Look what I found...Metro Days!

Half of my VCU stay was Sunbelt. And the second half was Metro. Those were fantastic leagues, and i do miss a lot of things about being in those types of leagues. But the CAA is definitely better now, than it was then. not even close, IMO. What we have got to do now.... as others have stated, is win. Period. And then we can worry more about realignment, conference affiliation, etc. We need to win big now. Just my opinion.
 
And wasn't that before they expanded to 64 teams?

VRam said:
Yeah, we needed to get out of a league that one year got four teams into the Tournament.
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THE CONFRENCE LANDSCAPE HAS CHANGED SO MUCH SINCE THE SUN BELT DAYS, IT IS NIGHT AND DAY. THE CAA IS JUST UNDER THE MAJOR CONFRENCES. THE CAA WOULD BE A MAJOR CONFRENCE WITH BCS FOOTBALL, BUT THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WE NEED TO DOMINATE THE CAA AND EVERYTHING WILL FALL INTO PLACE.
 
no doubt the Metro was a stronger conference talent-wise than the current CAA, but...

the CAA is moving in the right direction. Compare our won-loss records in the Metro vs CAA. Compare how many trips to the NCAAs in the Metro vs CAA. Plus, the CAA is starting to position itself for an at-large each year in addition to the automatic bid. Road games, in general, in the CAA are more accessible to fans who want to travel to away games. And if I want to hit one of the really far away schools, I'd much rather go to Boston, which I've done, versus Hattiesburg, MS.
 
rammed said:
no doubt the Metro was a stronger conference talent-wise than the current CAA, but...

the CAA is moving in the right direction. Compare our won-loss records in the Metro vs CAA. Compare how many trips to the NCAAs in the Metro vs CAA. Plus, the CAA is starting to position itself for an at-large each year in addition to the automatic bid. Road games, in general, in the CAA are more accessible to fans who want to travel to away games. And if I want to hit one of the really far away schools, I'd much rather go to Boston, which I've done, versus Hattiesburg, MS.
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I respect your opinion but I'm not buying your comparison between the Metro vs CAA. Sure, we have more wins in the CAA but what are those wins worth? If they can't get us into the NCAA tournament without having to win our conference, they aren't worth as much as the games we played while in the Metro. And let's face it, under normal circumstances, the CAA is not a multi bid league. We've been spoiled in recent years with several NCAA appearances because we were able to win our conference. How did you feel about the CAA the year William & Mary beat us in the semi-finals? We had a great record with plenty of wins but they weren't the quality wins the NCAA committee was looking for.
 
well its' easy for me to count the number of trips to the NCAAs while in the Metro (zero). We've had 4 while in the CAA. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I believe we have more trips to the NIT while in the CAA as well.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Metro and the talent that came to town. We were mostly a middle of the pack team, though. Maybe that was on Sonny. But I like winning and going to the dance. If we ultimately jump to a higher conference and can do those things, good by me.
 
rammed said:
well its' easy for me to count the number of trips to the NCAAs while in the Metro (zero). We've had 4 while in the CAA. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I believe we have more trips to the NIT while in the CAA as well.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Metro and the talent that came to town. We were mostly a middle of the pack team, though. Maybe that was on Sonny. But I like winning and going to the dance. If we ultimately jump to a higher conference and can do those things, good by me.
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Well, we made giant leap talent wise into the Metro conference. We were only in the Metro for 4 years. And you are correct, we had zero NCAA appearances during that time. We had one good year...and shoulda, woulda, coulda gone to the NCAA tournament but it didn't happen.

On the flip side, we've been in the CAA for about 15 years now. Our first NCAA appearance while in the CAA was with our dominant Metro players. It took 14 years to get the other three NCAA appearances you mention above. I would argue that we could match or exceed this number by moving into a multi bid conference.
 
The Metro and Sun Belt were both stronger basketball conferences, and overall sports, than the CAA is for VCU. The future will be divided into the private schools with strong basketball, Xavier etc., or state supported strong basketball universities with football, such or ODU, or starting football, such as Charlotte, neither of which VCU has a current fit to postion itself to be in a possible future multiple bid basketball conference! Those in the know who have supported VCU for many years know that VCU was caught with it's pants down when the Sun Belt and Metro was falling apart, and hopefully we will have a football team in place to postion VCU for the future changes that will surely take place in college athletics over the next decade. Hopefully, the current administration at VCU will be pro-active, and not have to be reactive for the future of VCU sports!
 
