(03-27-2017 07:00 AM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  The cutline for Div 1 could be changed to 150 fully funded scholarships. It is a crying shame that some schools can be Div 1 and not even funded 100 full scholarships.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/usatoday/edi...school.pdf

Thanks for posting this link.

In general, I would not support requiring 150 scholarships. None of the schools below this number sponsor scholarship football. Imposing this requirement would essentially require these schools to fund additional non revenue producing sports, burdening their ability to be competitive. The current effective required number for non football schools is near 100, based upon the minimum requirements for sports sponsored and the scholarships associated with the sponsoring sports with the minimum number of available scholarships. However, the NCAA does not require schools to offer the full number of possible scholarships for sponsored sports, only something like 85% or 90%.

(03-27-2017 08:39 AM)Lopes87 Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 07:15 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-26-2017 08:51 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  As of 2018, there will be 353 schools in Division 1. IMO, there are too many Division 1 schools. Basketball is the sport that determines what division you are in so I think it is a possible dividing point (and I don't think the P5 are going to leave the NCAA). If the top 275 or so schools (so that a 64-school tournament would be feasible) split from the others, which conferences would make the cut and which would not (let's not forget that the better programs in some of the weaker conferences would probably get upgrades)?

Who stays?
1. ACC (15)
2. Big East (10)
3. Big 12 (10)
4. B1G (14)
5. SEC (14)
6. Pac 12 (12)
7. American (11)
8. Mountain West (11)
9. MAC (12)
10. C-USA (14)
11. Sun Belt (12)
12. Ivy (8)
13. MVC (10)
14. WCC (10)
15. Atlantic 10 (14)
16. Big West (9)
17. America East (9)
18. CAA (10)
19. Horizon (10)
20. Patriot (10)
21. Summit (9)
22. Big Sky (12)
23. Southern (10)
In addition, nine other programs would make the cut: Monmouth, Iona, Quinnipiac, Murray State, Belmont, NMSU, FGCU, Winthrop, SFU, Sam Houston St.

Conferences left out (with number of schools minus indies above):
24. Atlantic Sun (7)
25. Big South (9)
26. MAAC (8)
27. MEAC (13)
28. NEC (10)
29. OVC (10)
30. Southland (11)
31. SWAC (10)
32. WAC (7)

This would result in 23 auto bids and 41 at-large bids (which means more for both the power conferences and the mid-majors).

Its difficult to split. The OVC has been in Division I forever (most of its schools). The Southland has some pretty good size schools. The America East with schools like Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont looks Division I, but their basketball is usually awful.

MEAC, SWAC, WAC (except of course NMSU) and Big South are the only easy ones. But I do think Division I could easily do with 10 less conferences.

WAC is easy to get rid of? NMSU has been good CSU-Bakersfield has gone to NCAA tournament and are a final 4 NIT team this years. GCU has sold out every game (7k) since their D1 transition started and have won 85 games in 4 years.

NMSU, UMKC and Chicago St. are the only ones that have even been in Division I for a substantial time (I think UTRGV dropped down for a while, but I may be mistaken-they are historically awful in virtually every sport anyway). Chicago ST. is barely keeping its doors open. UMKC has never done anything.

Well you got me curious. NCAA tourney wins through 2016:
NYU no longer in Div I 9
Oklahoma City no longer in Div I 8
MEAC 6
SWAC 5
America East 3
Big South 3
NEC 3
Summit 3

So 6 conferences had less wins than a couple of schools who haven't been in Division I in decades.

If the 14 schools no longer in Division I who have made the tourney were a conference, they would have 23 wins. 18 conferences have fewer wins than that. Note that this is based on current membership.

