BYU to the West Coast Conference

[ateamstupid]

Originally Posted by DerbyCat

I work for a WCC school and three years ago we put all our emphasis (and $$$) into our basketball program in hopes that if it improved we'd make more money, so this does not help us at all - we went from hoping to be in the top three in our conference to more than likely being in the bottom half.

I'm not saying I agree with the direction we've chosen to take (and there are many of us in the department that don't agree with trying to do more with less), but I don't see how this really helps us at all.

The WCC's job is to get better and get more national exposure. Sitting around and waiting for Loyola Marymount and Portland to become at-large candidates isn't going to do that. You may not like it, but conferences are always going to jump at the opportunity to bring in a perennial top 25 team.

[DerbyCat]

Originally Posted by ateamstupid

The WCC's job is to get better and get more national exposure. Sitting around and waiting for Loyola Marymount and Portland to become at-large candidates isn't going to do that. You may not like it, but conferences are always going to jump at the opportunity to bring in a perennial top 25 team.

Totally legit point... I personally have no problem with the conference decision but it will hurt the smaller schools in the conference. My schools focus has been on becoming a "big dog" basketball team in the WCC and I think this knocks us back quite a bit. We just don't have the resources to compete with BYU (and we probably never will). Sure, we will get some residual income from any TV deal but our athletic director believes we'll never get additional donations until our team is good. Without money we probably can't win. Without winning, we probably can't get more donations - it's a catch-22 that will be our downfall.

Division I small school athletics is dying. I'm on a sinking ship and I know it.