DoubleJayAlum wrote:Never say never, but I don't see the AAC adding a nonfootball school for 2 main reasons:
1) the members that were formally in the Big East experienced first hand what can happen when you mix both football and nonfootball schools. They essentially lost their conference due to the whole football experiment. It seems unlikely that they will willingly go down that road again unless the point comes when they have no choice. UConn and Cincy fans are already wondering if they made a tragic mistake in playing the football gambit. UCOnns boards are littered with threads about how basketball recruiting has taken a hit since joining the AAC.
2) Some of the southern schools simply don't care about basketball - they are all football all the time. That is primarily the reason their RPIs are so miserable. If you don't care, you don't invest because you think the money is either wasted or better spent elsewhere. If you don't beleive in basketball, you won't be in favor of adding a basketball only school.
1) Not sure what that really has to do with basketball only schools. The football issue was that there was clearly upward mobility for teams with football success, and those schools were focused on upward mobility. That's not the case with basketball only schools. If there was no upward mobility for the former Big East schools, then the Big East is a rousing success and Creighton is still in the Valley. It was only the desire and opportunity for schools with football to upgrade their conference affiliation, over and over again, that caused problems.
2) The only relevant issue is money. Will adding a basketball only school increase the revenue of the current schools, through a renegotiated TV contract, increased attendance, or increased NCAA tournament shares? If so, it doesn't matter whether UCF "believes in basketball," they believe in money. If not, then it won't happen. Schools that believe in basketball aren't going to agree to decrease their per-school revenue, and schools that don't believe in basketball aren't going to reject an opportunity to increase their per-school revenue.