If we go to 12 who do you want (choose 2) poll?

[CoolArrow]

Why would MSU and SFA travel together? Thats not how travel partners work, is it?

I thought when people talked about travel partners, such as Drake/UNI, it meant that a visiting team had two games on the road on the same trip. I dont even know if MVC schedules with this in mind.

Similar to the Evansville soccer scenario, are they really going out west to play just once at GCU? Youd figure they would stop somewhere else on the way there or back.

[uniftw]

Why would MSU and SFA travel together? Thats not how travel partners work, is it?

I thought when people talked about travel partners, such as Drake/UNI, it meant that a visiting team had two games on the road on the same trip. I dont even know if MVC schedules with this in mind.

Similar to the Evansville soccer scenario, are they really going out west to play just once at GCU? Youd figure they would stop somewhere else on the way there or back.

Travel partners are only a thing in volleyball and women's basketball.

The idea with bringing SFA wouldn't be for travel partners. As I've said from the very damn start, it's about insulating the league from whatever dumb crap that the Summit may try to pull. I've made probably a dozen posts that say this same thing. So there is one bad travel weekend with MSU and SFA. BFD. We are D1 schools, right? We have bugdgets over 18-25 million dollars? So there is 2 weekends a year (VB and WBB) that we don't get to fly to one location, bus to the second and fly home from there.

Inuslating. MUSU and SFA create this conference

Bradley
Drake
Evansville
Illinois State
Indiana State
Loyola
Missouri State
Murray State
Northern Iowa
Southern Illinois
Stephan F Austin
Valpo

That is 12 schools with 7 of them playing football. That is enough to maintain an autobid and keep the football programs safe if the Summit schools do something dumb like pull out of the MVFC for their own Summit League football. We also have YSU as an affiliate. That means 8 MVFC teams. It's not ideal, but it can be worked. This scenario doesn't leave the football schools scrambling for a home should the SL schools leave. It's a safety blanket. It brings security to everyone in the conference. Want to guess where schools like Drake, Evansville and Loyola end up if the football playing schools take off and form a conference with football in mind? Horizon, if lucky. Contrary to popular belief with the hubris these schools have, they aren't a hot commodity in the realignment world. No one is banging down the door for Drake, Evansville and Loyola. Bradley and Valpo are the two that could maybe try to hook into something bigger, like the A10. Valpo has the recent success and name. Bradley is the only one with the fan base, resources, and arena to be attractive. They need to show signs of life REAL soon...like this year or next...if they want to avoid the world of being Drake and Evansville.

Going to 14 with the Dakota State's puts it at 9 football members, with YSU as an affiliate for 10. Honestly, in the FCS 9 is the perfect number of teams so we could dump YSU if so inclined.

Looking at that conference, with or without the DSU's on a map makes travel partners real easy.

BU/ISUR - 40 miles - 40 minutes
LUC/VU - 65 miles - 1.5 hours
UE/ISUB - 111 miles - 2 hours
MUSU/SIU - 113 miles - 2 hours
UNI/D+ - 123 miles 2 hours
SDSU/NDSU - if going that route - 190 miles - 3 hours but it's literally straight up an interstate. Goes quick
MOSU/SFA - plane

Realistically speaking, that's a best case scenario for travel for the entire conference. Cedar Falls to Des Moines is the worst trip of that and it's a damn easy drive. Obviously it won't happen, but it really is damn nice scenario to go after


If the 12th is Belmont the travel partners are
BU/ISUR - 40 miles - 40 minutes
LUC/VU - 65 miles - 1.5 hours
UE/ISUB - 111 miles - 2 hours
UNI/D+ - 123 miles - 2 hours
MUSU/BMT - 123 miles - 2 hours
MOSU/SIU - plane
You actually expand the amount of driving distance, on average, slightly this way vs SFA.

If the 12th is SLU the most realistic option is
BU/ISUR - 40 miles - 40 minutes
LUC/VU - 65 miles - 1.5 hours
SLU/SIU - 110 miles - 2 hours
UE/ISUB - 111 miles - 2 hours
UNI/D+ - 123 miles - 2 hours
MOSU/MUSU - plane


As you can see, it doesn't matter, travel wise, who the 12th is. It doesn't really affect the travel partner issue at all. All it does is shift MOSO, MUSU, SIU and ISUb around to who is with who.

That does not mean "WELL, THAT'S A REASON FOR GCU!". No. GCU can not, and will not sustain what you think they will. There is going to be a bubble on education, and for profit universities will feel that the hardest. On top of that, looking at places that rate schools they aren't exactly well rated. They aren't ranked in any areas by US News. They are not viewed well by actual institutions. They put in a bid to become non-profit, and were turned down by those who do the accreditation. Why were they turned down? Well because, like like almost every for-profit, GCU was found to invest minimally in their school and focused on investor satisfaction. Non-profits invest back into the schools to cover all aspects of generating quality education for their students. The ruse that GCU tried to play was to set up separate companies that were still interwoven into GCU. They were going to pay these marketing and adjunct companies to do what GCU should have been doing in the first place. The places in charge of accreditation saw right through that.

