Public vs Private - The Competitive Imbalance

[BirdsEyeView]

Great article from the ISUb writer. I had no idea how bad private schools have been lately in this conference in many sports...

http://www.tribstar.com/sports/local_co ... 028e6.html


As an aside, DJ Clayton from the Birds (all bench team) is transferring

[municup14]

What is all the talk about private versus public balance.
Is it about the privates having more money where they might have
an advantage on the public schools.
My team, Evansville,is private and I don't think it's work out for us very well
the last upteen years

[Mikovio]

First of all, the only NCAA shares that earn money are men's basketball, which is the only real revenue producing sport. He makes it sound like Drake and Bradley are looting ISU Blue's volleyball shares and laughing to the bank. Men's basketball is all that matters from a revenue perspective.

Second, he forgets to mention Loyola joined in the 2013-14 season and had a roster of Horizon players that is slowly being upgraded. Faulting them is faulty. If we're being fair, we should give them a total pass, or at least a pass until this last season.

That leaves Drake, Bradley and Evansville. Bradley is in its worst stretch in program history, after a 2006 Sweet 16, 1996 NCAA at large, and 3 NCAA bids in the 1980s (plus an NIT title). Historically, we've carried our weight.

He says there were 4 public NCAA bids this decade. He's right, but 3 of the 4 are by UNI. The remaining one was a flukeish Indiana State run in 2011.

Evansville hasn't earned an NCAA share since 1999. Of course last year they were a bucket away from winning Arch Madness. It easily could've been them instead of UNI. Missouri State and Illinois State haven't earned NCAA shares since the 1990s either.

So all the other schools have been leeching off UNI this decade. For the sake of the conference let's hope that changes.

[tribecalledquest]

Great article from the ISUb writer. I had no idea how bad private schools have been lately in this conference in many sports...

http://www.tribstar.com/sports/local_co ... 028e6.html


As an aside, DJ Clayton from the Birds (all bench team) is transferring

This column is complete garbage. As Mikovio said. One school and one school only has carried its weight and that's UNI. That's it. Using an Indiana State softball appearance or a Missouri State WBB NCAA appearance as something more valuable to the league than a Loyola soccer or Bradley baseball NCAA appearance is a joke.

Todd had a narrative he had been thinking about and then tried to fit a column into it by cherry picking sports and using things that don't matter at all to anyone.

[Red]

Silly premise in my opinion. Only basketball matters so exclude everything else. Creighton and Wichita State ruled the league during the better part of the decade and UNI was a very strong third team. Why not write the article that everyone else has just stunk rather than made it private vs public?

[Redhawk]

Basketball is all that matters!

He are each teams avg. finish in the MVC Conference standings since Loyola was added:

Illinois State - 2.5
Northern IA - 3
Indiana State- 5
Southern IL - 5
Evansville - 5.75
Missouri St - 6
Loyola - 7.25
Bradley - 8
Drake - 8.5

I have nothing against the Privates...but they have been bringing down the conference lately!
Good news is Loyola is recruiting strong, Wardle seems to be on the right track at
Bradley and Drake made a good coaching hire. Evansville....?

[BEARZ77]

All that said, and I agree in general, the conference really needs the privates to assert themselves at a higher level across the board in athletics, but most especially in MBB. I've always said that for the Valley to be strong in the past, the programs at Bradley, [WSU], ISUr, MSU, and probably SIU have to be competitive at the national levels. That's no disrespect to UNI, who clearly has done their part, but they have a lower ceiling when it comes to fan base, attendance, media markets etc. With WSU gone, I really think for the Valley to flourish UNI has to continue to be UNI, ISUr needs to stay at least where they are, but Bradley and MSU have got to return to being quality MBB programs regularly. They are two programs that when successful can put 7,000-9,000 butts in seats regularly. I think NCAA Tourney appearances are going to become increasingly difficult for MM to accomplish, and I don't know what the revenue is for NIT appearances, but I think realistically a good goal for the MVC is 3-4 teams annually in that combination. If we do that, I think we'll be alright.

MSU has just gone thru as bad a period as we've ever had, our last two years have been two of our lowest attendance for MBB since going D-1, our WBB which is the only program in the Valley that could even challenge to operate in the black has been up and down and administratively mismanaged into mediocrity, and we have let a silly preoccupation with a bad FCS football program drive too many decisions. But despite that in the most recent two year period MSU and UNI were the only two Universities with NCAA Tourney appearances in 3 of the 4 major men's/women's sports [ MBB, WBB,BB,VB]. But unless we get our MBB program fixed , and to some degree return our WBB program back to a consistent top 25 attendance wise, we aren't pulling the weight we should.

The one thing MSU has been able to do , along with maintaining good secondary sports programs[ BB,VB, Swimming/diving] is invest in and build excellent facilities , and continue to increase our enrollment to where we are now around the 26,000 mark. Despite the same financial issues many of the other Valley State schools have, we are in very good position to make a move to being what we should be. We have a discouraged but still available fan base& great facilities to recruit to, we just need to get it done, NOW.

But back to the earlier points, the privates do need to assert more of a presence. Evansville is supposed to be a MBB school, Bradley is[ has been] a MBB school. Valpo [if added] is a MBB school. Drake needs to be better. For one thing, especially given those schools aren't saddled with either state cutbacks in funding or the folly of FCS Football, they should be able to recognize the one sport they need to channel resources to is MBB nd have some ability to do so. JMHO

[UEACES80]

Basketball is all that matters!

He are each teams avg. finish in the MVC Conference standings since Loyola was added:

Illinois State - 2.5
Northern IA - 3
Indiana State- 5
Southern IL - 5
Evansville - 5.75
Missouri St - 6
Loyola - 7.25
Bradley - 8
Drake - 8.5

I have nothing against the Privates...but they have been bringing down the conference lately!
Good news is Loyola is recruiting strong, Wardle seems to be on the right track at
Bradley and Drake made a good coaching hire. Evansville....?

Evansville ? - I wasn't a math major (LOL) but I think UE is the highest average finish of the privates. Should we do better - yes. Do we need look for ways to improve including a coaching change - yes (all schools should strive to improve).

Since there seems to be some angst towards to the Privates - I wonder if any of the Public's have as stringent requirements for admission that the Privates have?

[tribecalledquest]

Silly premise in my opinion. Only basketball matters so exclude everything else. Creighton and Wichita State ruled the league during the better part of the decade and UNI was a very strong third team. Why not write the article that everyone else has just stunk rather than made it private vs public?

Exactly.

[tribecalledquest]

Basketball is all that matters!

He are each teams avg. finish in the MVC Conference standings since Loyola was added:

Illinois State - 2.5
Northern IA - 3
Indiana State- 5
Southern IL - 5
Evansville - 5.75
Missouri St - 6
Loyola - 7.25
Bradley - 8
Drake - 8.5

I have nothing against the Privates...but they have been bringing down the conference lately!
Good news is Loyola is recruiting strong, Wardle seems to be on the right track at
Bradley and Drake made a good coaching hire. Evansville....?

The fact they they are "private" is irrelevant. That's the point I think. They have been bad basketball programs that happen to be private schools. The fact they are private doesn't mean anything because they spend the same or more than the publics.