Updated 1/6/18: MVC Expansion Poll

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

The MWC has become a 1 bid leagues, two on good years. Just slightly better than the MVC. They are in a spot where they need to make big moves or be relegated to a one big league. I think they should go for the gold and add Gonzaga, St. Mary's, BYU, and GCU.

The MVC is already a one bid league. They need to go for the gold too. Murray State and NKU aren't it but could be two pieces. Do whatever it takes to get Dayton, St. Louis, NMSU, and GCU (if they don't go to the MWC). I do not give a goddamn what it means for travel costs. You want to become a two bid league again you have to make sacrifices. I also don't care if it means paying goddamn Dayton and SLU a certain amount for 5-10 years. Basically, buying them. Just get it done. This BS that we all keep going around and around on is not going to get us to where we want to be and if you think they are you are in denial.

[VUGrad1314]

It seems the football championship game and schedules have been announced so while realignment is still possible it wouldn't be until at least 2019. I don't see this impacting the MVC even though I remember reading the rumors of Missouri State wanting to go FBS. It could impact the OVC though. Didn't EKU and JSU express FBS ambitions? Maybe we'll get Murray and Belmont after all! But before I get too carried away the test pattern basketball with the ESPN logo (I could not see this) seems like a big clue. It's probably a TV deal. Incidentally that was the most popular guess I ran across.

I understand our own expansion committee will meet tomorrow right? Wonder what we'll learn from that. Hope it's good news!

[BEARZ77]

The MWC has become a 1 bid leagues, two on good years. Just slightly better than the MVC. They are in a spot where they need to make big moves or be relegated to a one big league. I think they should go for the gold and add Gonzaga, St. Mary's, BYU, and GCU.

The MVC is already a one bid league. They need to go for the gold too. Murray State and NKU aren't it but could be two pieces. Do whatever it takes to get Dayton, St. Louis, NMSU, and GCU (if they don't go to the MWC). I do not give a goddamn what it means for travel costs. You want to become a two bid league again you have to make sacrifices. I also don't care if it means paying goddamn Dayton and SLU a certain amount for 5-10 years. Basically, buying them. Just get it done. This BS that we all keep going around and around on is not going to get us to where we want to be and if you think they are you are in denial.

I just don't get why people think adding teams of similar or even in the case of a Dayton/SLU perhaps slightly higher profile type will do anything to get more bids. I'm not against expansion, actually for it, but it won't get more bids. We'll get an extra bid under the occasional circumstance where a team outside the Tourney winner had the fortunate opportunity to schedule a couple top 50 teams , got a couple more in a early season Tourney, and then won most of those games along with a conference record with fewer than 4 losses. That's it. Doesn't matter who else is in the conference or how many teams we have. The criteria for an at large is simply have at least a winning record and a significant number of top 50 wins. Look at Oklahoma, they are 3 games under .500 in the Big 12, have been being blown out in several recent games, are something like 1-7 going down the stretch, but they had something like 6-7 top level wins in noncom and are still considered an NCAA Tourney team.

[GoSIU88]

The Valley needs to add a football school and I think, most likely, that will be Murray State. Who the other team could be I don't know. I hate SLU so I hope it isn't them.

[All-MVC Fan]

I think the idea is to bring in programs that increase your chances of getting Q1 wins in conference. Our biggest problem is that most teams’ chances for those high quality wins ends when confers play starts. If you bring in the right programs, you have a better chance for the wins needed.

[BCPanther]

The other thing you do when you expand is shield your better teams from bad RPI games. You schedule your top teams to play the bottom of the league once instead of twice.

I'll be shocked if we're not at 12 next year and I think if they found the right package (ie SLU and Dayton) they'd go to 14.

If Gonzaga and BYU go, the WCC is dead. St Mary's loses 4 quality games and, traditionally, hasn't scheduled real well outside the league. All that will be left are a bunch of tiny, private West Coast schools.

The problem for the WCC is that you have no one to add. The presidents of that league aren't going to go dumpster diving into the Big West or WAC and there isn't anybody in the Big Sky that is going to be willing to leave because there's nowhere to put football.

