The College of Charleston announced today it will join the Colonial Athletic Association for the 2013-14 school year.
The school has been in the Southern Conference since the 1998-99 school year.
Viewing things from 220 miles away, I believe this is a bad move for CofC because of its impact on sports other than men's basketball. Think of the travel expenses to Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Using GoogleMaps to calculate mileage between cities (not campuses), CofC's two longest trips in the SoCon are 436 miles (Chattanooga) and 465 miles (Samford/Birmingham). The other nine SoCon schools are 310 miles or less from Charleston.
Among CAA schools, Wilmington (UNC Wilmington) is a reasonable 170 miles from Charleston. The next closest CAA city? Williamsburg (William & Mary), which is 464 miles away. That's one mile shorter than the Cougars' longest trip now. The other seven schools are at least 500 miles away from Charleston, with the jaunt to Boston (Northeastern) being the longest at 974 miles.
I believe the baseball program, in particular, is likely to suffer because of the conference shift. According to unofficial conference RPIs by BoydsWorld.com, the Southern Conference was the seventh-best NCAA Division I conference in 2012. The CAA was 18th of 32 leagues.
The SoCon had six teams (counting CofC) in the top 100 and 10 in the top 150 in the unofficial RPI in 2012. The CAA's numbers were two and five, respectively. Virginia Commonwealth, which has left the CAA for the Atlantic 10, had a pseudo-RPI of 98 - second only to UNC Wilmington's 43 among CAA schools. Six SoCon teams were ahead of VCU.
Sure, the road to the NCAA Baseball Tournament may be getting easier for the Cougars, but will they be battle-tested if they get there?
The CAA has been a one-bid league for six of the last eight NCAA Tournaments. The SoCon has been a multi-bid league six times during that same period. Twice during that time the SoCon sent three teams. The last time the Colonial sent three teams was 2001.
The College of Charleston has been to the NCAA Tournament five times. Only in 2010 did the Cougars earn a bid when they didn't win (or share) the regular season or tournament championship. College of Charleston won two outright regular-season titles in
baseball and shared two others. The Cougars have won one SoCon
Tournament. I believe the overall strength of the SoCon was a positive consideration for the selection committee. The CAA won't provide a similar boost.
Also, while the Cougars may be able to retain in-state rivalries with Furman, The Citadel and Wofford, the games likely would be mid-week when fewer fans are able to attend.
I would suspect The Citadel could be worked into a three-game weekend series prior to the start of league play if both schools desire it.
But what incentive is there for Furman or Wofford to play the Cougars midweek? It will make for a long bus trip on a school night. Having CofC as a non-conference opponent may boost RPI on the short term, but as the program begins to deteriorate games against CofC will be a drag on the overall strength of schedule.
It would be easier for the Paladins or Terriers to simply play more games against Gardner-Webb, Presbyterian, UNC Asheville, USC Upstate or Winthrop and save on travel Eventually, the strength of schedule hit Furman or Wofford would take by doing so wouldn't be that drastic.
Will the CofC baseball staff be able to convince enough good players
to want to compete in a conference where most league road trips are a
10-hour drive away? Or, if the team flies on the longer road trips how
will the additional costs be covered?
I don't think it's going to be a good move for the Cougars overall in the long run.
Am I right or wrong? Let me know in the comments section below.
CofC decision
SoCon reaction
3 comments:
Rudy,
You're on the money regarding the C of C move. This will be TERRIBLE for their baseball program. I have not talked to Coach Lee, but I am sure he hates the idea. It's all about basketball at the C of C, or at least they THINK it is. A couple of years ago we took our daughter to the C of C for one of their organized tours. They really did a great job of selling the school, but the only sports team they talked about, repeatedly, was the basketball team. I sent Coach Lee an e-mail afterwards pointing this out to him and got a nice response. But, I sure there was nothing he could do about it.
When David was looking at colleges we made him visit the C of C because it's a good school, they play some great baseball, and we would be able to play close to home. If we were going through the recruiting process again there is no way I would do that now.
Terry Haselden
C of C Grad.
A couple of additional comments about the C of C move. The baseball competition in the CAA is about to get even weaker. Towson has announced that they are ending their baseball program, along with several other sports. There is a campaign to try to save it, but odds are that it will fail.
James Madison has historically had a very good program. However, I have serious doubts that their baseball team will be around much longer. When we were at UVA last spring I struck up a conversation with a local high school coach. He told me that James Madison was already doing some cost cutting in their program. NCAA rules allow up to 27 scholarship players and 8 non-scholarship for a total roster of 35. According to him they were cutting roster spots. Not sure if they were scholarship or non-scholarship. Either way, that's not encouraging.
Hopefully James Madison's new stadium means that school will be forced to keep the program around, even if they have to reduce its quality by cutting around the edges.
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