(05-10-2022 12:59 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 12:30 PM)dawgonit Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:28 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 11:08 PM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 10:57 PM)TroyFootball05 Wrote:  Come on now.

That world record holder just stole your #1 football program.

Actually the AAC got the most desirable expansion properties. Marshall was on their cut list.

There's no actually about it. Marshall was the #1 football program in CUSA, by a wide margin. The SBC actually cares about winning football games.

Conference Records, Football
Marshall 68-34 (66.67%)
Louisiana Tech 61-41 (59.8%)
Western Kentucky 54-37 (59.34%)
UAB 42-32 (56.76%)
MTSU (51-48 (51.52%)
FAU 47-50 (48.45%)
North Texas 45-54 (45.45%)
Southern Miss 44-54 (44.9%)
ODU 31-42 (42.47%)
UTSA 40-56 (41.67%)
FIU 37-55 (40.22%)
Rice 34-59 (36.56%)
Charlotte 21-46 (31.34%)
UTEP 23-70 (24.73%)

https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/more.../99119936/

My favorite quotes from that Tigerdroppings thread concerning Tech being in the top 3 for Football, Basketball and Baseball:

"LaTech gets more bang for the buck than almost any other athletic program in the country."

"So LA Tech proved winning games actually doesn’t matter"

Both show the truth.

As for the topic in this thread in general. I'll reiterate that Tech should have gotten in instead of UTEP in 2005. It wouldn't have saved CUSA but I do think that UTEP being deadweight starting when they entered really started the cracks in the foundation with the "distance" and "Texas-centric" complaints. If UTEP kept their 40,000 plus attendance and elite MBB, things would have been different.

Now when the 2012/13 realignment saga happened, I think things would have ended up similarly. Thinking the Big East/AAC stills adds the same teams, I still think we would have ended up with this:

EAST
ODU
Charlotte
FAU
FIU
WKU
MTSU
Marshall

WEST
UAB
USM
LaTech
Rice
UNT
UTSA
TXST. / stAte

Chasing markets and excluding FCS adds, the East is still the same. In the west, TXST or stAte taking UTEP's spot is the only difference. I think Tech and the Texas schools would have favored TXST, but Arkansas State would get support from some eastern schools and possibly (arguably) bring the Memphis market, which was all the rage at the time.

The conference would still have the distance problem, though considerably less as the F_U twins would be the only outliers. There would still be at least 3 Texas schools so that would still be a complaint, though the schools would be closer to each other and lend to travel pairs so there would be less of an inconvenience.

It's all moot though. The conference's big Achille's heel was the conference's media deal. Having scorned ESPN and then having games relegated to various streaming platforms was always going to cause discontent. A tighter geographical footprint wasn't going to overcome that when other conferences were getting better deals.

------

A big question though would be, what would have happened to the Sun Belt in this UTEP/LaTech 2005 swap scenario. They had to survive in 2012 by calling up FCS teams and saving the teams out west from football independence. By CUSA taking TXST or stAte, the Sun Belt would have had to have found another full conference member. EKU or Chattanooga? It would have made their geography tighter but also have limited JMU coming up later most likely. JMU would have to accept a CUSA callup in 2021 as their only option to get into FBS.

UTEP could’ve won 10 games a season and averaged 45k in attendance and the outcome would’ve been the same. Louisiana Tech instead of UTEP wouldn’t have prevented anything either. You don’t turn down an invitation to a BCS conference that still had Louisville, Cincinnati, Rutgers and UConn and the chance to play Georgetown, Villanova and Marquette in basketball in a league that plays its basketball tournament in Madison Square Garden. You just don’t.

The “UTEP is too far” complaints were an easy way for fans to hide their school mediocrity in both revenue sports. Somebody had to be blamed and UTEP was an easy target.

We agree. I mentioned that things would have ended up basically the same for CUSA.

