Early Valley Predictions

[Wufan]

And MSU was to finish top half and WSU bottom half last year. Also, the Chiefs to win the AFC west and MSU to Conference USA.

Some of the many grand posts of Casey! What will the next prediction be from the profit?

[shoxrox]

The only way WSU doesn't win the conference outright next year is if half the team gets injured. Actually, I think we'd still win the conference if that happened.

Gonna bookmark this. I think WSU will most likely win the Valley next year but I don't have the boundless optimism that most WSU fans have. You are a good program, not a great one. Not yet at least.

Do you really want me to go through and rehash all of the Casey bookmarks I've made throughout your illustrious MVCfans career?

Clearly Final Fours are easy as pie. That's why so many in this conference have been stockpiling them left and right.

[2livewu]

Greatness to me is something that is sustained excellence. You have a Valley regular season title from a year ago and a lot of close finishes but still no conference tournament title. Don't get me wrong the run this March was cool. I've got to experience that a couple of times with the Lady Bears so I can commiserate. Still it was two awesome weekends in the end. To be great you need 2-3 regular season titles in a 4 or 5 year stretch coupled with a conference tournament title or three. That's just my opinion.

I don't need you to collapse. I don't really care. If you win the Valley next year or finish last is pretty much inconsequential to me. We are rivals but it is just a game to me in the end.

I think this is an important point. I'm sure other Valley fans will bristle and say how all WSU fans are complete asses and this is why nobody likes Gregg yada yada yada, but here's the point.

You (and the vast majority of other fans and programs) determine success by what happens in the Valley. WSU and their fans do not. We measure success nationally, not locally or regionally. There is no Shocker fan that would trade an NCAA, Sweet 16 and Final Four for 6 straight Valley post season titles. Our program is trying to build to win nationally. No other Valley program can say that.

[BEARZ77]

Greatness to me is something that is sustained excellence. You have a Valley regular season title from a year ago and a lot of close finishes but still no conference tournament title. Don't get me wrong the run this March was cool. I've got to experience that a couple of times with the Lady Bears so I can commiserate. Still it was two awesome weekends in the end. To be great you need 2-3 regular season titles in a 4 or 5 year stretch coupled with a conference tournament title or three. That's just my opinion.

I don't need you to collapse. I don't really care. If you win the Valley next year or finish last is pretty much inconsequential to me. We are rivals but it is just a game to me in the end.

I think this is an important point. I'm sure other Valley fans will bristle and say how all WSU fans are complete asses and this is why nobody likes Gregg yada yada yada, but here's the point.

You (and the vast majority of other fans and programs determine success by what happens in the Valley. WSU and their fans do not. We measure success nationally, not locally or regionally. There is no Shocker fan that would trade an NCAA, Sweet 16 and Final Four for 6 straight Valley post season titles. Our program is trying to build to win nationally. No other Valley program can say that.

Actually it's just idiotic statements like this that are why other Valley fans laugh at a few WSU fans. Were you the only Valley program with a national focus all thru the 90's when you sucked. Were you the only Valley program with a national focus just a few years ago when UNI made an elite 8 and you were in the playin round of the Valley tourney. You're on a nice roll, you have a coach who's doing a great job, you're getting a lot of love from other Valley schools, feel good about it. But you are hardly the only Valley school with national aspirations, focus, or ability to get there; you just have the most recent success.

[iSASO]

Can we go back to the comment from 2007-8 about Marshall being in over his head in this conference?

[CBB_Fan]

Actually it's just idiotic statements like this that are why other Valley fans laugh at a few WSU fans. Were you the only Valley program with a national focus all thru the 90's when you sucked. Were you the only Valley program with a national focus just a few years ago when UNI made an elite 8 and you were in the playin round of the Valley tourney. You're on a nice roll, you have a coach who's doing a great job, you're getting a lot of love from other Valley schools, feel good about it. But you are hardly the only Valley school with national aspirations, focus, or ability to get there; you just have the most recent success.

Just to be clear on facts, UNI made it Sweet 16, not the Elite 8. In fact, no MVC team has made it to the Elite 8 since Wichita State did it in 1981.

So when Wichita State fans say "we are the only ones looking to compete on the national level" it probably comes from that. Teams have been pretty successful at getting to the Sweet 16, but going farther has eluded the MVC since the golden era in the 60s and 70s.

[rlh04d]

Actually it's just idiotic statements like this that are why other Valley fans laugh at a few WSU fans. Were you the only Valley program with a national focus all thru the 90's when you sucked. Were you the only Valley program with a national focus just a few years ago when UNI made an elite 8 and you were in the playin round of the Valley tourney. You're on a nice roll, you have a coach who's doing a great job, you're getting a lot of love from other Valley schools, feel good about it. But you are hardly the only Valley school with national aspirations, focus, or ability to get there; you just have the most recent success.

Some of the comments in this thread are getting kind of silly. Not yours specifically, but overall. Everyone's exaggerating their arguments to win points.

However, WSU's current run includes an NIT championship and a NCAA Final Four. You can retort that an NIT Championship isn't that important, but if it was easy, a lot more MVC teams would have them.

Here's the rundown I would personally have for Valley programs for a while in terms of sustained success:

WSU's current run over the last four years (NIT Championship, NCAA bid, NCAA Final Four, 1 regular season championship)
Creighton's sustained run since about '99 of conference dominance (9 NCAA appearances, 8 conferences tournament championships, 4 conference regular season championships)
SIU's run in the 2000's (2x Sweet 16, 6 total NCAA appearances, 5 regular season championships, 1 tournament championship)
UNI's run in the 2000's (Sweet 16, 5 total NCAA appearances, 3 conference tournament championships, 2 regular season conference championships)
SIU's run in the 1990's (3 regular season championships, 3 tournament championships, 3 total NCAA appearances)
Bradley's run in the 80's (4 regular season championships, 2 tournament championships, 3 total NCAA appearances, NIT Championship)
WSU's run in the 80's (4 NCAA tournament appearances [two years ineligible but would have gone], Elite 8, two conference tournament championships, 2 conference regular season championships, 3 NBA top 10 draft picks)
WSU's run in the 60's (Final Four, Elite 8, 2 regular season championships)
Drake in the late 60's/early 70's (Final Four, 2x Elite 8, Sweet 16, 3 regular season conference championships)

Is there a significant run of success for any Valley program that I'm not including? I guess you could argue for Indiana State in '79, but that was a lone year rather than any real run, albeit a tremendous year. Not sure if Miss St's run in the late 80s/early 90s counts as it was outside of the Valley. Same with Evansville. I don't think I'd include either of those two on the same level as the runs of the other programs anyway.

That's a top 9, so we need at least one more to make it a top 10. I'm drawing a blank on who to make #10 ... Miss St outside the Valley or Illinois State in the 80's, maybe?

Anyone interested in ranking those? And if so ... do you rank regular season championships or conference tournaments higher? Does Creighton run towards the top for an unprecedented run of dominance in the conference, or towards the bottom for having the least national success of any major run?

[rlh04d]

Greatness to me is something that is sustained excellence. You have a Valley regular season title from a year ago and a lot of close finishes but still no conference tournament title. Don't get me wrong the run this March was cool. I've got to experience that a couple of times with the Lady Bears so I can commiserate. Still it was two awesome weekends in the end. To be great you need 2-3 regular season titles in a 4 or 5 year stretch coupled with a conference tournament title or three. That's just my opinion.

I don't need you to collapse. I don't really care. If you win the Valley next year or finish last is pretty much inconsequential to me. We are rivals but it is just a game to me in the end.

I have no problem with any of this, other than you diminishing a Final Four appearance as "two awesome weekends" (I'd also say that the third weekend, in nearly beating the #1 overall seed, easily gave us more national respect than either of the two previous weekends), or attempting to compare it to success in women's basketball. They're not even close to the same, and a Final Four is program defining. It's still pretty much the only thing that makes Indiana State relevant.

However, yes, WSU also needs to progress further in winning conference championships. And if we don't win the conference championship this coming season, we deserve to be mocked relentlessly for it.

But ... 111 wins in the last four years doesn't count as "sustained excellence" ? You're exaggerating in order to fight the exaggerations of WSU fans. I wouldn't put the last four years at the top of the list I just gave for best runs in current Valley history ... but it's top 10, without a doubt.

[Aargh]

...just a few years ago when UNI made an elite 8...

WSU has 3 E8's or better. UNI has none.

UNI has 3 W's in the NCAA tourney. 1 in 1990 and 2 in 2010. UNI did have a nice, little run of making the NCAA tourney recently. I've mentioned UNI's 2010 S16. 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2009 were all first-game losses for UNI.

It takes 3 W's in the NCAA tourney to make the E8. UNI has 3 W's in the NCAA in their entire history since playing in the "College Division".

UNI's best finish in the "College Division" was 1964 and included W's over the following basketball powerhouses: Washington University, Mankato State, and Southeast Missouri. That was a "College Division" F4 and is the only time UNI has been an E8 team in anything other than their league.

[uniftw]

and UNIs average margin of loss in the NCAAs I'd like 5 ppg

so close so many times