The 16-team field for the 2009 Preseason Women’s National Invitation Tournament was announced today.

Ohio State headlines a field that includes 11 teams that played in the postseason last spring: Arkansas-Little Rock, Bowling Green, Florida Gulf Coast, Georgia Tech, Marist, New Mexico, North Carolina A&T, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, and Winthrop. They will be joined in the Preseason WNIT by Chicago State, Eastern Illinois, Northern Colorado, Towson, and UTEP.

Arkansas-Little Rock will travel to Oklahoma state and is coming off its best win total in school history and returns all five starters from its 26-7 team.

The Preseason WNIT features a three-game guarantee format. The event opens Friday, Nov. 13 with first-round games. Second-round games will be played Nov. 15-16; semifinals will be Nov. 18-19; and the championship is set for Sunday, Nov. 22. Teams that lose in the first two rounds will play consolation games on the second weekend, Nov. 20-22. All games are hosted by participating schools, and sites are announced by the end of the preceding round.

In last year’s Preseason WNIT, North Carolina defeated Oklahoma 80-79 in a fierce battle of Top-5 teams.

First-round Preseason WNIT games
All 2008-2009 team records in parentheses
Friday, Nov. 13, 2009
Eastern Illinois (24-9) at Ohio State (29-6), 5 p.m. ET
UTEP (18-12) at Florida Gulf Coast (26-5), 7 p.m. ET
Arkansas-Little Rock (26-7) at Oklahoma State (17-16), 7 p.m. ET
Towson (17-13) at West Virginia (18-15), 7 p.m. ET
Winthrop (16-16) at Georgia Tech (22-10), 7:30 p.m. ET
Chicago State (16-13) at Bowling Green (29-5), 7:30 p.m. ET
North Carolina A&T (26-7) at Marist (29-4), 7:30 p.m. ET
Northern Colorado (12-18) at New Mexico (25-11), 9 p.m. ET

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Boise State’s president makes an impassioned commentary on the BCS , I’m just not sure he gets it. I’m pro-playoff but he’s making the wrong arguments, probably to curry favor with the Mountain West.

He says, “There is considerable irony in the fact that in the highest temple of political correctness, American higher education, the BCS worships the false idols of monopoly, inequity and greed at the expense of the virtues of fairness, access and competition.”

Really? Maybe he needs to learn of an organization called the Association of American Universities. It’s only 60 schools yet the members pull in 58% of all research grant and contract income. Does anyone believe that if you swapped the Harvard students and faculty with the students and faculty at Boise State that the next rankings of academics would see Boise State ahead of Harvard? Please, not a chance of that happening. The BCS fits perfectly with how higher education is run.

He seems to think the revenue distribution is unfair. Well I love my school but I’m not blinded by self-interest. When the BCS opened the door to revenue sharing the five leagues (Mountain West, Mid-American, Conference USA, Sun Belt and Western Athletic) brought so little to the table in the free market (ie. TV, sponsorship, and bowl fees) that an additional game had to be added so that the five could be given 9% of the revenue and not cause a loss of revenue to the existing BCS leagues. Adding 51 schools to the mix, 43% of all of FBS football failed to produce a 9% increase in income.

The BCS is an anti-trust violation? Sue ‘em! Let me sit back and watch you throw good money after bad. The BCS has increased access to highest profile, richest games. Before the BCS existed the games and conferences working independently shunned the lesser known programs, if not for a boycott of Arizona over the MLK holiday, Louisville would have never cracked into the Fiesta Bowl. Pre-BCS, last year’s Utah would have been in the same boat as BYU was in 1984 stuck in a low-paying bowl game pre-Christmas playing a 6-5 team for the shot at the national title before a limited national audience. The BCS hasn’t hurt access, it has increased it.

There is an assumption that if you blow up the BCS, you get a playoff. That is a very big assumption.

The Big 10 and Pac-10 can quite easily say, we are opposed to a playoff and we’ll go to the Rose Bowl, thank you very much. Of all the bowls, none but the Rose can throw dollars that make it look as good as a playoff. A national playoff that doesn’t include teams from the bulk of the TV markets isn’t going to be a particularly lucrative playoff.

