According to one website’s publication we are #24 in their “Ultra Early Mid Major Rankings for 2014-2015”. This puts us fourth in the conference behind La Tech, UTEP and new CUSA member Western Kentucky. I’m sure most people don’t put much stock in these types of things, but it’s the off season and it’s something Charlotte basketball related. Here’s the link for your viewing pleasure.
Thanks Andy for the information. However, I just despise these “mid-major” polls. If anyone can provide me with a clear and commonly accepted definition of what constitutes “mid-major”, let me know. Otherwise, it is just an insult! We are Division 1 and these so called experts should just leave it at that. As Xavier said a few years ago, “We refuse to participate.”
Based on some descriptions(conference affiliation and budget) UConn is a “mid major”. Yet they’ve won the most championships in recent history.
Yeah, but they won all but this year’s championship as part of a BCS conference with a BCS check coming in every year. And being honest, they are just 9 months removed from being in a BCS conference as of now. If they still perform at that level in 5 years as part of a “mid-major” conference then that will be noteworthy.
Yeah, but they one all but this year’s championship as part of a BCS conference with a BCS check coming in every year. And being honest, they are just 9 months removed from being in a BCS conference as of now. If they still perform at that level in 5 years as part of a “mid-major” conference then that will be noteworthy.[/quote]I think they will. Their endorsement contracts are huge. Their NCAA revenue is huge. They’re getting a big payout from the sale of the BE name. They’re getting money from exist fees.
They’ll be just fine financially to continue putting a championship caliber basketball team on the court. Football may be impacted by the lesser payouts, but it isn’t like they were doing much there anyway except for that one season when they won the BE.
I’m surprised you of all people 49Rfootball would miss this, but most people considered BE football as mid-major and that they were not deserving of an automatic BCS bid. The point is the term is irrelevant because there’s no true variable to define it.
The on-field quality of their football programs didn’t matter because they were still getting an automatic BCS bowl bid every year and still cutting a BCS check annually.
#'s 4-23 makes me sad to see what we have become as a program.
I disagree for a few reasons.
#1. This is a measure of how each team looks coming into next year, not the overall success of a program, but an isolated year.
#2. I think we tend to overblow some of our accomplishments. We have only made it to the sweet sixteen or better one time: the 77 Final Four. We have 11 all-time NCAA appearances. Just looking at the next several on the list (starting with #4, where you start getting sad):
New Mexico State has 21 appearances, five sweet sixteens, and a final four.
FGCU competes with Cleveland State for weakest resume, but they went to the sweet sixteen last year.
Iona has ten, including two in a row.
Toledo only has four, but they’ve been to a sweet sixteen more recently than we have.
BYU has 28(!) tournament appearances, seven sweet sixteens, and three elite eights.
Celeveland State probably has the worst resume with two appearances, but a sweet sixteen more recently than us, as well.
Northern Iowa only has six appearances, but they were in the sweet sixteen in 2010.
ULL has ten appearances and two sweet sixteens.
My point being that, even in our heyday, it’s not like we were making sweet sixteens regularly. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some great teams and good runs- we’re not ECU; but we’re also not Duke.
I disagree for a few reasons.
#1. This is a measure of how each team looks coming into next year, not the overall success of a program, but an isolated year.
#2. I think we tend to overblow some of our accomplishments. We have only made it to the sweet sixteen or better one time: the 77 Final Four. We have 11 all-time NCAA appearances. Just looking at the next several on the list (starting with #4, where you start getting sad):
New Mexico State has 21 appearances, five sweet sixteens, and a final four.
FGCU competes with Cleveland State for weakest resume, but they went to the sweet sixteen last year.
Iona has ten, including two in a row.
Toledo only has four, but they’ve been to a sweet sixteen more recently than we have.
BYU has 28(!) tournament appearances, seven sweet sixteens, and three elite eights.
Celeveland State probably has the worst resume with two appearances, but a sweet sixteen more recently than us, as well.
Northern Iowa only has six appearances, but they were in the sweet sixteen in 2010.
ULL has ten appearances and two sweet sixteens.
My point being that, even in our heyday, it’s not like we were making sweet sixteens regularly. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some great teams and good runs- we’re not ECU; but we’re also not Duke.[/quote]
Nice work on the research, still makes me sad.
I disagree for a few reasons.
#1. This is a measure of how each team looks coming into next year, not the overall success of a program, but an isolated year.
#2. I think we tend to overblow some of our accomplishments. We have only made it to the sweet sixteen or better one time: the 77 Final Four. We have 11 all-time NCAA appearances. Just looking at the next several on the list (starting with #4, where you start getting sad):
New Mexico State has 21 appearances, five sweet sixteens, and a final four.
FGCU competes with Cleveland State for weakest resume, but they went to the sweet sixteen last year.
Iona has ten, including two in a row.
Toledo only has four, but they’ve been to a sweet sixteen more recently than we have.
BYU has 28(!) tournament appearances, seven sweet sixteens, and three elite eights.
Celeveland State probably has the worst resume with two appearances, but a sweet sixteen more recently than us, as well.
Northern Iowa only has six appearances, but they were in the sweet sixteen in 2010.
ULL has ten appearances and two sweet sixteens.