All schools no longer in Division I 23
WAC 20 (all NMSU and Seattle)
MAAC 17
Big Sky 17
Horizon 13
Patriot 12
Big West 12
OVC 11
Southland 10
Southern 10
CAA 10
Sun Belt 9
Atlantic Sun 9
MEAC 6
SWAC 5
America East 3
Big South 3
NEC 3
Summit 3

As for the rest:
ACC 601
Big 10 444
SEC 351
Pac 12 329
Big 12 316
Big East 274
AAC 223
A 10 125
WCC 90
MWC 72
MVC 65
CUSA 63
Ivy 43
MAC 30

(03-27-2017 12:29 PM)bullet Wrote:  Well you got me curious. NCAA tourney wins through 2016:
NYU no longer in Div I 9
Oklahoma City no longer in Div I 8
MEAC 6
SWAC 5
America East 3
Big South 3
NEC 3
Summit 3

So 6 conferences had less wins than a couple of schools who haven't been in Division I in decades.

NYU was a national program playing for national titles. Not the same as a MEAC school.

(03-27-2017 07:00 AM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  The cutline for Div 1 could be changed to 150 fully funded scholarships. It is a crying shame that some schools can be Div 1 and not even funded 100 full scholarships.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/usatoday/edi...school.pdf

It's not clear to me what that link is telling us.

In any case, it's important to remember that it isn't conferences that could split from the NCAA, it is schools. And if, by split, you just mean create a new division, rather than leave the NCAA altogether, that is something that would have to be voted on by all 350+ schools. Getting them to agree on criteria would be very difficult.

And conferences (and their members) can't simply leave the NCAA and form a new organization by invitation only. At least not without jeopardizing their tax exempt status. They, too, would have to establish criteria for membership, and allow any school who meets the criteria to join. Those criteria can't be so tightly drawn so as to deliberately exclude certain schools or conferences.

(03-24-2017 10:17 PM)AZcats Wrote:  

(03-24-2017 11:48 AM)DavidSt Wrote:  With FCOAs and all the expense, plus the P5 getting greedy with taken all the tv money that gives the smaller conferences with hardly nothing. A regional league might be the best answer. someone mentioned FCS schools involved. I could say some D2 schools with the stadiums that are FBS types could also helped out like West Texas A&M. Several D2 schools are not that far off from expanding their stadiums to reach 15,000 like North Alabama, Central Oklahoma and Azusa Pacific are a few examples.

To borrow a line from NCIS: New Orleans, "learn things". North Alabama and Azusa Pacific do not own the stadiums they play in so they do not have control of any stadium modifications. Braly Municipal Stadium belongs to the city of Florence. Citrus Stadium belongs to Citrus Community College which is across the street from Azusa Pacific.

(03-27-2017 12:38 PM)bullet Wrote:  As for the rest:
ACC 601
Big 10 444
SEC 351
Pac 12 329
Big 12 316
Big East 274
AAC 223
A 10 125
WCC 90
MWC 72
MVC 65
CUSA 63
Ivy 43
MAC 30

Funny, my own split based just on the last two years is this:

Majors: ACC, B1G, SEC, B12, Big East
Upper Mids: AAC, A10, WCC (mostly Gonzaga), MVC (mostly Wichita State), MWC, CUSA

all the rest I have a Lower Mids. The Ivy and MAC have pulled a few upsets, but then again SF Austin was really good last year for the SLC. So you have to take that with a grain of salt.

If Wichita State does indeed join the AAC, I think the MVC loses it's upper Mid-major status on my list. The MWC needs to get its game up again or else they will fall off soon. CUSA is already teetering, despite MTSU being a strong team this year.

I calculated the 6 year value of this years credits and for the majors it comes to $2m per school, for the upper Mids $400K, and for the lower Mids $172K. Effectively the split is here in money. And it is performance based.

For the most part the lower Mids are now the bottom 20 seeds and went 0-18 in round one. You could simply remove them and have a 48 team tournament. It would have looked Identical except Wake and Providence would have been in 5-12 games instead of first four, and all 1-4 seeds would have had a first round bye. Every other match-up would have been the same. But the problem with doing any split now is the situation is evolving, the Upper Middle is shrinking. Davidson, VCU, Butler have moved and soon Wichita State will move, leaving more conferences without a standout program. In three or four years I could see the MWC and maybe CUSA falling off the upper Mid list.

