Why the Valley has been down

[DoubleJayAlum]

I know many in the national media and most of us having been talking about Valley not being as good as it was as recently as 2006 or 2007. While coaching change is certainly part of the issue, I don't think it is the main one.

The Valley has built its reputation over the years on guard play. We've all heard that the MVC is a guard's league before. The fall off in the MVC is due to the fact that we just don't have the same caliber of guards as we had just as recently as 2007. There just are not any Jamal Tatums/Nate Funks/Ben Jacobsons (the player, obviously) around our conference right now. I'm not even sure that we have many Daniel Ruffins/Booker Woodfoxes or Osiris Eldridges right now. (By naming these players, I don't mean to diminish guards of other teams in the conference from the same time periods; I'm sure there are others that I can't pinpoint at the moment).

The falloff at this position is hard to explain. Creighton and SIU tried to upgrade the level of recruits, only to be burned by the BCS caliber players they attracted (see Stinnet and Dillard). Coaching change has obviously had an impact on the recruiting as well. For whatever reason, the MVC has started to become more of a big man league of late. There is a lot of young talent across all of the teams among the bigs, but bigs generally require more time to mature physically, so growth will be slower. I don't know if Valley teams are not recruiting the same types of guards we used to recruit, or if we are just losing those wars, but there has certainly been a drop off.

I don't think a shift to bigs means that the MVC can't be what it was as recently as four years ago. I do believe though that the drop-off in the caliber of guards is the main reason for the conference's decline. Thoughts?

[TylerDurden]

This stuff isn't hard to explain.

New coaches and new ADs. It's that simple.

[bigdawg]

Interesting hypothesis. If we aren't getting the same caliber of guards where are they going and why not to our schools like they used to?

[WuDrWu]

Coaching and AD turnover, yes, but mostly its about money.

[unipanther99]

Coaching and AD turnover, yes, but mostly its about money.

When talking about college athletics, money should probably always factor into the discussion. But if that is mostly the reason, how do you explain UNI the past couple of years?

[WSUbballer]

More than anything, the conference's flagship schools, CU and SIU, have been down and that has finally let everyone and anyone come out for the party.

[dgreenwell3]

I concur with Baller...even though it's mostly subliminal, we tend to think less highly of a team that is ranked high or winning the conference when they aren't a household name...now granted does this really have much to do with on the court product? No. But the Image is part of the conference and I think that more than anything it has really hurt our chances of putting multiple teams in the tournament...Also I think considering how bad a couple of the programs were back in 2006-2007, (ISU Blue, ISU Red,UE) I think there really isn't a program that is severely down in the dumps...when things are evened out usually no one rises above to snatch an At-large...Once again I am rambling but just my opinion lol

[DoubleJayAlum]

I concur with Baller...even though it's mostly subliminal, we tend to think less highly of a team that is ranked high or winning the conference when they aren't a household name...now granted does this really have much to do with on the court product? No. But the Image is part of the conference and I think that more than anything it has really hurt our chances of putting multiple teams in the tournament...Also I think considering how bad a couple of the programs were back in 2006-2007, (ISU Blue, ISU Red,UE) I think there really isn't a program that is severely down in the dumps...when things are evened out usually no one rises above to snatch an At-large...Once again I am rambling but just my opinion lol

I understand what you are trying to say, but to me we can see that the conference is down by the following factors:

1) Team RPIs;
2) Nonconference records;
3) Number of "quality" wins (wins against RPI top 100 teams).

5 or 6 years ago, beating a conference foe often resulted in a 'quality' win. Now, there are few opportunities to pick up such wins in conference.

[dgreenwell3]

I agree with those points also I was just saying that image wise, the Valley champ isn't going to get much respect if it's name isn't CU or SIU

[Ace Dad]

Coaching and AD turnover, yes, but mostly its about money.

How is money the issue?

I believe our flagship schools have had too many players transfer and we suffer 1-2 years later. We need guys to develop into Jrs and Srs. Redshirting helps.


I have no proof for this theory.