuasion but sure to spark some highly entertaining melodramatic meltdowns and apocalyptic predictions from those turds.  You have no idea the extent that man lives rent-free in the heads of the regulars over there.  The TDS is strong.  

[Spaztecs]

On 5/25/2024 at 12:29 PM, Loyal Coug said:

What fans? Me? Half the MW posters on this board want to dump some combination of Hawaii, UNR, USU and NM. All I'm suggesting is that Hawaii joins in all sports, not just Football. And that isn't a deal breaker IMHO, although perhaps I presented it as such. And no non-FB playing schools. Which relates to no one in the MW. And that the MW decides who they want to have come along, not the Pac-2. And that  the new conference has everyone on equal financial footing. Meaning no special deals for one school.

There's a very good reason Hawa'ii Oly sports are in the Big West. They don't have the $$ to compete in the MW. Also,  they sponsor sports the MW does not but the BW does. Beach Volleyball, Mens Volleyball, and Womens Water Polo. Hawaii also pays travel subs to the MW and BW. They can't afford the subs for all those Oly Sports spread around the Inter-Mountain West.

They have been a good FB partner since they joined the WAC in 1978 and then the MW in 2013. Plus, they have very lengthy and strong rivalries with Wyoming,  for the Paniolio Trophy. Paniolo is Hawaiian for Cowboy. UNLV, the 9th Island Showdown due to a large Hawaiian diaspora in Vegas. San Jose, the Dick Tomey Showdown since  he Coached at both Schools. Fresno, the Golden Screwdriver a golden  replica of the screwdriver thrown on the field near the Fresno Coach after a game. 

It would be a shame to lose them as a Football member. Also, no matter which way this potential merger goes, you have to remember that Hawaii is part of the WAC/MW culture. Just as are the other less valuable MW Schools.

Separation of any Schools would be as tragic as splitting OWSU.

 

 

[NorCalCoug]

Utah to the ACC?  Now that’s the bold/genius kind of move I would expect from an administration that talked the PAC out of taking the $30M ESPN deal….   

Somehow, I doubt this has legs but LMFAO and good luck if it does.  The BigXII will be just fine either way.

 

https://x.com/hoopsweiss/status/1794529476212060182?s=46

[UNLV2001]

On 5/25/2024 at 11:42 AM, MissionTrails said:

You're welcome to believe that, but you are most assuredly wrong about there being no difference. Of course it's going to be thought of as "much less than", but it's still the far more attractive choice for conference name moving forward.

Least with keeping the PAC name, media across the country will always have the opportunity to comment on "how far it's fallen", "it ain't what it used to be" "was once a great conference" and all the memory lane type thoughts about what once was 

It's like the WAC 2.0..........at one time the WAC was a nice conference & it continues in name only mired in obscurity & now close to death     

[UNLV2001]

On 5/26/2024 at 2:04 PM, NorCalCoug said:

Utah to the ACC?  Now that’s the bold/genius kind of move I would expect from an administration that talked the PAC out of taking the $30M ESPN deal….   

Somehow, I doubt this has legs but LMFAO and good luck if it does.  The BigXII will be just fine either way.

 

https://x.com/hoopsweiss/status/1794529476212060182?s=46

This would be hilarious !!! 

[thedude15]

On 5/25/2024 at 4:58 PM, HawaiiMongoose said:

Iron sharpens iron.  Playing hoops in the MWC would pose more challenges, but also more opportunities.  I believe Hawaii would make a coaching change, we would be able to attract better candidates to fill the head coach position, and our recruiting would improve.  IMHO it would be worth a try.

Honestly I am kinda surprised Hawaii has done in men's basketball in the Big West. 12 years and they have one BWT crown and one BW regular season co-championship (same season). Sure they have almost always been middle of the pack or slightly better. But when they dropped down to the BW I was kinda expecting like a 4th place finish to be the floor and to make the NCAAT every 3-4 years. 

[jdgaucho]

On 5/27/2024 at 1:38 PM, thedude15 said:

Honestly I am kinda surprised Hawaii has done in men's basketball in the Big West. 12 years and they have one BWT crown and one BW regular season co-championship (same season). Sure they have almost always been middle of the pack or slightly better. But when they dropped down to the BW I was kinda expecting like a 4th place finish to be the floor and to make the NCAAT every 3-4 years. 

 

Speaks to perhaps Hawaii was a bit overrated and the league is more competitive than anyone gives credit for (more competitive isn't saying it's stronger). Also, Eran Ganot has been the head coach for most of their tenure with us.

Side note, this last year Cal Poly went 0-20 in the BW. I dunno what's harder to do.  That or going 1-1 vs the MWC (win over Sparty, lose to Wyoming). 

[CKS007]

Well don't count the WAC dead yet.  The ACU president states that they are staying.  

Navigating the ever-changing college sports landscape and ACU's future in the WAC (bigcountryhomepage.com)

That leaves nine teams in the WAC in 2024 and seven in 2025.  If no D1 schools join they just need three D2 schools at a minimum.  I don't think the NCAA is going to punish them for that.

