Now that our lineup is complete and we look forward to Sha working his magic with our team, how about some fun with a dream scenario for the fans?

Part 1 Danny Hurley signs a 6 year $15,000,000/year contract with the LA Lakers. He keeps his promise to support SHU NIL, and more important, he becomes a vocal supporter of Shaheen Holloway and Seton Hall basketball.

Part 2: UConn hires a Big Ten coach and former UConn grad to lead the Huskies - Steve Pikiell.

Part 3: Five star commits, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper show their loyalty to Coach Pike and transfer to UConn.

Part 4: Seton Hall defeats Rutgers and UConn in the upcoming season.

Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff Writer

LAS VEGAS -- NCAA president Charlie Baker said the association's pending antitrust case settlement will put financial pressure on everyone in the college sports industry, but he believes it also creates more certainty for schools to plan for a new system that will allow them to share more money with their athletes.

The NCAA announced last month that it had agreed to terms to settle three federal antitrust cases that loomed as the most immediate and arguably largest threats to the future of the association. As part of the settlement, the NCAA will pay former athletes nearly $2.8 billion in back damages. In addition, schools will be allowed to share a significant portion of revenue -- roughly $20 million per year starting in 2025 -- directly with their athletes. In exchange, the plaintiffs have agreed to drop three cases that some in college sports believe could have resulted in close to $20 billion in total damages.

"There is a lot of pressure here on everybody," Baker said. "I think it's much better than the pressure of what could have been catastrophic losses. That would have taken another few years. So, we'd be spinning our wheels for another few years without really knowing what was going to happen."

Baker, in his first extensive interview since agreeing to a settlement, told reporters that he hopes the terms of the settlement establish a way for schools to provide fair compensation to their athletes without turning them into employees.

The NCAA remains a defendant in multiple lawsuits which argue that college athletes should be considered employees of their schools or conferences. While the settlement does not resolve those issues, Baker and many others in college sports are hoping the plans to share revenue with athletes in the future will spur Congress to write a new law that will prevent athletes from becoming employees.

"If the court blesses [the pending settlement], then it puts us in a position where we can go to Congress and say: 'One of the three branches of the federal government blessed this as a model to create compensation without triggering employment,'" Baker said Monday. "I think that's a good place to start a conversation with Congress."

The NCAA and conference leaders have made little progress during the past several years of lobbying politicians on Capitol Hill for a new law that would create a special status for college sports as an industry. Baker said he has heard positive feedback from several federal lawmakers since the terms of the settlement were made public.

At a conference for athletic directors in Las Vegas this week, Baker said he has been peppered with questions about how some details of the settlement might impact the future shape of college sports. He said more answers are likely to come within the next 30 days, when lawyers for both sides of the antitrust cases are expected to submit the fine-print details of their settlement in court.

The detailed terms of the settlement will still need to be approved by the federal judge overseeing the cases -- a process that is likely to take several months and include a window for athletes to object or comment on the terms.

"I'm a little uncomfortable about getting too far ahead of that," Baker said. "People are starting to think about how to plan for it. We certainly are. But we absolutely recognize and understand there is a bunch of stuff that needs to happen before the thing becomes official."

Some legal experts have questioned if the judge in this case will take issue with a class action settlement that will make it difficult for athletes to sue the NCAA for antitrust violations in the future. When asked if he had concerns about the settlement being approved, Baker said the central figures on all sides of the argument for compensating college athletes that has played out over the past 10 years are involved in the case.

"If you think the players on the field matter, we've got most of them," he said.

The two biggest pending questions for school officials gearing up for a new business model concern the roles that Title IX laws and booster collectives will play in how revenue is shared with athletes in the future.

Title IX regulations require schools to provide equal benefits and opportunities to men and women for their varsity sports on campus. The Department of Education, which oversees Title IX on college campuses, has not made any comment on whether schools will have to split payments to athletes equally among men and women to remain compliant with the law.

"I'm going to wait and see where the dust lands [on the settlement] before we start engaging in those conversations," Baker said. "The one thing we should do here is not race. We should be deliberate and trust the process here."

Multiple sources have told ESPN that part of the settlement aims to rein in collectives -- groups of boosters associated with a particular school that have served as a de facto payroll in some places as the NIL market has evolved in the past three years. Baker said he does not believe collectives are going to disappear as a result of the settlement, but he does hope that the new revenue-sharing arrangements will make it easier for schools to "own the primary relationship" with their athletes.

