Sounds like Wichita St to the AAC... Who gets an Invite?

[tribecalledquest]

FWIW...I made this post on the Bradley board as it relates to Belmont. They would be my first choice but I would understand why they wouldn't want to make the move.

Belmont finished first in the OVC in both men's and women's basketball this past season. Baseball team is pretty good. Volleyball finished 4th in the OVC. Their men's soccer team actually plays in the Horizon League as OVC doesn't have men's soccer.

I can see why Belmont wouldn't do it. I understand the travel costs concerns for current MVC members. Drive time to Nashville from the current MVC cities and then Wichita:

Evansville: 2.5 hours / 9 hours - 6.5 hours closer
Carbondale: 3 hours / 8 hours - 5 hours closer
Terre Haute: 4 hours / 9 hours - 5 hours closer
Blo/No: 6 hours / 8.5 hours - 2.5 hours closer
Peoria: 6.5 hours / 8.5 hours - 2 hours closer
Springfield: 7 hours / 4 hours - 3 hours further
Chicago: 7.5 hours / 10.5 hours - 3 hours closer
Des Moines: 9.5 hours / 5.5 hours - 4 hours further
Cedar Falls: 9.5 hours / 7.5 hours - 2 hours further

Belmont would actually be less of an outlier for everyone (except MSU and the two Iowa schools) than Wichita. Right now the furthest trip in the OVC for Belmont is to EIU (5 hours). It's 4.5 to SIUE. Everything else is under four hours and many schools under two hours. Does Belmont want to give that up? I would be surprised if they do.

Addition: It would be a CLEAR upgrade for MBB for Belmont. The Ken Pom for the nine non Wichita teams was 158. The best NON-Belmont team in the OVC was 158. The average of the other 11 was 228.

[squirrel]

Those Indiana St numbers are interesting. I don't know how much of a dent into that difference it would make, but I will say that the entire state of Indiana, Kentucky and even southern/southeast Illinois are not exactly havens for football. I'd be willing to bet by virtue of their geographic disposition, their recruiting expenditures are significantly greater than the league norm.

Accordingly, they probably have a higher rate of out-of-state players, and so the scholarships being paid on out-of-state rates is greater. But that is pure conjecture on my part.

I figured scholarships at 27K - instate is 21k and out of state is 31k. Even making all 63 scholarships out of state we are only adding 300K to the numbers I already figured. They still have over a million dollars unaccounted for somewhere. At programs like UNI/NDSU/SDSU those can be accounted for in terms of equipment, higher coaches salary, higher facility maintenance, etc...

Indiana State's entire recruiting budget, for all mens sports, is $231,000. Which isn't really out of line from any other MVC/MVFC school.

Avg room/board is a little over $12,400, that has to be figured into the actual scholarship cost, too. At 60 scholarships to make the math easy, that adds 744K to the scholarships number. With the rounding down, it's probably closer to 800K.

[unipanther99]

Sounds like the real problem is competing agendas.

Some have football, some don't. Some might be looking to a FBS future, a couple aren't. And even among the basketball schools, there's different level of resources.

The MVC is likely to have 5 football schools and 5 non-football schools in the future. Ugly split. (obviously not counting Drake's non-scholly).

The MVCF is going to have 5 Summit schools, 5 MVC schools, and a Horizon school in the future. Ugly split.

If I'm Elgin, I'm already trying to plant the seed that convinces the Dakotas that the Summit should sponsor football. That way, if any of MSU/ISU/UNI leave, Summit takes football, can invite SIU/InSU as affiliate members, and that's that.

The MVC shares an office and staff with the MVFC. Even if it's the right thing to do, I just can't see them making a move to kill jobs and reduce office budget. That has to be incredibly frustrating to non-MVFC members, and I completely understand that sentiment.

[tribecalledquest]

The most obvious move for everyone is Saint Louis U. But because these decisions are driven by ego and not rational thought that won't happen.

[nafstrops]

Obviously I can only base my observations on the UNI fans who post on this board. May not be representative. The majority of really good non power 5 basketball programs are at schools that don't fund football. Take a look at the top 100 RPI teams. Other than Power 5 conferences, a large percentage of the teams are non-football. I know there are exceptions year to year, but those who focus on basketball seem to have had more success.

There is no way Wichita State could have accomplished what they have the last 10 years if they had been funding a football team. Dropping football and concentrating all resources on basketball is absolutely what allowed their basketball program to reach the levels it has.

[BCPanther]

Obviously I can only base my observations on the UNI fans who post on this board. May not be representative. The majority of really good non power 5 basketball programs are at schools that don't fund football. Take a look at the top 100 RPI teams. Other than Power 5 conferences, a large percentage of the teams are non-football. I know there are exceptions year to year, but those who focus on basketball seem to have had more success.

There is no way Wichita State could have accomplished what they have the last 10 years if they had been funding a football team. Dropping football and concentrating all resources on basketball is absolutely what allowed their basketball program to reach the levels it has.

Really worked out well for them from 1990-2005.....