(05-10-2022 01:42 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 01:24 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  It’s interesting that UTEP getting invited to C-USA over LA Tech for the 2005 season came up. That was definitely a move that had some serious repercussions:

Let’s say that the WAC still adds NMSU, Idaho, and Utah St to complete their 9-team league for 2005.

The WAC is still going to reach a point where they are down to just 5 schools after Boise, Nevada, Fresno, and Hawaii leave (San Jose St, Idaho, Utah St, UTEP, NMSU).

Would UTSA, Texas St, and UTA still been interested in the WAC if they weren’t the bridge to LA Tech? Yeah, probably.

If LA Tech is already in C-USA then my guess is MTSU gets added in their place in the first wave of C-USA expansion in 2012 and then it’s WKU and FAU that come in to replace Tulane and ECU. Which then begs the question, who does C-USA bring in to replace Tulsa?

East: Marshall, ODU, Charlotte, FAU, FIU, WKU, MTSU
West: UNT, UTSA, Rice, LA Tech, USM, UAB, ?

If I had to guess, I’d say Ark St.

I have to wonder if then the Sunbelt adds NMSU and UTEP as full members circa 2013-2014 for a line up of:

West: NMSU, UTEP, Texas St, ULL, ULM (+ UTA & UALR)
East: USA, Troy, GA St, GA So, App St

Coastal Carolina doesn’t get an opportunity to move up during that expansion round.

This could mean things shake out a little differently and USM, ODU, and Marshall wouldn’t be so excited to jump ship for a league that already had to resort to taking NMSU and UTEP for survival and the SBC and C-USA just decide to shuffle members to establish some clearer geographic footprints circa 2021.

From what I remember back then the reason why UTEP was considered over Louisiana Tech was because Marshall, East Carolina, Southern Miss, Tulane and Memphis did not LT especially Memphis. Houston and UAB were indifferent and SMU, Rice and Tulsa favored Tech over UTEP since the latter was seen as too WACish and they were desperately trying to get away from anything that reminded them of the WAC. Take it for what it’s worth though.

P.S. I remember the final vote was not even UTEP vs Louisiana Tech exactly 18 years ago. It was more like who votes to invite UTEP. Basically at that point Louisiana Tech was eliminated and North Texas was told no days before.

From what I know, you are partially correct. Tulane actually supported Tech. The ADs at USM and Memphis wanted UTEP and fought hard for UTEP over LaTech. This is through some credible sources over at Latechbbb, so take that for what it's worth.

(05-10-2022 12:28 PM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 12:11 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 11:43 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 11:34 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 11:28 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  That wouldn't have killed C-USA. As long as C-USA is attached to the CFP and the Access Bowl, there are FCS schools out there willing to move to gain exposure. Jacksonville State, SHSU, and NMSU would've still joined. Eastern Kentucky, Tarleton State, Kennesaw State, and others would've joined.

The only thing your scenario would've led to is the MWC, MAC, and SBC taking schools they don't want to cut their individual payouts.

They wouldn't have had enough members to remain a contractual football conference and they would have dissolved as a football conference, just like the WAC.

They would've been fine. C-USA would not have dissolved in your scenario. We would just have more FBS schools.

FCS schools need to play a certain number of FBS schools to meet the requirements. If you have more FCS schools, at some point you are simply an FCS conference.

If 10 FCS schools moved into an FBS conference, they would be considered full FBS schools in an FBS conference in 2 years. In the meantime, a waiver would be granted to the conference as long as plans are in place.

They would have done that if that were within the rules. If you play other FCS schools, you ARE an FCS school.

(05-10-2022 01:50 PM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 08:58 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 06:41 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the critical point was, after losing UCF, SMU, Houston, and Memphis and then calling off the alliance with the MWC, they added 6 to replace 4 and the projected line up would have been:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, Tulsa, Tulane, LA Tech
East: USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, ODU, Charlotte, FIU

IMHO, this was an over expansion they didn’t need. I would have left out ODU and Charlotte, despite the risk of alienating ECU and Marshall. ECU was going to turn around and leave soon any way and I would have then replaced ECU, Tulane, and Tulsa with MTSU, FIU, and WKU:

West: UTEP, UTSA, UNT, Rice, LA Tech, USM
East: UAB, MTSU, WKU, Marshall, FAU, and FIU

The tricky thing that I don’t think anyone could have expected ULL, App St, and Coastal to have the great seasons they’ve had recently.

