crashcarson15

Butler's not going anywhere right now. Each and every one of their athletic programs, with the exception of men's basketball, would get torn apart in the Missouri Valley or the Atlantic Ten. Plus, why would they want to move out of a conference that they're always making it to the tournament out of? If they played a Missouri Valley or A-10 schedule year-in, year-out, who knows if they'd always be in the Big Dance.

Agreed, if they were struggling in the league then they are in now then I would say it makes sense. But they are basically getting an automatic bid in the tourney every year. It wouldnt make any sense.

Also, the other thing that has to be considered is the travel. Currently, each and every one of their conference games (with the exception of their football team) happens no farther than 7 or so hours from campus (UW-Green Bay), when in a conference like the Missouri Valley or Atlantic 10, they'd have to travel to places such as Amherst, Massachusetts or Charlotte, North Carolina. This would exponentially increase travel costs for non-revenue sports. It's just not happening.

Butler's not going anywhere right now. Each and every one of their athletic programs, with the exception of men's basketball, would get torn apart in the Missouri Valley or the Atlantic Ten. Plus, why would they want to move out of a conference that they're always making it to the tournament out of? If they played a Missouri Valley or A-10 schedule year-in, year-out, who knows if they'd always be in the Big Dance.

Montana was invited to the WAC and declined

And before any Boise fan comes in here complaining, get better academically and then maybe you can talk with the Pac 10.

Oh no, not this condescending bullcrap.

hey it's tough to learn and read gooder like the kids at Arizona and Washington State

Haha I've just got the UofA sig this week to piss of Gary. lol

I'm a visual learner, so here's a quick representation of everything that's transpired so far.

When a team has moved, they are grayed out in their old conference and appear with their color in the new conference.

To my knowledge, Hawaii and TCU have not finalized their moves, but are expected to soon.

As an FYI, you forgot Buffalo in the MAC but otherwise it looks right.

Can't say I'm surprised to see TCU bolting to the Big East, and well now the MWC is screwed.

And before any Boise fan comes in here complaining, get better academically and then maybe you can talk with the Pac 10.

It'll be interesting to see what team gets in. Army and Navy have to be considered dark horses. It's got nothing to do with success at this point, it's mostly about survival if they were raided again. But given they announced they'd only be adding two football members, it makes you think they're just going to pursue schools that'll only join the league for football even though it goes against most of the conventional wisdom of the day. That would rule out TCU, who'd probably bolt the league in the long-term anyway once a more geographically sound option revealed itself (hello Big 12)

Honestly, I don't think Navy would be bad for the Big East.

I actually think UCF would be good for the Big East. That's just me though.

That's pretty cool.

Some shots of Troy's 2009 Sun Belt Conference Championship ring. These are shots of some players' rings (the shots of my ring didn't turn out that good).

Just out of curiosity, how did you get a ring? Either way, that's pretty cool.

I've come up with a cool idea for an NBA re-alignment, provided that two more teams enter the league (Kansas City expansion franchise and revival of the Sonics). This would necessitate one team moving east, with Memphis being the likely candidate.

WEST:

California Division: Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Warriors

Northwest Division: Sonics, Blazers, Nuggets, Jazz

Southwest Division: Suns, Mavs, Spurs, Rockets

Midwest Division: Wolves, Thunder, Kansas City team, Hornets

EAST:

Northeast Division: Celtics, Knicks, Raptors, Nets (or whatever their name will be in a couple years)

Mid-Atlantic Divison: Cavs, Wizards, Bobcats, Sixers

Central Division: Bulls, Pistons, Bucks, Pacers

Southeast Division: Magic, Heat, Grizzlies, Hawks

Personally, I'd send the Wolves east, because they're on an island in the West currently, where Memphis has OKC and NO close nearby.

I love pointing out fakes at school to other kids and describing what's wrong with them.

So, I have a whole lotta jerseys. But, I wanted to show three here. One is authentic; one is fake; the other I'm not really sure given the price paid for it. I'm curious, just from these pictures, who can tell the difference...

