Raising my hand. I included them in my votes. Academics, lacrosse and basketball — in my order of importance to get to 24. I was at 20 with UVA and UNC in my 20-count… Duke made my selection only to get to numbers. It doesn’t get us any TV market as we’d have it covered with UNC… but it does get us to 24 and boosts both LAX and bouncy ball.
The addition of UVA, UNC and Duke to B1G LAX would be colossally good. And while I hate to think that B1G (and college) football may someday be non-existent, I don’t think that it’s out of the question. Aside from ‘Cuse, Denver and the Domers… you’d be hard pressed to find a LAX program outside of that B1G conference what would be worth a damn on a consistent basis. Notable exception would be the periodic Ivy that comes to play in a given year.
3-pods of 8:
B1G East
Duke
UNC
UVA
UMD
Rutgers
State Penn
tOSU
tsun
B1G Great Lakes
Sparty
Indiana
Purdue
Illinois
Northwestern
Wisky
Minnesota
Iowa
B1G Flyover Westward Expansion
Nebraska
Colorado
Cal
UCLA
USC
Oregon
Washington
Stanford
Do this and we appease those who care about eye-balls, academics, football, lacrosse, bouncy ball… This would be a win all the way around.