I am just curious as to your thoughts regarding the possibility of Butler joining the A10.  I am a GW alum from Indianapolis who posts on a lot of Indy sports forums.  Of course the forums are blowing up right now on Butler and the prospects of the program moving forward.  Everyone seems to agree that Butler needs an upgrade from the Horizon League but their options are limited because they don't have a real football program.  Thus, they seem to see the Atlantic 10 as the most reasonable conference to join.

Butler is closer to the East Coast than SLU and they already have a decent rivalry with X.  Thoughts? 

It probably isn't a good fit - just like St. Louis isn't a good fit.  Having teams from further away from the East coast than Ohio just makes travel so much more difficult.  And why would Butler want that? Obviously they've shown that they aren't limited in any way from being in the conference that they are already in.  Majerus, for instance, has complained regularly about the travel problem for St. Louis.  Since Brad Stevens can certainly get his University to give him anything he wants - I really doubt that he'd want that.  Particularly because he doesn't need to play far away from home to recruit since he recruits so much in his local and regional area.

 I like it and they could easily have regional play with UD, X and SLU. Or, maybe VCU could be persuaded to join the conference. Sounds nice to think GW might be playing the defending national champs next December.

Since Brad Stevens won't be long for Butler, the program would be crazy to turn down a chance to move to the A10.  Playing XU, Dayton and SLU is the smart play long-term as Butler has a good chance to revert back to a Wisc-Mil or Valpo situation after Stevens leaves: decent program in a 1 bid conf. 

Coach Brad signed a 12 year contract that he asked for. He likes Indianapolis (the Washington, D.C. of Indiana, in case you have not heard of it). I don't think he's a traditional win-to-move-up-and-out kind of guy. In fact, with his new specs and his choppy haircut, he's got a goofiness reminiscent of Coach Wooden. My guess is that Butler is where he's happy to be. 

Yeah, don't expect him to leave Butler anytime soon.  

With two Final Four teams in the past five years, I think we can say the CAA has officially surpassed the A-10.

let's not do this, instead, let's bask in the glory of the mid-majors kicking the butts of the BCS cartel.  Bilas and Vitale still would not admit they were wrong as recently as last week about VCU and UAB's inclusion.  Maybe next year instead of taking the garbage of the BCS to round out the field they will look at 4-5 teams from the A-10, CAA, Mountain West, Horizon etc.  Way to go VCU and Butler - I raise my glass to you both. 

But let's give the CAA its much-deserved props. It is a great league.

Lots of props to the CAA, but let's not get carried away.  Two great runs through the tourney doesn't erase the fact that the league has ranked ahead of the A-10, what, once in history? 

Rankings? Oh, too funny.

A conference ought not to be judgged by whether one team gets hot in the tourney once every five years.  It ought to be judged by how it does overall relative to other schools, and there are a number of systems for rating that.

Heck, even if you want to use just how the best team does, is it more impressive to send a team to the sweet 16 virtually every season or to send a team to the final 4 twice in 20 years and rarely ever have another team get to the sweet 16? 

Or are you arguing that Fordham's futility should not be a factor in how the A-10 is judged? 

... come join the A-10 - great idea!  Now that the non BCS, or non-football schools are doing great against the big conference schools, let's stop using the insulting term "midmajor."  It is a put-down for non BCS schools so we shouldn't use it for GW and other non- Div 1 football schools.

Notta, I write this to you, and to the 20 or so people I've spoken to about this, and only wish it could be addressed to the millions of people who have misunderstood this situation.  Vitale and Bilas should not be lumped together as the BCS spokespeople.  To be very clear, Bilas did say that it was "difficult to justify" VCU's inclusion in the field.  He was also very quick to point out that this statement should not translate into VCU not having a shot to win games in the tournament. (which is where he differs from Vitale, who claimed that VCU and UAB had no chance).  Any analysis done on Selection Sunday should deal with whether other schools left out of the field were more deserving than any schools who made the field.  VCU had a bad ending to their regular season (I believe they lost 5 of their last 8) and lost in their conference championship game. It was Bilas's opinion that Colorado was more deserving.  Today, Bilas has remarked that VCU is playing much better than it did during its regular season.  I really don't believe he said anything out of line nor is he backpedaling from anything he said.

