(08-16-2019 04:59 PM)trephin Wrote:  one reason given for expansion by fans is to provide a bridge to Creighton. Why? has there been any reports from CU or any BE school that trips to Omaha have been a problem? in the same vein, why would another public school be needed? UConn, besides it's history with the BE, is not like WVU or VCU. Clearly the prospect of being the lone public school was not an impediment.

Butler was fine as the lone nonsectarian school for 6 years, Creighton seems fine being the western most school and UConn the lone public. Further expansion seems to be a solution looking for a problem.

Filling in geography isn't a reason to expand, but once you've made the decision to expand (which is the theoretical being discussed) then geography is 100% something that should be considered. Saint Louis is far enough on the fringes of the conference that it's outside "Big East territory", but it's reasonably road-trippable enough to Chicago and Indianapolis (and Milwaukee, I suppose) to get some synergy from shared geography - a thing the AAC really lacked for UConn. Coupled with it being a desirable recruiting area and a decent media market, as well as making Creighton less of an outlier, and there are reasons to see Saint Louis (the city) as attractive to the conference.

But again, that all hinges on the conference deciding to expand first.