UIC a good fit for Valley?

[Chuck A]

Now that the new Big East is finally set and the MVC is or will be looking for a replacement, why not UIC? I brought this up once before, but since things are more imminent, I'd like refreshed input.

I know some of you have said that market size is not that key, but come on! The Valley has 3 Illinois schools with a large Chicago alumni, but no Chicago team! Having UIC in the Valley would allow those alumni to attend games right here in The Chi. Those would be greatly attended games. UIC has ~25,000 students with academics that are pretty high (we don't have Phys. Ed majors!). We have a pretty nice basketball arena that seats 8,000. We have the Olympic sports except hockey, which we dropped some years ago. We have a real nice baseball field, but this summer construction will begin on the Curtis Granderson Stadium- a state of the art baseball facility. Granderson is a UIC alum and all-star centerfielder for the New York Yankees.

Our school is no longer a "commuter" school as we have a large number of students who now live on campus and/or within 1 mile of campus.

We're just minutes from Downtown Chi and the Museum Campus (for those that want a bit of culture while you're in town).

I'd love to hear comments as to why UIC would not fit, besides the fact that we are a Public University.

[DUBulldog]

Now that the new Big East is finally set and the MVC is or will be looking for a replacement, why not UIC? I brought this up once before, but since things are more imminent, I'd like refreshed input.

I know some of you have said that market size is not that key, but come on! The Valley has 3 Illinois schools with a large Chicago alumni, but no Chicago team! Having UIC in the Valley would allow those alumni to attend games right here in The Chi. Those would be greatly attended games. UIC has ~25,000 students with academics that are pretty high (we don't have Phys. Ed majors!). We have a pretty nice basketball arena that seats 8,000. We have the Olympic sports except hockey, which we dropped some years ago. We have a real nice baseball field, but this summer construction will begin on the Curtis Granderson Stadium- a state of the art baseball facility. Granderson is a UIC alum and all-star centerfielder for the New York Yankees.

Our school is no longer a "commuter" school as we have a large number of students who now live on campus and/or within 1 mile of campus.

We're just minutes from Downtown Chi and the Museum Campus (for those that want a bit of culture while you're in town).

I'd love to here comments as to why UIC would not fit, besides the fact that we are a Public University.

I think you're last sentence is the only reason I wouldn't want UIC. As a Drake grad, I'd prefer to see another private school added, to keep the balance.

I'm all for adding the Chicago market.....I grew up there, and Drake has a boatload of alums in the Chicago area. If the MVC were to add a Chicago school, I'd prefer Loyola.

[moshock]

My preference is to add a school with a quality basketball program. Basketball drives the bus for the MVC. We need a program that can come in and compete in the top of the league.

I honestly don't know anything about UIC's basketball program. Would they be competitive in the MVC ? If yes - then great - bring them on. If it's "gonna take a few years" then pass.

If the choice is picking up another bottom feeder in our league or playing with 9 teams - I'm fine with nine.

[Chuck A]

I appreciate the spelling lesson DUBulldog, but things like that are usually the response when no one can give a real, statistical or data driven rebuttal to a legitimate question.

[TheAsianSensation]

The public/private balance really does matter in a league like this. That is a strike against UIC. Its not UIC's fault in any way - it's just bad luck in a way. It also kills that Loyola is sitting there in the same area which is private. The bottom line is that there was a balance all 10 schools in the league felt comfortable with, and is going to be maintained post-Creighton. It's going to disqualify schools from consideration even before they can state a case. It may not be fair, but that's what it is.

The Chicago market is also working against you - with Loyola sitting there, would we need two schools with the Chicago market? You would have to make a very strong sell that you can provide a better product than Loyola, that would also overcome the public/private thing.

The basketball program might be good enough to fit in, but they're a couple steps behind the other programs in contention (Belmont, Murray, Valpo, Oral Bob, etc). The one good thing is they can bring over a lot of sports so that we don't have to worry about slipping to minimum requirements in other sports.

[DUBulldog]

I appreciate the spelling lesson DUBulldog, but things like that are usually the response when no one can give a real, statistical or data driven rebuttal to a legitimate question.