The Sugar Bowl will scramble to make the SEC a great offer and lock them in against the champion of one of the other leagues or a runner-up. The Orange and Fiesta will do their scramble as well and we can go back to the good old days when you could have end of the regular season 1, 2, 3, and 4 all in different games.

But don’t be mistaken, if you blow up the BCS and bring back the old bowl system, you’ve just denied access to the five poor sisters, who might be the six poor as the Big East scrambles for a bowl tie.

See the anti-trust law doesn’t let you argue that one plan is better than another. Instead you look only at what is before the court, the actual arrangement. That means the court looks at the current BCS vs. what we had before and the net result is pro-competition. More institutions have a chance to participate and a combined subjective/objective rating system is used to select participants in the championship and from the non-auto-qualifier leagues. You can’t force the participants to choose the best choice.

A court can say the BCS violates anti-trust, but imposing a playoff isn’t a guaranteed remedy. The BCS gets blown up and then either everyone can conspire to create a new monopoly (playoff) or they can let the free market do its thing and go back to the bowls.

It also helps to remember that the BCS AQ leagues are only co-conspirators for the BCS organization itself. Outside of that they compete independently with all the other leagues for bowl berths and television money. The BCS in truth is walking around money. Once you subtract team costs, the BCS money is only about 10% to 15% of the money distributed by the six AQ leagues. The real money is television revenue, conference championship events, and NCAA revenue sharing.

The Big East may not be as “deserving” of the BCS AQ based on what happens on the field compared to the Mountain West but the BCS isn’t about fielding the best teams, it is about maximizing revenue. Compare Big East TV to Mountain West TV. The Big East is far more like the five AQ leagues than the five non-AQ.

This is a meritocracy only if the merit is dollar generation. The non-AQ have produced some of the worst BCS TV rating and some of the worst ticket sales. Neither TV nor the bowls are begging to lock up more access, they would rather be rid of it but it was forced upon them by the AQ leagues.

Dr. Kustra woefully misses the mark as he sucks up to the Mountain West in his commentary. You cannot determine who belongs in the championship based on the bowl games. You have to judge the teams for the 1-2 game based on the regular season games.

At the conclusion of the regular season, none of the three major human vote polls had Utah rated #1 or #2 and as I recall only one of the six computer ranking systems said Utah was #1 or #2. Utah had a great Sugar Bowl win but in a championship where the participants are picked at the conclusion of the regular season, that doesn’t matter. Coaches, writers, the people affiliated with football through the Harris poll, and five computer rankings came up with at least two teams rated as better than Utah. The beef for Utah should never be that it belonged at #1 or #2, because their only legitimate complaint is that they might have had a chance to win it all if there were a tournament.

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What do those four colleges have in common?

They are the only colleges likely to be represented by players on the floor at tip-off when the NBA Finals get underway on Thursday night.

For the Los Angeles Lakers:
Derek Fisher – UALR
Trevor Arizona – UCLA

For the Orlando Magic:
Courtney Lee – Western Kentucky
Rafer Alston – Fresno State

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Seems like right around College World Series is when expansion talk always heats up.

This is usually when I start advising my readers to ignore all that babble because the conditions aren’t right for realignment.

Folks. The time is right for realignment.

Since shortly after the launch of the Big 10 Network there has been constant murmuring that the network had failed to meet expectations for the number of homes. The solution thrown out a year ago in an off-the-cuff remark over a year ago by the Big 10’s commissioner was to add a team.

As virtually all college fans know, Penn State’s Joe Paterno has come out in support of going to 12 and it being someone other than Notre Dame. That comment alone wouldn’t mean so much but for the talk that in 2012 the Big 10 may go to a 9 game league slate, except it is mathematically impossible for all 11 to play 9 games.

Let’s consider what may be at play.
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I am writing about 90 minutes before UNO issues its official reaction to the failed fee vote. I will tell you my first reaction. I can’t believe the vote was that close. Asking for an 85% fee increase is a tough sell at any time.

I don’t have any idea of what UNO will do next or what the Plan B is.

My first word is to UNO fans, though. Buck-up. You will be measured more in how you react than for what just happened. Time to look forward.

Personally, I don’t see this so much as a mark against UNO as I see UNO being the canary in the mine. Between Katrina and the economy collapse that was magnified by the odd circumstance of the energy market collapsing WITH the national economy instead of rising against a falling economy, Louisiana is weakened and UNO most especially.

