NY Times: BC to join ACC Sunday? The NY Times is reporting that the nine ACC presidents will "overwhelmingly" approve BC for expansion on Sunday morning, and BC will accept before the end of the day. ESPN cites the NYT article as its source. The Charlotte Observer says that adding BC will be discussed tomorrow, but is not nearly as adamant that it's a done deal. As a BC alum I'm very mixed about this -- the ACC is a great conference both athletically and academically, but for the secondary sports the travel is going to kill those students. About the only thing that I'm sure of in this is that Syracuse has to be really pissed about this. And that Pitt should put the Big Ten on its speed-dial.
BC are now officially more hated than Va. Tech in my book. They are an original member of the Big East and they are bolting for a rival conferance. This will be the downfall of thier athletics program, imo(it won't be a long fall). They have absolutely nothing in common with any of the ACC schools yet they are willing to forget 25 years in the Big East for an extra $1M a year. And they call them selves a catholic school It's ridiculous. They are going to be the Rutgers of the ACC in both football and basketball.
Not that I feel like defending too hard a decision that I have a tough time accepting myself (mostly because of the charter member / betrayal issue that you raise, plus the geographic distance), but BC has more in common academically with the Tobacco Road schools than they do with the Big East schools. And while they will likely get slaughtered in men's basketball, they'll do fine enough in football. This is about a hell of a lot more than $1 million, by the way. BC might only get an extra $1-2 million for jumping, but they'd be in line to lose several million if they stayed in the Big East because Miami & VT's success have been the main forces behind the conference's cash flow.
Let's think about this. Whom does BC have more in common with? Villanova, Providence, Notre Dame, St. John's, Georgetown, and Seton Hall. Or UNC, Clemson, Maryland, FSU, Ga Tech, UVa, etc. I'm keen to think that BC has more in common with the former. The only reason the ACC is getting BC is because without a 14th member and conferance championship game the annuel revenue each school would get would be less then what the 9 schools recieve now. It is not gonna be the financial windfall that it has been said it would. Plus, with the end of the BCS in the coming years there will be major changes and the money they are counting on might not be there.
The only thing you're basing that on is religious affiliation, which has very little to do with how these schools operate nowadays. From an academic reputation and research standpoint, BC are certainly closer to the latter group. Only ND and Georgetown are "elite" Big East institutions in the way that BC has become over the past 20 years. And if Syracuse was in the US News Top 50, they'd probably get the nod over BC. But they're not, so it's BC that the ACC is most likely to take. Well, yeah, of course. If the NCAA had approved the 11-team championship game, BC would never have been considered again. And I'm all for killing the BCS, and burying it in the Graveyard Of Bad Ideas. But for now, the ACC needs a 12th school to make the money, and the BCS remains the BCS until the NCAA steps in to solve the problem.
Re: NY Times: BC to join ACC Sunday? I'd be more worried that the travel will kill the sports--during the first round of expansion talk DeFilippo seemed to hint that BC might have to drop some sports to pay for the move.
Your kidding yourself if you think the ACC is taking BC because it is a good academic school. They did take Va. Tech already so we know where thier intentions are. They are taking BC because they know they will accept and they have enough votes from the ACC schools for it to pass.
... and the reason why it has enough votes to pass are (a) money, and (b) reputation. There's no financial reason for the ACC to pass on Syracuse, which has led the nation in basketball attendance for years and is the defending national champion, and you have to believe that if asked, Syracuse would move just as quickly as BC would. The primary difference between the two schools is academic reputation, which the biggest swing votes -- Duke and Wake Forest -- care deeply about. FSU, Ga Tech, NC State and Clemson probably don't care one way or another, as long as it's a 12th school and a conference championship game. And Flip, this will probably start next year, believe it or not. We'll know more tomorrow.
The reason the ACC didn't want Syracuse is that K and Roy and Dave and Gary didn't want to go into Onondaga County and fight for their lives in 20 feet of snow every winter. Much better to go to the Conte Forum or Fleet Center and kick the sorry Eagles arses. Cowards.
Absolutely wrong. Syracuse never really wanted to leave and still don't want to leave. BC have practically begged the ACC to let them join, there is a huge difference. And why do BC folk believe they have this great academic reputation. IMO, BC is no better than Villanova or Syracuse. And are worse than Georgetown and Notre Dame. I don't know where they get this attitude that they are better than everyone else. If Syracuse or UConn wanted to join the ACC they would be accepted immediately. But they have a little something that BC lacks. Integrity.
