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

[Lakesbison]

^^^^ thats awesome

[municup14]

It might be awhile before we add.I don't believe Wichita informed the
Valley early in the year that they might leave.So it kind of put us behind
The 8 ball,i don't believe we were activilly pursuing other schools until now

[Lakesbison]

the silence is deafening. the NDSU ad was at football scrimmage saturday talking about how nice it would be for the football match up's to translate over onto the basketball court, track, volleyball, etc etc

UNI
MSU
ISU B
ISU R
SIU
NDSU

[uniftw]

It might be awhile before we add.I don't believe Wichita informed the
Valley early in the year that they might leave.So it kind of put us behind
The 8 ball,i don't believe we were activilly pursuing other schools until now

It would be one thing if we didn't go through this 3 or 4 years ago. Most of that information gathering is still relevant. It's going to pretty much be the same list of schools

I'm assuming what happened was that a discussion on what is important to looked for took place. From that a list of 4-5 schools to key on was generated. There will be campus visits, probably starting in the next few days (wouldn't be shocked if they were pretty under the radar - meaning fly commercial or drive so tracking isn't a thing). I would bet from there on video conferences would be what takes place. The list is put in order of who to invite and secret invites are sent. No one outside of those doing the inviting and repsonding will ever know (at least, in theory). That way there is no "This place said no" stigma or anything.

Depending on exit fees or anything else that is associated with leaving that schools current conference dictates the timeline of coming here. If fees are involved it may be this year played at 9 with new school(s) next year. If no fees are in place, and the conference being left isn't adversely affected (OVC has 12 teams so losing 1 or 2 won't damage them and the Horizon has 10 so they *should* be fine but Valpo may wait a year to come in to give them time to find someone). they would start play this year.

[uniftw]

the silence is deafening. the NDSU ad was at football scrimmage saturday talking about how nice it would be for the football match up's to translate over onto the basketball court, track, volleyball, etc etc

UNI
MSU
ISU B
ISU R
SIU
NDSU

No, the silence is how non-frat boys work. NDSU knows nothing other than be as loud as possible - especially their fans. One of many reasons they don't really fit in.

[Dean Wormer]

It might be awhile before we add.I don't believe Wichita informed the
Valley early in the year that they might leave.So it kind of put us behind
The 8 ball,i don't believe we were activilly pursuing other schools until now

Seriously?

If Elgin or any president expresses an ounce of surprise with Wichita leaving, they should be fired on the spot. No one in St. Louis should be behind on anything.

Everyone is all over Elgin, but my guess is Elgin has long done his job on preparing for possible replacements. The problem this weekend and going forward is that you have (9) presidents with completely different agendas. In short, the publics want a football public, and the privates want another one. The thing is both have valid points. The publics feel you replace a public with another one, as they replaced a private with one when Creighton left. The privates probably feel the fairest thing is to get another private, and even the playing field at (5) apiece.

Ok, how about adding one of each. Well that gets you an uneven number, so maybe we should look at 12. Simple enough, and seems like a solid compromise..until...

Lets say Belmont is indeed Target #1. They have supposedly turned down once before. OK, maybe we throw Murray State in as the public, and that should entice them. Maybe, but who is the 12th?

I am sure geography played some part in Belmont's earlier decline. Trips for the volleyball team to Cedar Falls, IA probably aren't that appealing to start with, now add the possibility of going to Fargo, and you probably get even more hesitation. So, before you get Belmont, you have to define the 12th.

OK, so that leads us to Valpo. Another decent option, and one I am sure the current privates, as well as Belmont, would get behind. But what is Valpo's concerns? They too probably want assurances on where the other expansion is headed, and wouldn't be crazy about joining a conference that is becoming FCS centered.

And all of this is assuming Murray is perfectly ok with coming on board. They make sense to the MVC, a basketball driven public that plays FCS football. But do we make sense to them? They are a founding member of the OVC. Laugh, but long time rivalries aren't something you casually toss to the side. They also appear to leverage a lot of weight in that conference. For example, it appears it was them, and them alone that got the tournament moved from Nashville to Evansville. Do you discard that to just go to the MVC? I would also think there could be a mindset that they could care less what Belmont does. If they see them leaving, that may actually make staying a little more enticing. They got plenty of NCAA bids prior to them coming along.

This doesn't even address exit fees all of them would face from their current conferences.

That is just one scenario. As you can see, one of the three could throw the whole thing off for them. In short, a perfect scenario, where Elgin walked in with his mind made up, presented it, got them all to agree and go back to the schools invited, would give you the same result we had yesterday. These schools have to go back to their people, and be sure all are on board before you can go any father. My uneducated guess would say that is pretty close to what happened yesterday.

[uniftw]

It might be awhile before we add.I don't believe Wichita informed the
Valley early in the year that they might leave.So it kind of put us behind
The 8 ball,i don't believe we were activilly pursuing other schools until now

Seriously?

If Elgin or any president expresses an ounce of surprise with Wichita leaving, they should be fired on the spot. No one in St. Louis should be behind on anything.

Everyone is all over Elgin, but my guess is Elgin has long done his job on preparing for possible replacements. The problem this weekend and going forward is that you have (9) presidents with completely different agendas. In short, the publics want a football public, and the privates want another one. The thing is both have valid points. The publics feel you replace a public with another one, as they replaced a private with one when Creighton left. The privates probably feel the fairest thing is to get another private, and even the playing field at (5) apiece.

Ok, how about adding one of each. Well that gets you an uneven number, so maybe we should look at 12. Simple enough, and seems like a solid compromise..until...

You keep assuming we want a football school. The reality is, we want a school that will be good for us in basketball. Public or private - the problem is that the privates only want privates

[SMUfan]

Would someone fill me in on what ISU r and ISU b are referring to?

[Redhawk]

Would someone fill me in on what ISU r and ISU b are referring to?

ISUr = Illinois State

ISUb = Indiana State

They are both ISU's so they are referred to by their team colors...red or blue.

[Drakey]

Ok, how about adding one of each. Well that gets you an uneven number, so maybe we should look at 12. Simple enough, and seems like a solid compromise..until...

You keep assuming we want a football school. The reality is, we want a school that will be good for us in basketball. Public or private - the problem is that the privates only want privates

And the statement that the "privates" only want "privates" is from what source? I would prefer basketball only or non-scholarship football schools, but they don't have to be private. Milwaukee might be good. Is Denver private? I have no idea but I have no opposition to them either way.