In an attempt to make its football team relevant, UMass has sacrificed traditions, rivalries, a lot of money and now the long-term viability and stability of its men’s basketball program.
UMass is moving its entire athletic department to the Mid-American Conference, a move that will give its floundering football program a home but significantly stunts the potential of the men’s basketball program.
BetMGM BET $5, GET $158! BONUS BETS
STATES: MA, KY, AZ, CO, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA. Visit BetMGM.com for Terms and Conditions. 21 years of age or older to wager. MA Only. New Customer Offer. All promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. Rewards issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets. Bonus bets expire 7 days from issuance. In Partnership with MGM Springfield. Play it smart from the start with GameSense. GameSenseMA.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org.
Is hypothetical football success better than hypothetical basketball success at UMass? That’s debatable, especially because it’s unclear what football success is. It’s never been clear if the administrators and fans have been chasing the same goals for the football program.
Group of Five football is a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but it’s not big-time football in any traditional sense. The gap between the power conferences and everyone else is widening by design. The SEC and B1G schools don’t want to share the pie. Scholarship limits and the rules on the field might be the same, but between NIL and other resources, Group of Five is essentially the new Division I-AA. The costs and challenges are only going to get steeper as the NCAA explores new methods for expanded athlete compensation.
UMass football has some great fans, but there aren’t enough of them to make all of this viable, and the casual fans aren’t going to get excited about playing Central Michigan or Ball State.
The Minutemen’s first trip to the Camellia Bowl or Famous Idaho Potato Bowl will be incredible. UMass fans will be excited and many will might even make the trip. But the third and fourth trip to any of the mid-December forgetabowls isn’t going to fire up the fan base after the novelty of FBS postseason has worn off.
The reality that UMass hasn’t really wrapped its head around is this: UMass football isn’t a sleeping giant that’s just waiting for a conference. There’s never been that kind of consistent support.
Still, going to the MAC, or any conference really, would have been a no-brainer if it was a football-only move. But for men’s basketball, it’s a problem.
UMass football fans, who have been desperate to find a league, have talked themselves into hating the Atlantic 10 and believing that the MAC is only a slight step down. While the A-10 isn’t the four or five-bid powerhouse it was at its peak, it’s better than the MAC.
Drastically better.
The Atlantic 10 has had two or more bids in 17 of the last 18 seasons and three or more in 11 of the last 15. If an A-10 program schedules smartly and plays well it can make the field of 68 even if it has an off day in the conference tournament.
The MAC, which has cratered, hasn’t gotten multiple bids to the tournament since 1999.
On Monday, the A-10 was ranked as the nation’s eighth-best conference by KenPom.com, which is generally considered the gold standard of college basketball analytics. The MAC was 24th.
Twenty-fourth.
That’s three spots below America East. Yes, UMass Lowell will be in a better basketball conference than UMass.
Leagues matter in basketball recruiting. The same way UConn’s recruiting dipped from the Big East to the AAC and went back up when they went back to the Big East, UMass is not going to recruit the same caliber players to the MAC that they could to the A-10. Good players want to play against good players. There aren’t enough of them in the MAC.
There’s a reason Keith Dambrot left Akron, one of the best MAC jobs, to coach Duquesne, one of the worst in the Atlantic 10.
UMass isn’t going to play the same nonconference schedule either. This year will mark their last trip to Maui. MAC teams don’t get invited to the elite in-season tournaments (Maui Invitational etc.), which are a good way to face top teams and gain schedule strength. MAC teams go to the Central Arkansas Classic and the Sunshine Slam or are filler in the B-Division of fields with the Libscombs and Idaho States of the world.
It’s going to be harder to get good regular-season games too. Playing 18 MAC games will make it nearly impossible to have good computer numbers even with a strong record, which means good teams in stronger conferences will have no incentive to play UMass during the nonconference.
Basketball isn’t going to be about a 30-game season but about building for winning three games in the conference tournament.
That’s going to make it hard to keep good coaches. Frank Martin is young enough and accomplished enough to be attractive to somebody else. The draw of his wife’s alma mater only has so much power. This news won’t help the momentum he’s been building with a solid season this year.
UMass smartly chose independence over full MAC membership in 2015 to avoid this very thing, but every year football has floundered as as an independent has increased pressure to find a conference.
Now it is laying a new foundation in the middle of seismic activity. All of college athletics is wondering if Florida State’s lawsuit could blow up the ACC. Or if new athlete compensation rules — either designed by the members or required by new law — change Division I athletics altogether.
The only saving grace for UMass is that ice hockey isn’t affected because if this doesn’t lift football, that might be the school’s last remaining relevant program.
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
