Learning Curve: How Will Louisville, Maryland and Rutgers Fare in New Digs?
August 25th, 2014 - 19:26
More than half of the Big East Conference's 14-member lineup in 2003-04 are gone upon all of the league realignments. The American Athletic Conference, a splinter group of the Big East, looks more like Conference USA's 2004-05 alignment than anything else. If the C-USA wasn't considered a power league, then why should a stitched-together AAC?
Louisville, Maryland and Rutgers should have kept an eye on how Creighton and Syracuse made the transition to new digs last season with second-place finishes. History shows that it frequently is a difficult adjustment. There is good reason to be anxious. Only 12 of the last 34 schools to join power conferences, including eight of the last 21 since 2005-06, posted a winning league record in their inaugural campaign.
Arkansas is the only school to win a championship in its debut campaign in a power league (1991-92 in SEC Western Division after leaving SWC). The average conference record for the last 34 schools in this category is four games below .500. Michigan State posted a comparable anemic mark (5-9) in its first season in the Big Ten in 1950-51.
Following is an alphabetical list of first-year league records compiled by schools joining an existing power alliance since Arizona and Arizona State left the WAC for the Pac-8/10 in the late 1970s: