Updated 1/6/18: MVC Expansion Poll

[TheDrake]

Just read the UNI board and some seem to think the MWC is giddy over them and Gonzaga. Would Murray St replace Northern Iowa?

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

St marys is WAAAAAY before UNI.

[VUGrad1314]

Absolutely and even they weren't seriously considered. The way it sounded was:
1. Gonzaga
2. BYU (if they brought back football)
3. A second football school to balance the numbers (probably New Mexico State or UTEP)
4. Everybody else

[uniguy]

Just read the UNI board and some seem to think the MWC is giddy over them and Gonzaga. Would Murray St replace Northern Iowa?

The Mountain West wouldn't lift a finger when the Shockers were available but are falling over themselves to add UNI.

And UNI a school that had to shutter its baseball team for financial reasons is going to not only pay the costs necessary to go FBS but also take all of its sports to California Idaho Nevada Utah Wyoming and New Mexico.

I'll believe that when I see it.

Thank you, I needed a good laugh.

Literally no one on Panthernation has even suggested this. There has been a little bit of discussion on what would happen if the opportunity to move to the Mountain West presented itself, what conditions UNI would take that offer (particularly in regards to their football team and whether or not it would be invited). But nobody has suggested that the MWC is giddy over UNI. It is all hypothetical discussion. Fake news. Calm down.

[BCPanther]

Just read the UNI board and some seem to think the MWC is giddy over them and Gonzaga. Would Murray St replace Northern Iowa?

The Mountain West wouldn't lift a finger when the Shockers were available but are falling over themselves to add UNI.

And UNI a school that had to shutter its baseball team for financial reasons is going to not only pay the costs necessary to go FBS but also take all of its sports to California Idaho Nevada Utah Wyoming and New Mexico.

I'll believe that when I see it.

Thank you, I needed a good laugh.

Literally no one on Panthernation has even suggested this. There has been a little bit of discussion on what would happen if the opportunity to move to the Mountain West presented itself, what conditions UNI would take that offer (particularly in regards to their football team and whether or not it would be invited). But nobody has suggested that the MWC is giddy over UNI. It is all hypothetical discussion. Fake news. Calm down.

Conjecture and dreaming on a message board? I am shocked!!

To correct something, UNI ended baseball for far more than financial reasons. UNI is the only Valley school with wrestling and being in Iowa, wrestling isn't getting cut. UNI was way, way, way out of whack on Title IX and a men's sport was going to have to go. The lack of control over a facility and weather this far north made it a pretty easy choice. The combination of cutting baseball and taking scholarships out of Men's Golf got us pretty close to Title IX compliance which is even more difficult at UNI when 58% of the general student body is female. In fact, UNI is looking at adding women's sports right now with bowling and beach volleyball being looked at.

[underdawg]

I'm voting twice for beach volleyball!!

[uniftw]

These posts made me come out of not posting here anymore

Here is the posts/thread about a PN poster claiming the MWC would be giddy to add UNI...

https://www.panthernation.com/forum/spe ... -nit/page8

Take a look and read it. It's literally nothing any other message board wouldn't/hasn't said.

Good god some people are dense.

As already mentioned - literally the last reason UNI cut baseball was money. It was 99.1% title IX, .8% lack of a facility/weather, and .1% money.

I'll rehash some things already said to back it up.
1. UNI is the northern most MVC school - and when it came to baseball by a considerable margin. We got over a foot of snow last weekend. We are supposed to get up to 6 more inches tonight/tomorrow. Wind chills will be below 0 over night and into the morning. It's April 3rd/4th. Baseball doesn't work so well in those conditions. Yes, a few schools (NDSU and SDSU) have baseball north of us and they spend 3 months traveling the country. Iowa has baseball and they have about a dozen or more home games canceled each year. This is why UNI softball plays more than a fair share of games in the UNIDome each year - baseball can't do that. As strange as this sounds there is actually a large snow difference between Cedar Falls and Iowa City even. The last few years Cedar Falls has averaged almost a foot more snow, with snow staying accumulated a couple weeks longer. I live in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area. The number of days we've had snow on the ground this year compared to Cedar Falls is laughable for the 30 miles straight line difference in latitude. Looking at the extended forecast for Cedar Falls - it's snowing currently. It will snow again on April 9th. It will continue to drop below freezing, before wind chill, through at least April 14th. Yeah. That's real great for baseball at the college level at a place who wouldn't be in Title IX compliance and didn't have their own facility.

