"Does conference realignment pay off?"

[05Racer]

I don't think anybody thinks Murray St and Belmont won't be fine in the MVC, and what their learning curve will be , only time will tell. I think the difference between playing an MVC team or 2 in noncon and the wear and tear of an MVC regular season schedule is the big issue to be seen as to it's impact. The difference between playing a quality team 50% of a schedule vs playing one 17-18 x over 8 weeks can be difficult , and the difference between the prep a team does for you when you're a noncon 1x game, vs how you're scouted and prepared for after the league has seen you 15 x, again can be an adjustment. 16-2 can be 10-8 pretty easily in this league because of the parity and drain , but again only time will tell. Hope Murray and Belmont have good spring/summers and enter the Valley at the top of their game, and then let the chips fall.

This is exactly right, I I think Murray fans will learn this. Murray could easily compete for a championship next year, and will probably be preseason #1. They've earned it. But a 10-8 team here could easily be just as good as a 16-2 team in the OVC. But there is no convincing the fans that the 10-8 team is just as good. A couple of bad bounces (or a questionable call) here can make you 2-5 instead of 5-2. I should know, I was at SIU when we lost to Drake and Northern Iowa at home, both by 1 point, 2 nights apart from each other. Now we are struggling to stay out of Thursday. Just so many close games in this league, regardless of the standings.

The level of coaching and scouting jumps big time too. There are no Jacobson, DeVries, Wardle and Mullins defensive minds in the OVC.

A one off is so different because those coaches see you in a vacuum getting ready to play you one night. Now those great minds are going to not only fully scout you twice getting ready to play you, they're going to see you every time you're playing somebody else their getting ready for. Those guys don't forget.

Just seeing the same coach for more than five consecutive seasons will be a change. Practically every OVC has team has hired a new coach in the past three or four years, some more than once, most with little to no head coaching experience. I think UTMartin has had three in the past 5 years. I think McMahon is the longest tenured coach in the OVC at the moment and he started in 2015-16, which tells you pretty much all you need to know. I'm guessing he wouldn't even be top 5 longest tenured in the MVC.

[BCPanther]

I actually think he would be.

Jacobson and Muller would be the only ones around longer and Muller is on shaky ground at best.

Wardle started got to Bradley the same year but he'd been HC at Green Bay.

Guys just don't stay places for that long anymore for a variety of reasons.

[05Racer]

That surprises me. Guess the days of guys staying with one school for decades are gone. I suppose at our level the good coaches get better offers and the bad ones get canned.

[freddycat68]

That surprises me. Guess the days of guys staying with one school for decades are gone. I suppose at our level the good coaches get better offers and the bad ones get canned.

Yep, unless you're a guy like Chris Mooney at Richmond. Their fans are going nuts because he's always somewhere in between ... not terrible enough to get canned, but not good enough to be able to go anywhere else. I think at this level, you want a coach who hangs around 5-10 years and is getting "better" offers, whether he takes them or not. If he leaves, he leaves the place better than he found it, and if he stays, that says something about the institution.

[05Racer]

That surprises me. Guess the days of guys staying with one school for decades are gone. I suppose at our level the good coaches get better offers and the bad ones get canned.

Yep, unless you're a guy like Chris Mooney at Richmond. Their fans are going nuts because he's always somewhere in between ... not terrible enough to get canned, but not good enough to be able to go anywhere else. I think at this level, you want a coach who hangs around 5-10 years and is getting "better" offers, whether he takes them or not. If he leaves, he leaves the place better than he found it, and if he stays, that says something about the institution.

Murray had a coach like that about twenty years back. He was a great recruiter but a pretty bad floor coach. His teams always had too much talent to be outright bad, but he had odd substitution patterns, and seemed to pick favorites among the players and give minutes based on some criteria other than production or talent that I can only speculate upon. He polarized the fan base because while he obviously wasn't the best coach, he never had a losing season and he was a friendly old man who was good with the media and projected a very positive image for the program. He 'retired' after a 17-12 season only to take another job a few months later. It was obvious he was pressured to retire because the AD didn't want to fire him and take heat from some of the fanbase. His stealth firing is still controversial because his replacement was an excellent coach (still is), but became notorious for recruiting players who later got arrested and/or kicked off the team, and because the timing of his departure was such that his replacement basically had to fill a roster in one offseason. Most racer fans will know who I'm discussing, but don't give it away. I want to see if any of the MVC fans can name these coaches.

[BEARZ77]

Not a Murray St history buff, but my guess would be Tevester Anderson who was replaced by a young Mick Cronin.

[05Racer]

Not a Murray St history buff, but my guess would be Tevester Anderson who was replaced by a young Mick Cronin.

Correct!

[RacerJoeD]

When Coach T got the head coaching job, he brought in an MVC coaching luminary to be on his staff.

Former ISUb Coach Bill Hodges