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Message: [QUOTE="CL82, post: 1689362, member: 44"] Highlights: [LIST] [*]To be sure, how well a school plays football (and to a much lesser extent, basketball) is certainly relevant, but TV markets, demographic changes and academic rankings are factors that really get university presidents get much more engaged. [*][B]Football Brand Value (30 points) [/B]It must be emphasized that Football Brand Value puts much [I]more weight on the long-term history[/I] and financial underpinnings of a program over short-term or recent success. [*][B]National TV Value (15 points)[/B] As with the Football Brand Value category, there is much [I]more weight on programs with longer histories of being national TV[/I] draws as opposed to the flavors of the moment. [*][B]Local TV Value (10 points)[/B] – 10 points will be granted to a top 25 market, 7 points to a 26-50 market, 3 point to a 51-75 market, and then 0 points after that. [*][B]Demographics/Recruiting Value (20 points)[/B] – The word “demographics” is really a code word for a very tangible concern for football fans and coaches: football recruits. [*][B]Academics (5 points)[/B] – 5 points will be assigned to any school that has at least 2 of the following 3 qualifications: an AAU member, ranked in the top 100 of the US News undergraduate rankings and/or ranked in the top 300 of the ARWU world graduate school rankings. A school that has 1 of those qualifications will receive 3 points. [*][B]Basketball Value (5 points)[/B] – An elite program and/or fan base will receive 5 points and a solid program and/or school with a fair amount of tradition will get 3 points. [*][B]Geographic Fit/Need (5 points)[/B] –schools in states that are located within that gap along with other states immediately adjacent to the current Big 12 footprint will receive 5 points, while everyone else will receive zero. [*][B]Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power (10 points)[/B] –As a result, much like an unpolished prospect with a lot of athleticism in the NFL or NBA draft, the upside potential of a school should be taken into consideration by the Big 12. This is especially true for a school that could potentially have “monopoly power” of being the only power conference program in its home state. Other factors include whether a school is a flagship or academically elite, has a proven basketball fan base, or has made a lot of recent investments in football facilities. [/LIST] CL82: These criteria are great insight into Frank's mindset, but probably not so much regarding the Big 12's analysis. 45% (the first two criteria) is history. I doubt anyone else is weighting that factor so much. Frank's interpretation of demographics as "recruiting grounds" is tortured. Why just list "recruiting grounds" as it's own criteria. Connecticut does quite well on "demographics" but quite poorly on recruiting grounds. So 65% of Frank's matrix has bias against us. I suspect that is why he created the last category as a kind of a "plug" giving value back to basketball and potential to move us up in the analysis. People accept that Connecticut is in play, so a matrix that ranked us as non-competitive would be suspect. [INDENT][B]CONNECTICUT Football Brand Value – 20 National TV Value – 10 Local TV Value – 7 Demographics/Recruiting Value – 0 Academics – 5 Basketball Value – 5 Geographic Fit/Need – 0 Tremendous Upside Potential/Monopoly Power – 10 Total: 57 Overview:[/B] In a vacuum, UConn is arguably the most power conference-like school that isn’t in a power conference today. If this were an ACC Expansion Index, then UConn would be close to a perfect score. Frankly, there’s still a part of me that’s surprised that UConn isn’t in the ACC already, but I perfectly understand why Louisville got the nod last year. The problem with the prospect of UConn going to the Big 12 is that it’s not a good fit for what the conference is seeking in expansion. UConn has actually performed aptly in football over the past decade outside of the last couple of years, yet the New England region is a black hole when it comes for football recruiting (particularly considering how it’s a high population area) and the school’s men’s and women’s basketball prowess probably has the least value to the Big 12 out of any of the power conferences (as hoops mainly benefit conferences that either have networks like the Big Ten has or strong basketball syndication deals like the ACC). Now, UConn’s Big East pedigree and relatively strong brand name means that the school has a large amount of upside, but it may not matter to the Big 12 with Connecticut being so far geographically from the conference’s core.[/INDENT] [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach