University of Southern Indiana moving to D1

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Wichita is coming back as soon as Creighton does. You can't convince me UMKC would be a good addition. Their fans don't care, they play in a tiny gym, they refused to make financial commitments when asked just recently.

I don't know RE: Wichita State. They may not have a choice. I mean what if the AAC keeps declining in basketball strength and their media deal gets reduced in the future and the MWC says no to them. What other option would they have?

No one’s paying a $5 million exit fee to join the MVC.

[Chuck A]

Wichita is coming back as soon as Creighton does. You can't convince me UMKC would be a good addition. Their fans don't care, they play in a tiny gym, they refused to make financial commitments when asked just recently.

I don't know RE: Wichita State. They may not have a choice. I mean what if the AAC keeps declining in basketball strength and their media deal gets reduced in the future and the MWC says no to them. What other option would they have?

No one’s paying a $5 million exit fee to join the MVC.

Even if the Valley becomes the #7 conference on a yearly basis?

[05Racer]

Only way I see Wichita St. going back is if whatever resolution the NCAA comes up with for football ends up blowing up the AAC. That has always been a ramshackle, unstable conference, coming together as it did out of the old Big East breakup out of schools that couldn't get into anywhere else. If P5 football breaks from the NCAA, the G5 schools that don't get into that new league (and that's most of them) will be scrambling to decide what to do. Depending on the circumstances, they could all decide to break up and go back to more geographically sensible conferences to save on travel, which would eliminate the exit fee question I assume. They're already losing some of their most powerful institutions to the Big 12 and a new football league would probably pick off a couple more of those. How much appetite is left to sustain a basketball conference strung out over half the country when most of those schools probably have other options?

[TBS_20]

Wichita State would like in order of preference the Big East, MWC with Gonzaga, A-10, MVC. No way they fall to the MVC.

[LanceShock]

I agree there are a lot of headwinds that would keep WSU from coming back. You have the exit fees. The current tv contract provides enough revenue to cover the additional travel costs and puts WSU on the main ESPN networks fairly often (granted this situation could easily deteriorate quickly). Plus, there would be a fair amount of crow WSU would have to eat to come back to the Valley.

[E-Villan]

Hate to interrupt the pining for Wichita State by some of you, but for anyone interested in the actual thread topic, USI announced they are joining the OVC.

After the bush league garbage the Horizon pulled on UIC, I am glad they aren't going that route. Say what you want about the OVC, but they got slaughtered this last year, and didn't pull any of that crap.

[05Racer]

Hate to interrupt the pining for Wichita State by some of you, but for anyone interested in the actual thread topic, USI announced they are joining the OVC.

After the bush league garbage the Horizon pulled on UIC, I am glad they aren't going that route. Say what you want about the OVC, but they got slaughtered this last year, and didn't pull any of that crap.

Much as I'd like to believe in the good sportsmanship and class of the OVC, they do have other factors to consider. They already have a lawsuit with two of the teams that left over the exit fee. I doubt they'd want to do anything that encouraged two or three more schools with two or three more teams of lawyers to join that lawsuit. They also have a situation where they're close to losing their football FCS autobid so they need Murray to stay in their league for football next year. If they had excluded Murray from postseason in other sports, I doubt they would get such consideration.

[BearsCountry]

OVC is getting another school in the St. Louis metro. Per Scott Warmann from Bally Sports Midwest on Art Hains show tonight said Lindenwood is moving up. Look for an announcement in the next couple weeks.

[BCPanther]

Western Illinois has to be moving there too. Makes way too much sense.

[BearsCountry]

Western Illinois has to be moving there too. Makes way too much sense.

You have to think with Lindenwood moving to the OVC that would make so much sense for them. OVC is essentially creating a St. Louis based division with Lindenwood, SIUE, Eastern, SEMO, and Southern Indiana. That would have to sound somewhat appealing to the Necks.