2. To add to those issues, UNI doesn't own a baseball facility. The facility they were renting is used by the local Northwoods League team. It's a freaking pit and a half, but the rental agreement was UNI did the vast majority of the up keep on it. The stadium is 20 minutes from campus in another city. It's not easy to get too, and not in a great part of that town. It's maybe 200 feet off of the Cedar River and floods massively every spring. It was almost impossible to make that place playable in March-May.

3. Because of 1 and 2 there was zero fan support - actual zero. I went to a couple games as a student. I'm not kidding when I say there was 7 people, including me, at the game. The highest number I ever saw at a game was 28.

UNI is 56% female and was over 60% at the time baseball was cut. Do you know how hard it is to be in Title IX compliance for most schools with a 50/50 split? Do you know how much harder it becomes when your student enrollment is over 60% female? Title IX is based on enrollment. Iowa State also dropped baseball. Was that because of money? Nope...well I suppose *some* because the cost of 9 scholarships and flying the team around the south and California for 2 months wasn't worth the massive Title IX issues. That was also at a time Iowa State was getting 6 million plus from the state for athletics. They are now self funded because of the B12 TV rights - zero interest in bringing baseball back even though they can easily afford it.

Notice how schools in the south and coasts are cutting wrestling and not baseball? It's because weather means baseball is playable during the spring. Iowa is one of the two or three largest wrestling states in the country. The high school state wrestling meet in Des Moines draws over 17,000 per day for all 4 days of the tourmment. Think I'm kidding? Here is day 1 of the tournament http://www.thegazette.com/storyimage/GA ... 0&MaxW=900 and here is the title day https://www.win-magazine.com/wp-content ... nament.jpg

UNI has wrestling. Not only does UNI have wrestling, UNI is really damn good at it. Multiple All Americans year after year. Olympic gold medalists from UNI. Top 10-15 rankings yearly. Our wrestling team just got a multi million dollar wrestling specific facility. The wrestling coaches salaries are 100% endowed. Wrestling is a way of life in this state. Iowa State also kept wrestling over baseball. If you forced Iowa to pick one they pick wrestling. As mentioned golf also lost every single scholarship in an attempt to get back to near Title IX compliance. Between baseball and golf UNI picked up like 15 scholarships towards Title IX compliance.

As BC said, there are serious discussions happening about adding women's sports.


As to the idea of the MWC. I want to add a few things

1. The MWC has less than zero interest in going over 12 football teams. BYU would remain Indy in football. They contacted UTEP from what I heard. The major sticking point with UTEP is the fact that CUSA isn't going to let them keep football in the conference if they moved other sports. Meaning UTEP would join UMASS, NMSU and Liberty in the land of the lost tiny ass no history Indy status. BYU can run Indy and make it work for a number of reasons. UMASS, Liberty, NMSU all know how hard it is. NMSU and Liberty are playing each other twice this year to fill their schedules.

2. NMSU will never, and I mean never, get into the MWC. This isn't a secret to anyone, but it's always telling to see who actually follows alignment over the years and still brings up NMSU. It shows how little attention they've payed. NMSU isn't getting into the MWC. It won't happen. If I have to explain it to you then...well...there's no reason to continue.

2.5 - this is a half because i thought of it later and didn't want to change numbers. St. Mary's aint going MWC. They want the small catholic school conference. They have no interest in being with larger public institutions, more than a couple with questionable academic standards...I'm not even going to pretend to hide a shot at BSU. BSU is an academic wasteland. It's why their football program got real good. They took everyone that didn't get into P12 and B12 schools.

3.The MWC is at 11 basketball schools. They want 14. Gonzaga was their 12 and they want 2 more to go division set up. Let's play out this hypothetical what if situation - just as it was on PN, where literally no one said anything close to what was asserted. Let's pretend UNI got the call with Gonzaga and BYU....I know, I know...sounds stupid. You have 2 7 team divisions. Guess what? That means travel - especially for non-revenue sports is limited. UNI isn't sending teams to Washington and California. San Diego and San Jose isn't sending teams to Iowa.

Divisions would be
West
San Diego State
San Jose State
UNLV
Nevada
Fresno State
Boise State
Gonzaga

East
Utah State
UNI
BYU
New Mexico
Air Force
Colorado State
Wyoming

Play your division H/A and you'd have 12 games. Play 3 H/A across division. The long trips are greatly limited that way. I would bet it wouldn't take a ton to work travel schedules to limit flights as well.

