(non-MVC) Realignment News

[RacerJoeD]

Correct me if I am wrong, but with the MAC moving to a 20 game conference schedule that means that they join the ACC, Big 10, PAC 12, and Big East as eliminating some OOC games with the A10 and the M West at least considering going to 20. That is potentially a lot of OOC games that are being lost. Those games are the lifeblood of low major and mid major conferences as part of their yearly revenue. Expect that to cut into the bottom line of a ton of teams even further.

[patnb]

Correct me if I am wrong, but with the MAC moving to a 20 game conference schedule that means that they join the ACC, Big 10, PAC 12, and Big East as eliminating some OOC games with the A10 and the M West at least considering going to 20. That is potentially a lot of OOC games that are being lost. Those games are the lifeblood of low major and mid major conferences as part of their yearly revenue. Expect that to cut into the bottom line of a ton of teams even further.

I've been a stay at 10 advocate for a while.

HOWEVER

We are reaching a point where OOC games are drying up. We need to "deal" with 11 and find an 11th and move to 20. I don't know if it's Murray State, South Dakota State (though there are some hurdles there that would need cleared) or lord help us UW-M, UIC, or UNK.

We completely missed our window with Murray I'd guess. Their old president was 1000% in MVC mode. He's gone. The new president seems to want to stay where they are. Also, they were strung along for a while, wonder how much of the bridge got burned.

[VUGrad1314]

My guess is not very much. Valpo faced the same situation in 2013 when Loyola was picked where a lot of fans really thought it would be us. The same people who were there during both selection processes were still around though so not sure how much of an effect that had. My understanding was that this time around especially there were some hurdles with some of our board members that we needed to overcome (this is all secondhand at best information so it may not be true at all but that was the report from sources on our board.) and yet however it got done it got done. I think the president was pretty pro MVC though. This has to be said though: As a Valpo fan I readily admit that we got in solely because we are a private school and not necessarily because we are a better program than Murray State. We have plenty of issues to address as a whole like any university during this time of uncertainty but I am still embarrassed by our facilities I still feel that our level of commitment is not where it needs to be resource wise (though I'm not certain how much more we could necessarily afford to allocate to basketball right now) and our performance has left a lot to be desired. This pains me as a fan of both Valpo and the MVC. I never envisioned that we would be a drag on the conference and I feel so bad that we have not come in and performed well enough. That is something that constantly bothers me because my university and its basketball program are a source of pride for me and I want to be proud of our success on the court. I want the MVC to feel good about having selected us and I just don't think we're there yet. I think there's a lot of buyer's remorse with Valpo on the part of the MVC and a lot of "what might have been\one that got away with Murray State and justifiably so. I love this conference. I want us to be a credit to this conference and I also want them to get as many other strong programs in as possible.

As for Murray State I say this as a Valpo fan who is still absolutely thrilled that we are an MVC member. I really REALLY hope we didn't miss our window with Murray State. I hope if and when they are approached again they will say yes and join us. It would be very sad and a big blow to the conference for them to turn us down. They would add so much. I pray to whatever gods may be that if the MVC expands Murray State is one of the additions. I pray for Belmont and\or SLU as well but at a minimum we need Murray State. They're a football playing public school which helps to balance things in the MVFC and we can find a non-football public to act as a pseudo-private. Murray is the best fit and the best overall program and we really need them. I wanted them in alongside us in 2017 and I have never wavered on that position. The Racers 1000% belong in the MVC though I do acknowledge that the conference may well need them more than they need the conference as things stand. The best thing the MVC can do right now is totally knock it out of the park this year get back to multiple bids and prove conclusively to Murray State that it is a worthwhile move for them to make. Loyola's final four run was a great feather in our cap, but Murray easily countered with Ja Morant and the mania he generated going 2nd overall even from the OVC. Our inability to build on that successful run (the down year afterwards and then not having a tournament but especially with us just not being at the level to ensure multiple bids yet has not helped us in the eyes of expansion candidates. We NEED Murray State but it gets harder and harder for me to make the case that Murray State needs the MVC. We need to show more from top to bottom and Murray State has to want to embrace the challenge of a tougher conference for the benefits that would come with it. I hope their administration does but I really have my doubts after talking to Murray State fans recently.

[mvfcfan]

If we go to 12 then Murray State is obviously #11. I think South Dakota, SDSU, or NKU would all be fine as the #12. I probably like South Dakota the best of those three. They would likely join, they are the closest Dakota school (only 2 hours north of Omaha), they tend to draw the best in the Summit League, they play in a new arena, and they have been improving a lot on the court lately. Not that people on here care, but they also just renovated their dome. They also have a $244M endowment which is the most of any Dakota school.

[VUGrad1314]

I prefer NKU as the twelfth. Great arena. Very successful in just a short time. Super committed to athletics. Cincinnati market. The team actually has a presence and decent coverage in the Cincinnati market which is more than a lot of HL teams can say within their cities. History with Valpo. In state rival for Murray State. Should we ever need a team again it opens up the possibility of adding Wright State (and their excellent baseball program and rivalries with Valpo Loyola and NKU). Taking just one Dakota makes no sense to me. SD and SDSU as a package I could think about. Would be a huge boost especially to women's basketball as both programs are very good.

[VUGrad1314]

Green Bay fires their coach signed through 2026 and some speculation among fans suggests that they may be considering a move out of D1. If that's true that's exhibit A for why I want nothing to do with schools like Milwaukee or UIC or UALR or any school beholden to a parent institution. The parent schools will think nothing of sabotaging the athletic fortunes of its subordinate schools if it would benefit them in any way.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

UWGB’s issues aren’t parental sabotage or UW-inflicted. UWGB is a smaller public without a large endowment/tuition ($7878 in-state) to supplement it.