Plus, if Butler joins the conference, the guys can have a pregame meal at Mulligan's.

To get back to the original post, why should Butler change a thing?  They have a situation where they can almost automatically count on making the tournament annually, and as this year has proven, can focus on playing it's best ball in February and March.  The only advantage I could see in moving to the A10 would be more challenging competition throughout the regular season but to be honest, this is really only a factor if Butler were the type of program who made the NCAA's every year and then got overwhelmed once they were there.  Seeing how they are about the complete opposite of this, I really can't see a point in changing conferences.

MV, I thought it was a BCS grab because some BCS schools in the Big East and Big Ten were slipping at the end of the season.  UAB (which frankly had a very good non-conference schedule) and VCU (ditto except they were slipping - but had played itself onto the bubble) were non-BCS schools that became easy targets for the committee got it wrong  over GU, Penn State, USC etc.  To parse this out to say "I did not want people to say they did not have a chance to do well in the tournament, it's whether their body of work merited inclusion in the field" - what does that mean?  The job of the committee is to find a good competitive field and uses regular season stats as indicaters - a past is prologue theory.  They got it right with VCU and the guys do not want to admit it.

...for the A-10 - drop a few of the weaker teams and add Butler.  Good for the A-10.

Notta, they are two independent issues.  Why would voicing an opinion that VCU should not have made the field ahead of Colorado (or Virginia Tech, or whoever) necesaarily translate into 'VCU is incapable of winning in this tournament"?  Bilas has consistently stated that in today's game, any team good enough to make the field can get hot and win some games in the tournament regardless of whether they deserved to make the field or not (admittedly, I don't think Bilas had "final 4" on his mind when he said it).  Has VCU had an amazing run?  Absolutely, and full credit should be paid to them.  However, what they've done doesn't alter the March 13 debate as to whether they deserved to go ahead of other larger schools.  On March 13, they hadn't won these five tournament games and a clear case was argued that they did not deserve an at-large bid.  For Bilas to be chastised for his position simply because VCU has gotten hot misses the point.

Butler and VCU have two young rising coaches.  If they can hold on to them for a while, I think these two programs could be here to stay.  It's just hard to add more teams to the A-10 and expand it geographically.  I remember Conference USA having 3 divisions and being spreadout throughout the midwest and southeast.  I could see the A-10 doing the same thing and having a midwest division, mid-atlantic, and northeast - maybe 18 teams with 6 in each group.  It would kind of cease to be a defined conference at this point, and more of a group of mid-major basketball programs - so maybe that would be a bad thing.

And I know the prospect of Fordham leaving the conference makes some people here upset, but how many conference games have they won in the last two years?  Maybe one or two?  And they don't seem to have any real desire to upgrade their program.  If Fordham left the A-10 I don't think they would be missed at all.  Also, doing regional divisions would ultimately save travel $ for all athletic programs.  I think the biggest problem with this would be playing 18 games against conference teams every year.  Each team could play 2 division games, but that would not allow every other team in the conference to be scheduled.  But if the top 2 teams from each division went to AC for the tournament, that would lead to one conference title.

A10 Midwest - St. Louis, X, Dayton, Butler, Duquesne, plus one more (could the A-10 get Marquette?)

Northeast - St. Joes, Lasalle, UMass, Temple, Rhode Island, Bonnies

Mid Atlantic - GW, VCU, Charlotte, Richmond, Old Dominion, George Mason

This will probably never happen, but I wouldn't be upset if it did. 