I can also tell you that UNI would be more than willing to leave football at the FCS level - which in theory...IN THEORY DON'T TAKE THIS AS I THINK IT WILL HAPPEN... - would mean that the MWC wouldn't have to deal with an FCS transitional or going over 12 members.

I can promise you the Dakota State's weren't contacted. Why? I have some pretty close sources at those schools that and I would know. They couldn't keep that hidden.

I don't know why the MWC would tell WSU no and then invite UNI a year or two later. I can't say it makes sense. It's why I'm not actually justifying this as a thing that will happen.

What I can tell you is that if that offer was presented to UNI...in whatever dream world we want to live in...it would be accepted as long as the MVFC would allow UNI to stay in the MVFC. If that isn't an option then the reality is UNI would likely say no. Indy as an FCS is a death wish. May as well shut it down at that point. The PR from that would off set any positive of the MWC move with Gonzaga and BYU. I would have to believe that the biggest/only concession UNI would seek is parking football in the MVFC.

My guess is that Gonzaga isn't in the WCC for more than 2 years before they end up in the MWC. Gonzaga - specifically Few - really like ESPN games. The MWC is in bed with CBS and CBS Sports Net. The MWC TV deal is up after this coming year. Watch the negotiations. If the MWC wants to play ball with ESPN, Gonzaga is very much in play. With this new ESPN+ deal, and the acquisitions of the Fox Sports regionals, the MWC may really want to to look into ESPN as a new home.


I know this was long. Didn't mean for it to be but it ended up that way.

Carry on with your lives.


EDIT - Oh...also as for who would replace UNI. There's Murray State's spot. I would guess if the MVC still really wanted to be at 12 they could really make a push to centralize around Illinois and go with NKU and UW-M. That would still be a top 10-12 conference most every year

[uniftw]

As to the actual topic at hand.

I'd take South Dakota State and Murray State.

I understand some of the concern after Daum and Otz are gone. But they were pretty good before those two.

The years before Daum
24-11
19-13
25-10
27-8
19-12
A couple NCAA bids.

RPI wise, starting with this year, they've gone 37, 155, 28, 99, 133, 62, 42, 183

IIRC that would be like 2nd or 3rd in terms of average over those years in the MVC - that's with dealing with being in the Summit in terms of nightly RPI hits.

SDSU is dumping nearly $10m into renovating their basketball arena. http://www.crawfordarch.com/portfolio/m ... enovation/ They have a top 25 womens basketball program. While they spent a bunch of money on the football stadium it came with massive facility upgrades for other sports. Historically SDSU has been a basketball school, it wasn't until the last 5 years or so that football actually become a thing for them. Their fans still care more about basketball than football.

Reading their board though they don't live in reality of the difference between the Summit and MVC. They also don't want to give up having the conference tournament less than an hour from their campus where the men and women play at the same time.

There's also political issues where I don't know if they'd be able to split from the other Dakotas - plus then we get into this idea of potentially killing the Summit by taking members and them falling under the requirements and the mess that would make across the board for the MVFC - and thus the MVC.

[TheAsianSensation]

Couple quick-hitting thoughts:

- I'm not completely sure if the MWC wants a 14/12 setup (basketball/football). Travel is one big thing, but I think the bigger immediate pressing issue is NCAA tourney revenue. I would think they would still be able to schedule creatively enough to allow the at-large contenders to avoid RPI bombs at the bottom of the league a second time. And frankly I still think some members are shook after the 16-team WAC imploded. Shook.
- Thank god someone else sees the St Mary's thing. They don't have the budget to compete in a higher conference, they don't fit the academic or athletic profile of a higher conference...they are the Belmont of the west. The system works based on the coach, and not because of other factors. When coach goes, program goes down.
- I wouldn't worry about killing the Summit. The second we take Murray St and the MWC takes Gonzaga, the WAC is dead. The Summit would lose WIU and/or IPFW to Horizon/OVC expansion, the WAC would lose Seattle to the WCC, and all of the sudden the Summit becomes a western-based league and can easily poach NMSU, Grand Canyon, UVU, and whoever else they want from the WAC. And the Summit basically has to take them to maintain minimum membership requirements, and the WAC teams will have to leave because the WAC will once again be on the borderline of minimum membership requirements.

[Redhawk]

Welcome back uniftw! You always share great insight into all things UNI.