It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

The bolded part isn't really false. If C-USA still had a good relationship with ESPN and hadn't nuked that bridge ESPN likely doesn't make it financially viable to move from C-USA to the Sun-Belt. C-USA could have added whoever would have been deemed the more "preferred" picks, but because they nuked the ESPN relationship the TV deal the league was getting was doomed to be a disaster no matter what.

It's false as in it wasn't the only reason. There were combinations of issues... No ESPN, Lack of Rivalries, CUSA HQ decisons.

Lack of rivalries pretty much existed from day 1 of C-USA, it's a feature not a bug. All of the other issues you've mentioned are reasons you guys were unhappy in C-USA, and I don't blame you they were valid reasons to be unhappy. However, the only reason C-USA was in a position to be raided by the Sun-Belt was because they pissed off ESPN so badly. If C-USA never leaves the ESPN bubble they are probably valued pretty similarly to the Sun-Belt as a league over the last decade or so and ESPN doesn't reward or push for the Sun-Belt to raid C-USA. That's not to say I think you guys would have been "happier" in C-USA had they stayed an ESPN entity, I think you'd have likely thought it sucked just as much, but ESPN wouldn't have made it an option for you to go anywhere else because they would have already owned your inventory for basically the same price and there would have been no incentive for them to have paid more.

(05-10-2022 02:37 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  Not much you can really do about that now, but hope that every single CUSA school nails every single hire in the short term. Their margin for error is very, very, very small.

Or, since nobody necessarily cares about CUSA (which I realize is the topic of the thread), you hope for your school to get a ticket out.

This is all pretty academic for fans of Marshall, USM, Rice, ECU, Louisville, Tulsa, etc.

I'd be ok to join that club. I think fans of every other school would be as well.

But yeah, while we're together they need to be nailing it (and this is where Marshall and ODU fans chime in to tell us what they think of CUSA leadership). Surviving was the first win. DBU baseball was a win.

I understand that tv (and therefore conference administration) may disagree with me, but not adding more schools seems to be a win too so far (even the one that hosts a P5 game at home roughly once a year).

And CUSA is really going to need some of that luck you mentioned. Multi-bids in basketball and baseball seem feasible. The better football teams being as good as they can be and the historically bad ones being not the worst would be helpful as well.

If you're CUSA I guess you're rooting for no more shuffles for a while (but if you're a team in CUSA you're rooting for the opposite).

(05-09-2022 11:03 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 02:33 PM)inutech Wrote:  Should have added Notre Dame and App St.

And maybe inked a deal with CBS for prime time Saturday spots (and millions of dollars more per team).

No way Notre Dame was joining.

Ya think?

How about the Saturday deal with CBS and the huge contract? Was that part realistic?

(05-10-2022 04:00 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  That's not to say I think you guys would have been "happier" in C-USA had they stayed an ESPN entity, I think you'd have likely thought it sucked just as much, but ESPN wouldn't have made it an option for you to go anywhere else because they would have already owned your inventory for basically the same price and there would have been no incentive for them to have paid more.

We'd have been (rightly) complaining like crazy about all the weeknight games for one thing.

(05-10-2022 02:37 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  I actually think CUSA handled this round about as well as they could have. This league was really close to not existing anymore, and they walked away with a solid basketball identity, a few football brands with growth potential, and at least a short-term future. They had a terrible hand, but played it pretty well.

