If Creighton leaves, I'm going to miss the Valley

[Snaggletooth]

1. It is a lot harder to do much better than we have done on a consistent basis, being in the Valley.

And what is that? 1 MVC regular season championship in 4 years? Only thing CU can point to is they have been solid, but not great. They have not faced the up's and down's that some teams have faced - mainly IMO because they have had a stable coach in Altman, and when they did replace a coach, he brought a UNI recruit with him.

[shoxrox]

Does anyone remember about 10 years or so ago when DePaul was in Conference USA and they were actually a pretty good basketball program?

[saluki762]

Does anyone remember about 10 years or so ago when DePaul was in Conference USA and they were actually a pretty good basketball program?

No, I don't. In the past 20 years Depaul has made 2 NCAA tourneys. The last time they made it to the Sweet 16 was in 1986 and 1987 and those were vacated for cheating. Since you have to throw those out, the last time they made it past the first weekend of the tournament was their Final Four run in 1979. It has been 35 years since Depaul was relevant. Comparisons between Depaul and Creighton are not logical.

[jackwagon]

No way the new big east gets 6-7 bids a year. Seton hall, Providence, and Depaul are junk programs. . Basically your top schools in the new league are 1. Georgetown 2. Butler 3. Marquette.. Those are your premier schools in the new league. A good group no doubt but that just cancels out the dead weight at the bottom. So your left with a middle of Villanova, St. Johns, Creighton, Xavier, St. Louis and Dayton. Those programs some years are NCAA quality and others are barely NIT. Sorry dont see 6-7 bids out of this group.

[havoc]

So your left with a middle of Villanova, St. Johns, Creighton, Xavier, St. Louis and Dayton. Those programs some years are NCAA quality and others are barely NIT.

Seriously? Xavier has been to the NCAA 7 straight seasons and 13 out of the last 16. In the past 10 seasons they have 2 Elite 8s and 3 Sweet 16s. Prior to last year, Villanova had gone to 7 straight NCAAs with a Final Four.

[jaybydna]

No way the new big east gets 6-7 bids a year. Seton hall, Providence, and Depaul are junk programs. . Basically your top schools in the new league are 1. Georgetown 2. Butler 3. Marquette.. Those are your premier schools in the new league. A good group no doubt but that just cancels out the dead weight at the bottom. So your left with a middle of Villanova, St. Johns, Creighton, Xavier, St. Louis and Dayton. Those programs some years are NCAA quality and others are barely NIT. Sorry dont see 6-7 bids out of this group.

Quality points (and thanks for not turning this bitter like the same old crowd loves to do).

If the group was together this year, there would be 6 bids. St. Louis is up, Xavier and Nova is down. I think SJ and SH will improve in the new league, and I see no reason for GT or Marq to fall off, despite what our favorite fisherman says. You will have a league with a strong top, strong middle, and decent bottom, where everyone has an RPI in the top 100. I do think that 4 is the least number, and 6 is possible.


Deanthony, fess up, are you a WSU fan? All you seem to do is bait WSU fans and give them material to beat up CU with.

[DoubleJayAlum]

1. It is a lot harder to do much better than we have done on a consistent basis, being in the Valley.

And what is that? 1 MVC regular season championship in 4 years? Only thing CU can point to is they have been solid, but not great. They have not faced the up's and down's that some teams have faced - mainly IMO because they have had a stable coach in Altman, and when they did replace a coach, he brought a UNI recruit with him.

Since 1999, Creighton has been to the NCAA tournament NINE times. That is over 50% of the time. Only SIU is close in that period.

On top of that, Creighton has won the conference tournament 8 times in the same period. Nobody else even comes close.

In the same time period, Creighton has averaged winning the conference regular season title about once every three years.

Creighton has NEVER played in the play-in game in St Louis. A bad season for Creighton is third. A horrible season for Creighton is finishing in fourth place and immediately puts a coach on the hot seat.

That is pretty much domination. No other team in the conference even comes remotely close.

By the way, is it true that a WSU coach has never taken WSU to three consecutive NCAA tournaments?

[purple&orange]

I'm in my late 20s so even though I recall the days of Evansville in the old MCC, the Valley as it is now is pretty much what I know because I can actually recall details of these games so for me it will be a little sad seeing Creighton go.