Going to be a crazy active summer here. The Valley and MW are going to need to add firepower to make sure they stay in shouting distance of the AAC. Could create a unique tier with the Valley, A10 and Mountain West.

[Rambler63]

What kind of concrete indication has anyone had that St. Louis (or Dayton) would consider leaving the A10? I think things are changing for the A10 vis a vis the MVC, but I haven't heard or seen anything specific about those two schools leaving.

Four years ago, it was kind of unthinkable that they would join the MVC, since the A10 was doing so well. In 2013-14, six of the 13 teams in the A10 made the NCAA Tournament: St. Louis, VCU, George Washington, St. Joe's, UMass and Dayton. In 2015, three out of 14 schools (Davidson was added). In 2016, three of 14, with one of the three regular season conference champions only making the NIT. In 2017, three of 14. And this year, there's likely to be only two out of 14, unless somebody besides Rhode Island beats St. Bonaventure in the conference tournament final. The A10's conference RPI ranking has dropped from 6 in 2013-14 to 7 for two years, then 8, and now 10th. They're not only below the Mountain West, they're below the MVC (after losing Wichita State).

Meanwhile, the MVC seems like a cozier spot these days for St. Louis especially, but also Dayton. Loyola has done well in the MVC and is a very similar school to St. Louis that the MVC didn't have before, in terms of being a city school, academically, budget-wise, and proximity. St. Louis literally doesn't have any other conference teams in the same time zone. Dayton lost their most successful coach in years, and doesn't have Xavier as a rival in the same league anymore, and the two haven't played each other since Dec. 2015. Dayton, St. Louis, Evansville and Loyola were in the same conference from 1988-1991.

Saint Louis has a budget of $6.4 million as of 2015-16, which is twice the highest in the MVC. Dayton's budget is $5 million, which is twice the MVC median. Some MVC schools are going to need to bump their budgets if they really want to attract those two schools.

[Just Another Guy]

The MWC has become a 1 bid leagues, two on good years. Just slightly better than the MVC. They are in a spot where they need to make big moves or be relegated to a one big league. I think they should go for the gold and add Gonzaga, St. Mary's, BYU, and GCU.

The MVC is already a one bid league. They need to go for the gold too. Murray State and NKU aren't it but could be two pieces. Do whatever it takes to get Dayton, St. Louis, NMSU, and GCU (if they don't go to the MWC). I do not give a goddamn what it means for travel costs. You want to become a two bid league again you have to make sacrifices. I also don't care if it means paying goddamn Dayton and SLU a certain amount for 5-10 years. Basically, buying them. Just get it done. This BS that we all keep going around and around on is not going to get us to where we want to be and if you think they are you are in denial.

Your love fest for GCU is palpable.

[BCPanther]

The MWC has become a 1 bid leagues, two on good years. Just slightly better than the MVC. They are in a spot where they need to make big moves or be relegated to a one big league. I think they should go for the gold and add Gonzaga, St. Mary's, BYU, and GCU.

The MVC is already a one bid league. They need to go for the gold too. Murray State and NKU aren't it but could be two pieces. Do whatever it takes to get Dayton, St. Louis, NMSU, and GCU (if they don't go to the MWC). I do not give a goddamn what it means for travel costs. You want to become a two bid league again you have to make sacrifices. I also don't care if it means paying goddamn Dayton and SLU a certain amount for 5-10 years. Basically, buying them. Just get it done. This BS that we all keep going around and around on is not going to get us to where we want to be and if you think they are you are in denial.

Your love fest for GCU is palpable.

GCU isn't going anywhere unless the Big West gets raided. No matter what we think as sports fans, academics matter. A room full of university presidents isn't going to choose to align itself with a for-profit, commuter, religious-based, dipoloma mill with, at best, shaky accounting practices.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

Well, then goodbye MVC is travel costs and type of university wins out. We will be no better than the worst conference. It means nothing to be the 8th rated conference if you get the same number of bids as the 32nd.