I think the league's two huge mistakes were back in 2012/2013. One of them was a defensible mistake. The league decided to add membership with a market-centered focus, rather than a fan or brand-centeric focus. They thought that adding programs with growth potential in places like Miami, Charlotte, San Antonio etc would lead to an improved product, and eventually, improved media rights and attention....even though those brands were mostly lousy at the time. This bet did not pay off at all. Some of that is CUSA's fault, a lot of that is the school's fault, and some of that was just plain bad luck.

The other, related problem, was that administrators tied with league schools rebuffed some FCS and Sun Belt programs in a way that left those administrators feeling deeply, personally disrespected. Some of those admins moved up in their careers over the last decade, and when the fortunes of the leagues had shifted, CUSA was sure to get absolutely zero mercy or benefit of the doubt.

Not much you can really do about that now, but hope that every single CUSA school nails every single hire in the short term. Their margin for error is very, very, very small.

I have a feeling that I know who one of those programs was...

(05-10-2022 04:00 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 01:50 PM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 08:58 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 07:01 AM)GreenBison Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 07:16 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  It's easy to just say "who cares about alienating ECU and Marshall since ECU was leaving anyway" with the benefit of hindsight, but trust me as an ECU fan I remember that time very well and it was not an inevitability ECU was getting in the Big East. ECU would have also had a lot of power in the league office at that time and any horse-trading around getting certain candidates would have required accommodating ECU in some way, same as you'd have needed to accommodate USM/Tulane/UAB (the other remaining C-USA 1.0 members). Charlotte was not really ECU's idea, they were an original C-USA 1.0 all-sports member (less football of course) and from everything I heard at the time were told if they ever started football they'd pretty much get back into C-USA when they were "booted" back in the day. Now yes ODU was Terry Holland's pet project, he fought hard to convince ODU to want to move up and to convince C-USA to add them and to go above and beyond 12 members. However, what doomed C-USA had little to do with who they added or the number of schools added and everything to do with leaving ESPN and nuking the bridge on the way out the door. Lord Britton deserves far more blame for the demise of C-USA than Hot Wheels Judy does, really by the time she took over the damage was done. He was smart enough to quit before the revised TV deal was signed, but best believe he knew what that deal was gonna look like when he left.

The bolded part is false. Though it wasn't the defining factor, I would rate it as the second biggest factor. CUSA moved SoMiss and UAB to the west leaving Marshall alone with 6 new schools we had no history with. We lost SoMiss, UAB, UCF and ECU! Those are teams our fans cared about and had an emotional investment in. When those schools left we or were moved to the West we had no rivals left. Fans started to not care as they didn't know these new teams at all. Ticket sales started to stagnate and fan engagement started to wane. Combining that with not being on ESPN and the casual fan not being able to find the games was not a recipe for success. I leave out my comments regarding CUSA HQ and their love affair with everything Texas.

The bolded part isn't really false. If C-USA still had a good relationship with ESPN and hadn't nuked that bridge ESPN likely doesn't make it financially viable to move from C-USA to the Sun-Belt. C-USA could have added whoever would have been deemed the more "preferred" picks, but because they nuked the ESPN relationship the TV deal the league was getting was doomed to be a disaster no matter what.

It's false as in it wasn't the only reason. There were combinations of issues... No ESPN, Lack of Rivalries, CUSA HQ decisons.

Lack of rivalries pretty much existed from day 1 of C-USA, it's a feature not a bug. All of the other issues you've mentioned are reasons you guys were unhappy in C-USA, and I don't blame you they were valid reasons to be unhappy. However, the only reason C-USA was in a position to be raided by the Sun-Belt was because they pissed off ESPN so badly. If C-USA never leaves the ESPN bubble they are probably valued pretty similarly to the Sun-Belt as a league over the last decade or so and ESPN doesn't reward or push for the Sun-Belt to raid C-USA. That's not to say I think you guys would have been "happier" in C-USA had they stayed an ESPN entity, I think you'd have likely thought it sucked just as much, but ESPN wouldn't have made it an option for you to go anywhere else because they would have already owned your inventory for basically the same price and there would have been no incentive for them to have paid more.

Marshall viewed ECU, UCF, SoMiss and UAB as rivalries at the time. But on everything else you mentioned, yes I agree. Worked out best for Marshall in the end with the SBC.

(05-10-2022 02:37 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  I actually think CUSA handled this round about as well as they could have. This league was really close to not existing anymore, and they walked away with a solid basketball identity, a few football brands with growth potential, and at least a short-term future. They had a terrible hand, but played it pretty well.

Judy MacLeod hit a standing triple.

I fully expect MacLeod and Ian McCaw to slowly build CUSA into a better property than its been in years.

The new basketball, and baseball (with DBU), identity is a breath of fresh air... particularly since the Sun Belt is so bad at hoops.

(05-10-2022 02:37 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  I actually think CUSA handled this round about as well as they could have. This league was really close to not existing anymore, and they walked away with a solid basketball identity, a few football brands with growth potential, and at least a short-term future. They had a terrible hand, but played it pretty well.

I think the league's two huge mistakes were back in 2012/2013. One of them was a defensible mistake. The league decided to add membership with a market-centered focus, rather than a fan or brand-centeric focus. They thought that adding programs with growth potential in places like Miami, Charlotte, San Antonio etc would lead to an improved product, and eventually, improved media rights and attention....even though those brands were mostly lousy at the time. This bet did not pay off at all. Some of that is CUSA's fault, a lot of that is the school's fault, and some of that was just plain bad luck.

The other, related problem, was that administrators tied with league schools rebuffed some FCS and Sun Belt programs in a way that left those administrators feeling deeply, personally disrespected. Some of those admins moved up in their careers over the last decade, and when the fortunes of the leagues had shifted, CUSA was sure to get absolutely zero mercy or benefit of the doubt.

Not much you can really do about that now, but hope that every single CUSA school nails every single hire in the short term. Their margin for error is very, very, very small.

(05-10-2022 02:37 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  The other, related problem, was that administrators tied with league schools rebuffed some FCS and Sun Belt programs in a way that left those administrators feeling deeply, personally disrespected. Some of those admins moved up in their careers over the last decade, and when the fortunes of the leagues had shifted, CUSA was sure to get absolutely zero mercy or benefit of the doubt.

"Burn bridges at your own peril"

(05-09-2022 01:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  We obviously can’t go back and change history but what could C-USA have done differently to better position themselves?

Had better leadership. After Banowsky left this conference went to hell in a handbasket. All of the problems posters on this board have gripe and complained about for the most part stems from horrible leadership at the CUSA offices. Some of the programs bear some of the blame as well but the majority of the issues starts at the top with Judy McLeod.

(05-14-2022 08:34 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 01:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  We obviously can’t go back and change history but what could C-USA have done differently to better position themselves?

Had better leadership. After Banowsky left this conference went to hell in a handbasket. All of the problems posters on this board have gripe and complained about for the most part stems from horrible leadership at the CUSA offices. Some of the programs bear some of the blame as well but the majority of the issues starts at the top with Judy McLeod.

I agree but kind of disagree. Judy sucks... but the universities have kept her anyway. Her lack of leadership is only a result of their collective lack of leadership.

I think the bigger problem was that too many members (holdovers and new) were looking for C-USA to elevate their athletics instead of focusing on building their programs. You can debate which programs those were, but that is an entirely different topic.

(05-14-2022 08:47 PM)Side.Show.Joe Wrote:  

(05-14-2022 08:34 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 01:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  We obviously can’t go back and change history but what could C-USA have done differently to better position themselves?

Had better leadership. After Banowsky left this conference went to hell in a handbasket. All of the problems posters on this board have gripe and complained about for the most part stems from horrible leadership at the CUSA offices. Some of the programs bear some of the blame as well but the majority of the issues starts at the top with Judy McLeod.