Not sure what you're talking about....just said I'd rather have a private than a public. Not sure how you got "a spelling lesson" out of that.

Edit: I think I see what you're talking about now....my response had absolutely nothing to do with that. Actually, if you look at my response, I've got a typo, too.

[Shocktop42]

for those of you who are on the private school side of things.... Why does this matter to you? I am a WSU grad so I don't have your perspective but i would love to get a better understanding of what drives that desire? Academics? Mission? Something else? What does being private have to do with basketball and athletics in general?

[uniftw]

for those of you who are on the private school side of things.... Why does this matter to you? I am a WSU grad so I don't have your perspective but i would love to get a better understanding of what drives that desire? Academics? Mission? Something else? What does being private have to do with basketball and athletics in general?

This is my question as well....I've "fallen in line" with the must be a private school but have never understood why

[DUBulldog]

for those of you who are on the private school side of things.... Why does this matter to you? I am a WSU grad so I don't have your perspective but i would love to get a better understanding of what drives that desire? Academics? Mission? Something else? What does being private have to do with basketball and athletics in general?

There are a few reasons for me:

1. When it comes to non-revenue sports, where a good portion of the student-athletes aren't on scholarship (or on partial scholarship), the privates are at a competitive disadvantage, simply because of the cost of tuition. This isn't really an issue in basketball, where all the teams have 13 guys on full schoarship.

2. Because Drake is more similar to Bradley or Creighton (in the types of programs offered), those schools tend to compete for a lot of the same students (not student athletes). This, to me, intensifies the rivalry with those schools.

3. For no logical reason, I just prefer to see my school competing against schools that are more similar. When you are a school of 4000-5000, there is some inherent disadvantage when competing against schools that are 3-5 times as large. It is certainly not insurmountable, as many privates have had great success, but for the most part, public schools dominate athletics.

[Chuck A]

My preference is to add a school with a quality basketball program. Basketball drives the bus for the MVC. We need a program that can come in and compete in the top of the league.

I honestly don't know anything about UIC's basketball program. Would they be competitive in the MVC ? If yes - then great - bring them on. If it's "gonna take a few years" then pass.

If the choice is picking up another bottom feeder in our league or playing with 9 teams - I'm fine with nine.

I get the public vs private thing. We have that as well, especially with us and Loyola. Your Commish has alluded to the fact that the Valley is good with 10 teams. That's cool, but with the changing landscape of college conferences, why not go 12 teams? There is indeed strength in numbers...maybe not concerning NCAA tourney units (they'd have to be divided 12 ways) or with the scheduling (16 games instead of 18 and not a true round robin), but as it pertains to protection from being raided by other leagues. Why not add UIC, Belmont, and Loyola? Then the Valley will just be 1 short of coming even with the public schools. That's not too bad.

I've seen that some have advocated for Belmont, Oral Roberts and even Denver (although they're out because of not wanting to add more sports, among other things).

Moshock, UIC was 8-22 last season under 2nd year coach Howard Moore. He's in his 3rd year this season and we've experienced, to this point, a 10 game increase in wins. He only has one player from the previous regime (Jimmy Collins) and has improved each year he's been here (7 wins, 8 wins and now 18 wins). Coach Moore has assembled an excellent coaching staff and has a nice recruiting class coming in the fall. This season we lost to New Mexico by 6 and beat Mercer by 26 in the Paradise Jam tourney in the Virgin Islands. In that same tournament, we beat Iona. We've also defeated Colorado State, Northwestern and lost to Bradley on a last second putback in the Bracket Buster. New Mexico, Mercer, Iona and Colorado State are all postseason teams (New Mexico, Iona and Colorado State are NCAA tourney teams). Coach Moore is building this program into an annual contender, not just an every 4 or 5 year postseason team.

We are in the CIT (yeah, I know..., but it's a start for us after being down for so long) and we come to Cedar Rapids this Saturday to play Northern Iowa. Maybe you can tune in to watch. Those CIT games are on the collegeinsider.com site.