http://sports.yahoo.com/news/q-a-with-coach-k--what-duke-...

In the interview he says that he sees a future of less teams in Div 1 competing for the national title. He mentions the Power 5, Missouri Valley and American. That's it.

He also says maybe that means the bar will be higher and that "certain schools" may have to figure out if they want to be in that conversation.

Refresher on the basketball arms race and where we stand in relation to schools in both the MVC and the American...

http://www.bbstate.com/info/teams-hoopsbudget


15 $9,475,690.00   Memphis Tigers
20 $8,282,680.00   Connecticut Huskies
38 $7,057,072.00   Southern Methodist Mustangs
47 $6,541,908.00   Cincinnati Bearcats
79 $5,127,543.00   Wichita State Shockers
82 $4,767,101.00   Temple Owls
83 $4,673,616.00   Tulsa Golden Hurricane
85 $4,440,325.00   South Florida Bulls
95 $3,873,130.00   Bradley Braves
104 $3,233,899.00   Ohio (MAC) Bobcats
106 $3,111,083.00   Houston Cougars
109 $3,017,777.00   Central Florida Knights
117 $2,816,663.00   Tulane Green Wave
127 $2,601,088.00   East Carolina Pirates
141 $2,335,684.00   Northern Iowa Panthers
142 $2,333,159.00   Evansville Aces
149 $2,249,316.00   Drake Bulldogs
152 $2,221,203.00   Missouri State Bears
155 $2,198,837.00   Loyola (Ill.) Ramblers
160 $2,152,271.00   Illinois State Redbirds
201 $1,723,156.00   Southern Illinois Salukis
223 $1,605,635.00   Indiana State

Interesting interview. K was vague abt specifics, but I don't get the impression he wants to run off the mid majors. Will be interesting to see how the changes in football impact basketball. I hope our annual hoops budget level positions us to remain part of the group that has a chance to make some noise in the postseason.

You're right. I'm still confused about the Big East and American. I think his reference point was 118 teams or so, the same as Div I football. Who knows what it will be, but it's safe to say it won't be 349 teams.

If you look at the money spent by the top teams in the link a few posts ago, I think you'll understand why they want to limit the teams. Kentucky, who spends 16M, has a hard time explaining how they can lose to Robert Morris, who spends a paltry 1.5M, which they did a few years ago in the NIT.

My guess would be UNLV 1990. I try to do these things without looking it up first like we did back when I was in Athens and cell phones and the interwebs were in their infancy.

You are correct. Before that, you have to go back to 1966 Texas Western and 1963 Loyola Chicago. Marquette won it in 1977 as an Independent.

You forgot to drop the mic. That was mic-dropping worthy.

I seem to recall in 2012 Duke losing in the first round to Lehigh from the Patriot League, a conference ranked 22nd, most definitely below Coach K's line of worthiness.


BTW, here's their OOC road game records that year-

6-4 Lehigh
0-2 Duke

One of Duke's losses was against a Temple team that had lost to Bowling Green a few weeks prior. Coach K is a loser.

Which is why, if the selection committees had any guts at all, and believe in real competition, they'd use the SOS number only for the non-conference SOS and RPI, bringing in teams that actually choose to play quality opponents rather than those in "power conferences" with supposedly strong SOS numbers.

And of course I am still gonna beat the drum for the first day to be expanded to 128 teams. Regular season champs and tourney champs. Still the lowest number of teams to qualify out of any championship. I am sure it will never happen but it is the only way to get the P5 to consider playing half the OOC on the road. Once you gain enough acceptance for an expanded tourney by the non P5 schools to push it then they have the bargaining chip to force OOC road games. Even if the P5 expands to 20 schools in each conference then there is still a 2.5:1 ratio of non P5 to the rest of us.