But yes D-I is bloated. I think ~120 are major (75) or upper mid (45 including some storied but down programs like UNLV and UAB), but the upper mids are not organized along Basketball lines, so its a all mixed up, with no clear cut lines. The bottom 200 or so have no business being in the same division as the power conferences. But I see no way to change that. The money and first round of the NCAA tournament for seeds 13-16 already do about as much of that as can be done.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketba...d/2016.pdf


Here you see the attendance for all divisions.

Hope in D3 average more than 3000 in attendance. They fit some of the D1 mode.

Northern State was the highest D2 in average.

Now, MWC is ranked 7th and could become a 7th power conference in basketball in attendance if they added UTEP, BYU, Gonzaga and Saint Mary's. That would knock WCC down even further.

ACC is 8th in average attendance. They could grab UMass., VCU, Dayton, Wichita State and Old Dominion to become 8th power basketball conference.

1.Big 10
2.SEC
3.ACC
4.Big 12
5.Big East
6.PAC 12
7.MWC
8.ACC
9.MVC
10.A-10
11.WCC
12.C-USA
13.Horizon
14.MAC
15.Big West
16.CAA
17.Sun Belt
18.Big Sky
19.Southern Conference
20.WAC

Schools that could make a move to better conference to bring more exposure.
14.BYU
25.Dayton
29.San Diego State
30. Memphis
34.UNLV
37.Wichita State
47.Cincinnati
62.VCU
64.UTEP
68.Old Dominion
74.SMU
75.Weber State (yes, there were some rumors that they want FBS.)
80.UNR
81.Richmond
83.Temple
86.Boise State
87.Siena
90.Gonzaga
91.Bradley
97.Marshall
98.Northern Iowa
100.Southern Illinois
Northern Illinois, Army, Navy, Air Force, Toledo, Arkansas State, and others are not listed. I listed what was listed in the NCAA's PDF of attendance. These are schools that wanted to go to the Big 12 or move up to FBS level.
I added schools not mentioned as rumor to move. That includes Siena which could attract a conference that is higher up in attendance.
I know that schools from the lower conferences want to associate themselves with the higher up conferences so that they can get more exposure. Like Long Beach State wants to associate themselves with the MWC. They want better exposure for their men's basketball.

MWC, AAC, C-USA, Sun Belt and the MAC could raise their basketball profiles if they could land top brands in basketball. If some of the schools leave like the A10, WCC and the likes? They will slip down, but they could grab schools like WCC can get Grand Canyon, Cal. Baptist, Seattle and so forth.
A10 could grab schools from the CAA, AEC, NEC and so forth to help keep themselves inside the top 20.

(03-27-2017 01:19 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 07:00 AM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  The cutline for Div 1 could be changed to 150 fully funded scholarships. It is a crying shame that some schools can be Div 1 and not even funded 100 full scholarships.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/usatoday/edi...school.pdf

It's not clear to me what that link is telling us.

In any case, it's important to remember that it isn't conferences that could split from the NCAA, it is schools. And if, by split, you just mean create a new division, rather than leave the NCAA altogether, that is something that would have to be voted on by all 350+ schools. Getting them to agree on criteria would be very difficult.

And conferences (and their members) can't simply leave the NCAA and form a new organization by invitation only. At least not without jeopardizing their tax exempt status. They, too, would have to establish criteria for membership, and allow any school who meets the criteria to join. Those criteria can't be so tightly drawn so as to deliberately exclude certain schools or conferences.

What it is telling us is how many athletic scholarships each of the schools listed funded during the 2013-2014 sports season.

(03-27-2017 01:19 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 07:00 AM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  The cutline for Div 1 could be changed to 150 fully funded scholarships. It is a crying shame that some schools can be Div 1 and not even funded 100 full scholarships.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/usatoday/edi...school.pdf

It's not clear to me what that link is telling us.