I agree but kind of disagree. Judy sucks... but the universities have kept her anyway. Her lack of leadership is only a result of their collective lack of leadership.

I think the bigger problem was that too many members (holdovers and new) were looking for C-USA to elevate their athletics instead of focusing on building their programs. You can debate which programs those were, but that is an entirely different topic.

Ok. The lack of effective leadership whether from Judy or the school presidents are to blame for the failures of the conference.

ANOTHER-- "Hey let's just dump this thread over here" action.


I think this one is from the CSNBBS SITEWIDE realignment board.


We need a "NO DUMPING" sign on this board IMO.

Thought this was in the lounge. Mods need to send it back.

(05-14-2022 04:08 AM)TroyTBoy Wrote:  

(05-10-2022 02:37 PM)MattBrownEP Wrote:  I actually think CUSA handled this round about as well as they could have. This league was really close to not existing anymore, and they walked away with a solid basketball identity, a few football brands with growth potential, and at least a short-term future. They had a terrible hand, but played it pretty well.

Judy MacLeod hit a standing triple.

I fully expect MacLeod and Ian McCaw to slowly build CUSA into a better property than its been in years.

The new basketball, and baseball (with DBU), identity is a breath of fresh air... particularly since the Sun Belt is so bad at hoops.

So your logic is that CUSA can get better but SBC can't?
Riiiiight

(05-14-2022 08:47 PM)Side.Show.Joe Wrote:  

(05-14-2022 08:34 PM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  

(05-09-2022 01:12 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  We obviously can’t go back and change history but what could C-USA have done differently to better position themselves?

Had better leadership. After Banowsky left this conference went to hell in a handbasket. All of the problems posters on this board have gripe and complained about for the most part stems from horrible leadership at the CUSA offices. Some of the programs bear some of the blame as well but the majority of the issues starts at the top with Judy McLeod.

I agree but kind of disagree. Judy sucks... but the universities have kept her anyway. Her lack of leadership is only a result of their collective lack of leadership.

I think the bigger problem was that too many members (holdovers and new) were looking for C-USA to elevate their athletics instead of focusing on building their programs. You can debate which programs those were, but that is an entirely different topic.

Marshall, SoMiss, and UAB tried to get her removed but couldn't get the votes.

It will be interesting to see which was the real Judy. I think the majority of the problems were heaped upon her and it easy to blame her failures because oh no she is a woman and women shouldn’t have this positions. Yes she made a few mistakes but like I said most of it was already preexisting. Now the other side of Judy is the one left in charge of this crumbled mess. And as a Tech fan I think she is knocking it out of the park. She basically saved this sinking ship and actually is giving it a chance to thrive. So we will watch her closely to see which Judy we get but right now she is making all the right moves. I would not be surprised to see us stay small and surpass the Belt again real soon. Because there is no denying that the Belt west is still a dumpster fire.

(05-10-2022 12:13 AM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  The fact is none of the five schools invited met their expectations. Tulsa was surprisingly good in football but it was their basketball program that made it to the Elite Eight in 2001 the main reason why they were invited. That basketball program never recovered once Self left. Marshall was not the Marshall of the late 90’s and early 00’s. SMU was a hot mess in both revenue sports with very weak fan support. It wasn’t until June Jones was hired that they starting righting the ship. Rice went bowling for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. UTEP basketball failed to deliver and Mike Price couldn’t sustain the success he enjoyed his first two seasons.

C-USA 2.0 never sent a rep to the BCS. Only UAB and UTEP occasionally challenged Memphis in basketball but it was still a one bid league for the most part. SMU, Rice, Tulane, ECU, Marshall, Southern Miss, Tulsa, Houston and UCF were either bad or terrible in hoops. It was just a mediocre conference.

I don't think UH had a losing season in C-USA 2.0, had wins over top 25 teams and went to the Tournament once. It was hardly bad or terrible. And we challenged Memphis, we just never beat them until it was time to end their reign as conference tournament champions in 2010.