While we don’t know UNO’s next move, it is a warning to everyone outside the circles of wealth in Division I. You cannot put too many eggs in a single basket. Rely too much on university funds what happens when the university is out of spare money? Rely too much on student fees what happens if circumstances cause your student population to fall?

I know some UNO fans are upset with the students but 1,200 voted for athletics. How many students regularly attend UNO sporting events? That is a good vote. I realize the circumstances forced the need to ask for the fee increase but you have to ask whether the student body should be expected to fund nearly 85% of the cost of Division I athletics. That is an incredibly high share of the cost for students. It’s not an unusual proportion in lower divisions but pretty rare for Division I.

If there is a white knight, or an over-ride plan, or some possible way to adjust the budget and keep things going, that is great. If not then what is the future?

I hate the idea of losing UNO from the Sun Belt, but even with a saving plan, I’m not sure the Sun Belt is the best place for UNO. The program has had to be on a defensive posture for years and staying merely maintains that. UNO has to be able to be able to move ahead of the curve and I’m not sure that any rescue option will permit that.

I think the BEST alternative is Division II. It means the game revenue dries up and some existing donors and ticket buyers go away. I just have my doubts though that UNO can ever be relevant within its community without playing football and a shift down saving money can make football happen.

Get a Privateer team on the gridiron in Division II and start working on a grass roots effort to get back in Division I with an eye to the Southland. The Southland may be at 12 but a football playing member in one of the largest tv markets and most attractive destination within their footprint would be hard to ignore.

Rebuilding slowly and carefully UNO athletics can be a flagship program for the Southland and if circumstances and program growth warrant, the time can come to pull on to FBS football.

Under any band-aid salvage plan, football will be nothing but a remote dream. Tear it down and build it up again correctly.

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Ok, everything seems to be shall we say… wildly up in the air. Last year was a different animal as almost everyone hit their bowl contracts on the number. 2008 isn’t looking that way. Here’s what I have so far with a big caveat. Do not expect the NCAA to hold anyone to the rule that doesn’t permit releasing a 7 win team to fill a bowl with a six win team. There just don’t look to be enough 7 win teams for that to be an issue.

ACC: The ACC has 9 bowl ties. They have 8 eligible teams. Clemson played two FCS teams so they still have to beat South Carolina to get eligible. Virginia has to win at Va.Tech. NC State has to beat Miami at home. If none of the three win the Eagle Bank Bowl in DC is open.

Big East: The Big East has 6 ties and has six eligible. If Louisville wins at Rutgers, they have a spare 6-6 team.

Big 10: Has 7 eligible teams and 7 ties. If Ohio State gets an at-large BCS selection they will be short for the Motor City Bowl. Unless Oregon State loses at home to Oregon, I don’t think Ohio State gets a BCS invite.

Big 12: Has 8 bowl ties with 7 eligible teams. If Colorado wins at Nebraska they have 8. However the Big XII is all but assured two teams in the BCS so they will not have a team for the Texas Bowl and unless Colorado wins, they will not have a team for the Independence.

C-USA: Has 6 bowl ties with four eligible teams. Southern Miss eligible by winning at SMU. Memphis eligible by winning at home over Tulane. UTEP eligible by winning at East Carolina. St. Pete, Armed Forces, New Orleans and Texas share pick 3-6, for the right deal GMAC might trade out a C-USA team but they won’t be short there. I tend to think Memphis and USM win and C-USA hits the number. If not, one or two games open.

MAC: Three ties. Four teams at 7 or better. NIU can hit 7 with a win at home over Navy. Bowling Green can hit 6 at Toledo, Akron can hit 6 at Temple.

MWC: Four ties, four at 7 or better, one at 6-6. Utah appears likely BCS so the MWC covers its bowls with what it has.

Pac-10: 7 ties with five available teams. The winner of Arizona State and UCLA can get to six if they win the next week. Az St goes to Arizona, UCLA hosts USC. Poinsettia is vacant no matter what happens. Hawaii is vacant if Arizona State / UCLA winner doesn’t get eligible -OR- if they get eligible and Oregon State beats Oregon for auto berth in Rose AND USC gets selected BCS at-large. Emerald open if AzSt/UCLA winner not eligible AND USC goes at-large to BCS.

