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C-USA Rejected This?

dukewayne

All American
Jul 11, 2008
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Liberty Flames. Still scratching my head over this. In my opinion, C-USA missed an opportunity to add some improved competition to the conference on the field/court of play.

While this is sports related, I posted this thread here as this was a pretty contentious issue a couple of years ago.

Watched 2nd half of Liberty's win in the A-Sun tourney semifinal vs Stetson. It was a home game for Liberty which had a great crowd of about 7,000. Wasn't a sellout, but it was mostly full and loud. Liberty is returning to the A-Sun finals again vs Lipscomb this weekend. The game is at Liberty and on ESPN.

Seeing their really good team and big loud crowd was a strong reminder of the blown opportunity for C-USA. How many C-USA teams are getting 7,000 in the stands for home games? I'm guessing their home game this weekend for conf tourney championship will likely pack their arena.

Highlights of Liberty's recent successes:

  • This years record -- 29-4
  • Just won both A-Sun COY & POY
  • On a 21 Game Home Winning streak
  • Beat last year's incredible Lipscomb team for the A-Sun tourney Championship for auto bid to the NCAAs.
  • Liberty beat Miss St in the 1st Round last year. I believe it was a 12-5 match up.

Liberty Football:

In addition to their growing and improving facilities, this past season Liberty made it to a bowl game as a FBS Indep. & 8 wins on season. Not Earth shattering, but certainly not bad for a team lost in FBS indep wilderness.

Won Bowl game vs Ga Southern

In the major sports, their teams appear to be achieving some pretty good success especially for A-Sun and FBS Indep. They appear to have good fan support, and their facilities are downright impressive.

C-USA could really use a University that is invested and willing to compete at a high level in the major sports. Plus, geographically they could be an addition in the East to put in between Marshall & ODU. They would also be in the region of Charlotte as well. I'd estimate about 3-4 hr drive from ODU to Liberty; about 4-5 hours Marshall to Liberty; about 4 hr drive from Charlotte to Liberty. Rough estimates mind you.

Again, I think it is sad that C-USA appears to be blowing another opportunity. And this conference could use all the help it could get right about now.
 
Update:

Of course Liberty easily defeated Lipscomb yesterday to punch their ticket to The Big Dance. Their arena of about 10,000 was packed to the rafters, and the crowd was incredibly hyped and impressive.

ESPN studio pundits said it was the most amazing scene for March Madness to this point this year. Of course the sports pundits were really impressed with the Liberty HC that was an asst coach at Virginia. Great defense and good play all around, what's not to love?

I think I found my underdog/Cinderella team that I will likely have advancing a round or two on my bracket.

I think I might have felt a twinge of jealousy or envy. Whatever the case, good for them that their university is all in on their basketball team achieving big success.

I do not recall one C-USA game this year that matched that crowd in size or atmosphere. I guess C-USA is committed to the Massaro Model, mostly empty dead arenas.
 
Not to be forgotten, Liberty will be opening a brand new basketball arena by next season right next to their current arena. It will be about a 4,000 or 5,000 seat arena with luxury seating and the works. Something similar to size and shape of Belmont's arena with all the latest & greatest niceties. They will play their run of mill games in the smaller nicer arena. When big games necessitates, they will play those games in their 10,000 seat arena.

Again, it must be nice to have a university, leadership, and university community that is all in for supporting their athletics programs to be as successful as possible.

I think C-USA really blew it in rejecting Liberty. I'm really beginning to wonder where the current leadership is taking C-USA. Sadly, it seems McPhee & Massaro led MT fit well into the direction of C-USA.
 
If you recall, numerous people freaked out about the schools’s religious stances.

To me, I don’t care at all - athletic affiliations & competition in no way mean I agree or disagree with some other groups values. It means we are going to play you in x sport. I don’t associate WAC or Mountain West schools with BYU values.

That said, some people really seem to care. I tend to agree with you.
 
I don't hear anyone complain about notre dumb - they could easily join any conference they want
 
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It was something to that effect. I don't have a problem with a private religious school being in ours or any conference.

Belmont is a private religious school. Should the ovc throw them out?

Should C-USA reject Georgetown if they wanted to join our conference? Georgetown is clearly a private religious school. I'm not suggesting Georgetown is going to come a calling, but you get the point.

What if the great Notre Dame wanted to join our league? Would C-USA say no to them?

If not good enough for conference membership, should those teams be scheduled for games out of conference? Should Lipscomb be thrown off our schedule?

Heck if I'm not mistaken, a bunch of C-USA schools turned around and scheduled Liberty in football anyways. Didn't MT even get in on that act? What's the difference? What's the big deal?
 
I would love to see Liberty in the conference. It would provide CUSA with a program that is on the rise and is very well supported. Might be tough to compete with though. Very deep pockets.
https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/columns/article_4aef1fa8-6614-58ea-97f4-25805187fa70.html

"Liberty even offered to open its checkbook. Sources told me that in 2016, Liberty offered Conference USA millions of dollars more than the usual $2 million admission fee for an invitation.

How many millions more? One source pegged the offer at $24 million. The offer coincidentally came at about the same time C-USA was learning its TV revenue would soon crater, going from paying $1.1 million per school annually to about $200,000."

"And the Flames are spending profusely to attract opponents. They will write a check for $1.32 million to Old Dominion when the Monarchs come to Lynchburg next season, for example. They’re paying Southern Miss and Marshall $500,000 each for a home-and-home series."

Why not play them instead of Georgia, Michigan, etc.? Pays almost the same.
 
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