Rick Pitino Is Basically Begging Iona To Join The A-10 Or The MAAC To Become A Multi-Bid League So Iona Stops Getting Screwed
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Oh these are some quotes by Rick Pitino. It's actually refreshing though. He's being honest. He's not doing this stupid coachspeak bullshit where he says a bunch of words but says nothing. He's doing 2 things here basically. 1, he's letting the A-10 know that Iona is ready to join the league. Not exactly a secret that Pitino has wanted that jump to happen but also it's hard to see it make sense. Iona doesn't bring anything 'new' to the A-10 in terms of market or some great historical success, etc. The other thing is basically begging the MAAC to start fixing shit to make it a multi-bid league.
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See this is where the nerd in me finds everything that Pitino is saying so intriguing. The debate every single year is about one-bid leagues. Why have a conference tournament and not send your best team. Well, the answer is simple. Money. Conference tournaments bring in money for said conference before any NCAA Tournament wins. It worked out for the MAAC this year where they got money from Atlantic City to host the event and then St. Peter's goes on a run and brings in more win shares for the conference than ever imagined.
There's no real answer to give Pitino here if you're the MAAC. Sure, you want to keep with expansion and grab a team if you can. But the MAAC is rarely a 2-bid league. It happened in 2012 where Iona was an at-large 14 seed who had to play in the First Four. Loyola who won the league was a 15 seed. So there's just no good answer in terms of getting a multi-bid league out of the MAAC.
Shit just look at Iona this year. They were 25-8 but that still wasn't enough to be truly on the bubble. They had a win over Alabama early while also beating Liberty. But then they lost 3 times in conference and the first game of the conference tournament. That's just life as a low-major.
But this is why I want Pitino at a big time school. We need him in the public eye as much as possible. He's not afraid to stir shit up. He's not afraid to say things. Now we just need Iona to win the MAAC Tournament. That's the only solution for him to not be pissed in late April.