MVC - MWC Challenge

[dc_x]

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Nine teams from the Mountain West and Missouri Valley conferences will compete in an annual basketball series starting next season.


The Challenge Series, similar to the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, will begin Nov. 13 with Bradley at BYU. Eight other games will be played with Wyoming finishing at Northern Iowa on Dec. 23.

The other games in the first year of the four-year deal are Colorado State at Indiana State on Nov. 20; Southern Illinois at UNLV on Nov. 21; Air Force at Missouri State on Dec. 5; TCU at Wichita State on Dec. 12; Creighton at New Mexico and Illinois State at Utah on Dec. 19; and San Diego State at Drake on Dec. 22.

Evansville, which finished last in the Valley last season, will not participate the first year.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3832970

So now we have:

ACC - Big 10
Big East - SEC
PAC 10 - Big 12
MVC - MWC

Any room for the A10 to challenge a league? is there any need for a challenge?

I don't think Xavier needs anything like this to get OOC games, but I think it would be good for the rest of the league to get a home game against a decent OOC team every other year especially if ESPN is televising these games. (I haven't seen any details on TV coverage.)

But I would guess the A10 would refuse to align itself with a "mid-major" league (like the CAA) and none of the BCS leagues are going to sign up for a challenge with the A-10.

[BBC 08]

How about CUSA?

[AviatorX]

How about CUSA?

Xavier vs Memphis every year?

[Muskie]

Didn't the A-10 play Conf USA back in the late 90's? I seem to remember playing Tulane one year at the Crown in some sort of conference showdown.

[GoMuskies]

Didn't the A-10 play Conf USA back in the late 90's? I seem to remember playing Tulane one year at the Crown in some sort of conference showdown.

Temple beat UC and Xavier lost to Tulane. It sucked (and was expensive).

[XU05and07]

We could always do whatever conference Gonzaga is in...they have some talent out there and some bottom feeders that our bottom feeders could play against

[Juice]

What about the Horizon League?

X-Butler
UD-Wright State (Scary for the Flyers)

Cleveland St. would be a nice matchup for Temple, Umass, St. Joes.
Valpo, Ill - Chicago and the two Wisconsin schools could match up well with the mid to low level A-10 teams.

[Swifty]

How about the CAA. I think they beat out the A-10 head to head this year. We could play UNCW and go up against Johnny Wolf, I know a bunch of people are going to love that. Plus VCU, George Mason, and ODU are all very solid.

[jdm2000]

MWC would have been my top choice, but the travel may have been too much.

I could see C-USA, but that's it.

[danaandvictory]

I fail to see how a conference challenge with the Colonial or the Horizon benefits the A-10 one iota, nor how it draws any attention from local or national media.

[golfitup]

I would never want to do this for the same reason I don't want to get involved with the bracket busters. They REEK of mid-majordom.

[Juice]

I fail to see how a conference challenge with the Colonial or the Horizon benefits the A-10 one iota, nor how it draws any attention from local or national media.

I am not advocating an A-10/Horizon League challenge, I was just throwing out a hypothetical with conferences that currently are not in a challenge. I see the Horizon League as the best remaining conference.

[xnatic03]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/basketball/ncaa/01/14/series.ap/index.html

I wouldn't mind seeing the A10 go this route. The MVC would have been the most obvious choice, but seeing as they are already "taken", the CAA or CUSA would be the next most obvious choices. If more Horizon teams were good year in and year out (other than Butler), I could see that league too.

[GoMuskies]

http://www.xavierhoops.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7664

[waggy]

The A10 is different than most other conferences when you look at the disparity of the programs. And I question the marketing benefit to the A10 of such a challenge if you don't get one of the BCS conferences, or at least the MWC. If the A10 was going to do this they should have done it a long time ago, with the selling point being access into excellent A10 recruiting areas.

[xnatic03]

Sorry, I had missed the original thread. I was thinking that the CAA would be the best top to bottom, but CUSA would have more top level competition (Memphis, UAB, etc)...It seems as though more leagues are doing this, so I don't see why the A10 doesn't get on the bandwagon before the only leagues left are true bottom feeders.

[GoMuskies]

CAA, WCC, MCC?!? Why don't we just start playing in Bracket Buster games, too.

[Swifty]

CAA, WCC, MCC?!? Why don't we just start playing in Bracket Buster games, too.

While I agree that this wouldn't make sense for Xavier, you have to admit that the rest of the A-10 isn't too good for these games. I mean hell, UD could use a bracket buster game to help out its crappy SOS.

[dc_x]

While I agree that this wouldn't make sense for Xavier, you have to admit that the rest of the A-10 isn't too good for these games. I mean hell, UD could use a bracket buster game to help out its crappy SOS.

Right - the whole point of these is (1) to get good OOC games for your league and (2) to create a gimmick so that ESPN or FSN will televize the games.

The question is whether anyone would want to televize an A10-CUSA challenge?

[Muskie]

Right - the whole point of these is (1) to get good OOC games for your league and (2) to create a gimmick so that ESPN or FSN will televize the games.

The question is whether anyone would want to televize an A10-CUSA challenge?

I think if done on a saturday, some of the more compelling match-ups would definitely be televised.