First reaction: UMass to the MAC

[Steve81]

I was not jumping to any conclusions, just stating the facts. Ignore the facts if you wish.

No one is ignoring it will suck for you, Matty V or a majority of fans, who identified as primarily hoops person*. Everyone agrees the MAC is not as good as A10 in basketball or Women's lacrosse. The rest of the conferences is close to par and obviously much better for football and most likely men's soccer. Likewise, don't ignore the MAC is generally not that bad and will be better with us and perhaps WKU.

*Look at the above vote. Primary hoops persons are the only ones with a higher percentage of those that dislike or hate the move.

[harbo]

Just curious, some six weeks since the poll closed, has anyone had second thoughts or revelations about their choice? Since my first hoops game, where they closed the doors about 20 seconds after I walked in (and very early in the JV game), to trips to the NIT, to my introduction to lacrosse, to going down to Amherst College for ice hockey, to seeing a couple of future major leaguers at Lorden Field, to going to McGuirk for some good football (and outstanding band presentations, including the sinking library), to beating myself up for not traveling to Chattanooga, I have never been meh about UMass sports. But the perceived lack of forward progress beyond mediocrity from the powers that be at UMass keep me in the meh category, with few expectations for the near future.

[ZooMass84]

its interesting how all the people that argue that UMASS basketball moving into the MAC is not a big step down for the BBall program and that the level of play in the MAC is not all that bad. But you all have us now winning 20 plus games every year . WOW how does a team that has only won 20 + games once in the last 10 years all of sudden becomes a 20 + win team each year if the talent level in the big MAC does not suck !!

Our 15 win average team (over the last 10 years), now is becoming a 20+ win team. Wow I can't wait to go see these low talent games !!

Aren't we going to lose revenue dollars from basketball TV contracts due to this drop ? and basketball plays twice as many games as football.

There had to be a better solution than this, specially after all the years Bamford has been working on this project.
Can we please move on from Bamford...... why has no other school scooped up this young talented Athletic leader ?
Hopefully Bamford is working on finding a new basketball coach, as Frank is going to be leaving in a year.

we're not losing TV revenue $$$, we're making more $$$$. We couldn't keep going as an FBS indy (only ND and UConn are left and they are both in excellent leagues ACC and Big East) they are all set.

[stevemaz]

I think any opionion on the move to the MAC should be put on hold until we see what happens once the Florida St/Clemson issue is resolved. The ACC is going to have to look to lesser conferences to replace the schools they will lose to SEC/Big Ten maybe/Big 12. UConn is a virtual lock to be added to the ACC. One thing i havent seen considered on this site is the possibly of the Mountain West plucking American schools to form a super conference of their own. Is it possible that Temple, East Carolina, Charlotte, Old Dom, Army, and Navy for instance end up in the MAC? There is no doubt in my mind that the A10 is in big trouble. I would say Dayton and Saint Louis will be Big East bound as part of this next realignment.

[ZooMass84]

It's really basic: the basketball people wanted us to stay in the A 10 and whatever happened to football would happen to football. They really don't care. The problem with that is that football would eventually go away, sooner than later. The hoops fans would just as soon have us like URI or UMaine. I think the A10 is a rather sorry league these days. I know we got 2 bids to the Big Dance but so what? They were gone in one or two games.

[ZooMass84]

If you go by USNWR rankings: UMaine is 249, UNH is 115, URI is 151. Now we are 67 and UConn is 58. It's NOT a coincidence that Flagship State Universities that play FBS football are ranked higher than FCS. Don't need EconAlum saying "would've happened anyway" "applications doubled - would've happened anyway".