CBS: MVC looking at Missouri-Kansas City

[DoubleJayAlum]

The A10 is not going to take any schools west of St Louis until it is sure that SLU is staying in the conference. If SLU and, to a lesser extent Dayton (UD), leave, the A10 will have lost ALL of the schools on its western side (SLU, UD, X and Butler). They aren't going to grab WSU and make all of their member schools travel all the way out to Wichita for one school. Besides being a huge drain on resources, it just doesn't make any logical sense.

On a related note, I feel that Bradley would be more appealing to the A10 than WSU merely because of proximity. Of course, if both UD and SLU leave the A10, Bradley would be in the same position as WSU.

Ultimately, I do NOT think the Big East is going to take both SLU and Dayton. When the Big East adds two teams in a year or two, they will take one team from the west (either SLU or Dayton) and one team from the east (Richmond or VCU most likely) to make clean east and west divisions. While I think the Big East will select SLU over Dayton, I think the MVC's best opportunity would be if the Big East picks Dayton. Despite SLU's desire to have an eastern presence, if they are the ONLY western team in the A10, it is pretty unlikely they would stay there and the MVC would be a great fit. If Dayton is the school left behind, I think they are far enough east that it doesn't present the same drain on resources to remain in the A10 as it would for SLU.

[GoldenEagle]

Here is a link to a Google spreadsheet comparing RPI, W/L, Power 6 W/L, NCAA appearances etc. from 2003-2004 - 2012-2013 among possible candidates.

[unipanther99]

Here is a link to a Google spreadsheet comparing RPI, W/L, Power 6 W/L, NCAA appearances etc. from 2003-2004 - 2012-2013 among possible candidates.

That's fantastic... Thanks for sharing this. You might want to send it to Doug Elgin as well.

[shocktheheart]

Here is a link to a Google spreadsheet comparing RPI, W/L, Power 6 W/L, NCAA appearances etc. from 2003-2004 - 2012-2013 among possible candidates.

Looking at that, I think the only two you would consider is Murray St and ORU

[bigdawg]

Can you include the Dakota schools too as a comparison?

[rlh04d]

On a related note, I feel that Bradley would be more appealing to the A10 than WSU merely because of proximity. Of course, if both UD and SLU leave the A10, Bradley would be in the same position as WSU.

If the only thing conferences looked at was geography, you would still be here.

[SDSUFan]

Can you include the Dakota schools too as a comparison?

It will be interesting to see, but we won't match up with Murray St., Belmont or ORU.

We have only been DI for 9 years and the first few years were a battle. The transition from DII players to DI didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked but we have steadily gained momentum the last few years. The last 2 seasons have been NCAA births, final RPI's in the 40's and 60's with wins over Iowa, Washington and New Mexico this year.

If the Dakota schools aren't being considered, I still think you need to stick with one of the 3 above rather than a metro school. In my perspective, tradition always trumps location....and if you can get both then that would be great.

[rlh04d]

You would be 400 miles outside the geographic footprint.....but that isn't my point, I said beyond Wichita State the A-10 won't be clamoring to pick up other conference members. And WSU is a significantly better program than St. Louis....the last 2 years, not the 10 before that.

And South Dakota State would be 350 miles outside of the geographic footprint of the Valley, which is far more cash-strapped than the A-10. Thanks for pointing out why we shouldn't consider your program any farther.

As for your comment about Saint Louis, that's laughable, considering the last two years are two of Saint Louis' four 20+ win seasons in the last decade, and by FAR their best two years.

And no, WSU IS a significantly better program than Saint Louis. This year, last year, the year before, the last four years, the last ten years, the last 50 years. See, when I made that statement, it's because I know the facts behind it. You clearly don't know much about this conference and are going off of what you think you know based on name value. So let's take away names. Tell me which of these two programs is better over the last ten seasons:

Team A: 187-136 total record, 18.7-13.6 average record, 99.2 average RPI, 1-2 NCAA Record, 1-1 NIT Record, Attendance 7,700, 4 20+ win seasons
Team B: 225-113 total record, 22.5-11.3 average record, 70.3 average RPI, 6-2 NCAA Record, 7-4 NIT Record, Attendance 10,500, 7 20+ win seasons

I won't even compare the last four seasons, because there aren't more than a handful of elite programs that beat Wichita in those.

Care to reevaluate your opinion?

This is why I think it's laughable when people keep talking about Saint Louis and acting like Wichita is just an afterthought in realignment discussion. One of those two programs had a major statistical anomaly this year ... and it's Saint Louis. We are a better program. Market size is the only category that Saint Louis beat us in ... though granted it beats us by a lot. People keep sitting here talking about how Saint Louis is the one that should be driving all of this, as if either the A-10 or the Big Priest should be fighting over them. You can fight over their market, but they are a very average program. Creighton and WSU are both much better programs.

*Edit: shocktheheart beat me to some of those numbers.

[Western4Life]

Sweet chart, thank you for putting that together.

Belmont is building their brand so I am not going to judge them too harshly based on that. ORU does gains some respect (not supportive of the religious influence at all though)and Murray St. is clearly the best public school to add in the mix.

Baseball is a factor in this too from what many people have shared. Belmont is 26-6 right now... they would do a lot in the MVC for both sports. Here is to inviting them and staying competent. Belmont/Murray State/Valpo sounds just about right. WSU claims such a wonderful budget they can use it to travel some (all respect to the Shockers, they just isn't a great MVC schools lurking in your direction at all).

Baseball records
Belmont 26-6
Murray St 12-16
UIC 13-13 (new facility coming along)
ORU 9-18 (Huh, that isn't what they keep trying to sell...)
Valpo 10-17
Loyola NO BASEBALL.... Eliminated from now on for being sad (don't even have Title 9 issues with football).
UMCK.... seriously wtf MVC... NO BASEBALL, again making me ask how were they even visited?????
SDSU 12-9
NDSU 12-11

[rlh04d]

WSU claims such a wonderful budget they can use it to travel some (all respect to the Shockers, they just isn't a great MVC schools lurking in your direction at all).

I said the same thing already about ORU. I could care less if any team that's added is near us. We have no problem paying to travel elsewhere. There's the slight convenience for local fans to drive down the road to see an away game, but there's no way conference expansion should be based on geographic proximity to us.