I guess what I am saying MV what's the purpose of putting the at large teams into the field except the fact that you think they can win their first round match-up even if it is a long-shot.  I did not hear Bilas making the same arguments about some other BCS teams that had double digit defeats - he was picking and choosing strength of schedule to argue the inclusion or wrongful exclusion of some BCS teams etc.  When it came down to it, it was a BCS carter nod by him and Dickie V

I'm on the fence with this one.  VCU certainly got hot- and deserve to be playing in the final 4, based on how they've played the tourney. 

The question, I suppose, is this- is the committee's job to put teams in that are likely to win the tourney- or the 68 best teams (or at least the best at large teams).  If the job is to put in the best at large teams, than Bilas' points do not seem contradictory- he felt that VCU was not one of the best at large teams.  If, however,  the job of the committee is to put in teams who they believe may win it all, regardless of their seed- then the committee appears to have done a good job, and Bilas' point would be wrong.

I'd also note that Bilas said "I know we're not talking about great teams here," however--in the case of VCU, they have been great.

 what's with all the anti-Indianapolis talk on here?  WTF is Mulligan's?

I'd rather have a team from Indy (home to the Big Ten Tournament and Final Four every few years) in the conference that one from Olean.

I'd rather have a sold-out 10,000 seat Arena that's also a National Landmark than a (pushing it) 5,000 seat arena that hasn't been full since 2006.

Butler is going to move up to a new conference sooner rather than later, and  the A-10 would be silly not to go after them.  

I also believe it's only a matter of time before SLU goes to the Valley, so adding Butler would significantly move our Western boundary a little closer to home.

FQ, in my world, the ultimate judge of team and conference strength is getting into the NCAAs and winning in the NCAAs. Not who you beat OOC in November or how many teams you have in the field every year

By that measure, the CAA has surpassed the A-10 by going to the Final Four twice in five years (Xavier went to the Elite 8 about as many times in that span, but couldnt break through).

The very curious and arguably flukey thing about this is that I don't think that the A10 has ever sent a team to the final 4.  Schools like SBU and La Salle have made it before our conference was formed.  So did Charlotte but the Cornbread Maxwell era just doesn't count.  Temple and Xavier, for all of their successes, have not made it as conference members.  St. Joe's and URI reached the Elite 8 but no further.  It raises the question of whether A10 teams underperform perhaps because they see themselves as being just a small step below the majors, as opposed to the Colonial Conference which may have a more carefree approach.  Or, perhaps it's nothing more than 2 teams getting very hot at the right time and nothing more than that.  I do think that these things tend to happen for a reason, meaing that the A10 teams perhaps put a bit too much pressure on themselves when playing on bigger stages.

Didn't UMass go to the Final Four under Calipari, and then vacate it?

Good catch Squid.  My mistake, and I won't hide behind "it doesn't count because they vacated it" to get around my mistake.

The A-10 has gotten more teams in and won a hell of a lot more games than the CAA, so by your criterira it should still be the A-10. Perhaps what you mean is that you judge a league by which one team gets the furthest? 

FQ, I'm not sure where it was I said that I was judging the two leagues.  I was making an observation that A10 teams have historically gotten close to the final 4 but have fallen short while the Colonial has now sent 2 teams within the past 5 years.  More to the point, the 1 A10 team to make it was a #1 ranked UMASS team meaning that they were talented enough to have been "expected" to get there as opposed to Mason and VCU who were able to play without the burden of expectations.  So what I'm suggesting is that the A10 teams who have gotten very close may have put more pressure on themselves than Colonial teams because the gap between them and the big guys isn't nearly as great.  That's not meant to translate to the Colonial being a better league.

MV,

I believe FQ was referring to Mentz- not you.

TMY,

Don't tell him, Dan.  He still thinks this is www.mvhoops.com

Doug, if they're going to eat at any Indy steakhouse, it should be St. Elmo's.

He thinks eleven of the cookies are his, too.

For all those college basketball fans that only pay attention to college basketball for the last 3 weeks of the season (and then only superficially until the final weekend), the CAA has officially surpassed the A10.