VCU chances of getting in

[Iceman]

The issue with VCU would be that you would have one school in which the admission standards are substantially different than literally every other school in the conference .

A conference can set their own admission standards that all schools must adhere to for athletics.

Are you sure about that? More importantly, even if that is true, I am not sure that a public school like VCU would be able to agree to special conference mandated rules. They have a completely different mission and have to follow the guidelines set forth by their own state. I doubt a state legislature is going to change rules and standards just so that the school can get into a better basketball conference.

He's correct. State universities, which are governed by a Board of Regents appointed by the Governor of the state, are free to set their own admissions requirements for student athletes. Every conference establishes guidelines for student athlete admissions. The universities are required to follow those guidelines. For instance, when the Big XII was formed, the conference voted to prohibit partial qualifiers. Meaning, you couldn't admit students on a provisional basis (and allow them to play) if they only met part of the conference's admissions requirements. Nebraska won all of their National Championships admitting partial qualifiers that were talented, but couldn't fully qualify at other schools. The old Big 8 had very lax admissions. When that was abolished in the Big XII, Nebraska tanked, b/c they lost their recruiting base. So, the New Big East absolutely would be able to set their own requirements.

Also, I'd caution against thinking that just b/c VCU is a public university, it's admissions standards are all that different. Save for Georgetown, there aren't any academic stars in the group. Heck, a third of the BE7 + candidates have a higher admission percentage than VCU. And if you look at US News Rankings (which aren't the best barometer, but are all we have), several of the schools are in the same neighborhood as VCU in terms of academic reputation. 5 of them don't even offer masters or other advanced degrees. I doubt there's a huge difference in admissions between the schools, and having watched/listened to players from all of the BE7 + candidates over the years, there's little doubt none of them have particularly high admissions requirements for student athletes. Every single school in the country has lower student athlete requirements than for the student body...........even Harvard.

[Jet915]

I think it comes down to if the C7 wants to make a "splash" and add VCU or wants to play it safe and add SLU. SLU looks like the other schools with regards to religion, academics and school makeup. VCU obviously is the better basketball program, has a big name coach but looks totally different than the other schools w/regard to academics, mission statement, etc......They might just add SLU and then down the road hope that Richmond gets their basketball in order w/their proposed arena renovation etc....

[admin]

I think it comes down to if the C7 wants to make a "splash" and add VCU or wants to play it safe and add SLU. SLU looks like the other schools with regards to religion, academics and school makeup. VCU obviously is the better basketball program, has a big name coach but looks totally different than the other schools w/regard to academics, mission statement, etc......They might just add SLU and then down the road hope that Richmond gets their basketball in order w/their proposed arena renovation etc....

It would surprise me if the C7 added VCU. It might be the smarter play, but it would definitely ruffle some feathers.

[Bluejay]

Anything is possible, but I just don't find it likely that one would create a league of 11 private schools and one public school.

[whiteandblue77]

SLU > VCU
NO COMMUTER SCHOOLS! Creighton already plays one in the Valley... Wichita State

[Iceman]

SLU > VCU

NO COMMUTER SCHOOLS!

Uh.........the BE7 has numerous "commuter" schools. St. John's. DePaul. Beyond that, how in the heck does being a commuter school or not affect you as a fan? Does it ruin your viewing pleasure? Do commuter schools not play good basketball (might want to let Louisville and Cincy know if so)? No offense, but that has to be the single dumbest reason for not wanting a school I've heard. Literally, has Z-E-R-O impact on anything. Doesn't impact the quality of play. Doesn't impact the ability to get into the tournament. Doesn't impact the amount of $$$ the conference makes from TV. No impact. But yeah, let's use commuter school as the trump card. Brilliant!

That said, I've got a little insight for you...............VCU is not a commuter school. I'm not sure where you got that info from, but come on, just exercising your brain a little would tell you otherwise. 23,000 undergrads in a city of 205,000 metropolitan. Seriously? 10% of the population is commuting to school? A simple search revealed the entire city of Richmond doesn't even have 23,000 students in all of their high schools combined, and the total number of seniors graduating each year is less than 3,000. Of those, only a fraction stay home to attend VCU. But yeah, 800-900 total students living at home and commuting to a 23,000 strong campus makes it a commuter school. The University of Houston, the largest actual commuter school in the country, has 31k undergrads from a city of 4.9M. SMH. VCU is a destination school. Just reading on their website would have told you less than 4% of their student body is from Richmond. Really hard to be a commuter school with 95%+ of your student body moves to that city to attend school.

The only thing SLU is better than VCU at is being Catholic, which I'm sure will come in handy on the hardwood.

[whiteandblue77]

The only thing SLU is better than VCU at is being Catholic, which I'm sure will come in handy on the hardwood.

So that is supposed to be stretching your mind? Ok, so VCU ended its "commuter" status in 2011. Congrats. And Definitely congrats on your 2011 run, I was cheering my heart out for you, but I have to go with the Jebbies.

If you stretched your mind past your recent success you would agree SLU is the preferred BASKETBALL (and soccer) pedigree, hands down.

[Pretzel]

Besides the final four I'm not really aware od VCU's success in the last decade or so... anybody want to fill me in?

The common misconception is that VCU only had success under Shaka Smart. VCU has been to the NCAA Tourney 5 times in the past 10 years under 3 different coaches. Once with Jeff Capel, twice with Anthony Grant and twice with Shaka Smart. Creighton, Dayton and SLU have a combined 3 Tourney wins over the past 10 years while VCU has 7.

NCAA Tournament History (last 10 years)
Xavier- total: 9, best: elite eight, record: 14-9
Butler- total: 6, best: runner up, record: 15-5
VCU- total: 5, best: final four, record: 7-5
Creighton- total 4, best: second round, record: 1-4
Dayton- total: 3, best: second round, record: 1-3
SLU- total: 1, best: second round, record: 1-1

[nathanhm]

Things I care about in new conference members vs things I don't care about:

Winning basketball -- Care!
Commuter school - Don't care!
Public vs Private - Don't care!
Catholic - Don't care!
Committed to the conference - Care!
High academic standards - Don't care! (This isn't the Ivy league)
Basketball first school - Care!

VCU would be a solid addition to the league. They play winning basketball and its the big sport on campus. All of the reasons not to invite them are stupid. We currently have commuter schools in our league. We are currently in a league with public schools. We currently play with non Catholic schools and are going to invite Butler. When you cut down the nets at the Final Four they don't ask you about your admissions policy for student athletes. I want our league to win national titles, so if we are afraid we can't compete with VCU, then how do you think we are going to compete with the big boys.

The only legitimate reason not to invite VCU is there are better schools ahead of them. In my mind thats 3 teams: Butler, Xavier, and Gonzaga. So if we have explored those as options then we look at VCU with the other schools in that tier and figure out what makes the most sense.

The schools seem to be Creighton, VCU, Dayton, Saint Louis. If I was voting I'd take the first two, assuming we get the previous 3, if not (no Gonzaga) then we have to figure out which 3 of those 4 schools make it.

[Pretzel]

If you stretched your mind past your recent success you would agree SLU is the preferred BASKETBALL (and soccer) pedigree, hands down.

I'm not sure how SLU is the preferred basketball program in relation to its performance on the court as compared to VCU. Not that I think it's relevant but let's go back to 1980 using the NCAA tournament as a barometer.

NCAA Tournament History 1980-2012
VCU- total: 11, best: final four, record: 11-11
SLU- total: 5, best: second round, record: 3-5