MVC Games Week 4 2023-24

[BCPanther]

I don't see talent as an issue, I see lack of opportunity and a system heavily weighted towards continuing to limit those opportunities. If you think most of the teams in this league don't try to schedule better, I think that's naive. But like I've detailed , even a top level team in the MVC scheduling aggressively will get maybe 6-8 Q1 opportunities , while a mediocre P-5 will get 15-20. When that's the overwhelming criteria for at large consideration, yes it's fantasy land to think you can overcome that kind of disadvantage on any kind of regular basis. Just the way it is .

And that's exactly why they've gone to simply counting wins rather than looking at percentages or number of opportunities.

Rutgers had 5 Q1 wins and (insert mid major here) only had 2. So Rutgers is in and it doesn't matter that Rutgers had 16 opportunities while the mid only had 3.

Until the NET formula is public, and it never will be, it's a sham to justify as many P# teams in the tournament as possible so they don't have to share any more money than they have to to not get the NCAA sued.

[Drakey]

BCPanther and BEARZ77 understand what's happening.

[tribecalledquest]

The problem is college sports are extremely unique. In all honesty - MVC schools really shouldn’t be competing for the same “championship” as Big Ten teams. They aren’t close as athletic departments and institutions in any way really.

[TylerDurden]

This is ridiculous. I went through the 2005-2006 rosters and saw one player who ever played a minute in the NBA, Patrick O'Bryant. He was a bust. (There may be others? Correct me if I'm wrong.) We did have two better programs (Creighton and WSU) but they were certainly not comprised of NBA players. The best teams now would easily compete with the best teams then. The only difference is we lose some of our best players to the P5 for their last couple of years, so we probably have less experience. The level of this league's players has not been drastically different since the early 80s.

It's not ridiculous. I said there was NBA talent on multiple teams, and there was.

O'Bryant, Anthony Tolliver, Blake Ahearn all were NBA guys and many others were professional players in good European Leagues, some for a long time. Tolliver had a long NBA career and he wasn't the best player on Creighton's team, just like O'Bryant wasn't Bradley's best.

Every team in the league had guys who played professionally, some had really successful professional careers overseas.
Wichita State had Paul Miller, Ogirri, Kyle Wilson, PJ Cousinard.
Creighton had Tolliver, Funk, Mathies, Watts.
MSU had Ahearn, Chaney, Lamberth
SIU had Tatum, Shaw, Falker, Mullins
UNI had Jacobson, Coleman
Bradley had O'Bryant, Sommerville, Bennett, Andrews, Wright, Ruffin, Franklin and Crouch
Evansville had Webster, Ely, Strickland
Drake had Ajay Calvin, Al Stewart
Indiana State had David Moss, Gabe Moore
Illinois State had Dilligard, Odiakosa

I'm sure I'm missing some, but these guys all were paid to play basketball after college, at least three of them by NBA teams. If you want to try to pick apart the success those guys did or did not have, go for it, but the talent level was higher and those teams walked into gyms and beat Kansas, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Stanford, Nebraska, Xavier, Iowa, LSU, Indiana, Purdue, etc. It was a freaking P6 hit list that year.

This year's teams don't have that talent level.

If you want to talk about scheduling and the challenges, fine. I agree with what many have said about a skewed system and lack of opportunities, but the reality is the MVC as a league, isn't really equipped to take advantage of them like we were in the mid-2000s.

[IllinoisState]

I don't see talent as an issue, I see lack of opportunity and a system heavily weighted towards continuing to limit those opportunities. If you think most of the teams in this league don't try to schedule better, I think that's naive. But like I've detailed , even a top level team in the MVC scheduling aggressively will get maybe 6-8 Q1 opportunities , while a mediocre P-5 will get 15-20. When that's the overwhelming criteria for at large consideration, yes it's fantasy land to think you can overcome that kind of disadvantage on any kind of regular basis. Just the way it is .

And that's exactly why they've gone to simply counting wins rather than looking at percentages or number of opportunities.

Rutgers had 5 Q1 wins and (insert mid major here) only had 2. So Rutgers is in and it doesn't matter that Rutgers had 16 opportunities while the mid only had 3.

Until the NET formula is public, and it never will be, it's a sham to justify as many P# teams in the tournament as possible so they don't have to share any more money than they have to to not get the NCAA sued.