SEC: Nine bowl ties with 8 available teams. Auburn makes 9 if they win at Bama. SEC is all but assured two in the BCS. That means PapaJohns.com is vacant and Independence is vacant if Auburn loses.

Sun Belt. Troy is eligible. Winner of MT-ULL is at 6. ASU is at 6 with win at Troy or UNT. FAU at 6 with win over FIU. FIU is at 6 with wins over FAU and WKU.

WAC: Three bowls. Three at 7 or better. Hawaii gets eligible with home wins over Washington State or Cincinnati. Nevada can get to 7 with win at La.Tech. San Jose is at 6-6.

Independents: Navy is headed to DC for Eagle Bank. Notre Dame is 6-5 traveling to USC. Can be selected for a Big East bowl or go elsewhere. Question is will they accept a bowl at 6-6 if they give up on Weiss.

I think there will be 5 to 9 open spots with 15 to 10 schools available to be selected.

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Any doubts this week who gets the top spot? Shouldn’t be.

Congratulations Middle Tennessee!

THE GOOD
Middle Tennessee rebounded from a loss to Troy by adding to the ACC’s football woes. It has to really deflate Maryland fans seeing the Sun Belt standings with MT sitting at the bottom for at least another week. The Blue Raiders scored methodically using a 10 play 80 yard drive. They scored dramatically with a 53 yard Craddock to Beyah pass. The Blue Raiders also scored opportunistically with an interception return that set up a five yard scoring drive. MT out-gained Maryland by 45 yards and ended up plus 2 on turnover margin.

Florida Atlantic never trailed as they hosted C-USA member UAB. Rusty Smith tossed three touchdown passes and Charles Pierre rushed for two more. FAU put the game away when UAB trailing by 8 turned the ball over on downs and Pierre romped 73 yards on the next play to set the final margin in the game. Smith threw for 325 yards on a 21 of 34 passing effort. Pierre had 13 carries for 138 yards.

Arkansas State was expected to dominate SWAC member Texas Southern in ASU’s home opener but the dominance was shocking. ASU led 21-0 with 10:53 left in the first quarter and led 52-0 with 8:28 remaining in the first half. Corey Leonard was 9 of 10 for 229 yards and four touchdowns. ASU didn’t attempt any passes the final 40 minutes of the game. The ASU defense scored 14 points and red-shirt freshmen accounted for 21 of the offensive points.

THE BAD
Highly touted recruit Riley Dodge made his first appearance as a member of the Mean Green but he arrived catching five passes for 25 yards rather than throwing them. North Texas had 450 yards offense against Tulsa but yielded 555 yards. An explosive 28 point second quarter by Tulsa sank the Mean Green. Vizza was 30 of 45 for 247 yards with two touchdowns.

Florida International traveled to Iowa and got knocked out quickly. FIU was shut-out as Iowa rolled to a 42-0 win. The Golden Panthers managed only 218 yards offense while giving up 512. Younger was 11 of 20 for 107 yards and Cole was 8 of 16 for 55 yards and two picks. Reams led the FIU rushing attack with 24 yards on 5 carries.

THE IN-BETWEEN
Louisiana Monroe grabbed a 7-6 lead over Arkansas with 8:12 left in the first and didn’t yield it until the 1:12 mark of the fourth quarter. A late field goal bid to grab the win missed. ULM was out-gained 506 to 341 by the Hogs but took advantage of good field position breaks to lead most of the game. Lancaster was 23 of 39 for 270 yards and two TD’s. Lovett led the rushing attack with 66 yards on 17 carries.

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Unless you are a Troy or Arkansas State fan, it was an awful week.

The Good
Any doubts about who gets listed first?
Arkansas State took the opening kickoff and drove right down the field before settling for a field goal. The newly christened Red Wolves entered the Red Zone five times and scored five times, four of the scores were Josh Arauco field goals, but the Red Wolves didn’t come up empty on any of the trips, unlike last year at Texas when the Indians failed to score three times inside the Texas 25. Reggie Arnold had 21 carries for 145 yards and Corey Leonard was 15 of 28 for 160 yards and one TD and added 86 yards rushing on 17 carries. ASU out-gained the Aggies by 112 yards on the night.