The reason why BC wants in is because they're chasing Miami and the money that comes with Miami football -- which is the exact same reason why Syracuse would have accepted an offer in June if it came. Both schools would prefer to stay in the Big East with local rivals, but let's be honest: college sports is about money, and the ACC with Miami will deliver a boatload more money that the Big East without it. The most notable measure is the US News rankings, and they have BC 40th in undergrad, 41st in business schools, 22nd in education schools, and 22nd in law schools. 'Cuse and 'Nova are not as high in any of those categories. Yes, G'Town and ND are higher, but (a) Georgetown doesn't have football, and (b) ND said no. Oh please. Every football-playing school in the Big East would jump at an ACC invite tomorrow.
And even if BC did have more in common with the former group, which as obie pointed out is not the case, none of the schools you mentioned play Big East football, which is the reason this is going down (hell, the Big East will be a much stronger basketball conference when this is said and done, shipping off an average BC team and also-rans Miami and VaTech and probably getting Louisville, Cincinatti, DePaul, and South or Central Florida to replace them). And BC certainly has more in common academically with Duke, Virginia, UNC, Maryland, and Clemson than it does with West Virginia, Pitt, Rutgers, and Syracuse.
For me, a person a few thousand miles away, this is no big deal for the Big East. This is, first and foremost, a basketball conference. I still remember the early days of ESPN when they showed Big Monday. Syracuse, Georgetown, St. John's, Connecticut. Pearl Washington, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, et al. The unbiased version of a far-away observer: *#*#*#*# BC. The Big East will do better without them.
Indeed. If Virginia's governor and state legislature didn't force VTech into the expansion talks, Miami, Syracuse and BC would all be in the ACC right now. It's hard to take this talk about "charter member" and "integrity" seriously when you're talking about a makeshift conference that came about when a bunch of basketball schools realized 20 years ago that, hey, they're in big TV markets!
Yeah, BC really should piss away millions of dollars a year and any chance of having an elite football team in the future.
Vote taken and approved this morning: http://espn.go.com/ncaa/news/2003/1012/1636467.html No word yet on the year the new games will start, though I'd be surprised if it's not '04-'05.
BC doesn't have the facilities or tradition to recruit top players. Maybe you can continue to pick up the scraps from Florida. By the way, how many BE football championships does BC have? I really don't see what BC brings to the table. Football? mediocre. Basketball? mid-table. Facilities? no. Fans? BC fans don't travel. and the big one, TV market? yes! but Boston is a pro sports town much like the rest of the big cities in the northeast. They'll always be behind the sox, pats and bruins.
Tradition is relative. Kids who are entering BC right now weren't alive during the Flutie era. And if you want to be an NFL QB, RB, or lineman, or an NBA point guard, you could do a hell of a lot worse than BC. Facilities are good and getting better. Same # as Duke, Wake, UNC, NC State, Clemson, and Ga Tech have as ACC Champs since FSU joined. Yeah, whatever. What the ACC gets with BC athletics is a pair of programs that may not make the national title game but remain consistently competitive in both major sports. But more importantly, BC makes other schools' alumni happy because Boston is a big market for Duke, UNC, UVA, and Miami alumni. Miami especially wanted BC to join them because they have more alums in Boston than any other non-Florida city, and playing in the northeast over the past decade helped their recruiting. It's fine when people say that BC is betraying the BE -- matter of judgement, and like I said, I can see that. But people who say that BC is somehow undeserving of an ACC bid know nothing.
You just proved my point. BC didn't earn their bid, they got it thanks to their location and TV market. And like I said before, a market that doesn't care about "Backup College".
So giving the ACC what they wanted isn't "earning their bid"? Interesting. And this makes the talk about "integrity" even more laughable when you consider that everything about the Big East, from their founding to each step in their development, was about location and TV market. Live by the money, die by the money.
Did BC win respect on the field warranting a bid to the ACC? or were they simply handed it thanks to being close to a large TV market? Yes the BE is all about TV markets. Look at those powerhouse cities like Providence, South Orange, Morgantown, New Brunswick.