In any case, it's important to remember that it isn't conferences that could split from the NCAA, it is schools. And if, by split, you just mean create a new division, rather than leave the NCAA altogether, that is something that would have to be voted on by all 350+ schools. Getting them to agree on criteria would be very difficult.

And conferences (and their members) can't simply leave the NCAA and form a new organization by invitation only. At least not without jeopardizing their tax exempt status. They, too, would have to establish criteria for membership, and allow any school who meets the criteria to join. Those criteria can't be so tightly drawn so as to deliberately exclude certain schools or conferences.

The line "Grants" is the number of athletic scholarships the school funds. In that year (2014), schools received $3291 per athletic scholarship from the NCAA general fund.

What is astonishing to me is that 26 schools have fewer than 90 scholarships. Among those 26 is:

Davidson (50.2 scholarships!)
Mt. St. Mary's (66.4)
St. Bonaventure (70.3)
Iona (81.6)
Valparaiso (82.2)
Saint Louis (82.9)
Dayton (86.9)
Gonzaga (87.3)
Creighton (89.3)

It appears the A-10 in particular has their priorities in the wrong place. There is absolutely no excuse for schools that average over 5,000 fans per basketball game to offer so few athletic scholarships.

(03-27-2017 03:37 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 01:19 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 07:00 AM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  The cutline for Div 1 could be changed to 150 fully funded scholarships. It is a crying shame that some schools can be Div 1 and not even funded 100 full scholarships.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/usatoday/edi...school.pdf

It's not clear to me what that link is telling us.

In any case, it's important to remember that it isn't conferences that could split from the NCAA, it is schools. And if, by split, you just mean create a new division, rather than leave the NCAA altogether, that is something that would have to be voted on by all 350+ schools. Getting them to agree on criteria would be very difficult.

And conferences (and their members) can't simply leave the NCAA and form a new organization by invitation only. At least not without jeopardizing their tax exempt status. They, too, would have to establish criteria for membership, and allow any school who meets the criteria to join. Those criteria can't be so tightly drawn so as to deliberately exclude certain schools or conferences.

The line "Grants" is the number of athletic scholarships the school funds. In that year (2014), schools received $3291 per athletic scholarship from the NCAA general fund.

What is astonishing to me is that 26 schools have fewer than 90 scholarships. Among those 26 is:

Davidson (50.2 scholarships!)
Mt. St. Mary's (66.4)
St. Bonaventure (70.3)
Iona (81.6)
Valparaiso (82.2)
Saint Louis (82.9)
Dayton (86.9)
Gonzaga (87.3)
Creighton (89.3)

It appears the A-10 in particular has their priorities in the wrong place. There is absolutely no excuse for schools that average over 5,000 fans per basketball game to offer so few athletic scholarships.

Checked Gonzaga an if I did not make any mistakes they could offer 147.2 scholarships with the sports they play. They only fund 60% of the total scholarships they could fund. Div 1 should be funding at least 80% to the total scholarships for all the sports they offer.

(03-27-2017 03:37 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 01:19 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 07:00 AM)ValleyBoy Wrote:  The cutline for Div 1 could be changed to 150 fully funded scholarships. It is a crying shame that some schools can be Div 1 and not even funded 100 full scholarships.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/usatoday/edi...school.pdf

It's not clear to me what that link is telling us.

In any case, it's important to remember that it isn't conferences that could split from the NCAA, it is schools. And if, by split, you just mean create a new division, rather than leave the NCAA altogether, that is something that would have to be voted on by all 350+ schools. Getting them to agree on criteria would be very difficult.

And conferences (and their members) can't simply leave the NCAA and form a new organization by invitation only. At least not without jeopardizing their tax exempt status. They, too, would have to establish criteria for membership, and allow any school who meets the criteria to join. Those criteria can't be so tightly drawn so as to deliberately exclude certain schools or conferences.

