AAC

[Glenn Sosbee]

I'm hearing about lots of SMU shirts and gear at the final 4. Very cool.

[StandUp]

How much $ did SMU receive for making it to the NIT Finals? How much $ did the AAC receive for SMU making it to the NIT FInals?

[RGV Pony]

About eight bucks I believe

[RGV Pony]

About 8 bucks I believe

[mrydel]

For us or do we have to split it with the conference? That would be like $.75

[Big12Mustang]

About 8 bucks I believe

Look at the bright side, we can get a Hulu plus subscription with that!

[SoCal_Pony]

May not be enough fan support for FB, i.e. SMU's last visit to the Sun Bowl, but should be more than enough for BB.

A better reference point would be the Birmingham bowl - where we brought a lot more people than most expected.

That excitement carried over to a huge road crowd at the Baylor opener the next year as well.

For our size we travel very well for meaningful games.

For Birmingham bowl, sure. But for a major bowl, there would be issues. That is why I referenced the Sun Bowl. We only had 1 loss, but failed to secure a major bowl. No Way that would happen if we were OU, Georgia, Iowa or some other big state school. Our opponent, Alabama, had 4 losses entering that game, our only loss was to a very good UT team.

Beauty of BB is that it doesn't really matter, but 5k die-hard fans are a nice bonus.

[Mexmustang]

Two reasons--losing late to Houston and firing of Orsini, who I believe would have been head of the selection committee this year--certainly continuing to be a member.

The selection committee is made up of AD's, not college presidents--and SMU is not popular with AD's. From the Knight Commission to firing one of their own. AD's also didn't like the idea of a new kid on the block, and felt we were simply buying a program with the new facilities, the reportedly high salaries paid to assistants and of course, the hiring Larry Brown, a coach some may have passed on earlier. I know this sounds somewhat silly, but remember that over half the field is decided upon by subjective criteria of the selection committee, not conference titles or conference tournament champions. Without a conference member on the committee, it wasn't just SMU that didn't get fair treatment, but the other members of "new" conference as well. Just look at Louisville's seating.

[Grant Carter]

I think those are mostly (sadly) potentially valid points.

[ponyboy]

Well said, Mex. I don't find it sad as much as helpful. It goes a long way to explaining what happened.