Katz on UMass

[Chin Diesel]

I say we add the University of Toronto.

What the hell - Aresco wants to be creative? Add a Canadian to the American and blow everyone's mind.

They're like Tulane, but hurricane-proof.

That's crazier than infinity times infinity.

 

[Exit 4]

We need a local rival or we will just accelerate our irrelevancy. We will not survive as an athletic program in a southern mid major league.

I'd rather roll the dice on this one. I'm betting we can play Umass regularly in all sports as a non conf rival, but never admit them into the AAC. Plus, I just dont want to add another university that is clearly middle tier with mediocre state backing, w/o a substantive new tv market and with a low ceiling. Lets see how the first couple of years in the AAC goes.

 

[Husky25]

I'd rather roll the dice on this one. I'm betting we can play Umass beat Boston College regularly in all sports as a non conf rival, but never admit them into the AAC. Plus, I just dont want to add another university that is clearly middle tier with mediocre state backing at best, w/o a substantive new tv market and with a low ceiling, especially now that the persons blocking the resumption of the rivalry are no longer in key positions of the respective programs. Lets see how the first couple of years in the AAC goes.

That works better for me...

 

[Waquoit]

It's a combination of two things:

1. We're hyper sensitive

I'm gonna call BS on this. I think we're just the right enough sensitive.

 

[Fishy]

That's crazier than infinity times infinity.

It's not.

It's creative.

The Greater Toronto Area has about 7M people - it's the fourth or fifth largest city in North America, about the same size as Chicago.

Upside -

They play football. They have a football stadium. They have been to as many BCS bowls as Rutgers. The AAC would be able to start curling and mountain biking divisions using Toronto as a cornerstone.

Downside -

They lost to something called the Ottawa GeeGees. Their stadium seats about nine people. They spell offense as 'offence'. Their nickname is the Varsity Blues. Frank the Tank would spend three months and 127,000 words telling us why the Big Ten would prefer Toronto over UConn.

 

[Exit 4]

It's not.

It's creative.

The Greater Toronto Area has about 7M people - it's the fourth or fifth largest city in North America, about the same size as Chicago.

Upside -

They play football. They have a football stadium. They have been to as many BCS bowls as Rutgers. The AAC would be able to start curling and mountain biking divisions using Toronto as a cornerstone.

Downside -

They lost to something called the Ottawa GeeGees. Their stadium seats about nine people. They spell offense as 'offence'. Their nickname is the Varsity Blues. Frank the Tank would spend three months and 127,000 words telling us why the Big Ten would prefer Toronto over UConn.

The opportunity warrants the hiring of a consultant and a study. Seriously. If Aresco wants to make a name for himself, its time to internationalize the NCAA.

 

[freescooter]

We need a local rival or we will just accelerate our irrelevancy. We will not survive as an athletic program in a southern mid major league.

last I looked Philadelphia was in the northeast, so there's Temple, which actually does have the potential of a decent rivalry. then there's Navy, which is still in Maryland last I checked. And Cincy, while not exactly across town, is in Ohio, not Texas. The 2 Forida schools, while not exactly close are really easy to access from the Northeast. Hell, there are whole trailer parks in Florida with nobody but folks from Waterbury. Jet Blue flies from Hartford to Tampa for $250. If you book it today, you can get round trip tickets to Orlando for the UCF game for $210. There is a lot of nonsense running around about the AAC. There are many, many bad things, and it will be a mid-major conference but there are teams in places that you can get to with relative ease.

 

[Fishy]

The opportunity warrants the hiring of a consultant and a study. Seriously. If Aresco wants to make a name for himself, its time to internationalize the NCAA.

Let's just think of a fancy corporate name and send him a bill for the research we've already done.

Just saw that the National Autonomous University of Mexico has a half-million undergraduate students - someone tell them that their AAC ship is about to come in. Sure, they don't play football yet and their basketball team might not get a shot off for a couple of years, but in terms of soccer and general mayhem, they're exactly what the AAC is looking for.