I completely agree. I hope the tope teams get greedy and break off with football and basketball.

[BEARZ77]

I don't know that we had anymore players playing pro back in the mid 2000's than today if that's the criteria for how good the teams were. Hell our 9-9 6th place team from For'd second year has 5-6 guys all playing pro now including Prim, Mosley, Da Silva, Keandre Cook, and Josh Hall , and there probably are others . Our current team starts guys who had scholys to Xavier, Arkansas, Oklahoma, a kid who started on an elite 8 St Peters team, and we bring a 4 star 6'8 wing freshman off the bench; and I don't think we're unique among Valley schools in that. So I don't know about a talent gap, but I do know scheduling is the number 1 difference between low level P-5 teams and the better mid majors.

[Drakey]

"I'm sure I'm missing some, but these guys all were paid to play basketball after college, at least three of them by NBA teams. If you want to try to pick apart the success those guys did or did not have, go for it, but the talent level was higher and those teams walked into gyms and beat Kansas, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Stanford, Nebraska, Xavier, Iowa, LSU, Indiana, Purdue, etc. It was a freaking P6 hit list that year."

That's because we PLAYED those teams. Back then Drake had home and home series with Iowa Sate and Iowa every year. Tournaments had a mix. We have no P6 games now. We signed up for a tournament with two P6 teams, and then they both dropped out. You can't beat who you can't play.

[ValleyFAN]

"I'm sure I'm missing some, but these guys all were paid to play basketball after college, at least three of them by NBA teams. If you want to try to pick apart the success those guys did or did not have, go for it, but the talent level was higher and those teams walked into gyms and beat Kansas, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Stanford, Nebraska, Xavier, Iowa, LSU, Indiana, Purdue, etc. It was a freaking P6 hit list that year."

That's because we PLAYED those teams. Back then Drake had home and home series with Iowa Sate and Iowa every year. Tournaments had a mix. We have no P6 games now. We signed up for a tournament with two P6 teams, and then they both dropped out. You can't beat who you can't play.

This is absolutely true. Your best chance for P6 wins is in your own building. Those opportunities simply arent around any longer for most Valley teams.

In the first handful of years that Missouri State opened their new arena they hosted Arkansas, Auburn, Utah, and Oklahoma State. You couldn't even dream of getting those games now. 2 for 1 deals used to be common and most P6 teams arent wanting to accept even 3 for 1s at this point.

You'd get some good games with the MVC/Mountain West Challenge but then that fell by the wayside.

[TheDrake]

The problem is college sports are extremely unique. In all honesty - MVC schools really shouldn’t be competing for the same “championship” as Big Ten teams. They aren’t close as athletic departments and institutions in any way really.

They absolutely should be. That's the reason the reason the NCAA tournament is the greatest event in sports.
Despite all of the odds and money being stacked against the little guy, the power conference teams actually have to beat their opponent rather than relying on narratives and branding.

You may think that "MVC schools shouldn't be competing for the same championship" but the Valley has had two final four teams in the past decade. And half of the final four teams last year were mid-majors. I'm sure eventually money will win out and the Big Boys will take their ball and go home. But to say that we shouldn't be competing for the same championship (as a supposed fan of mid-major basketball) is bizarre.

[TylerDurden]

"I'm sure I'm missing some, but these guys all were paid to play basketball after college, at least three of them by NBA teams. If you want to try to pick apart the success those guys did or did not have, go for it, but the talent level was higher and those teams walked into gyms and beat Kansas, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Stanford, Nebraska, Xavier, Iowa, LSU, Indiana, Purdue, etc. It was a freaking P6 hit list that year."

That's because we PLAYED those teams. Back then Drake had home and home series with Iowa Sate and Iowa every year. Tournaments had a mix. We have no P6 games now. We signed up for a tournament with two P6 teams, and then they both dropped out. You can't beat who you can't play.

Except that's not reality. We are playing the games - maybe not always at the venue of choice, but the games are there. Drake might not have games with Iowa and Iowa State anymore, but the league as a whole is still playing the same number of power teams in nonconference as it was then, at least this year.

Per the MVC MBB release, the MVC has played 8 games against the ACC, B1G, Big 12, Big East, SEC, Pac 12 and is 1-7. There are seven more on the schedule, based on a quick look at the composite schedule - that's same as there were in 05-06 before postseason play (I counted 15, again looking quickly).