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Honestly don’t understand the obsession with the conference thing. Ideally would we love to compete for national championships with Ohio State and Alabama one day? Of course. But that isn’t the vision SUNY has for us. The MAC is by far the best fit. We’ve raised our stock tremendously over the last 7-10 years competitively in conference play. A lot of work still to do but let’s focus on what we need to do to improve ourselves where we are. Honestly nobody knows what college sports will look like in 50 years. We just need to put ourselves in a position to be considered if there are more massive changes. But unless you are one of 3-5 programs in the country your outlook really is the same. You’re gonna get out spent for coaches and everything else when one of the blue bloods wants something. Vanderbilt is in the SEC…kind of. But still widely considered one of the worst CFB programs in the country.

The reason I personally want to move to a different conference is it just raises the floor of the athletic department. The number of G5 schools that have had sustained success in FBS football OR basketball is small. The number of G5 schools that have had sustained success in FBS football AND basketball is smaller. The number of G5 schools that have had sustained success in FBS football AND basketball on MAC exposure/budget/fan support is 0. It's a nice theoretical to say let's just hang around the MAC and dominate until the end of time but UB isn't the first MAC school to have a string of successful seasons, and all of those other "dynasties" have since ended. There are several things that lead to success, but recruiting is king. Recruits are interested in fan support, facilities (budget), exposure, and success. Obviously these things are all tied together, and moving to a better conference automatically raises the first three, and should in turn raise the fourth. It takes one bad hire to torpedo UB's image of success in the mind of a 17 year old recruit and then we're left with really nothing exceptional in the fan support, facilities (budget), and exposure categories. The issue for us is there's not really a strong group of regional G5 teams, with Temple and UMass pretty much being the only options without pushing further south. I would have hoped we would have gotten in the AAC as there's really not much potential for UB to move up without P5 conferences completely blowing up, and us ending up in a completely new conference with the leftovers: Syracuse, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, BC, etc.

Our goal should be to move up in conference. We wont compete for a national championship, but we would have higher TV revenue, and playing big names on TV would help a lot with recruiting which would make us more relevant. FBS is splitting between the "haves" and the have-nots." The MAC is clearly a have-not conference. We are barely spoken about and our TV revenue/athletic expenditures show it. You want bigger and better facilities? A better conference would help pay for that. As far as basketball, being in a multi bid conference would help us get quality conference opponents. We are struggling to fill our OOC schedule because no one wants to play us. We also would have a much easier time making the tournament than only by having to win the conference tournament. Recruiting would also be boosted just by being in a P5, as would basketball. I am surprised buffalo hasn't been mentioned at all either. I hope we move up sooner rather then later or we will end up further behind.

Boeheim says it's because we talk too much smack on the court.