SI interview with AAC commish Mike Aresco
SI: And what about your conference in particular? Where do you feel like adding Wichita State puts you in terms of remaining at the status quo or exploring further?
MA: People have said to me, are you thinking about expansion down the road now that you've done this? This was prompted a little bit by what we went through this spring and summer with the whole Big 12 thing, and we started thinking, if we lose teams, what do we do? At the end of that process, I and others felt that we had room for one team, perhaps, in basketball, and Wichita was an obvious choice. It made sense because we wouldn't be going back to that old model that I didn't like, the multiple basketball-only school model. You never say never, and so I'd hate to say that we'd never think about it again, but it really is a difficult situation when you have a group of schools that have a different outlook. And Wichita really fits our profile better than, say, a small private school would.
In terms of the future, would we look at expansion down the road if it makes sense? Sure. If there were some schools that would add a lot of value and would fit culturally with the conference, sure, we could go to 14. The good thing about this is that it keeps us at 12 [basketball schools] and 12 [football schools]. That doesn't stymie the possibility of expansion down the road. We're not out looking to raid anyone. That's not what we're doing; that's not what I'm suggesting.
|
https://www.si.com/college-basketbal...ow_facebook_si
He's definitely leaving the door open.
If someone brings up the private school part, remember SMU, Tulsa & Tulane are private. Tulsa is actually smaller than UD
The outlook part is key because the basketball only schools weren't bought into the conference whereas anyone joining under their own volition would obviously be