Troy takes first place in the Sun Belt while ASU grabs the headlines. DuJuan Harris ran for 148 yards on 19 carries and scored three touchdowns. Jamie Hampton had a solid starting QB debut passing for 136 yards on a 17 of 28 effort with one interception and one TD pass. The Trojans turned the ball over a surprising four times but took a 14 point win a Middle Tennessee.

The Bad
Middle Tennessee
worked hard to establish the run. Fifty carries is a pretty strong effort to get the rushing game going but that netted only 84 yards against the Troy defense. Despite the lack of a running game Craddock passed for 200 yard and was an efficient 20 of 32 with one pick and one TD. Guess you can scratch MT from taking a share of the title. Both of their shared Sun Belt titles came when they won their home opener, the only times they’ve won their home opener since the league was formed.

Louisiana Lafayette headed to Hattiesburg carrying a two year road record of 5-7 (they were only 4-10 at home over that stretch), so there was some hope that the Cajuns would tap into their road magic, especially facing a team with a new coach. It didn’t happen. The Cajuns gave up the first 21 points of the game to USM before falling 51-21. The Cajuns were out-gained by over 200 yards. Desormeaux was a dreadful 9 of 20 for 98 yards, two picks and no TD’s. He was the leading rusher for the Cajuns with 146 yards on 16 carries but more than a third of that came on one run, a 51 yard rush that didn’t find the end zone. Fenroy was held to 56 yards on 13 carries. The Cajuns lost the turnover battle 4-2.

Florida Atlantic discovered how hard-nosed Texas can play when prompted to. The Horns out-gained them by over 200 yards with most of the difference coming in rushing yards. Rusty Smith had 253 yards passing but it came from an inefficient 15 of 31 effort with one TD and one pick.

Florida International wasn’t expected to compete well against Kansas and they didn’t. The Jayhawks out-gained them by almost 250 yards. Ty Hilton gave the Golden Panthers a brief respite when he returned a punt 74 yards for a TD to cut the Jayhawk lead to 24-7.  FIU failed to crack 100 yards in either rushing or passing against Kansas. McCall was a dreadful 10 of 28 passing for 73 yards and two interceptions. Ned led the rushing attack with 42 of FIU’s 66 net yards rushing on 12 carries.

Louisiana Monroe’s trip to play an SEC school in Alabama this year wasn’t as enjoyable as last year’s trip. Auburn out-gained the War Hawks by 186 yards. ULM was shut-out for the first time since 2005. Since the War Hawks took a share of the league title that year, it may not be such a bad sign. Lancaster was 20 of 38 for 136 yards with no interceptions. Goodin led the ULM rushing attack with 39 yards on 15 carries, Lancaster added another 33 yards on 11 carries.

It wasn’t North Texas’s day. Down 42-0 before finding the end zone on a 9 yard pass by Vizza to Lot, UNT missed the extra point. Kansas State out-gained UNT by more than 260 yards on the game. Vizza was 16 of 29 for 100 yards with no interceptions. . Montgomery and Mosely split rushing duties with Montgomery producing 62 yards on 8 carries and Mosely adding 56 on 10 carries.

In-Between
Nobody had that valiant losing effort that the in-between is usually reserved for.

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If you were planning the ultimate Sun Belt football adventure, this should be your itinerary. Looking at the pre-season best game picks for Sun Belt games, and Sun Belt home games.

Week 1
Best Game
Troy at Middle. This is the game that can set the tone as to whether Troy can try to be a title contender three years in a row. For Middle, a lot of conventional thinking is that they are a year away from being really good. Beating Troy to start the season makes them an early front-runner.

Everyone else is on the road, but obviously Texas-FAU will garner attention and Louisiana Lafayette at Southern Miss starts the annual Sun Belt – C-CUSA battle.
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ESPN takes a first glance at the upcoming basketball season. Lots of love for MT and their cast of returning characters.

Big feature on new FAU coach Mike Jarvis. With the clouds that were around Jarvis at St. John’s but never actually tied to him, the chance to start over makes for an interesting read.

Capsule summaries of every team plus a few shorter features.

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