Oakland University

[Guest S.  Bien]

A Syracuse-Oakland game is far more interesting to me than Syracuse-Marquette.  I enjoy watching the little guys play heads-up with the power programs.  I could care less about watching a mediocre Marquette team.

Odd, you call Marquette mediocre, but they beat Oakland earlier in the year 97-84.  

For me, it's fun to watch the small guys step on the court for a few minutes, but after that then it's just about the game.  I would prefer to see a much more wide-open tournament where there's more than a 15% chance a 4 beats a 13, or more than a 22% a 5 beats a 12.

I am pro-BCS, if people understood the rules better, and how the BCS is actually run they'd understand it's far more quitable then it even should be.  No one can overlook that college football fan attendance, and interest is really driven by about 50 teams and 7 conferences.  The rest just feed off that euphoria.   For example, when USM visits Nebraska they still sellout (hell if Webber visited NU they'd sellout),  when NU visited USM they sold out.  However when UAB visited USM they didn't?  Why is that?  Because USM's hype is partially predicated on the hype and desire of a BCS program to give it legitimacy.  If USM had 60-70k fans clamoring to attend every football game regardless of their status, or opponent quality then I can assure you the disparity would be rectified rather quickly.

Now that we're BCS it would behoove us to ingratiate ourselves a bit toward the "Haves."  That's what will seperate our athletic department from the rest of the pack, and will allow us to grow like many wish this program to be.

[Bobcat99]

Look at Oakland's OOC schedule and you'll realize how prepared they were for the conference tournament. With opponents' RPI:

134      @      Xavier        16 - 11         58 - 69        L

4      @      Illinois      29 - 1      54 - 85      L

83            Marquette      18 - 10      87 - 95      L

63      @      Texas A&M      17 - 8      63 - 81      L

85      @      Missouri      15 - 15      61 - 70      L

108      @      Kansas State      14 - 11      69 - 76      L

200      @      Saint Louis      9 - 20      59 - 69      L

39      @      Akron      18 - 9      52 - 81      L

92            Bowling Green      17 - 10      77 - 53      W

[Guest S.  Bien]

A Syracuse-Oakland game is far more interesting to me than Syracuse-Marquette.  I enjoy watching the little guys play heads-up with the power programs.  I could care less about watching a mediocre Marquette team.

By the way, I do like smaller conferences getting in, however it gets taken a bit to far my book as well.  Some of these conferences are too itty bitty to justify, and that's justified by virtue that I believe no 16 has ever beat a 1, and only like twice has a 2 beaten a 15....Knock out about five of these absolutely obscure conferences, make the conference inclusion more active, maybe up for review every three years.  It would do two things, a. provide more at-large bids, and a slightly more competitive tourney., b. provide more at-large opportunities for small schools- since most of the 12-16 seeds are locked up by the auto-bids to these dinky conferences if you take less small autos it would be the selection committee could weigh better the merit of a N. Iowa even if they didn't win their conference tourney by a freak loss.  As it stands they can't go to obscure with the at-larges because the top 8-10 conferences gobble up all those bids.

[ChiTownBull]

thats crap because not every team in a bcs conference sells out

Kentucky

vandy

kansas

Baylor

illinois

northwestern

most big east teams

i am glad we are in a bcs conference because it is where we need to be at this time in college football. However, that does not mean i have to be pro bcs.

I still believe college football needs a change.

Hopefully the new BE will be able to keep the bcs tag but what happens if it doesn't will you still be pro bcs?

[GarySJ]

The sad thing about Oakland getting in is that it means UAB, or Depaul will probably need to get to the CUSA Finals now for CUSA to get four teams in this year.

Umm... shouldn't we be more concerned with how many Big East teams get in, since it is Big East revenue units and not CUSA revenue units USF will be sharing in from now on?