The NCAA plans to pay the $2.8 billion of back damages throughout the course of the next 10 years. Baker said at least $120 million (or roughly 42%) of the yearly payment for the settlement will come from the NCAA's national office budget. The other 58% will come from reducing the amount of the money the NCAA typically distributes to its members -- 33% from FBS schools, 13% from FCS schools and 12% from Division I schools that don't have a football program.


Some athletic directors and conference officials from smaller leagues have raised objections to the amount of money they will be missing over the next 10 years from the NCAA's distributions to help solve a problem that pertains mostly to the power conferences that generate large sums of money from football. Baker said the back damages are related to a set of rules that the entire NCAA membership -- including the schools from those smaller conferences -- approved and maintained.

Baker also said that he thinks the 10-year span of the settlement will serve as "glue" to help bind together the larger group of Division I schools, avoiding the potential for power conferences to form a separate entity with their own rules. Keeping all of Division I together will allow the NCAA to maintain the March Madness basketball tournament that generates the overwhelming majority of money that the association distributes to its schools.

"We now have the ability to move forward with the assumption that we're all going to be one big, maybe happy, family moving forward," Baker said.

Baker said the NCAA's national office has committed to potentially increasing its contribution to the damages payments beyond $120 million if revenue for the national tournaments it organizes continues to grow.

Not SHU news but was told by an A+ source that UCONN informed Luke Murray the jobs his if Hurley goes to the Lakers as expected. Obviously things can change but no sexy names for Uconn at this moment anyway

Associated Press

IRVING, Texas -- Big 12 schools will share in a record $470 million of revenue distribution, the conference announced Friday while wrapping up its first spring meetings as a 14-team league and before growing by two more universities.

While the 10 full-share members will get smaller amounts than they got last year because of the addition of the four schools that joined the league for the 2023-24 academic year, commissioner Brett Yormark said the conference is more relevant than it has ever been.

"We went with stability as a conference and we felt it was investing in all the right ways and for all the right reasons," Yormark said. "Clearly that was the right one for this conference as we think about where we're going."

First-year members BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF each will get partial shares of about $18 million each. That leaves about $398 million to be split among the league's other 10 schools, including Oklahoma and Texas before they move this summer to the Southeastern Conference.

About $440 million was distributed last year.

The Big 12 will grow to 16 teams with the additions of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the Pac-12 officially on Aug. 1. The four incoming schools took part in this week's meetings, while Oklahoma and Texas did not.

Yormark said the increases came as a result of bigger College Football Playoff and bowl revenues, growth in ticket revenue across all of the conference championships and sponsorship after streamlining that to be handled directly by the conference instead of using outside parties.

According to tax filings released last week, the five power conferences generated $3.55 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year, with the Big Ten reporting revenue of $879.9 million compared with $852.6 million for the SEC. The ACC saw the most significant increase, going from $617 million in 2021-22 to $707 million.

The Pac-12, which will see 10 of its 12 members disperse to other conferences in 2024-25, generated $603.9 million. The Big 12 was fifth at $510.7 million, which was before distributions when it was still only a 10-member league.

Like the other leagues, the Big 12 is preparing for big changes after news of a landmark $2.8 billion settlement that will transform how athletes are compensated. The power conferences last week agreed to settle a host of antitrust claims that could start steering millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester.


"I think we ended up in a fair and reasonable place," Yormark said. "Obviously, it's going to be a changing landscape. But I also do see opportunities in that changing landscape, and the work really starts now. A lot of work to be done. I look at this as a bit of a reset for our industry. And we're prepared for that. The ADs, myself, the board, we've been discussing that reset for quite some time. So it's not coming as a surprise."

When he became the Big 12 commissioner two summers ago, Yormark was an executive with Jay-Z's Roc Nation and a former CEO of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. He spent almost 15 years with the Nets, overseeing the club's move from New Jersey and construction of Barclays Center, and previously was with NASCAR, where he oversaw a $750 million agreement with Nextel Communications for naming rights to the circuit's top racing series.

"Since I took this job, you know, I said from day one, I was open for business. And I guess you could say we're open for business now more so than ever before," Yormark said. "When I think about my background, I certainly do believe that collegiate athletics is shifting, more closely to where I came from than where we are today."

Sorry I must have missed it. Is he staying at Georgetown or did he go somewhere else??

THE FUTURE OF COLLEGE ATHLETICS?​

Having read the attached article, I wouldn't be surprised if many universities eliminate non-revenue generating sports. The unintended consequence may be a massive loss of education opportunities for athletes of the so called "olympic sports".

