Wow

I don’t get it.

From the official CSUB announcement:

"CSUB will field teams in the following Big West sports:

· Men's – Basketball, baseball, soccer, track and field.

· Women's – Basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, track and field, volleyball, and beach volleyball.

President Mitchell said the move will provide a number of benefits to CSUB and the Big West Conference, including:

· Reducing missed class time for student-athletes. With all of the Big West institutions except Hawaii located in California, the amount of time students spend out of class will be reduced, and travel costs will be reduced by up to $400,000 a year. The average round-trip distance from Bakersfield to Big West member insitutions is 814 miles (302 miles with the exception of Hawaii). The average round-trip distance from Bakersfield to Western Athletic Conference institutions is 2,422 miles.

· Renewing rivalries wth many institutions that have long been competitors of CSUB and are familiar to the community. For example, CSUB has competed as conference rivals against UC Riverside for 28 years, Cal Poly for 22 years, and CSU Northridge for 18 years.

· Providing a built-in fan base for the conference, as about 10,000 graduates of Big West institutions live in Kern County. The move will enhance the fan experience for CSUB supporters and alumni from other institutions.

· Extending the media exposure of the Big West by adding the Bakersfield/Central Valley media market. CSUB is the largest sports entity in the Bakersfield market with no Division I competition for media exposure. The addition of CSUB to the Big West increases the conference's media footprint by 8,161 miles and adds more than 850,000 households."

http://gorunners.com/news/2017/11/27/general-csu-bakersfield-accepts-invitation-to-join-big-west-conference.aspx

Is there that much of a divide between Bakersfield and Fresno that Fresno St. doesn't dominate the Central/Southern valley sports scene? (Honest question, I don't know.)

Fresno is the big name in the valley but Bake is on the rise and has fielded some very athletic teams with a good fan following in their area. We used to have a good rivalry with them in basketball during the D2 era.

Yup, traveled there at least once for bball as a member of the band. :)

Just didn't know how much Fresno dominated the sports landscape at that end of the valley.

Um, wow. Two questions: 1) Why? 2) When does the Big "West" change its name to UC/CSU (and Hawaii) Conference?

How long will Hawai'i stay now...??

Hard to imagine them staying now and I don't blame them.

I'm not excited about adding these two schools. Bake should be able to come in and be fairly competitive. UCSD has to go through what we did and it will be a while before they are up to D1 speed and, even then, who knows how they will fare.

The thing that I don't like about this is that it adds two more home games to our basketball schedules with two teams that the students could care less about and does nothing for our rpi's and sos's. Then, if Hawai'i leaves, the conference gets even weaker.

Men's BB already can't get high quality OOC home games as it is and now we will have 2 less opportunities to try and bring in teams that the fans care to see. Women's BB, on the other hand, has been slowly but steadily bringing in some nice OOC games and, if they have a banner year this year, they might be able to schedule even more high quality teams. Now they have fewer opportunities to do so also.

Both of the basketball programs are getting better. They are the programs that can lead us to greater D1 exposure and success at a level that just might get the students' and the general fans' attention. We need to play up in basketball even if we take our lumps and, if we can schedule one or two ooc home games a year with some big name schools, we'll get fans in the seats even if we get thumped. Unfortunately, UCSD and Bake won't bring any new fans into the Pavilion.

Agree with everything you said. Here's what I don't get...we currently have 9 teams. Why add two unless you're expecting one (Hawaii is the obvious choice) to leave?

I feel the goal was to expand the foot print of the conference, why not New Mexico State, Seattle or Utah Valley? Makes ZERO sense to me.

Absolutely, any of those teams would have been better.

Or, add Utah Valley and Southern Utah. That way Southern Utah has a travel partner and in-state "rival" and doesn't leave them on an island like Hawaii.

Maybe it's time for the Aggies to find a new home but where.....??

The only conference that might think about taking us is the WAC...ironic isn't it?

Think about this, if the conference were to spit into North/South Divisions similar to what we have in soccer, the breakdowns would look something like this:

North:
UC Davis
Hawaii
Cal Poly
UCSB
Bako

South:
Northridge
Long Beach
Fullerton
UC Irvine
UC Riverside
UCSD

Bako would be the North/South split and Hawaii would be in the North. Hawaii's been called a lot of things but a northern state isn't one of them!

Our nearest conference foe is Cal Poly and they are three hours away. Conversely if Fullerton had to go to Northridge it could also be three hours away depending on traffic. Maybe they would fly from John Wayne to Burbank... :-$

That makes sense.

Home/home vs your division and then alternating home/away vs the other division? Seems like that leaves enough games for OOC competition.

Yes, but why would we settle for 11 teams? I think the conference is expecting someone to leave or are planning on adding another member.

Oh, for sure the odd number looks weird.

What are the most likely scenarios now for conference movement?

For us?

When Hawaii leaves (and they probably will), the Big West will be even more boring. The only conference in the country with all teams in the same state. Hell, lets just finish this thing and get Merced and Santa Cruz moved up to D1 and get them in. :-}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_conferences

But what about all the remaining CSU's?

Personally, I like the Stanislaus Warriors... affectionately known as "Stan State"

Here's a few more schools for the Big West to consider:

Academy of Art (well they've got some upset history with us)
Notre Dame (the da Namur one)
Holy Names (might as well keep God happy)
William Jessop (Onward Christian Soldiers)...

Ha. We've lost to half that list at least once...

For the BWC. Who will join or depart to make the conference one with an even number. We really have no other options and the decision made 6 or 7 years ago to join the BSC and stay in the BW was a good one.

Either Hawaii leaves and Slac is added (the only UC/CSU left in the state that would be ready to join the Big West, or Hawaii leaves and that is the end of the addition/subtraction game.

We can follow European soccer, consolidate with the CCAA and have D-I and D-II divisions. At the end of each season we relegate teams.

Or when Hawai'i decides they really don't want to fly to Bakersfield for volleyball and leaves the Big West, we can split into UC and CSU divisions.