MVC Expansion Candidate Deep Dive

[Action10]

The expansion should have been proactive and should have happened years ago. The options that were available 10-20 years ago no longer exist. If the conference had expanded 20 years ago, we might not have lost WSU and Creighton. Maybe he tried to lure other teams, but I doubt it. I know butler wanted in and they were rejected. Could we have attracted Dayton?

I would have like to have been more proactive in the mid-2000's too, but I doubt it would have prevented losing members in the 2010's. Rick Majerus wanted SLU to join the MVC and Butler was looking to make a move from the Horizon. That would have been a GREAT mid-major conference.
At that point, the MVC would have needed to get a huge tv deal in order to keep Butler and Creighton from leaving for the revamped Big East. Could have worked out, but may have still lost those 2. That would still leave us with SLU and Wichita State, and they may have stayed.
Interesting discussion and good points Drakey.

[BCPanther]

Nothing was keeping Creighton or Loyola. Nor was ever getting Dayton or St Louis a legitimate possibility.

They all moved into or are in leagues that are perfect cultural fits filled with other large city, private, largely Jesuit institutions. A league like that has never and will never exist in the Midwest.

We were never getting a large TV deal, there's no football and there's not 2/3rds of the American population in our footprint (Big East).

2004-2008 is never happening again. It was the perfect convergence of elite coaching talent, a metric we could game and a time where we could at least get some big time schools to play us.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

SLU wouldn't join the MVC when the MVC was a 3-4 bid league, the A-10 a 1-2 bid league, and Rick Majerus begging.

There is no alternate history where they were joining the MVC. Same for Dayton.

The MVC never had leverage with schools like SLU and Dayton because it was always inherently disadvantaged in demographics. Those schools would rather ride out the institutional/academic fits and eastern exposure of the A-10 even if the MVC was better.

[BearsCountry]

The expansion should have been proactive and should have happened years ago. The options that were available 10-20 years ago no longer exist. If the conference had expanded 20 years ago, we might not have lost WSU and Creighton. Maybe he tried to lure other teams, but I doubt it. I know butler wanted in and they were rejected. Could we have attracted Dayton?

I would have like to have been more proactive in the mid-2000's too, but I doubt it would have prevented losing members in the 2010's. Rick Majerus wanted SLU to join the MVC and Butler was looking to make a move from the Horizon. That would have been a GREAT mid-major conference.
At that point, the MVC would have needed to get a huge tv deal in order to keep Butler and Creighton from leaving for the revamped Big East. Could have worked out, but may have still lost those 2. That would still leave us with SLU and Wichita State, and they may have stayed.
Interesting discussion and good points Drakey.

Could have had Western Kentucky and Butler then.

[BCPanther]

The expansion should have been proactive and should have happened years ago. The options that were available 10-20 years ago no longer exist. If the conference had expanded 20 years ago, we might not have lost WSU and Creighton. Maybe he tried to lure other teams, but I doubt it. I know butler wanted in and they were rejected. Could we have attracted Dayton?

I would have like to have been more proactive in the mid-2000's too, but I doubt it would have prevented losing members in the 2010's. Rick Majerus wanted SLU to join the MVC and Butler was looking to make a move from the Horizon. That would have been a GREAT mid-major conference.
At that point, the MVC would have needed to get a huge tv deal in order to keep Butler and Creighton from leaving for the revamped Big East. Could have worked out, but may have still lost those 2. That would still leave us with SLU and Wichita State, and they may have stayed.
Interesting discussion and good points Drakey.

Could have had Western Kentucky and Butler then.

Western Kentucky turned down the invitation to apply because they only joined the Gateway as a stepping stone to FBS.

[BearsCountry]

Could have had Western Kentucky and Butler then.

Western Kentucky turned down the invitation to apply because they only joined the Gateway as a stepping stone to FBS.

No they had interest in joining the MVC for all-sports. MVC turned them down. They took the FBS route to stay in the Sun Belt. Heard it from Missouri State and Arkansas State sources.

[Campbellproud]

This won't be popular on here, but I just don't think the MVC is necessarily an attractive league to many schools anymore. There's a lot of bad adds out there in the Horizon League, OVC, and the southern half of the Summit League that would join; but there's not a lot of good options. St Louis and Dayton wouldn't entertain the idea; while Wichita and Loyola left first chance they got. It took Belmont 8 years to change their minds, and I think a lot of that had to do with the OVC losing three members in a short amount of time. The expansion committee has been working for 4 years and this list of 5 is the best they could come up with? I'm a little pessimistic about the future of this conference.

There are only so many options for expansion. Generally, better teams are already in better conferences and aren’t going to step down a notch. So better teams are off the table. Then you look around at equal teams that are in worse conferences that also meet academic, geographic, etc criteria. That narrows it down a lot. Then it narrows down even further when you look at basketball success in particular. You end up with teams like UNO and UTA that have some of the traits you want but not all. So the question is how much is the league willing to compromise its own standards for the sake of growth.

[isubird33]

The SoCon would likely win more games this year or certainly keep it even. Most all of the major computer rankings have been neck and neck the last few seasons actually. It’s very close.

Sorry, what? Going by Kenpom rankings, the Valley is currently closer to the A-10 than the SoCon is to the Valley. There's only been 1 time (2019) that the SoCon finished above the MVC in the Kenpom rankings.

[smidge34]

The SoCon would likely win more games this year or certainly keep it even. Most all of the major computer rankings have been neck and neck the last few seasons actually. It’s very close.

Sorry, what? Going by Kenpom rankings, the Valley is currently closer to the A-10 than the SoCon is to the Valley. There's only been 1 time (2019) that the SoCon finished above the MVC in the Kenpom rankings.

Going by the NCAAs own NET rankings, you know the one they actually use, the Valley is one behind the SoCon. Just have to find a computer ranking system that backs your argument lol. The fact is the Valley and SoCon are very close and I’m not sure why that’s even being debated.

[BCPanther]

The SoCon would likely win more games this year or certainly keep it even. Most all of the major computer rankings have been neck and neck the last few seasons actually. It’s very close.

Sorry, what? Going by Kenpom rankings, the Valley is currently closer to the A-10 than the SoCon is to the Valley. There's only been 1 time (2019) that the SoCon finished above the MVC in the Kenpom rankings.

Going by the NCAAs own NET rankings, you know the one they actually use, the Valley is one behind the SoCon. Just have to find a computer ranking system that backs your argument lol. The fact is the Valley and SoCon are very close and I’m not sure why that’s even being debated.

This is the best run the SoCon has ever had and they just lost a TON of coaching talent. This is their absolute ceiling. When The Valley had the same run of elite coaching talent at the same time, we got to 6th.

The Valley is head and shoulders the better league unless you look at two years in a vacuum and, frankly, using NET rankings on December 20th to try to prove your point is asinine.