Wichita is where they are because they made two dynamite hires that tapped into money from the community and made themselves relevant beyond what this league would have/should have allowed them to be. Total kudos to them. The great hires allowed them to revive a tradition that had more or less died. Basketball success is the driver here. Jim Shaus deserves an amazing amount of credit for them being where they are

[unipanther99]

They didn't drop football in order to focus on basketball. They dropped football because they didn't want to move to FCS with the rest of the MVC and competing as an independent didn't make sense. That, plus they hadn't been able to establish any sort of sustained success in the sport after the crash.

Certainly it's helped that basketball has become the primary sport for WSU fans to support. But it's not you can draw a direct line to dropping football and sustained basketball success 20 years later. There are a ton of factors that have contributed to WSU's success.

[nafstrops]

Obviously I can only base my observations on the UNI fans who post on this board. May not be representative. The majority of really good non power 5 basketball programs are at schools that don't fund football. Take a look at the top 100 RPI teams. Other than Power 5 conferences, a large percentage of the teams are non-football. I know there are exceptions year to year, but those who focus on basketball seem to have had more success.

There is no way Wichita State could have accomplished what they have the last 10 years if they had been funding a football team. Dropping football and concentrating all resources on basketball is absolutely what allowed their basketball program to reach the levels it has.

Really worked out well for them from 1990-2005.....

Wichita is where they are because they made two dynamite hires that tapped into money from the community and made themselves relevant beyond what this league would have/should have allowed them to be. Total kudos to them. The great hires allowed them to revive a tradition that had more or less died. Basketball success is the driver here. Jim Shaus deserves an amazing amount of credit for them being where they are

It did work out well from 1990-2000. If they would have had football during that period the athletic department would have been bankrupt. As it was, they still had the money to survive bad coaching hires, get back up and try again.
I agree with most of what you said, but don't believe any of it would have happened if the University had been supporting football.

[MidWestMidMajor]

As fans we certainly deal in hyperbole, but if this is botched, we're on the cusp of the Summit and Horizon being in a position to poach Valley schools rather than the other way it's always been...

That is exactly what I fear! When it was announced that Wichita had a ticket to the AAC, I realized that if this next step is botched and the MVC is degraded in quality, UNI could start to feel more simpatico with their Dakota football buddies. Without Creighton and Wichita, what really holds UNI in the MVC? Their rivalry with Drake? If UNI starts looking around, so does ISUred. Is the MVC without Creighton, Wichita, UNI, ISUr still the MVC? The logo is the same, the stationary is the same, but...it could end up like those east coast mid-minor leagues that I can't tell one from the other.

So school presidents, overcome the urge for the committee to find a comfortable compromise.
Go big! Use the A-10 as your template for MVC 2.0.

[uniftw]

As fans we certainly deal in hyperbole, but if this is botched, we're on the cusp of the Summit and Horizon being in a position to poach Valley schools rather than the other way it's always been...

That is exactly what I fear! When it was announced that Wichita had a ticket to the AAC, I realized that if this next step is botched and the MVC is degraded in quality, UNI could start to feel more simpatico with their Dakota football buddies. Without Creighton and Wichita, what really holds UNI in the MVC? Their rivalry with Drake? If UNI starts looking around, so does ISUred. Is the MVC without Creighton, Wichita, UNI, ISUr still the MVC? The logo is the same, the stationary is the same, but...it could end up like those east coast mid-minor leagues that I can't tell one from the other.

So school presidents, overcome the urge for the committee to find a comfortable compromise.
Go big! Use the A-10 as your template for MVC 2.0.

UNI won't start to feel more simpatico with the Dakotas. We share a football conference, that's about where it stops. I've advocated that the Dakotas wouldn't be a terrible add, but that isn't to say I truly want them. We are football place proximity, at best.

The rest of the post is pretty spot on, and exactly what UNI and ISUr fans have been saying for a while in regards to WSU leaving.

Going back even a few years UNI's old athletic director was on record as saying a football move to the FBS would never happen, even if invited, if it meant taking our basketball team out of the MVC and putting it into a league that wasn't at least as good as the MVC. He also clarified that statement with - that is as long as the conference doesn't shift around us. Since that statement was made Creighton has left. Wichita State has left. Loyola was added. Another Loyola like school likely is added.

UNI is left paying a basketball coach a million dollars a year in a conference full of teams paying their coaches less than half of that, in a conference that ranks between 13-17 in the conference rankings? That isn't going to fly. There are other conferences, that are below the MVC, that would move a head of the MVC if UNI were go to (along with Creighton and WSU leaving). If UNI gets uncomfortable the next school to get uncomfortable is Illinois State. UNI and Illinois State are very similar in many ways.

MSU is now a massive geographic outlier. How long does that last before the Southland or SBC becomes an option?

Again, I'm not claiming any move is even remotely close. HOWEVER, if this isn't handled correctly moves will start to happen.

I think we are eventually going to see a reshuffle of the A10/MVC/Horizon. I've heard the Horizon is looking to expand and may target unhappy MVC teams. It's a bit of a nuclear option, but a similar thing happened with the Big East/AAC/ACC/B12 all being involved in the Big East break up