Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 1, 1991 TAG: 9102010386
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
However, even the four schools that will remain after this year - Virginia Tech, Louisville, Southern Mississippi and Tulane - apparently are undecided about whether they still are committed to the league.
"That's our position," Tech athletic director Dave Braine said Thursday night after athletic directors from the four schools and Metro Commissioner Ralph McFillen met in Atlanta.
A special NCAA committee formally announced Thursday that it will recommend the continuity of membership rule be rewritten to say that any conference with six teams, all of which have been in Division I for at least eight years, is eligible for an automatic bid after a one-year waiting period. Currently, the rule requires a league to have had the same six teams for at least five straight years to qualify.
The Metro will target Sun Belt Conference members South Florida and North Carolina-Charlotte, and McFillen said Thursday the league hoped to expand by no later than the NCAA Final Four at the end of March.
But Braine said the one-year waiting period has chilled the Metro's enthusiasm.
"That's going to really damage the financial basis of the conference," Braine said, noting that conference tournaments mean big revenue to leagues. "What's a tournament mean when you're not playing for anything?"
Braine said McFillen and the athletic directors discussed appealing the special committee's ruling, which still must be approved by the Championships Committee, but did not reach a decision.
Braine said the league wants several questions about the rule change answered by the NCAA. He wouldn't list the Metro's concerns.
Braine said the special committee's recommendation also says that a qualifying league must have had at least three of the same members for five straight years; Tulane dropped basketball for awhile in the 1980s and may not qualify, leaving Louisville, Southern Mississippi and Tech. Whether the NCAA would make an exception in Tulane's case is a concern, Braine said.
"I'd hate to have it on Virginia Tech's shoulders that we were the ones that broke up the league if we would leave," said Braine, who said he is considering whether a jump to the Atlantic 10 or Colonial Athletic Association is Tech's best option.
One member of the special committee said Wednesday that despite Tulane's temporary suspension of basketball, the committee would recommend allowing Tulane to count as having been in Division I for the necessary eight years.
Braine said much of Thursday's meeting was spent discussing financial topics. One concern, he said, is how the waiting period will affect the league's TV contract, which he said was for $750,000 next year.
"It's obviously not going to be that much," Braine said.
by CNB