If we go to 12 who do you want (choose 2) poll?

[mvfcfan]

So I went to the Oral Roberts - Tulsa basketball game last night (at Tulsa). I will admit that I was wrong about ORU, as someone that strongly vouched for them. There weren't 200 ORU fans at the game last night. If they can't travel across town, they definitely aren't going to travel to St Louis.

But yes 11 keeps looking better all the time. Not sure there is a worthy 12 at this point. If I had to choose a number 12 right now it would probably be Milwaukee. I'd like to eventually see the two XDSU schools get looked at too. As well as NDSU fans travel for football, I have to believe that if they had a good basketball team they would travel well for basketball too.

How’d you become an ISUb fan living fan in Tulsa?

I actually live in Terre Haute. I was in San Antonio for the weekend and I caught it on the way back home.

As far as GCU is concerned, if they are so valuable, why doesn't the WCC add them? Arizona is just too far away to travel for games. Also why isn't the WAC a two bid league already with schools like GCU and NMST? Would either team really make the MVC a multi bid league? Doubtful. Would much rather go with just Murray State.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

So I went to the Oral Roberts - Tulsa basketball game last night (at Tulsa). I will admit that I was wrong about ORU, as someone that strongly vouched for them. There weren't 200 ORU fans at the game last night. If they can't travel across town, they definitely aren't going to travel to St Louis.

But yes 11 keeps looking better all the time. Not sure there is a worthy 12 at this point. If I had to choose a number 12 right now it would probably be Milwaukee. I'd like to eventually see the two XDSU schools get looked at too. As well as NDSU fans travel for football, I have to believe that if they had a good basketball team they would travel well for basketball too.

How’d you become an ISUb fan living fan in Tulsa?

I actually live in Terre Haute. I was in San Antonio for the weekend and I caught it on the way back home.

As far as GCU is concerned, if they are so valuable, why doesn't the WCC add them? Arizona is just too far away to travel for games. Also why isn't the WAC a two bid league already with schools like GCU and NMST? Would either team really make the MVC a multi bid league? Doubtful. Would much rather go with just Murray State.

They will be. They've only been in D1 for 4-5 years. They got it all. Stadium, fans, atmosphere, recruits, good coach, good AD, already seen some success. And, people don't like them because it's a for profit school. When you're the MVC you can't worry about that. You have to do whatever to better the league. GCU is best choice to add and I'm a fan of adding Murray.

[bbtds]

ORU & Valpo we're in the Mid-Con/Summit together for a while and I got to know many of their fans through their message board. I think those two groups were similar in many ways and we truly enjoyed competing against each other yet still had a rivalry with Tulsa (ORU) and Butler (Valpo) outside of the conference.

I would enjoy having ORU in our conference again although many Valpo fans would suspect the Golden Eagles to be a weak sister in the conference.

The name of the public University in Ft Wayne will soon become Purdue Northeast as soon as IU and Purdue get all the details worked out over who is governing each section of that University. As I understand it Purdue will take over everything but the nursing school which IU will control. Purdue has never had anything to do with music ever but will oversee Ft Wayne's music schools. Mitch Daniels, Purdue's president and Indiana's former governor I'm sure loves that acquisition but so be it. The school itself has a national championship men's volleyball team and has shown some real determination in men's basketball. They would prefer to be called simply Fort Wayne.

I voted for Murray State and ORU. One thing I didn't like at ORU was seeing a head coach of, I believe, 18 years, being dismissed because of loyalty to his brother. Scott Sutton sure deserved a better send off from ORU than that. Ask Barry Hinson.

Let's make the conference strong in numbers and membership.

[mvfcfan]

I decided to vote for South Dakota after more thought. It opens the door for us to eventually add the other Dakota schools down the road and I just feel like the Dakota schools are the long term future of the MVC. South Dakota is the southernmost Dakota school (Vermillion, SD is only 2 hours north of Omaha). While most on here hate FCS football, their football team is obviously already in the MVFC and they are getting really good in football. They just won the Summit League last year in MBB and they play in a new arena. Really they are just as good of an add (and imo a better add) than NKU. They nearly pulled off the upset the other night against TCU, who won the NIT last year. USD was picked to finish second in the Summit League this season.

Editing changes: I changed my vote from NKU to USD, after thinking about it more.

Addition: http://www.thesummitleague.org/sports/m ... 0809otp507
I also don't get why a lot of you on here are so anti-adding Dakota schools. The Summit League tournament is in South Dakota and their conference tourney is outdrawing every mid major conference out there. Just thought I'd throw that out there. The Dakota schools are on the rise and they have pretty big fanbases.

[Drakey]

I don't get Northern Kentucky. All this love based on one good season? They might never have another. they are also way down the list in Kentucky.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

Great stadium, great mvc city (basically Cincinnati) and already finding success despite only being in D1 a short time.

[Mikovio]

South Dakota averaged 2,192 fans last year. They're 60-60 all time in the Summit. Pass.

I still say Murray State and Milwaukee are the best adds. Murray has demonstrated sustained excellence and Milwaukee has been up and down but they're in the footprint and give the conference a foothold in Wisconsin, and will help the rest of the schools recruit there. I can't tell you the last guy Bradley was recruiting from South Dakota which with all due respect probably has more cows than people. I don't see the benefit of adding teams because they're in the MVFC, except maybe making paperwork easier in the conference office. Should we be considering Youngstown and WIU too? Because those would be terrible adds.

[mvfcfan]

With all due respect Milwaukee averaged 1,460 fans per game last season and with those numbers I suspect that in reality there probably weren't 1000 people at most of their games. There might be more people in Milwaukee than cows, but they aren't coming to the games. It also doesn't help when Marquette, a Big East school, is playing basketball across the street.

[bbtds]

With all due respect Milwaukee averaged 1,460 fans per game last season and with those numbers I suspect that in reality there probably weren't 1000 people at most of their games. There might be more people in Milwaukee than cows, but they aren't coming to the games. It also doesn't help when Marquette, a Big East school, is playing basketball across the street.

Milwaukee also has one of the strangest fan give-aways that I ever remember seeing. If a player from the opposing team misses two free throws in a row in the second half the crowd gets free chicken from one of the fast food restaurants in town (can't remember which one). During the Valpo at Milwaukee game which Valpo brings about 200 fans to since Milwaukee has a big German Lutheran community with lots of Valpo alumni, the Valpo players missed the front end of the 2 shot free throws 4 times but each time they hit the back end free throw. Each time the Milwaukee crowd would get very excited about the chance of winning some free chicken and each time the Valpo player would hit the back end free throw the crowd would sit down in dissappointment and the 200 Valpo fans would yell "No Chicken" and cross their arms like a football referee signaling a "no catch." It was quite funny when it happened for the 4th time with only seconds on the clock and it was obvious the Milwaukee fans weren't going to win any free chicken.

[TheAsianSensation]

I'm warming to the idea of the Dakotas (football implications be damned), but Murray St is such as obvious add at #11, and I can't see adding just one Dakota.

Murray St + random school > the XDSUs. Even if NDSU feels truly untethered to SDSU, it feels like the rest of the Valley doesn't see it that way and would need both for travel/logistics purposes.

It feels like optimal strategy is to wait a year or two and make sure NKU is still tracking well. If not, Milwaukee is there. I just don't see a different path forward out of this.