Exhibition game results - DePauw 66 Evansville 62

[Drakey]

Why do people talk about Butler joining the Valley? Butler is one of a handful of schools that have figured out the one way to national prominence for a non BCS school, which is to play in a weak conference, dominate that conference, get into the NCAA tournament every year, and improve recruiting every year as a result. If the Valley had taken Butler instead of Evansville when they both applied, Evansville might have been in the final four last year. I can assure you that Butler would not have been, as they probably would have been in the NCAA tournament 2-3 times at the most over the past 15 years.

[WSUbballer]

jayball, I understand your general logic that replacing Butler with an Evansville would make things more difficult for individual programs. Every conference needs a whipping boy and I guess ours is Evansville. Am I right to assume this?

Exhibition games are meaningless. I get that. When teams continually lose to schools two tiers below them (Division III), it makes that school look grotesque. In return, it hurts the conference's image IMO. And then if that team gets hot one night and takes down an NCAA at-large contender, it's not good. (Again, it was WSU's fault for losing that game, not saying it wasn't). UNI lost a couple of seed lines with their loss to UE IMO. Those losses do happen. South Florida a couple of years ago. Colorado has stunned KU a few times before. The Valley is a completely different animal. We need less drag from the bottom IMO. Schools like WSU, Creighton, Bradley, etc. have large fanbases that bring $$$$ and prestige into the league. SIU, UNI have brought limelight onto the conference with their postseason runs. Empty arenas with 250 RPI grenades on a continuous basis is what I would call "drag". If you're the one who believes we all need conference "whipping boys", then I guess I see your side of things a little bit more. We disagree that replacing Evansville with Butler would give the league more balance and attention. Drake has made a nice recent run. Indiana State is borderline, but like I said, they have had a good history a while back, and have taken small steps to improve. We haven't seen that consistently with Evansville.

Evansville would fit perfectly in the OVC or some other middling conference, IMO.

[WSUbballer]

Why do people talk about Butler joining the Valley? Butler is one of a handful of schools that have figured out the one way to national prominence for a non BCS school, which is to play in a weak conference, dominate that conference, get into the NCAA tournament every year, and improve recruiting every year as a result. If the Valley had taken Butler instead of Evansville when they both applied, Evansville might have been in the final four last year. I can assure you that Butler would not have been, as they probably would have been in the NCAA tournament 2-3 times at the most over the past 15 years.

Do you really think the Horizon League has helped Butler to be who they are today? Butler has helped themselves for what they've done OUTSIDE of the conference, not in it.

And as for this line, I thought twice about responding to you because I'm wondering if I should've even have taken this post seriously..

If the Valley had taken Butler instead of Evansville when they both applied, Evansville might have been in the final four last year.

[jayball]

Why do people talk about Butler joining the Valley? Butler is one of a handful of schools that have figured out the one way to national prominence for a non BCS school, which is to play in a weak conference, dominate that conference, get into the NCAA tournament every year, and improve recruiting every year as a result. If the Valley had taken Butler instead of Evansville when they both applied, Evansville might have been in the final four last year. I can assure you that Butler would not have been, as they probably would have been in the NCAA tournament 2-3 times at the most over the past 15 years.

Agreed. Gonzaga and Butler have proven that your league doesn't matter. Beat the big boys, win in March....repeat. Everyone loves you.

The only schools with any incentive to join the Valley would not really "help" they Valley anymore than UE.

Maybe WSU should actually move to the Summit League? Then they could really dominate and become who they always imagined that they could have been. (I kid I kid)

The Valley is a completely different animal

Baller.....yes we are a different animal from BCS conference. If you think we are going to get a huge jump in TV money, national exposure, or NCAA bids by trading small private school in Ohio for one in Indiana....I think you are wrong. TV money drives conferences and college athletics. IMO, Butler might as well be UE for that purpose. It would take one or two bad years and Butler is out of national spotlight. They don't cement anything for the MVC. example: How many people are taking about George Mason anymore?

Overall, I think your league image thing is bogus. The Valley will be judged by the top programs and who they beat like every other conference. If we have more than one team beating people, we will get more attention. UE has their own issues to fix but they aren't holding anyone back.

Our problem is
1.)our best programs have trouble schedule good teams to prove how good they are.
2.) we usually have a few good teams that beat up on each other so no one stands out as clearly the best.

When it comes time for bids we are praying that our regular season champ doesn't win in St Louis or that the 2nd/3rd place teams won some really big games early in the year.

[Aces1982]

jayball, I understand your general logic that replacing Butler with an Evansville would make things more difficult for individual programs. Every conference needs a whipping boy and I guess ours is Evansville. Am I right to assume this?

Exhibition games are meaningless. I get that. When teams continually lose to schools two tiers below them (Division III), it makes that school look grotesque. In return, it hurts the conference's image IMO. And then if that team gets hot one night and takes down an NCAA at-large contender, it's not good. (Again, it was WSU's fault for losing that game, not saying it wasn't). UNI lost a couple of seed lines with their loss to UE IMO. Those losses do happen. South Florida a couple of years ago. Colorado has stunned KU a few times before. The Valley is a completely different animal. We need less drag from the bottom IMO. Schools like WSU, Creighton, Bradley, etc. have large fanbases that bring $$$$ and prestige into the league. SIU, UNI have brought limelight onto the conference with their postseason runs. Empty arenas with 250 RPI grenades on a continuous basis is what I would call "drag". If you're the one who believes we all need conference "whipping boys", then I guess I see your side of things a little bit more. We disagree that replacing Evansville with Butler would give the league more balance and attention. Drake has made a nice recent run. Indiana State is borderline, but like I said, they have had a good history a while back, and have taken small steps to improve. We haven't seen that consistently with Evansville.

Evansville would fit perfectly in the OVC or some other middling conference, IMO.

I get the loss, it was terrible. It was terrible for UE not the conference. I can guarentee that a handful of people outside the conference even know this game was played. Losing in a exibition game does not hurt the conference one bit. At the end of last year, I would say there wasn't one person in the country that said WSU lost to UE, didn't UE lose to Division XXII school in their exibition game?

[Aces1982]

[Aces0976]

All this talk about adding Butler and dropping UE is kinda funny. First of all, it's not gonna happen in the foreseeable future. What would Butler have to gain from it???? If anything, they probably would look at us and see how its worked out for us. It doesn't seem like that long ago...(yikes it's been about 20 years, Im getting old) that Butler was our whipping boy. The pecking order in the MCC was Xavier, UE, then SLU and Butler, then fill in the blanks from there. Things go in cycles, a program the size of Butler is going to have trouble maintaining that success for 10-20 years. Not saying it cant happen, hell, I hope it does, just chances are it won't be sustained. Do I think UE is a perfect fit for the valley, no, but I dont want to leave just because some say we cant compete. I thinks it's time for UE to man up, dig in their heels and fight back.

BTW, good luck to all the Valley schools in non conference, some us need it more than others