Look what I found...Metro Days!

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Tech, VCU file lawsuit against Metro Conference

Virginia Tech Spectrum, January 26, 1995

Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech have filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Richmond seeking a temporary injunction against the proposed realignment of the Metro Conference.

The lawsuit also aims to prevent the establishment of a new conference affiliation and seeks enforcement of VCU's and Virginia Tech's rights under the existing Metro Conference Constitution.

President Paul Torgersen was notified of the tentative plans to reorganize the Metro Conference and expel VCU and Tech in a copy of a letter sent to VCU President Eugene Trani on January 13.

The lawsuit accuses the Metro Conference schools of breach of contract by violating the rules of its constitution. By seeking to form a new conference, the five Metro schools have effectively withdrawn from the Metro Conference and thus owe the conference a $500,000 penalty fee per school and have lost their voting rights. The suit also accuses the other schools interested in forming the new conference with interference with the Metro Conference contract.

The Metro universities are Louisville, Tulane, North Carolina at Charlotte, South Florida, and Southern Mississippi. Universities seeking to create the new conference are Cincinnati, Memphis, DePaul, Marquette, St. Louis, and Alabama-Birmingham.

The Richmond Times Dispatch reported that a hearing on a temporary injunction is scheduled for today, January 26.

We should be playing Louisville, Tulane, Cincinnati, Memphis, DePaul, and Marquette right now :x
 
vcudesign said:
We should be playing Louisville, Tulane, Cincinnati, Memphis, DePaul, and Marquette right now :x

I dunno. Seems to me we have our hands pretty full right now. We haven't exactly devastated the CAA so far this year. Maybe we'll get a chance to play those guys in March!
 
But just imagine how much easier recruiting would be. Plus, with a conference that strong we would almost guarantee an at-large bid every couple of years just due to conference RPI if we were playing the way we play now, plus the exposure from more nationally televised games. Louisville, Memphis (if only because of Calipari), Cincy and Marquette are strong programs.

BUT, no need to live in the past. As our boy EM3 says, the man upstairs does everything for a reason, and we are in the CAA now, whether we all like it or not. let's make the best of it, and continue our winning tradition. GO RAMS!!
 
We didn't exactly tear up the Metro Conference either though. Sure we had nice wins every now and then, but we were never really a threat to win the conference. That was a different level of competition from the CAA. Another time, another place. We recruited a different level of player, played a different level of school and all that.

Though I guess you could argue we never pumped out a first-round NBA draft pick those years either. :lol:
 
We were in the Conference final Sherron Mills senior season, playing without injured Kendrick Warren. Should have gotten into the Tournament.
 
Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and Depaul are all in the Big East. We would not be playing them. Conference USA, as it stands today, is not as good as the CAA. Concentrate on Georgia St.
 
VRam said:
We were in the Conference final Sherron Mills senior season, playing without injured Kendrick Warren. Should have gotten into the Tournament.
That's right...we were in the conference final and should have received an at-large bid as we beat Tulane late in the season on their home court. However, the NCAA selection committee extended the at-large bid to Tulane...WTF!!! I still remember how upset Sonny was regarding this situation.

I think often times some of our posters bash the Metro days without really appreciating the leap we made at that time. Sure, no conference championships or NCAA bids. However, we were playing on a much higher level and would have continued to grow as a team and a program had the Metro teams not decided to go a different direction.

At that time, the Metro Conference was ranked very high...at one point I believe it was 3rd in the nation (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). I thought we became very competitive over the 4 years that we were in the Metro. How do you think we'd fare today if we hopped into the SEC, ACC or BIg East? I think we'd win some games but it would take several years to recruit and play on the level of these teams...the same as it did in the Metro.
 
The Metro was very good for VCU, but the only way we survived was by recruiting a ton of jucos. We probably had almost as many jucos on the team as 4 year players. Sonny survived for a while with that recruiting philosophy, but it ended up haunting him in the end and Mack probably doesn't get enough credit for changing that trend to focus on freshmen coming out of high school. It's very tough changing a program that recruits "quick fixes" to a program that invests in freshmen for 4 years. That probably attributed to some of our lean years more than anything else.
 
I think often times some of our posters bash the Metro days without really appreciating the leap we made at that time.

All you need to know about the difference, at the time, between the Metro & CAA is to look at our results our first year in the CAA. We lost two games both on the road and both by 1 point and then pasted UR by 50 on our way to the tourney title.
I will say this... the CAA is a better conference today than then IMHO. The CAA is where we play & the metro doesn’t exist...so be it.
 
Ramdog said:
The CAA is where we play & the metro doesn’t exist...so be it.
Correct! However, I'd like to see VCU make a full court press to get us back into a conference such as the Metro. Several months ago, Hofstra came out and said they would like to explore other conference affiliations. Not sure if that got them anywhere but I'd like VCU to do the same. I think we'd be a much more desirable team for most higher level conferences than would Hofstra. Right now, VCU is hot! If we were ever going to make a move, it seem now would be the time.
 
One of the best things was Tech couldn't avoid us.
 
Sun Belt
1989 - 90 - 11-17
1990- 91 - 14-17
Metro
1991-92 - 14-15
1992-93 - 20-10
1993-94 - 14-13
1994-95 - 16-14

Growth was at a snail's pace.

Rambler said:
However, we were playing on a much higher level and would have continued to grow as a team and a program had the Metro teams not decided to go a different direction.
 
My freshman year was VCU's 1st year in the CAA. Boy, did we beat up on people with bide wide bodies down low? I was very upset that VCU did not go to CUSA or to the A10. With that said you have to give credit that VCU did not give up on making the program special. They could have easy give up and said big time success was not for them.

I truly believe we can play in the Big East right now. We may not win the Big East off the bat but we can win games right away. In a few years we can go toe to toe with UConn, Nova, and SU.
 
I attended during the Sun Belt glory days and we didn't appeciate how good that conference was back then. The same way people talk about getting out of the CAA we talked about needing to get out of the Sun Belt.
 
Yeah, we needed to get out of a league that one year got four teams into the Tournament.
 
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