Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

We've made it to June. It's getting hot. It's also "dead time" in college hoops. So, why not chew on 2 seriously important questions for a board such as this one:

What does college basketball look like in five years?

What will the Big East look like within that landscape in five years?

Participate. Don't participate. What are your thoughts? What's your gut reaction to these questions? What key assumptions delivered you to your responses?

Yes, there are a lot of moving parts, but that's what makes the exercise interesting. I think it would be interesting to be able to read some of the thinking around here.

By any measure, the Big East has proven to be successful since its reboot. The brand is strong. We have a new media agreement coming up. The portal and NIL have made their presence felt, and maybe (most likely) direct pay is around the corner. Now we are facing an unbalanced "retribution" for past transgressions against student-athletes. And there always is the reality of the P2 and where they're taking football and college sports along with it.

What are your thoughts?

I think a lot is going to depend on how the FSU/Clemson vs ACC lawsuit goes. Early on everyone thought that their binding agreement was going to keep them all together, but living in SC there seems to be a lot of belief that they'll get out of it, and then you'll be really down to 2.5 major major conferences.

ACC probably won't implode the way the PAC did, though I'm guessing the teams that are joining the ACC might want back instead of traveling to the East Coast for a riveting game against Wake Forest (kinda how a bunch of teams turned tail when BE Football blew up). I'm not expecting to see a mass migration to us though, I think there will be enough of a core that they'll stay together.

Best case would probably be a strong scheduling alliance between the Big East and remaining ACC teams, maybe even a lose affiliation. Totally joining football and non football teams didn't work in the past, but something to stand up to the football behemoths might.

Worst case, ACC poaches UConn, maybe one or two others.

As for NIL and transfers, they need to figure something out and fix it. This constant changing teams is going to lose a lot of people. I had a hard time caring this past year when I felt like I didn't know half the team, and I'm group chat with my friends I wasn't the only one.

The Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Big 12 break off to form a football collective of large, public universities. To gain that independence, those schools accept NCAA control of all other sports, including men's and women's basketball, baseball, and softball. This allows schools to do their own thing in football, but keep a competitive balance in non-football sports. The NCAA agrees to allow schools to be in a wholly different football conference (now that it is no longer under NCAA control) than other sports. In an unprecedented move, you see contraction of conferences to save money on travel due to the lack of football money not being allowed into the other sports. The NCAA expands the tournament to 96 schools and eliminates the NIT. All conferences are guaranteed 1 team in the tournament, with a majority of at-large contenders coming from the top 7 or 8 conferences. Due to football leaving and the recommitment to competitive balance, schools jumping from D2 increase, causing a sort of crisis of too many D1 schools as the number begins to approach 500. NIL shock and awe relaxes in college basketball as most large-school donors disappear to football and a landmark collective bargaining agreement that includes shared revenue standards at each school.

or....

We let the large corpor..er...universities run everything and the whole damn thing is gone.

Every Catholic or private school gets left in the dust except ND BC Duke & Wake. The Big East schools struggle from the ncaa settlement can't compete financially leading to a "we told you so" from big schools that were forced to pay for.

I see the NCAAT - "as is" - still being up and running when we get to the end of this 5-year period, whether it adds teams or (doubtfully) boils down a little. I see the INCLUSIVE / DAVID V GOLIATH MODEL still being the best way to go for all involved, even as the competitive balance is tilted to the football factories. It simply must be reality that the media revenue value of that tournament is based mainly on inclusivity. The football factories are already dominating NCAAT Units. Let that continue while the value of those Units remain high and attractive under the current tournament model. We'll still be right there with them as a high major conference that holds its own in the sport.

Give me a strong new BE media agreement.

Give me a wounded ACC that doesn't come after ANYONE in the BE.

Then each of our programs must continue to strive for excellence. In Xavier's case, I'll take one of truly finest on campus venues in the nation and a fan base that has been built through generations over the past 45 years as key components for moving forward.

A strong new media agreement and surviving potential raids from other conferences sets us up to manage through the other b/s we're all facing.

I could care less about anything other than the Creighton Bluejays being crowned national champions in the next few years.

That is all.

It was an incredibly common take when the NBE formed that the league was doomed and the AAC would be the better conference long-term. 10 years and 4 championships later and that looks like a pretty crazy take. Things will shift up and down, but at the end of the day we have some of the best basketball fanbases in the country, that isn't going anywhere.

Also, based on the current proposal, there is a $22 million dollar salary cap (for all sports) for all colleges. Football schools will hit that with ease, basketball only schools have a salary cap advantage really. That being said, future is unpredictable, but Xavier, Creighton, Marquette, UConn, Butler, Providence, Villanova and Seton Hall are going to love their basketball regardless, so we will be fine.

DudeAnon wrote:
Also, based on the current proposal, there is a $22 million dollar salary cap (for all sports) for all colleges. Football schools will hit that with ease, basketball only schools have a salary cap advantage really. That being said, future is unpredictable, but Xavier, Creighton, Marquette, UConn, Butler, Providence, Villanova and Seton Hall are going to love their basketball regardless, so we will be fine.

That's really interesting, I hadn't paid enough attention to see it's a "school wide" cap. I bet you do see an advantage for schools that don't emphasize football as much. We saw that in the first years after the split; recruits looking and coming to the Big East because they're the center of attention all year, not just after bowl season (or at all). Probably gets you away from schools buying basketball teams instead of building programs...I remember all of the sudden it was like, what? why does Alabama have a protected seed?

It probably just will serve to drive Football away from the NCAA totally though, which frankly would be the best for everyone. Let them be their NFL on Saturday, and the rest of the college sports world go back to conferences which make sense.

Sir Charles calls it as he sees it:

https://www.outkick.com/sports/charles-barkley-ncaa-dan-hurley-auburn

DeltaV wrote:

DudeAnon wrote:
Also, based on the current proposal, there is a $22 million dollar salary cap (for all sports) for all colleges. Football schools will hit that with ease, basketball only schools have a salary cap advantage really. That being said, future is unpredictable, but Xavier, Creighton, Marquette, UConn, Butler, Providence, Villanova and Seton Hall are going to love their basketball regardless, so we will be fine.

That's really interesting, I hadn't paid enough attention to see it's a "school wide" cap. I bet you do see an advantage for schools that don't emphasize football as much. We saw that in the first years after the split; recruits looking and coming to the Big East because they're the center of attention all year, not just after bowl season (or at all). Probably gets you away from schools buying basketball teams instead of building programs...I remember all of the sudden it was like, what? why does Alabama have a protected seed?

It probably just will serve to drive Football away from the NCAA totally though, which frankly would be the best for everyone. Let them be their NFL on Saturday, and the rest of the college sports world go back to conferences which make sense.

Yea, there's an interesting argument that the Big East could get aggressive with recruiting to take advantage of this. I doubt they will though, in general the Big East has followed the P5 and not tried to rock the boat.