B1G news today

[DaBear]

So the Big 10 decided today to do something it had been previously staunchly against and at one point said it would never do, allow associate membership. This is, at least partially, what kept Notre Dame from coming to the Big 10. There is officially now a Big 10 Lacrosse conference in both Men's and Women's starting in 2015, with the addition of Johns Hopkins as an associate member for Men's Lacrosse only(Women's will have N'Western as their Women's only member, with Michigan, OSU, PSU, UMd, and Rutgers rounding out the 6 needed for an AQ).

http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2013/...-johns-hopkins

It makes me laugh that they could have had Notre Dame but completely botched that deal up years ago, and yet bring in Hopkins as a nonfull member, even allowing one major thing they didn't want to with ND, allowing the school to have an independent TV rights deal for all home games(Hopkins has a deal with ESPNU to televise all home games through 2017).

Personally, as a Hopkins fan I hate this. To me, there was only one option for affiliation if we went down that route, the ACC. As a lacrosse fan, and ACC lacrosse with Cuse, UVA, Duke, Carolina, Notre Dame, and Hopkins would make SEC football look like a bunch of pansies, and it would have continued three major rivalries with out needing to make room on the schedule(Cuse, Carolina, UVA). Now we have to clear 4 games(3, plus one week for conference tourney) from our current schedule(only slated to play UMd and Michigan next year), endangering the Carolina, Princeton, Loyola(Charles Street Massacre), Navy, and Army rivalries(Cuse and UVA rivalries ending would be a cold damn day in hell). Plus throw in the Towson, Mt. St. Mary's and UMBC games, which made us do a round robin of every D1 school in the state, coming to an end more than likely is pretty lame. Not to mention, as a lacrosse fan, this likely means the end of an Big 10 schools adding lacrosse as a sport, mainly due to Title IX restrictions(pretty much any school adding men's lacrosse in the Big 10 would have to add women's lacrosse and one more women's sport)