Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

When the league gets going, I think it will be really important to get strong out of conference games scheduled. These are the ones that would bring in more tv opportunities on the big stage, fill arenas, and with a few key wins can establish good messaging with recruits. Question is, what should that strategy be?

I can't imagine UConn or Memphis looking to schedule any games. Cincy might be willing, but not if the other BE football schools carry a grudge. Temple will still play Nova in the Big 5, and since they play anyone anywhere could pick up a couple of more from the new conference.

I think I'd try for a two prong strategy:

1. Schedule former BE teams that left prior to the C7.

2. Get an annual conference match up, like the BE/SEC.

I bet Cuse would play Gtown and the Johnnies whenever possible. Showing no ill will is practical and beneficial, and can keep certain cachet games intact. Go after Louisville, ND, and Pitt, possibly even WVU to link into the Big 12. As for a conference matchup, I don't see the SEC bailing on the current BE yet. Big 12 or PAC 12 if possible. As a new conference we may take some ugly lumps for a year or two, but it must be worth the exposure.

Any other ideas?

My guess is you'll get a challenge type of event put together based on the network that provides the TV deal. For example, if Fox gives the deal we may see a challenge with the Pac 12 because Fox has their TV rights too.

One thing that may be interesting is if the new league gets the "big East" name, it may be able to just assume the existing BE challenge in place.

Butler always has a top OOC schedule, that will help from the beginning. I think they're in Atlantis in the next few years, and others.

Could we host some type of preseason tipoff split between MSG and Barclays where each C7/BE team played a big opponent? 12 games split between 2 sites over a weekend would be awesome and bring lots of attention to our conference.

I assume Georgetown would be more than happy to schedule our old BE mates. Maybe we could even get Syracuse to play one non-conference game away from home each year

Hoya, getting 'Cuse to actually play a non-conference away game, especially against someone with an RPI in the top 200, would be truly miraculous. Boeheim needs to keep those win totals up!

That half-joke aside, if the game were a neutral court game in Brooklyn or Manhattan, that would make sense for everyone.

I can see us (St John's) having Syracuse and Notre Dame at MSG. Part of me doesn't like the idea of letting them back into NYC but another part would miss playing 'Cuse especially. I think we'll still be playing Duke too.

I think there should be conference standards for scheduling. No non-D1 opponents during the regular season. If you schedule (and perform) weakly enough that your RPI finishes outside of the top 100, you don't get any tournament shares earned by the conference that season.

That seems pretty rough. I can't imagine punishing members is a good policy for a conference.

For what it's worth, I meant to say top 150, but it can be 175 or 200 or 223 or whatever. I think it's a conference safety check. If a program consistently underperforms, they have incentive to leave the conference. The Big 10 had two teams worse than 150 last season (Nebraska and Penn State) and two the season before (Iowa and Indiana). The top 150 is a pretty doable task for a decent team. You have to go back to 2008 to find a season when Northwestern was worse than 150, and every program in this new league should be better than Northwestern.

If a program has a bad year, that sucks for them. If a program has a bad decade, it sucks for the entire conference because that program consistently draws from the pot without putting anything in. Maybe make the rule so that a program gets penalized if it is outside of the top 100 for three consecutive seasons, but I'd rather have a more stringent competitive expectation.