Grand Canyon had proposed to create a new nonprofit “school corporation” and to house various functions of the company in a separate, unaccredited and for-profit “services corporation.” That structure is similar to those of smaller for-profits that previously have made the switch to nonprofit.
The commission, however, decided that the proposed structure would move too much of Grand Canyon’s academic operations to the for-profit division.

HLC said its requirements “do not allow for an institution to outsource all or the majority of its basic functions related to academic and student support services and curriculum development, even where the contract between the parties indicates that the accredited institution provides oversight of those services.”
In a statement, the HLC also said its current criteria require an accredited institution to have “both teaching and learning as well as service functions within the accredited structure.”

The only reason they want to return to non-profit? Taxes. Turns out they don't like paying taxes on the hundreds of millions of dollars they swindle from students and investors. They pay almost $60,000,000 a year in taxes. Plus they are sick of dealing with the regulations that the federal government, correctly, put on for-profit schools.

Being for profit means CGU can't accept philanthropic donations. They can't pursue research grants. They've sold that "our teachers teach and don't spend time researching" as a draw. Now they are realizing that reserach grants are a big deal and they are backtracking on that and trying to get research funding. They can't participate in the NCAA governance boards.

Again, GCU is nothing but Kaplan or UoP but with athletics. The are a for profit version of ORU and Liberty. These are all schools that are known diploma mills with most of them having significant internal issues. It appears that GCU is starting to run into that. GCU wants to turn their academic side into a non-profit but their proposals always leave athletics on the for-profit side.

No. They don't even get a No, thank you. It's just a flat no

[mvfcfan]

I've been looking at last year's schedule for my Indiana State team and I see no evidence that the MVC actually schedules using travel partners. Like there was instance where we played a home game, then played at Drake, just to come back home. If travel partners was actually a real thing we would have played at UNI on the same trip.

So that brings me back to this point. Why does Missouri State need a travel partner, particularly if we are not utilizing it in our schedules already? Our conference is more compact now without Wichita and with Valparaiso. Why can't we just add Murray State and be done with it? I'm starting to think this travel partner thing was just an excuse to be lazy on scheduling or to just stick at the status quo of 10 teams in the conference. Whenever Indiana State is taking a trip to Drake without playing any other road games in that trip it makes me think this travel partner thing is a bunch of nonsense. There's no way an added trip to any MVC school is costing anyone a ton of money in travel. Murray State would barely add travel. I know that scheduling would be harder, but how difficult is it really?

The MWC plays with 11 and the MWC apparently said they didn't want NM ST and/or Idaho. Why should we be any different? If we're not 100% sure about a team we need to just go to 11. We shouldn't just add to make scheduling easier. That is a terrible reason to add someone. You can't take back a bad add. But Murray State is too good of an addition not to add them for the 2018 season. Everyone says that Belmont and St Louis needs to wake up, but really I think the leadership in our conference are the ones that need to wake up. You can't just pass up on a team like Murray State that really wants in the conference over "travel partners, difficult scheduling, and public/private split". The travel in our conference is super easy. If Chicago State can travel all over the place when they are on the verge of shutting down, then we can all travel to Northern Iowa, Missouri State, and Murray State without having another road game while we're out, just like we're already doing.

[uniftw]

I've been looking at last year's schedule for my Indiana State team and I see no evidence that the MVC actually schedules using travel partners. Like there was instance where we played a home game, then played at Drake, just to come back home. If travel partners was actually a real thing we would have played at UNI on the same trip.

So that brings me back to this point. Why does Missouri State need a travel partner, particularly if we are not utilizing it in our schedules already? Our conference is more compact now without Wichita and with Valparaiso. Why can't we just add Murray State and be done with it? I'm starting to think this travel partner thing was just an excuse to be lazy on scheduling or to just stick at the status quo of 10 teams in the conference. Whenever Indiana State is taking a trip to Drake without playing any other road games in that trip it makes me think this travel partner thing is a bunch of nonsense. There's no way an added trip to any MVC school is costing anyone a ton of money in travel. Murray State would barely add travel. I know that scheduling would be harder, but how difficult is it really?

The MWC plays with 11 and the MWC apparently said they didn't want NM ST and/or Idaho. Why should we be any different? If we're not 100% sure about a team we need to just go to 11. We shouldn't just add to make scheduling easier. That is a terrible reason to add someone. You can't take back a bad add. But Murray State is too good of an addition not to add them for the 2018 season. Everyone says that Belmont and St Louis needs to wake up, but really I think the leadership in our conference are the ones that need to wake up. You can't just pass up on a team like Murray State that really wants in the conference over "travel partners, difficult scheduling, and public/private split". The travel in our conference is super easy. If Chicago State can travel all over the place when they are on the verge of shutting down, then we can all travel to Northern Iowa, Missouri State, and Murray State without having another road game while we're out, just like we're already doing.

Travel partners are only used in VB and WBB. It has no impact on mens basketball, tennis, swimming, track and field, soccer, or any other sport.