From a distance, I think it's rather hard to tell. Get up close (or enlarge the photo) and the fake is obvious. Two of these jerseys cost $40, the other $85 (on sale). But, can you tell me which is which...?

Yeah the Pats is the biggest fake of them all. Someone mentioned about the tail on the Twins script, but the shirt looks folded over on that part, so might wanna re-examine that.

Huh.. well shows you what I know. The Twins one is fake. And, apparently the Patriots one is too, but I was never sure; the fact that it had actual patches that were sewn on and not a graphic that was actually "embroidered" onto the jersey made me optimistic (see what happens when you go shopping at yard sales). The Indians is authentic.

Thanks for playing...

It was the faded and bubbled up 12 that gave it away on the Brady jersey.

Plus the thick stitching on it, and Ive seen that bad sleeve logo many a times.

I figured it out from the silver/navy mix up on the collar. And the fact that the Indians jersey was from the Russell days helped identify it as legit.

So, I have a whole lotta jerseys. But, I wanted to show three here. One is authentic; one is fake; the other I'm not really sure given the price paid for it. I'm curious, just from these pictures, who can tell the difference...

From a distance, I think it's rather hard to tell. Get up close (or enlarge the photo) and the fake is obvious. Two of these jerseys cost $40, the other $85 (on sale). But, can you tell me which is which...?

I can tell you the Twins one is fake without even enlarging the picture. The tail of the script is wrong.

And the Pats one is definitely fake.

spending $30 on a jersey that is so close to an authentic that most won't even notice (and those who do have to look pretty close)

But this isn't true at all. It's super easy for uni freaks like CCSLC members to spot these fakes. The numbers and letters really are that bad. You can spot them a mile away, especially for teams that have anything more than standard block fonts.

FYP. Most of the general public will never notice the difference.

Whatever one's position on this, someone pointed out an ironic truth in another thread where this was debated: the "authentic" $250-300 version of these jerseys probably comes from the factory down the street from the one doing the fakes, the difference being that the authentics are put together better and subjected to more QC than the fakes. The employees are likely working in the same conditions and making the same 20 cents an hour or whatever.

We'll never know the one variable that would enable me to finalize my position: the NFL's cost to produce an authentic. Their markup has to be ridiculous.

I've learned this from an internet article... it costs RBK less than $9 to make an NHL replica jersey that's sold for around $120. Also, I know that it costs retailers less than $40 to buy an NFL replica jersey that retails for $80ish.

Here's my $0.02. I am a big soccer supporter, and soccer clubs in Europe change their uniforms every year. So why spend $120 every year to buy a new jersey, when I can just buy a fake from China or Malaysia for $30? And yes, there are some glitches, and errors on the jersey, but whatever.

Buy your club's jersey once every 4 years...?

Everytime I see a grown-a$$ man in a jersey (especially a customized one) I just think he's some big kid who is imagining that he's actually on the team by putting on the jersey, like he's fulfilling some childhood fantasy. It's all a big game of pretend. If you're actually at the game, maybe you get a pass, but it's still kind of corny for adults to wear the jerseys of other adults.

Yeah. It couldn't just be that jerseys are comfortable and make for good "lounging around" wear. Now asking people about how to take a piss while wearing a certain style of underwear or dispensing advice on "man rules?" That's the stuff "grown ass men" do. (for those that don't know, I'm referencing some of the "man type" stuff BBTV has brought up in the past)

Never in my entire life have I thought I'm "actually on the team" while wearing a jersey. Nor is wearing a jersey "fulfilling some childhood fantasy." They're big and comfortable and I like how they look. Sue me.

Amen! I almost always wear jerseys, and because of that, I'm known all over campus as "the jersey guy", and that's a great calling card.

Hey, I'm glad to see I'm not the only "Jersey Guy" in the world! I've had random kids come up to me in school and call me that.

EDIT: I should say that I don't own any counterfeit jerseys. I do own several, legit replica NHL jerseys, but those were purchased at steep discount. I won't support the price gouging of the major professional sports leagues by paying full price.

Amen, good sir. It's the old shoppers' mantra: never pay retail. When something's as overpriced as NHL jerseys are these days, and when there's as many internet jersey retail outlets as there are, there's plenty of good reason to wait for the off-season sales.