My point being that, even in our heyday, it’s not like we were making sweet sixteens regularly. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some great teams and good runs- we’re not ECU; but we’re also not Duke.[/quote]
I see this argument against us used a lot, but some additional context should be added. of our 11 appearances, 8 of them came in an 11 year period, along with 2 NITs (IIRC on that). At the time, we were one of only 3-4 teams to have made that many appearances in the last 11-12 seasons. It put us in some elite company AT THAT TIME. Additionally, many (probably most) of these so-called “mid-majors” have not made many NCAAs with “at-large” bids, while all but 4 (I think) of our bids have been at-large. That shows the caliber of program we were in the 90s and early 2000s. Does it help us now (after not making it for 8-9 years)? No, probably not but it is part of our history that we should be proud of. Also, most schools have been d1 longer than we have, thus they have had more years to earn bids than we have. Remember, we only became D1 in the early 70s.
I disagree for a few reasons.
#1. This is a measure of how each team looks coming into next year, not the overall success of a program, but an isolated year.
#2. I think we tend to overblow some of our accomplishments. We have only made it to the sweet sixteen or better one time: the 77 Final Four. We have 11 all-time NCAA appearances. Just looking at the next several on the list (starting with #4, where you start getting sad):
New Mexico State has 21 appearances, five sweet sixteens, and a final four.
FGCU competes with Cleveland State for weakest resume, but they went to the sweet sixteen last year.
Iona has ten, including two in a row.
Toledo only has four, but they’ve been to a sweet sixteen more recently than we have.
BYU has 28(!) tournament appearances, seven sweet sixteens, and three elite eights.
Celeveland State probably has the worst resume with two appearances, but a sweet sixteen more recently than us, as well.
Northern Iowa only has six appearances, but they were in the sweet sixteen in 2010.
ULL has ten appearances and two sweet sixteens.
My point being that, even in our heyday, it’s not like we were making sweet sixteens regularly. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some great teams and good runs- we’re not ECU; but we’re also not Duke.[/quote]
Nice work on the research, still makes me sad.[/quote]
I just blew up the bathroom. Does that make you happy?
Hey, remember when people argued we weren’t a mid major in these threads?
[quote=“eason49, post:13, topic:28763”]Hey, remember when people argued we weren’t a mid major in these threads?[/quote]. yes it used to be almosg universally accepted that we were NOT a mid major and anyone suggesting we were , was blasted by everyone on this board.
Hard to argue against being a mid major in a one bid conference. Hell, we are lucky we are not being called a low major.
Shhhhhhhhh… Don’t give anyone any ideas.
We’ve had the better RPI average this last generation of graduating seniors, the head to head record is about even, we have similar facilites, we spend more money on basketball now, and we had about the same attendance last year when the conference schedule was the same. The only real difference in anything tangible in 2014 or beyond between ECU/UNCC is conference affiliation and there is no AAC or A10 on that list. Pretty clear where they draw their line.
As far as UConn, even in CUSA 2.0 it never hurt Memphis. They still had 16k fans in their NBA arena and recruited McDonld’s All Americans etc under Pastner. SMU is top 10-15 in these early CBS/ESPN polls next year, if they and Memphis can recruit top 25 classes no reason to think UConn is going to drop off any.
We’ve had the better RPI average this last generation of graduating seniors, the head to head record is about even, we have similar facilites, we spend more money on basketball now, and we had about the same attendance last year when the conference schedule was the same. The only real difference in anything tangible in 2014 or beyond between ECU/UNCC is conference affiliation and there is no AAC or A10 on that list. No MWC either. It’s pretty clear where they draw their line.
As far as UConn, even in CUSA 2.0 it never hurt the Memphis. They still had 16k fans in their NBA arena and recruited McDonld’s All Americans etc under Pastner. SMU is top 10-15 in these early CBS/ESPN polls next year, if they and Memphis can recruit top 25 classes no reason to think UConn is going to drop off any.[/quote]
The RPI is meaningless due to the number of Div-II teams you play. ECU sucks at basketball. Get over it. Please move on to football where your argument is at least remotely intelligible.
We’ve had the better RPI average this last generation of graduating seniors, the head to head record is about even, we have similar facilites, we spend more money on basketball now, and we had about the same attendance last year when the conference schedule was the same. The only real difference in anything tangible in 2014 or beyond between ECU/UNCC is conference affiliation and there is no AAC or A10 on that list. Pretty clear where they draw their line.
As far as UConn, even in CUSA 2.0 it never hurt Memphis. They still had 16k fans in their NBA arena and recruited McDonld’s All Americans etc under Pastner. SMU is top 10-15 in these early CBS/ESPN polls next year, if they and Memphis can recruit top 25 classes no reason to think UConn is going to drop off any.[/quote]New Niner was referring to Charlotte’s run in the 90’s to early 00’s. ECU is a relevant comparison, as your program is historically bad, including during this time frame. I’d argue that ECU has underachieved more than any program in the history of Division I basketball given your conference affiliations and resources, making the Pirates the worst D-1 program in history, and winning the CIB is not going to change that perception.
We’ve had the better RPI average this last generation of graduating seniors, the head to head record is about even, we have similar facilites, we spend more money on basketball now, and we had about the same attendance last year when the conference schedule was the same. The only real difference in anything tangible in 2014 or beyond between ECU/UNCC is conference affiliation and there is no AAC or A10 on that list. Pretty clear where they draw their line.
As far as UConn, even in CUSA 2.0 it never hurt Memphis. They still had 16k fans in their NBA arena and recruited McDonld’s All Americans etc under Pastner. SMU is top 10-15 in these early CBS/ESPN polls next year, if they and Memphis can recruit top 25 classes no reason to think UConn is going to drop off any.[/quote]
I just don’t understand why you would even make the argument that ECU’s most successful period in hoops ever is about even with Charlotte’s worst period in 30 years, but if that makes you feel better about yourself go ahead. Just take it to the Boneyard, because we really do not care.