Wonder if it’ll come down to just us and GCU for Cornish.
If it does and student fan support is the deciding factor, Ohio and the O-Zone, as good as it is (best in the MAC?), will come in second place (check out the GCU Havoc on youtube).
GCU is legit. Has a newer (2011) by CBB standards and Phoenix in its backyard. Returning its top 7 players; so it could be harder to carve out PT. I read Cornish’s bio on the Maryland page and he chose it because of proximity to home (from Baltimore). At least we have that going for us.
I wrote a paper on Grand Canyon in one of my MBA classes. Basically about the business of sports. How athletics connects a campus, or in this case, can CREATE one. If you're bored, take a journey down that rabbit hole. Pretty wild if you don't know the stories.
Only for-profit university in D1. They're publicly traded. Not too bad of an investment actually. Stock is up about 300% since moving to D1 in 2016/2017. Enrollment has doubled. 80% of their students are online.
Imagine Southern New Hampshire University joins the Big 10 and starts building facilities with Les Wexner's money. GCU built $200M worth of sports facilities and campus dorms on 100 acres with the Phoenix Suns owners money, to legitimize their online christian college background and promote enrollment. Year 1 athletic budget was $20M, most of which was in basketball.