A future where university scholarships and pay exist for a maximum of 2 male sports and 2 female sports. The remaining sports would exist as Club teams with a combination of financial aid and scholarships.

The NCAA needs to figure this out quickly!

Article drips with venom and hate and maybe driven by a touch of jealousy. It just highlights how much hate and blind adherence to failed narratives exists in the Dem party.

Schedule


SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – The Seton Hall volleyball team released its 2024 schedule on Thursday. Head coach Shannon Thompson and the Pirates will prepare for 29 contests overall, including 12 home dates at Walsh Gym and 18 BIG EAST Conference games.

Seton Hall will open the season with the Florida Atlantic Invitational, hosted by the Florida Atlantic University, Aug. 30 and 31. The Pirates will begin the event against Ball State on Friday at 10:00 a.m. followed by host Florida Atlantic at 7:00 p.m. They'll complete the season-opening event with a match against Bryant University on Saturday at 10:00 a.m.

The Pirates will host the Seton Hall Classic, Sept. 6-8, in Walsh Gym. The Hall will host Sacred Heart at 3:00 p.m. on Friday. On Saturday, it'll face local rival NJIT at 3:00 p.m. before taking on Kent State on Sunday at 11:00 a.m.

The weekend of Sept. 13-14, The Hall will play at the Towson Invitational in Towson, Md. The Pirates will face Coppin State on Friday at 2:00 p.m. On Saturday, The Hall will take on Loyola (Md.) at 11:00 a.m. before facing host Towson at 4:00 p.m.

Two road, stand-alone matches will close out the non-conference portion of the Seton Hall schedule. The Pirates will go to Brooklyn, N.Y. to face LIU on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 6:00 p.m. On Saturday, Sept. 21, The Hall will play Fordham in the Bronx at 6:00 p.m.

Seton Hall will begin the BIG EAST Conference portion of its schedule at St. John's in Queens on Friday, Sept. 27 at 7:00 p.m. The Pirates' home opener will come the next day, Saturday, Sept. 28, when it hosts Villanova at historic Walsh Gymnasium at 5:00 p.m. Additional BIG EAST home dates and opponents are Xavier (Oct. 11), DePaul (Oct. 13), Georgetown (Oct. 16), Marquette (Oct. 25), Creighton (Oct. 26), Connecticut (Nov. 8), Providence (Nov. 9) and Butler (Nov. 23).

Here's the full Seton Hall BIG EAST Conference schedule…

Friday, Sept. 27 at St. John's @ 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 28 vs. Villanova @ 5:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Friday, Oct. 4 at Connecticut @ 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 5 at Providence @ 3:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 11 vs. Xavier @ 5:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Sunday, Oct. 13 vs. DePaul @ 1:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Wednesday, Oct. 16 vs. Georgetown @ 5:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Friday, Oct. 18 at Butler @ TBD
Friday, Oct. 25 vs. Marquette @ 5:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Saturday, Oct. 26 vs. Creighton @ 6:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Friday, Nov. 1 at DePaul @ 8:00 p.m. ET
Sunday, Nov. 3 at Xavier @ 1:00 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 8 vs. Connecticut @ 5:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Saturday, Nov. 9 vs. Providence @ 4:30 p.m. (Walsh Gym)
Friday, Nov. 15 at Creighton @ 7:00 p.m. ET
Sunday, Nov. 17 at Marquette @ 2:00 p.m. ET
Wednesday, Nov. 20 at Georgetown @ 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 23 vs. Butler @ 5:00 p.m. (Walsh Gym)

The top six BIG EAST teams in the final regular season standings will again battle for the conference championship and its automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, beginning on November 26.

There will be no public memorial for Hall of Fame player and executive Jerry West.

"We will honor Jerry's wishes and mourn his passing privately," his family said in a statement released Thursday by the LA Clippers.

West was working as a consultant for the Clippers when he died June 12 at age 86.

He was born in the West Virginia hamlet of Chelyan and starred at West Virginia University from 1957 to 1960 before becoming the second overall pick in the NBA draft by the Minneapolis Lakers. The team relocated to Los Angeles, and he became a 14-time All-Star and won the 1972 NBA championship with the Lakers.

The family said West can be honored through donations to four funds at West Virginia, including academic and basketball scholarships named after him and his wife.

"Jerry's heart never left West Virginia," the statement said.

The statement was signed by his widow, Karen, and West's five sons -- David, Michael, Mark, Ryan and Jonnie -- along with their spouses and children.

West was selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame three times in a storied career as a player and executive. His silhouette is considered to be the basis of the NBA logo.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

With a Seton Hall mention.