 

[Fairfield 1st]

Andy Katz is a knucklehead for even suggesting this. He lives in West Hartford and is good friends with many a UCONN fan, yet continues to spit in their face with this ESPN garbage.

 

[IMind]

The opportunity warrants the hiring of a consultant and a study. Seriously. If Aresco wants to make a name for himself, its time to internationalize the NCAA.

Simon Fraser U in BC has been in the NCAA for two years. Divison II. Honestly the whole University of Toronto thing isn't quite that insane. It probably would be a better move than Tulane.. ;-)

 

[Exit 4]

Simon Fraser U in BC has been in the NCAA for two years. Divison II. Honestly the whole University of Toronto thing isn't quite that insane. It probably would be a better move than Tulane.. ;-)

Cool, I didnt know about Simon Fraser U. I'm dead serious too. If you want to make waves and add to the bottomline, then Toronto and its 7MM people makes a ton of sense...plus they will likely get national coverage - so it could be you pull in all 28MM people.

 

[Marty Jackson]

If UMass would invest in its football program I would be fine with this. Until the school plays its football games at a stadium closer than 1 hour 45 minutes from campus, I can't see any benefit in adding them to the American. Would it be nice to have a natural rival in the conference? Heck ya, but not at the price of watering down a severly watered down product as it is with one of the worst teams in the country that's administration and state considered canning after one year at FCS level.

Is Umass really a rising basketball program? They haven't made the tournament since the 98 season.

I get the sentiment, but knocking a school for playing football off campus is a little like the pot calling kettle black.

 

[pinotbear]

Simon Fraser U in BC has been in the NCAA for two years. Divison II. Honestly the whole University of Toronto thing isn't quite that insane. It probably would be a better move than Tulane.. ;-)

lots closer, too..
Changing gears a moment - so, if the greater Toronto market is 7 mill, in a country with a population of 28 mill - think about that. For that to happen in the US, 79 million folks would have to live in, say, the NYC market. And, Canada is geographically larger than the US, albeit much of it is tough to inhabit.

I think you're right - it isn't quite that insane. At least it has a dramatic potential upside. And then, adding Buffalo would be a natural!

 

[Exit 4]

lots closer, too..
Changing gears a moment - so, if the greater Toronto market is 7 mill, in a country with a population of 28 mill - think about that. For that to happen in the US, 79 million folks would have to live in, say, the NYC market. And, Canada is geographically larger than the US, albeit much of it is tough to inhabit.

I think you're right - it isn't quite that insane. At least it has a dramatic potential upside. And then, adding Buffalo would be a natural!

Unfortunately this is probably the plan for AFTER Houston, Cincy or USF/UCF are plucked by another conference.

 

[kingdobbs]

It's not.

It's creative.

The Greater Toronto Area has about 7M people - it's the fourth or fifth largest city in North America, about the same size as Chicago.

Upside -

They play football. They have a football stadium. They have been to as many BCS bowls as Rutgers. The AAC would be able to start curling and mountain biking divisions using Toronto as a cornerstone.

Downside -

They lost to something called the Ottawa GeeGees. Their stadium seats about nine people. They spell offense as 'offence'. Their nickname is the Varsity Blues. Frank the Tank would spend three months and 127,000 words telling us why the Big Ten would prefer Toronto over UConn.

Other downside:

The NCAA would have to change its rules to allow UToronto, or any other Canadian school, to play in Division I athletics.

 

[upstater]

Other downside:

The NCAA would have to change its rules to allow UToronto, or any other Canadian school, to play in Division I athletics.

There's a rule against it?

 

[SubbaBub]

It's not.

It's creative.

The Greater Toronto Area has about 7M people - it's the fourth or fifth largest city in North America, about the same size as Chicago.

Upside -

They play football. They have a football stadium. They have been to as many BCS bowls as Rutgers. The AAC would be able to start curling and mountain biking divisions using Toronto as a cornerstone.