 

[818SUDSFan]

On 5/27/2024 at 1:27 PM, UNLV2001 said:

Least with keeping the PAC name, media across the country will always have the opportunity to comment on "how far it's fallen", "it ain't what it used to be" "was once a great conference" and all the memory lane type thoughts about what once was 

It's like the WAC 2.0..........at one time the WAC was a nice conference & it continues in name only mired in obscurity & now close to death     

How 'bout the MWC? Few here are aware of it but about 15 years ago the powers that be were under pressure to give the conference an automatic bid to a New Years bowl game. To put it another way, a decade into its existence, the Mountain West was a darn good conference in football. Then within a couple of years Utah, TCU and BYU all left and Boise and SDSU, schools a notch below the other three, then tried to do the same. At that p;oint the MWC unnecessarily backfilled for the known and anticipated departures with schools probably a notch and a half below Boise and SDSU. (To its credit, USU has upped its game so much that it is no longer a notch and a half below Boise and SDSU.)

Adding OSU and WSU would help but nobody should fool themselves into thinking that merging those two with the exiting MWC will return the conference to even close to the quality it was a decade and a half ago.

[RSF]

On 5/27/2024 at 6:00 PM, 818SUDSFan said:

How 'bout the MWC? Few here are aware of it but about 15 years ago the powers that be were under pressure to give the conference an automatic bid to a New Years bowl game. To put it another way, a decade into its existence, the Mountain West was a darn good conference in football. Then within a couple of years Utah, TCU and BYU all left and Boise and SDSU, schools a notch below the other three, then tried to do the same. At that p;oint the MWC unnecessarily backfilled for the known and anticipated departures with schools probably a notch and a half below Boise and SDSU. (To its credit, USU has upped its game so much that it is no longer a notch and a half below Boise and SDSU.)

Adding OSU and WSU would help but nobody should fool themselves into thinking that merging those two with the exiting MWC will return the conference to even close to the quality it was a decade and a half ago.

The MWC was a good but top heavy conference.  We were never going to get a BCS auto slot.  We didn't have the numbers needed in the necessary metrics.

 

The BCS disclosed Thursday it has three ways to measure conference strength. They are the ranking of the highest-ranked team from a conference in the final BCS standings, the final regular-season computer rankings of all the teams in a conference and the number of teams from a conference in the top 25 in the final BCS standings.

[HawaiiMongoose]

On 5/27/2024 at 10:38 AM, thedude15 said:

Honestly I am kinda surprised Hawaii has done in men's basketball in the Big West. 12 years and they have one BWT crown and one BW regular season co-championship (same season). Sure they have almost always been middle of the pack or slightly better. But when they dropped down to the BW I was kinda expecting like a 4th place finish to be the floor and to make the NCAAT every 3-4 years. 

Yeah, well, Hawaii fans are equally surprised.  We certainly expected to compete better in the Big West, and as jdgaucho points out, having Eran Ganot as our coach for the past nine seasons has certainly been a factor in our level of performance (or lack thereof).

Ganot has been a model of mediocrity.  He lines up cupcake out-of-conference schedules, so Hawaii usually starts the season strong, and ends the season with close to 20 wins despite playing .500 ball in conference and ducking out in the first or second round of the Big West tournament.  Ganot also consistently recruits kids who are good citizens and earn their degrees, and keeps the program squeaky clean from an NCAA rules perspective.

That formula — “don’t give them an obvious reason to fire you” — makes it very difficult for an AD to consider letting him go.  However it does frustrate the Hawaii fan base, which is tiring of the team’s deliberate style of play (they’re competitive in most games, but rarely blow out anyone) and inability to reach the postseason.  Ticket sales are in a slow but steady decline, with average attendance now flirting with the 4,000 mark for a program that routinely drew over 6,000 in the old WAC days.

I think Ganot would seriously struggle as a coach in the MWC, but at least if that happened there would finally be a coaching change and that would open the door to hiring someone who could elevate the program.

[415hawaiiboy]

Almost all the non-revenue sports except Men’s Basketball, Hawaii is pretty good/decent.  
 

The Big West has only seen for the most part our HC Ganot, which his leash is getting shorter and shorter.

Just like Hawaii’s first years for football in the MW was Norm Chow (2012-2015), initial old perceptions are hard to kill. From 2016-2021, Rolo, Graham we were bowl eligible 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 (5 times), including a junkie game in Boise for the 2019 MW championship.

 

A men’s basketball revitalization is less of an issue for me.  How many players are on a team, like 10?
 

 

[MissionTrails]

On 5/27/2024 at 1:27 PM, UNLV2001 said:

Least with keeping the PAC name, media across the country will always have the opportunity to comment on "how far it's fallen", "it ain't what it used to be" "was once a great conference" and all the memory lane type thoughts about what once was 

It's like the WAC 2.0..........at one time the WAC was a nice conference & it continues in name only mired in obscurity & now close to death     

That's still no reason to dump the name. You rebuild and you slowly gain prominence. It'll never be like it was before, but that was caused by massive changes throughout the NCAA, leading to 10 of 12 schools leaving. The media knows this, all but the most clueless of fans know this.

The WAC never had anything remotely close to the cache of the PAC 8/10/12. Not a good comparison.

[Chalsean]

On 5/27/2024 at 10:59 PM, MissionTrails said:

That's still no reason to dump the name. You rebuild and you slowly gain prominence. It'll never be like it was before, but that was caused by massive changes throughout the NCAA, leading to 10 of 12 schools leaving. The media knows this, all but the most clueless of fans know this.

The WAC never had anything remotely close to the cache of the PAC 8/10/12. Not a good comparison.

So why keep the name?  To fool the clueless?