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The Big East Hits an Iceberg
The Big East Hits an Iceberg
Christopher M Rieman
Published by Chris R
11-28-2012
The Big East Hits an Iceberg

DAYTON (OH) -- To Whom it May Concern, namely DePaul, Marquette, St. John's, Providence, Georgetown, Seton Hall, and Villanova:

I understand that you've been having a Maalox Moment or two, so I'd like to address some of your concerns to help explain your indigestion about the continuing implosion of the Big East Conference -- the home turf for all of your athletic programs. And when I say indigestion, I mean panic attacks about your potential irrelevance from the college basketball landscape. My purpose is not to allay your fears but rather substantiate them. As chaotic and desperate as you think they are, I believe there is sound evidence to suggest your fears don't go far enough. They are ever-present, but they are also victim to the sin of spin. Your depth perception is inside-out, and it's worth my time to provide an outside-in viewpoint to cast a proper light on the changing college landscape.

So here goes.

In a nutshell, you're screwed. Not blindfold-and-cigarette screwed, but short on options and shorter on time. You're Jack Dawson on the Titanic and Celine Dion is clearing her throat. The good news is there are lifeboats. The bad news is you came from steerage and those lifeboats aren't for you. In two hours the ship will founder and the best you can hope for is to use the body of a dead porter as an improvised flotation device until help arrives -- but it's no sure thing they'll find you floating among the debris, alive, worth saving.

In basketball parlance, the Big East is the Titanic, college football is the iceberg, and the A10 is the RMS Carpathia. When the Carpathia trawls the debris field for survivors, folks like yourself aren't in a position of strength to demand hot towels and a wine list. You might have been a passenger on the grandest ocean liner to ever set sail, but that was two hours ago. Nobody cares anymore and the royal crest you've been bear-hugging presently sleeps at the bottom of the north Atlantic. You're like everyone else now, but still cling to the Guggenheim attitude.

Glad we could be there to offer a rescue. Want to know more about our swashbuckling sloop? Consider the following.

The A10 holds all of the face cards and authors their own future. The private A10 schools are not going to retreat from the stability and security of the top basketball-only conference in the country and venture out into shark-infested waters where schools are cannibalizing their own league members, jockeying for position, and lobbying over one another into conferences that are completely unstable geographic nightmares of greed, self-absorption, and academic antagonism.

Do I foresee institutions leaving the dead calm of the A10 to form a new basketball-centric conference amid the unpredictable swells and whitecaps of present-day re-alignment? No way -- not unless its under the terms, conditions, and timetable of the departing A10 members. There is too much chaos and uncertainty to abandon a perfectly good ship and swim for the promise of an uncharted land mass.

Especially not after Butler and VCU were just added to the improving conference. It's hard to imagine Butler and VCU accepting invitations to the A10 without the darnedest assurances from Xavier, Dayton, and St. Louis that a bait-and-switch was not eminent.

The A10 is the safe haven at the moment. League members control their own fates and have a timetable based on a sun dial instead of a stopwatch. Members recognize as a stable league, their strength is in numbers.

The A10 is a league many institutions are intrigued to join -- not parachute out of. More schools want a boarding pass than vacant staterooms to fill. The climate is getting more and more advantageous to the A10 as FBS football implodes the college landscape. Even a traveling salesman understands market forces. The A10 office recognizes their position of strength at the bargaining table. The strength is not absolute, but the leverage is undeniable.

Bernadette McGlade knew this last year when she added the Bulldogs and Rams. Her hand is only that much stronger and strengthening by the hour. The A10 doesn't need the Big East basketball schools to survive. A nice addition? Certainly. A necessity? No. Big East basketball schools may ultimately reach a point however where their fate is determined by others only -- on the timetable of others and at the mercy of others.

None of this is to suggest Big East basketball members compare unfavorably to the brass hats of the A10. Marquette, Villanova, and Georgetown have reached Final Fours in recent years. St. John's is still St. John's. Comparing one Big East school to one A10 school is not the comparison that will re-map the landscape however. Power rests in the hands of those most capable of retreating to their existing ships and staying above the waterline. The A10 does not need a flotilla of supply ships to remain at sea for an extended period. She's stocked, cocked, and water-tight. More than that, all hands on deck believe in her.

The A10 schools have historically operated on a smaller budget than schools in the Big East. Maintaining the status quo is just another day at the office. Members are used to stretching a dollar. The A10 brass -- Xavier, Dayton, St. Louis, Butler, St. Joe, and VCU -- are not going to let dollar signs overcome them by some newfangled Big East Redux 2.0 unless it's more bulletproof than the Merrimack.

Why?

The A10 schools would be assuming 100% of the risk while the Big East schools would be taking on none of the risk. When you have nothing to lose, you can't. But A10 schools have everything to lose because they would be folding an already strong hand for a new deal of unknown cards. A10 schools are happy and content where they are if that's the worst case scenario. That's not the case with the basketball schools in the Big East. The problem with musical chairs is there's never a chair for everyone. Big East schools are killing each other to find a seat at the table -- any table.

You've worked hard to convince yourself that everything is the other way around and when Big East basketball schools say "jump", A10 schools shout "how high?", but its nothing more than a half-baked Baghdad Bob impersonation. Whatever happens will happen because the A10 schools chose it to happen. They hold the decisive veto.

Time is wasting and you've already wasted plenty of that. During the favorable weather when most skippers were tightening up their rigging and caulking their hulls, you only had time to count the checks. You were a grand ship but you're nothing but a memory now. Just a cold, rusty, maritime relic sitting alone with no passengers and no port-of-call.

The A10 might not be the ship of royalty, but she's our ship and certainly worth fighting for. You can denigrate her all you like, but she still floats. Rather than order our sailors and officers to command a new ship under your slanted and corrupted oversight, perhaps it will be us barking the orders and assigning the bunks, on our own trusty boat, warts and all, in a manner and timetable of our choosing.

If and when that happens, Celine will be in rare form. Big East basketball schools won't have a heart that goes on. It will have an ongoing heart attack.
__________________

Hot shooting hides a multitude of sins.
Make everyone else's "one day" your "day one".
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