Is the Valley a 1-bid conference now?

[IllinoisState]

2008 - 1 bid
2009 - 1 bid
2010 - 1 bid
2011 - 1 bid
2012 - 2 bids
2013 - 2 bids

1 bid league 4 of the last 6 years with Creighton...all about getting everyone to schedule up and win some of those games

Yeah, I mean we can still be a good conference and get one bid. I think that we can still get multiple bids without a problem.

[mvcfan]

2008 - 1 bid
2009 - 1 bid
2010 - 1 bid
2011 - 1 bid
2012 - 2 bids
2013 - 2 bids

1 bid league 4 of the last 6 years with Creighton...all about getting everyone to schedule up and win some of those games

Yeah, I mean we can still be a good conference and get one bid.

Ya, we're still better than the Sky Conference.

[IllinoisState]

2008 - 1 bid
2009 - 1 bid
2010 - 1 bid
2011 - 1 bid
2012 - 2 bids
2013 - 2 bids

1 bid league 4 of the last 6 years with Creighton...all about getting everyone to schedule up and win some of those games

Yeah, I mean we can still be a good conference and get one bid.

Ya, we're still better than the Sky Conference.

Everyone's so negative. Did you consider the conference to be "bad" during the four years in a row that we only got one team into the tournament?

[rlh04d]

Ya, we're still better than the Sky Conference.

Everyone's so negative. Did you consider the conference to be "bad" during four years in a row that we only got one team into the tournament?

We're not going to be a "bad" conference at any point in the foreseeable future.

Just one that doesn't get at-large tournament bids very often.

If the goal is to create decent teams or present a decent basketball product to the fans that show up to the games, the Valley will continue to do that. If the goal is to make the NCAA tournament, win at a high level, and get a TV contract, the Valley will not be doing that.

[BEARZ77]

I agree with the others, the most important thing is to win games against top 50 teams and avoid glaringly bad losses, which for a Valley school means in your noncon schedule primarily. You hear the pundits all the time now almost totally ignoring the fact a team has RPIs in the 40's/50's if they have 4-5 top 50 wins. The 21 RPI was completely about not giving the Valley 5 bids, the Bears resume that year was better than at least 4-5 other at large teams. I've had people do blind comparisons with teams using various combinations and the Bears always get picked in all the comparisons except unfortunately the one that really counted.Actually Creighton probably should have made it that year too .

[Wufan]

Everyone's so negative. Did you consider the conference to be "bad" during four years in a row that we only got one team into the tournament?

Yes. If it's a one bid conference then it's a bad conference.

In 2011 a mediocre Ind. St. got hot and won the Valley tournament. MSU was left out. WSU was forced to win the NIT. WSU and MSU should have been in.

In 2010 a VERY good UNI dominated the conference and got the auto-bid. A 25 win Shocker team finished second and was forced into the NIT.

In 2009 a goon UNI team won the conference tournament. A 27 win Creighton team went to the NIT after winning the conference with a 14-4 record. A 24-10 Ill St was also left out.

In 2008 a VERY good Drake dominated the conference and got the auto-bid. A 25-10 Ill St was left out.

The above conference resume does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.

[IllinoisState]

Everyone's so negative. Did you consider the conference to be "bad" during four years in a row that we only got one team into the tournament?

Yes. If it's a one bid conference then it's a bad conference.

In 2011 a mediocre Ind. St. got hot and won the Valley tournament. MSU was left out. WSU was forced to win the NIT. WSU and MSU should have been in.

In 2010 a VERY good UNI dominated the conference and got the auto-bid. A 25 win Shocker team finished second and was forced into the NIT.

In 2009 a goon UNI team won the conference tournament. A 27 win Creighton team went to the NIT after winning the conference with a 14-4 record. A 24-10 Ill St was also left out.

In 2008 a VERY good Drake dominated the conference and got the auto-bid. A 25-10 Ill St was left out.

The above conference resume does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.

Fair enough. I think the MVC was swindled during those years.

[havoc]

I know that it is up to individual teams to get at-large bids, but a large portion of a team's RPI comes from the teams in their conference (and their OOC performance).

If you can say this (which I agree with), how can you take a team's RPI that played in a different conference and add it to another conference's RPI and say that is what the entire conference's RPI would be? Sorry, but it makes 0 sense.

[TNMSUFAN]

I know that it is up to individual teams to get at-large bids, but a large portion of a team's RPI comes from the teams in their conference (and their OOC performance).

If you can say this (which I agree with), how can you take a team's RPI that played in a different conference and add it to another conference's RPI and say that is what the entire conference's RPI would be? Sorry, but it makes 0 sense.

This...their previous RPI doesn't mean anything at this point because they will now play 18 games against Valley teams.

Also, I wasn't being negative about the Valley...we are a great basketball conference and probably deserved more bids those years. I just wanted to point out to those who say we are going to be a 1 bid league now that Creighton is gone that we already have been lately with them. Elgin needs to get non-con schedule penalty back and we need to win those game...doesn't matter who is in our conference.

[rlh04d]

This...their previous RPI doesn't mean anything at this point because they will now play 18 games against Valley teams.

That's not true. Sorry, but the Valley's RPI isn't THAT much better than the Horizon's, that Loyola will suddenly launch itself out of "bad loss" territory, especially when they will inevitably lose more games. The problem with their RPI isn't even really that they played in the Horizon ... it's that they played six games against 300+ RPI teams.

You can't do a blanket comparison for teams joining/leaving conferences, but you can make assumptions. You can assume that Loyola's RPI will increase by playing the Valley, but will still likely be around the 200 mark. While Loyola's RPI will be higher next year than it was this year, so it's tough to just average them into our RPIs, the RPIs of every Valley team will also drop by swapping out a top 25 RPI team for a team around 200. The net result is that the Valley's average RPI will actually be lower than if you just took Loyola's HL RPI and averaged it into ours. Nine teams will have a lower RPI, one team will have a higher RPI.