Regardless of Conference, it's been an exciting 30 years plus of VCU basketball. I'd rather go to a Ram game than any other game/sporting event. But that's just me.
 
rammed said:
no doubt the Metro was a stronger conference talent-wise than the current CAA, but...

the CAA is moving in the right direction. Compare our won-loss records in the Metro vs CAA. Compare how many trips to the NCAAs in the Metro vs CAA. Plus, the CAA is starting to position itself for an at-large each year in addition to the automatic bid. Road games, in general, in the CAA are more accessible to fans who want to travel to away games. And if I want to hit one of the really far away schools, I'd much rather go to Boston, which I've done, versus Hattiesburg, MS.
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I am on your side. I like the CAA. Enjoy the tournaments, the away games, the post-season games, the excitement of consistent winning, and all that goes with the CAA. I went to most of the Metro and Sun Belt games--home and away. These years in the CAA are much more exciting. The grass always look greener in other pastures, does't it? My one wish, however, is that the other universities in the CAA would develop their basketball programs to the same level as VCU and ODU. Then the CAA would be even better.
 
For the people glorifying the Metro Conference, wasn't it a pretty watered down conference by the time we joined (which is why we even had the opportunity to join)? When we joined the Metro the teams were Louisville, South Florida, Charlotte, Southern Miss, Va Tech, Tulane, and us.

During our Metro days they sent 3 teams to the tourament in '92 (Louisville, Tulane, Charlotte), 2 in '93 (Tulane, Louisville), 1 in '94 (Louisville) and 3 in '95 (Louisville, Tulane, Charlotte).
 
VRam said:
Regardless of Conference, it's been an exciting 30 years plus of VCU basketball. I'd rather go to a Ram game than any other game/sporting event. But that's just me.
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I'm in total agreement with this statement, but to be honest I do miss those regular games with Louisville and Tech. Also the games we scheduled at home with the likes of Texas, WVU, Marquette et al, as a result of the stature of our conference.
 
One big difference between being in a conference that usually just gets its one auto-bid into the tourney vs. being in a conference that usually gets in 2 or more teams (and may also have a team advance into the 2nd rd or even 3rd) is the additional number of NCAA tournament money shares. In the post-Navy days, the CAA has only occasionally scored a 1st round win, and only the ticks (sweet 16) and Mason (Final Four) added further wins. The last time the CAA got more than its one guaranteed share was in 2007 ...the CAA got 2 additional shares when ODU got the at-large and we got a 2nd round game because of beating Duke. The money from the extra shares is doled out over 4 years, so unless we get multi-bids and/or somebody wins a game or two this season, we'll drop back to getting only 1/12th of a single share after next season. The extra shares gained from the GMU(FF)/UNCW season and the VCU(rd2)/ODU season have provided some nice money for everybody in the conference... money that may well dry up very soon.

In consistantly multi-bid/multi-win conferences, the athletic departments... even of the less-than-successful teams ...can more dependably rely on the cash flow from those additional shares.
 
Very good point.

artRAMinMN said:
One big difference between being in a conference that usually just gets its one auto-bid into the tourney vs. being in a conference that usually gets in 2 or more teams (and may also have a team advance into the 2nd rd or even 3rd) is the additional number of NCAA tournament money shares. In the post-Navy days, the CAA has only occasionally scored a 1st round win, and only the ticks (sweet 16) and Mason (Final Four) added further wins. The last time the CAA got more than its one guaranteed share was in 2007 ...the CAA got 2 additional shares when ODU got the at-large and we got a 2nd round game because of beating Duke. The money from the extra shares is doled out over 4 years, so unless we get multi-bids and/or somebody wins a game or two this season, we'll drop back to getting only 1/12th of a single share after next season. The extra shares gained from the GMU(FF)/UNCW season and the VCU(rd2)/ODU season have provided some nice money for everybody in the conference... money that may well dry up very soon.

In consistantly multi-bid/multi-win conferences, the athletic departments... even of the less-than-successful teams ...can more dependably rely on the cash flow from those additional shares.
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