We hit on this a few weeks ago immediately after the A10 tourney ended. SBUnfurled finally broke it all down a day ago. Long read. Tons of good info on how the A10 is not helping itself and what it should be doing for league scheduling.

https://www.sbunfurled.com/post/the-cas ... tlantic-10

As power conferences consolidate control over college basketball, leagues like the Atlantic 10 are being legislated out of their ability to earn at-large bids. With the margin for error narrowing more each season, the A-10 cannot afford to stand idly by and be squeezed into irrelevancy. The league must explore new approaches to give its programs the best chance to return to multi-bid status. One of those approaches - if not the main one - is dynamic scheduling.

LUC should be willing to give it a try

This sounds like something worth trying for a few years to see if it produces the desired results.
What are the chances that tha A-10 will accept it?

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Let's go Braden!

As the Big Lebowski said " Lots of ins and lots of outs" . The dust is still settling on this changing era of college sports. But when the dust is settled(NCAA establishing rules and limits on NIL specifically) I think institutions will be making decisions that may change many schools and conferences significantly. I think people paid attention to the demise of the mid majors in the tournament this year. Some people loved it some people hated it. College is essentially about education and money, TV is about money. Expanding conferences and large conferences are about increasing tv revenue by expanding markets (most likely the reason we got invited in and Creighton is in the Big East). At some point colleges have to make a decision if the money expended is worth it in the overall picture. 50% of the graduating class at my local high school will be attending jr college....not based on ability but tuition cost. St. Francis PA has already dropped to DIII from DI....some schools may have a sugar daddy, others may have tough decisions to make. The NCAA is concerned about the $. However Drew's point about non-football schools benefiting from a ceiling and revenue share offers some hope. But take a look at Fordham. They have a small, antiquated gym, seems like a small fan base...how long will they hang on. Going to be fluid and interesting over the next few years. Long way from watching LaRue hit sky hooks at the old gym with the radiators blasting and Fr.(Smokey Joe) Loftus puffing away on his cigarettes in a dark corner of the gym like a CIA spy.
Loyola will have to be making some serious decisions...consider that for the foreseeable future federal funds and grants will be drying up and then "The annual tuition to attend Loyola University Chicago is $50,270. The cost is the same for both in-state and out-of-state students. Room and board fees are an additional $16,894. For educational materials, students should allocate approximately $1,200 for books and supplies plus" and that does not include beer money.

I don't think athletics make an impact on the bottom line for most schools. The amount spent on athletics does not move the needle. The annual budget at Loyola is close to a billion dollars. The net amount spent on athletics is less than percent of the budget probably closer to zero than 1%. It does not impact impact tuition. I would argue for Loyola - the school has benefited dramatically from its rise to basketball relevancy.

Agree with Fordham. In 104 seasons, Fordham has made 4 tournaments. Since joining the A10 in 1995-96, they have not even come close to being competitive or making an effort. Their futility is historic. https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... rdham/men/

Some schools just don't belong in their current conferences....

The other night I was looking thru league records. 10 to 15 years ago this league was kicking out 4-5-6 bids per year. Schedulers and commish would be foolish to not try this format. The Mountain West model with its current bball members works. Guaranteeing themselves 4 to 5 bids which they've stolen from other conferences. Their top teams are also able to get quality non conference games too.

For our sake of scheduling, we are beneficiaries of having the regional rivalries with SLU and Dayton. Between the two, we already play them 4 times and that helps all of our resumes. These four games should get moved to February where wins and losses matter even more. Then, it does us zero good to play Fordham and Davidson in early March. Swap those game dates instead with an extra against VCU and Bonnies or Mason. That would give each of the top 4 or 5 teams a potential of 8 to 10 in-conference quad-1/quad-2 games. By now it's well established we are going to be a perennial top 4/top 5 team in the league and able to hang out with VCU, Dayton, SLU. The league's best need to play each other and get rewarded if they're willing to invest and contend and get serious.

Response to R88
Perception becomes reality and if I am shelling out 70,000 to attend LU annually and see that a bball player is getting a million + a scholarship....that makes me take pause.
I think the college world is changing and do not disagree that the Final 4 run was a real bump...but with the changing influence of the top 4/5 conferences, if that continues to play out, the chance of that occurring again? And if we are stuck in a one bid conference? We barely got print in the Sun Times during the NIT...
I guess a lot depends on what data says about why kids choose to attend LU these days and maybe you are correct that the University is so well off financially that it can afford the luxury of a big time program...But if the movie Mean Girls taught us anything it is a slippery slope from popular to unpopular.
Response to RamblerRagas
Agree that the A-10 scenery is different than the one we first entered or thought we entered. a 15 team conference with one bid...seems like tough odds.....
But Again a lot of this is going to depend on what shakes out...in terms of final NIL rules and NCAA reaction to no mid-majors involved in the Dance.

My worst nightmare is that the NCAA divides The Dance into classes by size, like in high school.
We would never have another Cinderella like Hebron or Milan were in high school.

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Let's go Braden!

I think the A10 pretty much has to implement this. Expecting the P5 to give back an inch is foolish, it's clear they view the college sports landscape as a zero-sum money grab. So the A10 is gonna have to claw out their own space.

On that note, with Gonzaga leaving, it seems like the WCC would be pretty amenable to some sort of scheduling agreement -- really all of the upper mid-majors should probably work something out.

Hebron's water tower is still a huge basketball!!! They now play 7 person football at Hebron.