The line "Grants" is the number of athletic scholarships the school funds. In that year (2014), schools received $3291 per athletic scholarship from the NCAA general fund.

What is astonishing to me is that 26 schools have fewer than 90 scholarships. Among those 26 is:

Davidson (50.2 scholarships!)
Mt. St. Mary's (66.4)
St. Bonaventure (70.3)
Iona (81.6)
Valparaiso (82.2)
Saint Louis (82.9)
Dayton (86.9)
Gonzaga (87.3)
Creighton (89.3)

It appears the A-10 in particular has their priorities in the wrong place. There is absolutely no excuse for schools that average over 5,000 fans per basketball game to offer so few athletic scholarships.

With a school like Dayton that has non-scholarship football, there is usually a lot of financial assistance that is not actually a "scholarship."

While performance and NCAA bids are down for the MWC, attendance and fan support is not. New Mexico, SDSU, and UNLV still average 10-13K attendance. That's better than most of the "Power" conference schools.

Even schools like Utah St., Nevada, Fresno, and Boise average attendance as good as or better than a lot of quality "Power" schools, like Baylor, Washington, Florida St., Northwestern, Wake Forest, etc.

(03-27-2017 05:48 PM)YNot Wrote:  While performance and NCAA bids are down for the MWC, attendance and fan support is not. New Mexico, SDSU, and UNLV still average 10-13K attendance. That's better than most of the "Power" conference schools.

Even schools like Utah St., Nevada, Fresno, and Boise average attendance as good as or better than a lot of quality "Power" schools, like Baylor, Washington, Florida St., Northwestern, Wake Forest, etc.

The problem is that the so called experts under estimated the strength of schools from certain conferences and over estimated the power schools from the P5 conference (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, PAC 12, SEC) to a point that the most deserving schools get left out of the tournament, and the not so deserving schools from the P5 gets in. Look at the Big East? They are not in the Final 4 this year. No Big 12 or Big 10 teams either.
Oklahoma who gets in many times get bounced out in the first round to the likes of Manhattan and North Dakota State. NDSU is a respectable lost since NDSU had a winning record, but losing to a Manhattan who had a below .500 winning record was an embarrassment.

(03-26-2017 09:18 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  To answer Shizzle (I have proposed this question before here)

I think the answer is 150 teams on the low side and 250 on the high side.

Ridiculous we have schools putting 500 fans in a gym collecting a check off the tournament. I think the leagues should average about 2500 fans to be D1.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/f..._final.pdf

If:

1. Wichita St, Dayton and VCU moved to the American
2. Gonzaga, BYU and St Marys moved to the MWC

Then you'd have 8 conferences drawing at least 7,000 a game with the next highest conference at 4500.

Within those 8 conferences, you'd have 103 teams including just about all the at-large bids earned over the last few years.

It would be a clean break.

It would also work pretty well for football.

(03-27-2017 06:20 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(03-26-2017 09:18 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  To answer Shizzle (I have proposed this question before here)

I think the answer is 150 teams on the low side and 250 on the high side.

Ridiculous we have schools putting 500 fans in a gym collecting a check off the tournament. I think the leagues should average about 2500 fans to be D1.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/f..._final.pdf

If:

1. Wichita St, Dayton and VCU moved to the American
2. Gonzaga, BYU and St Marys moved to the MWC

Then you'd have 8 conferences drawing at least 7,000 a game with the next highest conference at 4500.

Within those 8 conferences, you'd have 103 teams including just about all the at-large bids earned over the last few years.

It would be a clean break.

It would also work pretty well for football.

Throw UTEP into MWC to even out.
Old Dominion could slip into the AAC.

Weber State, Marshall, Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois is a question mark.

Richmond, Bradley, and Siena with Saint Louis could work out in the Big East.

(03-27-2017 11:54 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 08:39 AM)Lopes87 Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 07:15 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-26-2017 08:51 PM)shizzle787 Wrote:  As of 2018, there will be 353 schools in Division 1. IMO, there are too many Division 1 schools. Basketball is the sport that determines what division you are in so I think it is a possible dividing point (and I don't think the P5 are going to leave the NCAA). If the top 275 or so schools (so that a 64-school tournament would be feasible) split from the others, which conferences would make the cut and which would not (let's not forget that the better programs in some of the weaker conferences would probably get upgrades)?

Who stays?
1. ACC (15)
2. Big East (10)
3. Big 12 (10)
4. B1G (14)
5. SEC (14)
6. Pac 12 (12)
7. American (11)
8. Mountain West (11)
9. MAC (12)
10. C-USA (14)
11. Sun Belt (12)
12. Ivy (8)
13. MVC (10)
14. WCC (10)
15. Atlantic 10 (14)
16. Big West (9)
17. America East (9)
18. CAA (10)
19. Horizon (10)
20. Patriot (10)
21. Summit (9)
22. Big Sky (12)
23. Southern (10)
In addition, nine other programs would make the cut: Monmouth, Iona, Quinnipiac, Murray State, Belmont, NMSU, FGCU, Winthrop, SFU, Sam Houston St.

Conferences left out (with number of schools minus indies above):
24. Atlantic Sun (7)
25. Big South (9)
26. MAAC (8)
27. MEAC (13)
28. NEC (10)
29. OVC (10)
30. Southland (11)
31. SWAC (10)
32. WAC (7)

This would result in 23 auto bids and 41 at-large bids (which means more for both the power conferences and the mid-majors).

Its difficult to split. The OVC has been in Division I forever (most of its schools). The Southland has some pretty good size schools. The America East with schools like Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont looks Division I, but their basketball is usually awful.

MEAC, SWAC, WAC (except of course NMSU) and Big South are the only easy ones. But I do think Division I could easily do with 10 less conferences.

WAC is easy to get rid of? NMSU has been good CSU-Bakersfield has gone to NCAA tournament and are a final 4 NIT team this years. GCU has sold out every game (7k) since their D1 transition started and have won 85 games in 4 years.

NMSU, UMKC and Chicago St. are the only ones that have even been in Division I for a substantial time (I think UTRGV dropped down for a while, but I may be mistaken-they are historically awful in virtually every sport anyway). Chicago ST. is barely keeping its doors open. UMKC has never done anything.

Seattle U was D1 for years before they dropped down in the 80's until about 8 years ago when they came to D1.

GCU is the #2 basketball school in AZ and has a good athletic program.

(03-27-2017 06:20 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(03-26-2017 09:18 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  To answer Shizzle (I have proposed this question before here)

I think the answer is 150 teams on the low side and 250 on the high side.

Ridiculous we have schools putting 500 fans in a gym collecting a check off the tournament. I think the leagues should average about 2500 fans to be D1.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/f..._final.pdf

If:

1. Wichita St, Dayton and VCU moved to the American
2. Gonzaga, BYU and St Marys moved to the MWC

Then you'd have 8 conferences drawing at least 7,000 a game with the next highest conference at 4500.

Within those 8 conferences, you'd have 103 teams including just about all the at-large bids earned over the last few years.

It would be a clean break.

It would also work pretty well for football.

A little extreme IMHO...the Tourney works the first weekend due to the underdogs...you can't leave out teams like UNI, UMass, St. Louis, Richmond, etc...

(03-27-2017 05:48 PM)YNot Wrote:  While performance and NCAA bids are down for the MWC, attendance and fan support is not. New Mexico, SDSU, and UNLV still average 10-13K attendance. That's better than most of the "Power" conference schools.

Even schools like Utah St., Nevada, Fresno, and Boise average attendance as good as or better than a lot of quality "Power" schools, like Baylor, Washington, Florida St., Northwestern, Wake Forest, etc.

This tourney is NW's first. In what world are they a quality power conference school (in the context of basketball)?!