I have to disagree with you on your assessment that the conference will continue to slide. You would have expected, and it did occur, that when all the football schools were jumping ship that the conference would start to slid down. This was magnified by having new D1 schools join the conference in their painful growing years. Now that there has been some stability, the conference has started to improve in basketball and this should continue. The conference has always been pretty strong in the minor sports. The question is how do you keep improving as a conference, and the simple short answer is for the universities to make a commitment to become better. If a commitment is made and resources are significantly increased for operations and facility improvements, this conference can grow in reputation and only then can you possible attract well established D1 programs that have like needs and goals. Adding additional schools is not the right answer right now in my opinion because more than likely the interested schools would not raise the bar.. Let the conference schools make the commitment, add the resources, mature as an athletic department, and then look to add schools that can help continue raising the bar. Let the conference members help themselves first before they look to others to help them.

05/12/07 10:59 AM