Updated 1/6/18: MVC Expansion Poll

[RacerJoeD]

Tv contracts come from fan interest which is driven by wins and tournament appearances.

The point is that the current funding model is controlled by the big conferences, and while fewer buy games won’t hurt the MVC and it’s members directly, fewer total OOC games will as mid level and weak teams whose coaches are on hot seats will play each other rather than lose to an MVC team.

In the end, since you stipulated that they don’t care about MvC members, just because this round of decisions doesn’t directly harm the MvC, while they are in control, there is no doubt in my mind that future rounds of decisions made by the Big Tens of the world will in any way intentionally help the MVC. In fact the only conference that can help the MVC is the MVC.

[mvfcfan]

If the MVC ever expands than this is the order they should consider as far as I'm concerned.

#1) Go to 11 / Add Murray State: Go to a 20 game round robin and add Murray State. This is by far the best move the MVC could make at this point. We all know why so I don't need to explain.

#2) Add North Dakota State and South Dakota State: If 12 is a must then these are the two I would add. I know a lot of posters on here are concerned about them having football, but both schools have produced several good basketball teams over the years. It's okay to have both believe it or not. Some have mentioned distance. I recently drove relatively close to both schools this past month and honestly it's not that bad of a drive and if you were flying you'd be there in no time. Also both schools are the top brands in their respective states. They're like any other MVC school. When they have really good teams or play well known opponents they draw really well. Just look at the Summit League tournament. It has been one of the best attended mid major tournaments for the past few years now, while they've brought down the curtain for ours. I realize that they probably wouldn't bring as many fans to St Louis as they do to Sioux Falls, but I bet if they were playing on Saturday or Sunday they'd bring more fans than 4 (maybe even 6) of the schools currently in our conference.

#3) Add no one: We currently have everyone in the league we need to become a good conference again so expanding isn't actually necessary, but adding good programs would certainly give the league a boost.

#4) Adding anyone besides Murray State, NDSU, and/or SDSU: That's right. Belmont is not a good add, not because of their program, but because of their lack of fan support. They probably bring <500 fans to the OVC tournament. Besides that they couldn't even hardly draw for the OVC Tournament when it was in Nashville either. NKU is not a good add (yet) just because of their youth in D1. It remains to be seen how they will do at the D1 level long term.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

Murray State and stay at 11. Lesser conferences do it so can the MVC. Anything said otherwise is nothing but an excuse. I agree we need to wait and see how Belmont and NKU does with new coaches.

[Mikovio]

I don't want to get into football v non-football again but according to the NCAA NDSU averaged 2,757 and SDSU averaged 2,292 in 2018. That's worse than any Valley team except Loyola, and Loyola of course is averaging much more now. They're not outdrawing anyone in St. Louis.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketb ... ndance.pdf

If the Valley is going to add someone, it's essentially adding another mouth to feed. We can't keep getting 1 bid and splitting it among more and more mouths. So if you add a mouth it needs to expand the pie ie increase the likelihood of a second bid. Murray could have done that last year, but with a once a generation talent. Still I'd support adding them. I'm thinking New Mexico State and Grand Canyon (which is no longer for-profit) should be strongly considered. It's a bit of a risk but it's an aggressive move that could help reposition the Valley as the top midmajor.

[RacerJoeD]

Once in a generation talent is misleading.

It's our third drafted point guard, second All american, and second lottery pick in the past ten years. Oh, and we earned the outbid, not the at large. It is also our seventh NCAA tournament appearance since 2000 (17th overall) and our 8th regular season championship since 2000 (26th overall). But I will say this, we were good enough last season that if a team did have a generational talent, they did earn an at large.

[Dawgbit]

Once in a generation talent is misleading.

It's our third drafted point guard, second All american, and second lottery pick in the past ten years. Oh, and we earned the outbid, not the at large. It is also our seventh NCAA tournament appearance since 2000 (17th overall) and our 8th regular season championship since 2000 (26th overall). But I will say this, we were good enough last season that if a team did have a generational talent, they did earn an at large.

Honest question...17 trips to the Dance, All Americans, NBA draft picks, never been to the Sweet Sixteen. Why?

[IWokeUpLikeThis]

Because they’ve drawn a national champion and national runnerup. Both times, Murray St was their closest game.

[Mikovio]

Once in a generation talent is misleading.

It's our third drafted point guard, second All american, and second lottery pick in the past ten years. Oh, and we earned the outbid, not the at large. It is also our seventh NCAA tournament appearance since 2000 (17th overall) and our 8th regular season championship since 2000 (26th overall). But I will say this, we were good enough last season that if a team did have a generational talent, they did earn an at large.

Oh please, it's not misleading. If anything it's an understatement. These are Murray State's all time first round (top 30) picks:

#2 Ja Morant (2019)
#14 Cameron Payne (2015)
#21 Dick Cunningham (1968)
#21 Stew Johnson (1966)

So in the last 50 years they've had 2 first rounders, and you don't think the #2 pick is once a generation? Yeah maybe once-every-5-generations.

I've been clear that I'd support a Murray add but my point here was the decision wasn't so clear in 2016. At the time, Murray had 2 NCAA appearances in the past decade (2010, 2012).

[RacerJoeD]

So your defense of "once in a generation" is two is in five years... gotcha

[VUGrad1314]

In some way you're both right. Two lottery picks in five years is very impressive at this level. There isn't a single MVC team that can claim that. But there was a nearly 50 year layoff between first round picks from Murray State not that that is any kind of metric we should be going on in evaluating a program. However, if you don't think Morant is a once in a generation talent at a school like Murray State or really any school in a mid major conference except perhaps Gonzaga I think you are seriously deluding yourself. Let's see if Murray keeps sending talent to the NBA (I think they have a chance to) and they absolutely NEED to be in the MVC but this kind of nitpicking and fighting really doesn't serve anyone and doesn't make much sense because NBA players are not the metrics by which programs should be judged.