WIAC UG enrollment:
UW-Eau Claire 9768
UW-La Crosse 9125
UW-Oshkosh 9016
UW-Platteville 6931
UW-River Falls 5171
UW-Stevens Point 7398
UW-Stout 6149
UW-Whitewater 10059

UW-Green Bay 4816
UW-Milwaukee 17890

Non-HBCU D1 publics with a lower AD budget: Chicago St, New Orleans, Asheville, South Carolina Upstate, Nicholls, & SIUE.

One moving target to keep an eye on: aircraft in Coronamerica. Airlines are cutting routes drastically. United wrote a letter to the DOT requesting to shut its service to Green Bay (https://beta.regulations.gov/document/D ... -0037-0060).

[PantherU]

I've passionately argued for my school's inclusion into the MVC for years, on this board and elsewhere.

Green Bay's problems are wholly financial. They're one of the smallest schools in the UW System, it's frankly surprising they're the 3rd D-I school in the system. Madison and Milwaukee are tier 1 doctoral research universities. Madison is the clear flagship, but Milwaukee is as far above the other schools as Madison is above them. Green Bay, on the other hand, would fit below Oshkosh, Lacrosse, Platteville, hell any number of schools. Its status as a Division I athletics program is literally the only thing separating it from the WIAC schools in the UW System.

Here's where I might surprise you guys: don't go with us. We're not ready for a move to the MVC. Our athletic director came in 2013 and had marching orders to move on from the basketball coach. She proceeded to act like the owner in Major League, doing everything in her power to screw over the coach. She ended up firing him in 2016, and we have had an absolute cluster f*** since. Chancellor Mark Mone hired Michigan assistant LaVall Jordan and lost him a year later to the perfect storm that landed him at Butler (Go on my Twitter feed, I called it the day Thad Matta retired from Ohio State). I say Mone hired Jordan because the AD was accused of being racist in hiring (of ~45 employees in athletics, only the hoops coaching staffs had people of color by the time she fired Jeter) and Mone didn't want to throw fuel in the fire by replacing a black coach with a white coach, since she was hiring TJ Otzelberger (if you can ever corner TJ, you'll get a great story of how he got fucked over).

She replaced the departed Jordan with Pat Baldwin, who has done pretty much nothing in three seasons as coach. Now every positive hope clings on Baldwin's son, who is a consensus Top 5 recruit in the 2021 class, picking his father's team over...you know...Duke, Kentucky, UCLA, pretty much every team you'd face in a gauntlet of all-time world beaters. They gave the AD a four-year extension with absolutely zero justification for doing so.

At this moment in time, we're a lost cause. I hope we can one day move past this nightmare, but Amanda Braun's still our AD and even if the unthinkable happens and Pat Baldwin Jr. commits to the team, we're looking at one, maybe two years of success before we return to the level Baldwin Sr. has had us at.

***THAT SAID***

Get NKU. Don't think too hard on this one. Go get them, get them now, don't wait for another off-season. This is a school that had good success in Division II, then used their move to Division I as the impetus to massively build up its facilities in preparation.

The now-named BB&T Arena is better than any MVC arena I've been in. Granted, it's not the full list, but I'd say it's a better arena than Carver at Bradley, McLeod at UNI, Gentile at LUC and miles better than the ARC. If I had to compare it to an MVC arena I'm familiar with but haven't entered, I'd say it's a smaller version of the JQH. It's phenomenal.

They also built brand new baseball and soccer stadiums with the move.

Their current AD, Ken Bothof, was the longtime AD at Green Bay (yeah, in-conference GB). Green Bay has very little money, yet Bothof not only kept that program afloat, he hired every coach that won at a high level there. He hired Brian Wardle, who he lost to Bradley because let's face it - GB didn't have the money to stave off Bradley's offer. Bothof did a whole lot with a whole little, and he knows how to be hands-off and not micromanage his coaching staffs.

NKU's the third program in the Cincinnati metro, yes, but they're the only one on the Kentucky side and they're nuts for their sports. A move to the MVC for NKU would be more UNI than Evansville.

You're not going out of your way geographically. Cincinnati is only a few hours' drive from most schools, and their international airport is on the Kentucky side of the river, just a 15-minute drive from campus.

Their fans travel. When we played them in the 2017 conference title game in Detroit, they had a couple thousand fans at the game and that was the Horizon League's ill-advised "Motor City Madness." They'll have more people in St. Louis even if their team isn't all that good.

The Horizon League is purgatory. Some of you guys may privately long to move to a difference conference like Wichita State and Creighton, but truthfully the MVC is a paradise in comparison to our s*** hole league with a terrible commissioner.

NKU's community would respond to a move to the MVC. When they first came to our conference, they were wide-eyed and excited to be playing us. I don't think our own fans have thought much of our program since the Sweet 16 in 2005, but to NKU that's the program they were coming to play.

They're optimistic, ravenous, they're huge basketball junkies and they're deserving of the promotion.

I endorse Northern Kentucky University for membership in the MVC.

[RacerJoeD]

MWC announces they are going to 20 conference games.

[mvfcfan]

Most of us have been on board with NKU for a while now. I really like them, that's for sure. Wright State would be okay except I don't think we should add schools in a city that are second tier to a peer league (A10). They're only 3 hours from Terre Haute so they would be a nice easy road trip for me to make for basketball and baseball. Heck I travel to other Valley schools for games even when my team isn't involved. This past season I was able to go to ILST and Bradley on the same day, then later on in the year I made it to SIU and SEMO on the same day. Getting 2 for 1's is definitely a great way to spend the day.