College sports are in a huge money grab right now (not a shot at Creighton, just the truth) and there is no stability. UCONN, Cincy, and South Florida can't be real happy about the C-USA programs running around in this new league. UCONN wanted the ACC, Cincy wanted anybody that would take them so this is a short term solution for them because given the chance, they will bolt in a heartbeat, starting this whole thing all over again.

Programs have success, not leagues. Indiana football is in a BCS league, but they haven't played that type of football in quite some time and as an IU football fan, I know this and it's played out every fall Saturday for as long as I can recall. Now league affiliation can certainly help or hinder you in this. Just because you're smarter than the guy next to you, doesn't make you brilliant, just that you aren't the dumbest guy on the planet.

For those outside the Valley footprint, Creighton and Wichita are basically the same in that recently they've had a lot of success, earned their way in the field and won games here and there. We can spout off about what each has done regular season/STL/NCAA's, but in a lot of ways you guys are viewed as essentially the same. I live around a ton of IU basketball fans that believe the only basketball in the Midwest is played in the Big Ten. Last season they were already talking of a rematch with UK, everytime I warned them that VCU-Wichita was a rough matchup no matter who won, they dismissed it. I'm sure UNC fans did the same thing with Alabama-Creighton as well.

Both programs have been an asset to the Valley the last few years, often seen as the teams carrying the torch for the league after the SIU run in the early to mid 2000s. I'm sure both would carry 90-95% of the responses if you asked random college sports fans who are in the league because that's who they see every year in March. Maybe a little UNI after their run in 2010, probably SIU 7-10 years ago but they are the teams they've seen get to the NCAA tournament and win a game or two along the way. They were on CBS on Sunday and I see no reason why both wouldn't be the 1 and 1A to be the favorites on any random year at this point.

Things change quickly however and a couple down years, recruiting cycles, etc and it can all be gone.

Creighton has the chance to succeed in the likes of the new Big East but be careful what you wish for. SIU's floorburn U was successful and all of a sudden they get to a couple Sweet Sixteens and they get away from the type of kids who got them there and they still are trying to find their way out of it. Creighton has the brand name and past history to continue that success elsewhere. They've been a solid tournament team for a long time and although have not made a deep run, there are a lot of programs that would love to had accomplished what they have. They've found something that has worked, it may need tweaked in their new home but trying to change for the sake of change to compete with your neighbor often doesn't work out so well.

As an Evansville fan I feel like I could swap Creighton and WSU in all of this and still be spot on. Both programs have proven as of late to be really solid programs that can beat anyone at any given time. I know the message boards lead to the rivalry and trash talk but if I had to settle for the success either program has had the past few years after someone else picked their first choice, I'd love to have the UE program where both of you are today. It's a process and UE seems to be trending in the right direction however in my mind, both of you programs are linked, even if that gets a cringe from both fanbases because you are a lot more alike then you'd like to admit...........but it's only my opinion and what do I know?

[Snaggletooth]

1. It is a lot harder to do much better than we have done on a consistent basis, being in the Valley.

And what is that? 1 MVC regular season championship in 4 years? Only thing CU can point to is they have been solid, but not great. They have not faced the up's and down's that some teams have faced - mainly IMO because they have had a stable coach in Altman, and when they did replace a coach, he brought a UNI recruit with him.

Since 1999, Creighton has been to the NCAA tournament NINE times. That is over 50% of the time. Only SIU is close in that period.

On top of that, Creighton has won the conference tournament 8 times in the same period. Nobody else even comes close.

In the same time period, Creighton has averaged winning the conference regular season title about once every three years.

Creighton has NEVER played in the play-in game in St Louis. A bad season for Creighton is third. A horrible season for Creighton is finishing in fourth place and immediately puts a coach on the hot seat.

That is pretty much domination. No other team in the conference even comes remotely close.

By the way, is it true that a WSU coach has never taken WSU to three consecutive NCAA tournaments?

Like I said cu has been solid, but not a great team.

[valleychamp]

It's actually pretty incredible how little national impact that Creighton has had considering how consistently successful they have been in a very good mid-major league.