Oh, and between the Blackhawks and Bears, Chicago has to be this country's foremost purchaser of horrendously inaccurate counterfeit jerseys. God, there's just so much crap out there, and none of it's worth the $40-$80 these people paid for it.

1. River City Sports FTW. Random sales there are amazing.

2. I actually don't think I've ever seen an actual Blackhawks Winter Classic jersey. I've seen so many fakes that I've convinced myself one doesn't exist.

Wisconsin and Iowa will be placed in separate divisions beginning in the 2011 Season.

Which one gets Minnesota?

I've also heard they are thinking about putting Michigan and Ohio State in seperate divisions for the payoff of the Big Ten Championship

Which makes me think they may be going with a North South Alignment

The Big 10 wants 16 teams... they want to do 4, 4-team divisions. There is a simple way to solve the problem. If the Big 10 is SMART, they will have Michigan and Ohio State in separate division/leagues. To make up for the rivalry, all that OSU and Michigan has to do is schedule each other for one of the 3 or 4 at-large games. Problem solved. Still leaves the potential for Big 10 title game, OSU -vs- Michigan. Also leaves the option of 1 team spoiling the chances of the other to make the title game, etc. etc. Its not rocket science.

No, that's dumb. They'd do 2, 8-team divisions. You're not gonna play two rounds for the Big Ten Championship in football.

That said, I'd hate to see a scenario (if Michigan gets any good again...) in which Michigan and Ohio State both have their divisions locked up going into the last game of the year. And it isn't good for the league, if say tOSU and Michgan are both 11-0 entering their first matchup. Ohio State wins the first and Michigan wins the second. Neither of them make the BCS National Championship.

OK...here's my review for who's left in the WAC.

Hawaii: Big question mark.

Idaho: Staying put unless everybody else leaves.

Louisiana Tech: Conference USA should send an invite.

New Mexico State: MWC will likely try luring them too (UNM-NMSU rivalry in-conference)

San Jose State: Ditto here (now that FSU's in the MWC and the future of SDSU football is pretty murky)

Utah State: Will likely stay unless everybody else leaves.

Which brings us to the question: "Who will the WAC try luring?"

My gut feeling is they'll cherry-pick the FCS Big Sky, so the most logical options would be Montana (football AND basketball juggernaut), Portland State (major market, newly renovated stadium also home to an MLS team), and Sacramento State (to reestablish the Central Valley market). They might try for Eastern Washington (to continue a Portland State rivalry), Idaho State (to give Idaho an in-state in-conference rival again), and Montana State (if Montana wants to play hardball about joining).

Which leaves me wondering how NAU, NCU, and Weber State would do for themselves...

I can see Louisiana Tech returning to the Sun Belt myself. On the FCS level though, I can see Portland State, Sacramento State, and Montana wanting to jump to FBS, but there's no way Idaho can support 3 FBS teams. That said though, you do make a fair point with Montana State.

TS-San Marcos and UT-San Antonio do make a lot of sense though. Didn't know about Texas State's intentions to move up though.

Indianapolis only hosts a bunch of stuff because it's a good centralized location for a lot of people, and Chicago chooses to alienate everyone with head-up-ass union regulations. It's not a compelling destination in and of itself.

Agreed. Everyone preaches how close our airport is to the city, but our public transport is a piece of . Maybe they'll get around to building that light rail someday...

I've been to Ford Field twice and it's beautiful. I'm sure Indianapolis will be a fine place to host the conference championship game, but I would've preferred Detroit.

I think you could argue though, that more people would be up for going to Indianapolis than Detroit. Just my two cents seeing that the Wolverines don't appear to be headed anywhere near the title game in the next few years. I'm not sure about hotel rooms in Detroit, but Indy regularly hosts big-time events (Drum Corps International, GenCon, Final Fours, NFL Combine, etc.) while I'm not sure what Detroit has. Plus, hosting the game in the city that'll host the Super Bowl 7 weeks later can't be a bad thing for the Big 10. I'll probably be there.