Downside -

They lost to something called the Ottawa GeeGees. Their stadium seats about nine people. They spell offense as 'offence'. Their nickname is the Varsity Blues. Frank the Tank would spend three months and 127,000 words telling us why the Big Ten would prefer Toronto over UConn.

If this allows us to sue the pants off the NCAA in a Canadian court, then I'm all for it.

 

[Adios]

They lost to something called the Ottawa GeeGees.

Let's take them in, too!

 

[kingdobbs]

There's a rule against it?

The rule used to be much stricter. As in, *no* Canadian schools.

The NCAA opened up a pilot program in 2008 that allows Canadian schools to join the NCAA at the Division II level. Only one school (Simon Fraser U, in Burnaby, BC, right next to Vancouver) has taken them up on it so far.

But as far as D-I, it is presumably the case that anyone can join if they meet the D-I requirements, but because of the D-II membership rules, the school must join D-II for at least a small amount of time before qualifying for D-I membership.

Or, to put it another way: if we tried to convince UToronto or any other school to join D-I to get into the AAC, we're looking at a minimum of ten years before that school *actually* competes in the AAC.

 

[upstater]

The rule used to be much stricter. As in, *no* Canadian schools.

The NCAA opened up a pilot program in 2008 that allows Canadian schools to join the NCAA at the Division II level. Only one school (Simon Fraser U, in Burnaby, BC, right next to Vancouver) has taken them up on it so far.

But as far as D-I, it is presumably the case that anyone can join if they meet the D-I requirements, but because of the D-II membership rules, the school must join D-II for at least a small amount of time before qualifying for D-I membership.

Or, to put it another way: if we tried to convince UToronto or any other school to join D-I to get into the AAC, we're looking at a minimum of ten years before that school *actually* competes in the AAC.

Thanks.

Don't know why the NCAA makes such rules. All these universities are affiliated at higher levels. Canadian and American schools are already joined at the hip in a variety of ways academically. Also, check out Bobby Bowden's win totals record. Some of those wins that make him the top coach of all time were against the University of Mexico and Baja California Tech "B" team, etc.

 

[pj]

I'm all for Toronto if we change the conference name to the American-Canadian Conference (ACC) and send invoices to ESPN for $20 mn per year per team and they mistakenly pay them.

 

[kingdobbs]

The NCAA did it to address two out of three of the biggest concerns of the two divisions.

The biggest concern for D-II is a dwindling membership, consistent with the number of schools that elevated during the 80s and 90s, and an unclear membership philosophy (as in, what *binds* these schools together other than "We want to give scholarships, but not, like, a lot of them).

The biggest concern for D-I has been the opposite: *too many* teams joining D-I with no observable effort in producing a D-I level athletic product, because NCAA hoops money is pretty low hanging fruit.

Putting in specific verbiage that says "Canadian schools can join, if they go through D-II" meets both of those concerns for each division: it gets D-II a ready source of members, and it keeps them from thinking they can go straight to D-I and get hoops money.

Incidentally, D-III's biggest concern is a split between schools who are united by the theoretical common state of "offering no scholarships" but who diverge significantly in their athletic philosophies. You have schools like Mount Union who recruit, and put together top-tier athletic programs without scholarships, and schools like MIT who treat their varsity athletics program as little more than club teams with a different name.

 

[whaler11]

I honestly can't tell if Fishy is just screwing with you guys with this U Toronto BS.

I guess I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I can't believe anyone is taking it seriously.

 

[huskiesnyc]

A lot of reading comprehension issues here. Katz is a UConn fan, and most often gives us positive publicity in his 3-point thing. He's just stating his personal opinion, as a New England resident that UMass makes sense in the AAC. As an alum I would sure as hell rather watch a UConn vs UMass game than a UConn vs Tulsa/ECU/Houston/Tulane or any other garbage bball team in our league.

 

[huskiesnyc]

If this allows us to sue the pants off the NCAA in a Canadian court, then I'm all for it.

I'm looking at your avatar of the new logo without the toupee SubbaBub, and I can't believe how many jackasses here actually thought that looked better!