As an example, here is last years schedule for UNI basketball
12/30 @ MSU
1/1 @ WSU
1/6 v SIU
1/8 v UE
1/13 @ ISUr
1/15 @ BU
1/20 v ISUB
1/22 v LUC
1/27 - v Drake - weekend 1 of the playing only your travel partner. It comes midseason and end of season
2/3 @ UE
2/5 @ SIU
2/10 v BU
2/12 v ISUR
2/17 @ LUC
2/19 @ ISUB
2/24 @ Drake - weekend 2 of playing only your travel partner
3/2 v WSU
3/4 V MSU

The travel partners are laid out pretty obviously there. The same pattern is there for VB. This year, since VU is here now the partners are

VU/LUC
BU/ISUR
ISUB/UE
SIU/MSU
UNI/Drake

UNI's first half of the VB schedule

9/22/2017 Valparaiso Valparaiso, Indiana 7 p.m. Details
9/23/2017 Loyola Chicago, Illinois 7 p.m. Details
9/29/2017 Bradley Cedar Falls, Iowa 7 p.m. Details
9/30/2017 Illinois State Cedar Falls, Iowa 7 p.m. Details
10/6/2017 Indiana State Terre Haute, Indiana
10/7/2017 Evansville Evansville, Indiana
10/13/2017 Southern Illinois Cedar Falls, Iowa 7 p.m. Details
10/14/2017 Missouri State Cedar Falls, Iowa 7 p.m. Details
10/17/2017 Drake Cedar Falls, Iowa 7 p.m. Details

Schedule then goes into the inverse travel partner H/A

It is utilized in these two sports since they are not revenue sports. UNI VB makes money but I can't think there are any other women programs that actually make money, or even break even. These sports also don't have TV contracts

This issue does not exist in mens basketball. I'd assume most/all mens programs make money, or at least break even. We also have TV contracts that dictate what our schedule can/does look like.

As I laid out there, MSU is on an island no matter what. It's the "sad" reality of it. There is not a school we could add, outside of ORU or UMKC, that would change that. Neither of those is attractive. Thus the 12th MUST be an addition of strength of basketball program, stability (meaning maybe isn't another football school and not a private) and not geography.

[mvfcfan]

So basically we won't add Murray State because of women's basketball and volleyball? That seems like a really stupid reason not to add a quality men's basketball program. Like I said, I think our leadership in this conference really needs to wake up. This isn't an SLU or a Belmont issue, this is a Doug Elgin / university presidents' issue. Is it really that bad having to send the volleyball team and women's basketball team to Missouri State? After all Missouri State is already sending all of their teams to all of our schools anyways. The travel in our league isn't even that bad, especially now that both Wichita and Creighton are gone.

This is probably wishful thinking, but what I really hope is that we already told Murray State that they are in and that we just needed another year to analyze more schools because we wanted to get the best number 12 possible. If that was the conversation behind closed doors then I am okay with that. But I think whoever we add needs to be added by no later than the Spring for the 2018-19 season, otherwise I see us just staying at 10.

[uniftw]

Yes, Murray State was left out because there wasn't a suitable 12th according to the university presidents. They are also opposed to 11 for some unknown reason. The B1G ran at 11 for decades. The MWC is at 11. A large part of the issue with 11 is the travel partner issue for VB and WBB. Hideous.

Honstestly 11 with a 20 game conference schedule makes sense right now. The B1G adopted a 20 game conference schedule starting in 2018. OOC games in the upper midwest, even buy games are going to become even more difficult.

Why 11 is such an issue is something I can't figure out.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Yeah, the MAAC also has 11 and Southland/MEAC have 13. Those are conferences with less money making an odd number work. I'm starting to wonder if that excuse was BS.

[uniftw]

Yeah, the MAAC also has 11 and Southland/MEAC have 13. Those are conferences with less money making an odd number work. I'm starting to wonder if that excuse was BS.

BS in the sense that it's a poor excuse of one? Yes.
BS in the sense that the presidents actually believe it? No, sadly

[mvfcfan]

Well here's what would have made more sense for the MVC to announce if it wasn't just a BS excuse.

"We have invited Valparaiso University to become of a full member starting on July 1st, 2017. Murray State University has also received an invite to become a full member starting on July 1st, 2018. We will have the search committee continue to search for another potential member to add for the 2018 season and that decision will be announced by next Spring."

Would that really have been that difficult? It would have benefited Murray State as well because then they could of gave the OVC a heads up that they were planning on leaving and then their exit fee wouldn't be as high. It also would have gave the MVFC a heads up so that they could adjust the football schedule for the 2018 season (and yes it could have been done).

[TheAsianSensation]

Yeah, the MAAC also has 11 and Southland/MEAC have 13. Those are conferences with less money making an odd number work. I'm starting to wonder if that excuse was BS.

Well, the MAAC is so geographically compact that an odd number can work travel-wise. Southland/MEAC are at the bottom of D1....they have no choice because there's no schools to add.

Mountain West is the one that raises my eyebrow. Perhaps they're so sprawling that they like having a couple of bye dates built into their schedule, and buses might be out of the question altogether for them.