In fact, if you'll look down at the comments here, you see I was the first to comment that I LOVED THEM.

I have one of those. It's awesome and definitely gets more than it's fair share of comments when I wear it.

I wonder what team Lebron will run to when he fails to win in Miami? He might make this thread 5 times before his career is over...

Can't fault the guy. He just wants to win so badly that it doesn't matter if he's beating the Celtics, the Magic, or the Washington Generals 5,578 times.

lol. I thought he was going back to the McD's high school all-american team for a minute...

But now I see it's the Globetrotters.

But that leads me to ask, why the heck would he join the 'trotters if he backed out of the Dunk Contest?

(That's when I initially realized he isn't a genuine person. Anyone who goes against their word, has no class in my book. The way he left C-Land was just further backing up that point. Everything he's said about Cleveland as a team and/or city, I learned to take with a grain of salt...)

Sorry about the ranting... Just a Cavaliers fan... No Cleveland fan. haha.

FYP.

Anyways, that made me literally lol. Nice job.

Here you have it:

Boo! Traitor! What a cowardly betrayal!

I wonder if the Comic Sans font will be used in the new post-Lebron Cavs word mark

Oh and vmd9...SCREW THE ROO!!! Go Flashes!!!!!!!!!!!

Screw both of you! Youngstown State FTW!

(Oh wait, Kent and Akron both forgot about our rivalries? Damnit.)

Here you have it:

Boo! Traitor! What a cowardly betrayal!

The 16 team intent was to have the Arizona schools move, so those two are probably locks to join CU and Utah. The others set of teams may be dependent on number of flights to DEN and SLC, easy to know that LAX, SFO/SJC/OAK have flights so it may depend on the flights out of SEA and PDX.

Well I'd assume that pretty much everywhere in the western US can fly into SLC, a Delta hub and the same goes for Denver, primarily having United flights.

I think BYU and Utah would be perfect candidates, that and UNLV would be perfect to join the Pac-11 and make it the Pacific 14. If I were the Big XII, i'd go for teams like Houston, TCU and Rice as they'd be perfect geographical partners

Makes perfect sense geographically, the pac-10 would get the Las vegas & salt lake markets, and the Big 12 would get the dallas and houston markets

Umm... they already have those markets...

Okay. Now where does Pac-10 go from here?

It seems as if they're now going to be stuck at 11 teams, and I don't think they will be at all satisfied at that number, and only having added just Colorado. There are no more elite schools to pick from, as the Big XII has all but formed their own alliance. So does this mean they look to the Mountain West or WAC? I don't there there is ANY school from either of those two conferences who make the Pac-10 a better conference. Maybe adding Utah or BYU would be a bit of an upgrade, but I truly think they'd make a better fit as the two teams who complete the new Big XII.

They're almost certainly going to go after Utah from what I've heard, giving them the SLC market. If the Big XII wants to go back to 12 teams I could see them going after TCU and BYU.

If ONLY Texas and Oklahoma go to the SEC... I don't think you will see the Big 12 fall apart. Kansas, Kansas State, Mizzou, and Iowa State have all said they would be interested in the staying in the Big 12. I could see them inviting TCU and maybe trying to steal some school from the SEC. If that happens, Colorado could have made a bad move.

I don't see some of the lesser SEC schools wanting to get beat up week in and week out with a football conference consisting of almost all power houses.

I think the PAC 10 would still want OK State and Tech, but I don't see them going alone.

On the first bolded part, if those 4 schools are still in it, it would be with Baylor. Who TCU would probably screw over, and rightfully so. Plus, nobody making SEC money now would jump to a Big XII without Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Could there still be a conference? Yes, but it would have to come in taking a couple (lesser) Mountain West or C-USA teams. Maybe the likes of Memphis, Houston, Rice, etc.

On the second one, Colorado will make a lot more money from the Pac-12 (which it would presumably be in this case) than in the Big 12's form (possibly the Big 8 again) as the money from TV revenue would be more. They'll get more of a piece of the pie from Oregon, USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, etc. on playing football games than from Kansas, K-State, Baylor, Mizzou, and Iowa State. Remember that money is what's driving all of this.