Updated 1/6/18: MVC Expansion Poll

[pafan]

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?

Evansville has been 55-60% female enrollment for years, maybe decades. I assume most colleges face this situation, and is probably why most of the MVC have a female sport or two (usually volleyball, swimming, or tennis) which is not offset by an equivalent male sport.

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.

I completely get this with respect to baseball. IIRC the last trip Evansville was intended to make to UNI for baseball was snowed out in mid-April. Of course, Evansville is projected to get a few inches of snow Friday Night...

My guess is that Gonzaga isn't in the WCC for more than 2 years before they end up in the MWC.

Agree.

- 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.

I've been really surprised at how few conferences have shut down in the last few years. The WAC & CUSA in particular seemed to be teetering on the brink at times.

[uniftw]

I don’t think the MWC wants 12/12. If they did they wouldn’t have contacted six schools. Gonzaga is clearybtheir #1 choice. They wouldn’t talk to anyone else if all they wanted was 12. 13 makes no sense. I understand the mouths to feed argument but let’s peetend we are still in this UN MWC world that people here think us UNI fans live in. Gonzaga is a top 10 team. BYU is borderline top 50 every year in the RPI. UNI continues in the 100 ranges. Some years 120 some years 30. Most every year between 75-100. In terms of conference RPI that jumps the MWC to top 7 for sure. Probably in the 4-6 range every year. MWC goes from 1 or 2 bids to probably 4. Plus there exists a world where the 120k ish per year schools get from NCAA shares don’t actually impact how schools work. BYU and UNI wouldn’t get any football revenue. There wouldn’t really be any extra mouths to feed that aren’t offset by doubling the bids each year.

They 100% don’t want to split football revenue anymore. Which is where this hypothetical of a UNI type can be thrown around. Don’t insist in having football brought along. Don’t need to live in FBs purgatory. This is why schools like UTEP or UNt or UTSA who would get them back into the Texas market start to take a hit in terms of potential additions. There’s much more in getting those schools on boarded and finances settled than this hypothetical UNI universe where the only potential concession is not sending WBB to SDSU SJSU and Gonzaga in the same year.


I’m on my phone and typing this much already has been a chore but the summit situation is worth watching. Them, thebWAC and by proxy the WCC and Big West (possibly some of the Big Sky) are all tied together and one wrong sneeze around the Jenga tower and things happen stangely.

[uniftw]

Pafan- the issue with being 60% female and title ix is football. That is 63 scholarships at the FCs level. There is no offsetting that sadly.

It’s why UNI is still looking at women’s sports to add. We are close enough to be in compliance mostly. Adding sports gets us 100% there with a small bit wiggle room. It’s why MSU added beach volleyball and is one of the sports UNI is looking at.

[BCPanther]

Hey Jsnhbe1Birds!

Grand Canyon is playing a buy game in Cedar Falls next year. Let me know if you need a couple tickets.

[TylerDurden]

How else can we make the league stronger without ridiculously stretching out the conference footprint? More internal improvement? I trust Murray State to do well unfortunately without a position shift from Belmont there is no trustworthy 12th. All it takes is one move by Gonzaga to elevate the MWC and (most likely) eliminate the WCC from this list which would leave the MVC alone on the occasional list making us easier to ignore entirely. Fortunately, that move hasn't happened yet, but I think we need to act now even if it means going to that awkward 11 because we need another profile boost to stay relevant and keep pace. Adding Murray State isn't rushing into expansion or entering into it lightly; adding Murray State is trusting decades of basketball history and securing more Q1 games for the conference.

This is the crux of the debate: does the Valley need outside teams to maintain or improve its competitive position. What is its competitive ceiling?

Valley teams have previously shown the capacity to improve internally - that usually happens during times of stable athletic department and coaching leadership. I see this internal improvement happening at several schools. These things go in cycles and a bad coaching hire can last a decade at this level (e.g. Bradley).

I'm not opposed to Murray State (or expansion in general), but I'm warning that the expectation that Murray State (or a similar school) increases the Valley's chances for at-large bids is likely to disappoint. Again, this is based on actual bid allocation and the current composition of leagues.

There are other reasons to add a team like Murray State, but you have to weigh those advantages against the risks, including the bottom line.

IMO, if the Valley decides to add an 11th team, they also should add a 12th. I've read some folks brushing this concern off, but even in an unbalanced schedule you have more options with an even number. I don't care about scheduling for volleyball or softball or whatever sport - heck, you don't have to play everyone in your conference in those sports.

[AndShock]

Hey Jsnhbe1Birds!

Grand Canyon is playing a buy game in Cedar Falls next year. Let me know if you need a couple tickets.

That’s an amazing get. Is GCU doing games at all the other Iowa schools? I wouldn’t think GCU would need money that bad so that couldn’t have been a cheap buy game unless it was some sort of package deal. That’s a buy game I’d be ecstatic about.

[VUGrad1314]

I wonder if we'll soon see schools like UCONN UMASS and NMSU drop FBS football entirely and embrace their identity as basketball schools. If that were to happen I could see UCONN end up back in the Big East while the AAC adds Army for football and VCU SLU or even perhaps Loyola for basketball (can't see Dayton because of the presence of Cincinnati). If NMSU were to drop FBS football, do you think the MVC would consider an aggressive western expansion?

[VUGrad1314]

Hey Jsnhbe1Birds!

Grand Canyon is playing a buy game in Cedar Falls next year. Let me know if you need a couple tickets.

That’s an amazing get. Is GCU doing games at all the other Iowa schools? I wouldn’t think GCU would need money that bad so that couldn’t have been a cheap buy game unless it was some sort of package deal. That’s a buy game I’d be ecstatic about.

They're probably finally realizing that they need to schedule decently if they want any chance of being respected and regarded as the program they think they are. GCU's schedule this year was pretty darn weak.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

Hey Jsnhbe1Birds!

Grand Canyon is playing a buy game in Cedar Falls next year. Let me know if you need a couple tickets.

That’s an amazing get. Is GCU doing games at all the other Iowa schools? I wouldn’t think GCU would need money that bad so that couldn’t have been a cheap buy game unless it was some sort of package deal. That’s a buy game I’d be ecstatic about.

They're probably finally realizing that they need to schedule decently if they want any chance of being respected and regarded as the program they think they are. GCU's schedule this year was pretty darn weak.

It was weak compared to the two previous years. They definitely need to schedule up.

[mvfcfan]

I'm actually starting to think that the MVC should just stay at 10 for now. If we had 2 more teams in the conference everyone would only get $708K compared to the $850K we're all getting now. And I personally want to keep the round robin scheduling.