The DU Clarion has an article this week about the University of Denver leaving the Sunbelt Conference in 10 of its 17 varsity sports within the next few years.Lets not beat around the bush.
DU is being kicked out of the Sunbelt, because they can't draw enough fans for men's basketball and they can't win enough games in hoops to be an attractive road team. DU brings virtually no fans to the conference tournaments and its alumni base is not concentrated in Sunbelt cities.
DU hopes to join the West Coast Conference (Gonzaga, Portland, San Diego, Pepperdine ect.), but it remains to be seen why colleges based on the west coast would suddenly want to fly to Denver in a bunch of non-revenue sports. On the otherhand if you're a DU varsity athlete; trips to San Diego, Seattle and San Francisco are way cooler than road trips to Little Rock, Lafayette and Troy freakin' Alabama.
1 comment:
Denver is not being kicked out because they can't draw flies or that their rpi is not high enough. If that were the case there would be other schools in front of the Pioneers.
The Pioneers are now outside the geographical footprint that has shrunk since Idaho and New Mexico State left - thank God - for the WAC a few seasons back.
It makes no sense for Denver or the Sun Belt to be sending their teams in any sport halfway or more across the country. As a MT fan I am aware that the Blue Raider basketball team flew from Murfreesboro, TN and played at Denver on a weeknight and then flew to Miami to play one of the Florida Sun Belt schools two nights later. There is no good reason to justify travel like that.
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