Welcome Loyola

[rlh04d]

Loyola would've been a perfectly fine candidate to add to the MVC - in a stable environment. Not in an unstable one.

Excellent and perfect analysis.

[rlh04d]

Coming from a Saluki perspective... Wichita is not the only fan base with lots of problems with this. Lots of folks in Saluki Country have issues with this pick as well.

The reasoning to pick a school based on past success, with potential in the future, and based on metro location, is not looking at this from the right perspective. Focus, guys.

The main focus should be the revenue sports. Take the best school available in the revenue sports. Belmont has a very solid program. Murray and Valpo are better choices than Lolola is.

Thank God we're not the only ones saying it.

[rlh04d]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Haha. Hope to meet many of you in Chicago next season.

Like I've said elsewhere, I've got nothing against your university, and I think in ten years time you're going to be an excellent addition to the Valley, with a much higher ceiling than 80% of this conference.

Wichita fans are just frustrated that you're going to be an immediate hit to the basketball conference and our NCAA tournament resume.

We're not looking at this as a long-term investment in the Valley's future ... for you and theoretically the Valley as a whole, this is probably a good move ... eventually

Why should this even be an issue for WSU? I assume you plan on winning the regular season and conference tournament titles every year. Butler seemed to manage getting into the tournament every year despite playing Loyola.

"Winning the regular season and conference tournament titles every year" is a nice idea in theory, much harder in practice. The MVC is a better conference overall than the Horizon, and even Butler only managed to win their conference tournament three times in the last ten seasons, and that's with the Horizon manipulating the conference to benefit them.

Are you for the Valley accepting that all hopes lie on Wichita State and start making decisions based on establishing us as the dominant power, to the detriment of all other teams in the conference?

There's a very small margin for error in perceived "mid-major basketball." Don't act like you don't already understand that. At-large bids for a team in a non-Power 6 conference, let alone a non-top 10 conference, are precarious. Anything can happen in St. Louis, and the best team rarely wins the conference tournament. No WSU fan is going to be willing to rest all of their hopes on a tournament we never win >=) All I know for our tournament hopes is that apparently we can get into the tournament with 26 wins and a sub-40 RPI, and we can't get in with 24 wins and a sub-50 RPI. That's walking a tightrope, when our conference is getting worse.

[rlh04d]

rih - Just beat us twice by 25 and win the tourney and you've got nothing to worry about

I hope you guys get good enough in the future to enjoy the misery that is Arch Madness.

[Aargh]

I'm a WSU guy. While WSU is concerned about 10 - 20 years down the road, next year is the most important year for us. "Next year" is likely to be WSU's most important year every year over the next 10 - 20 years. Anything 10 - 20 years down the road is really insignificant compared to what happens next year.

WSU is playing for seeding in the NCAA's. WSU has been getting one-and-done home buy games against teams better than Loyola. Adding two games against Loyola to the schedule eliminates two opportunities to play against schools that would improve WSU's chances at getting a decent seed.

If the Valley office and the Valley presidents were to intentionally set out on a course to damage WSU's chances in the post-season, it would be difficult for them to come up with anything more damaging than adding 2 games against any team like Loyola to WSU's schedule.

I calculated the RPI numbers of the MVC without CU and WSU, but with Loyola and compared that to the RPI of the Horizon without Loyola. Guess what - The Valley is the Horizon in that scenario. WSU could leave the Valley and join the Horizon and have approximately equivalent conference competition.

If any team in the Valley had scheduled a home-and-home against an RPI 200+ team, I would have criticized them - severely. Now the league is forcing every Valley team to do that.

The difference between what the Valley has done and "Dumb and Dumber" is that "Dumb and Dumber" was funny.

[valleychamp]

Good lord. Everyone needs to settle down, and stop being outraged just for the sake of being outraged. You know damn well not a single one of you would have been "happy" with whomever got chosen. The fact is, there wasn't a real shiny school out there for the Valley to grab.

All things considered, and looking at all of the other realistic candidates, I like the selection of Loyola. Loyola has really good potential, IMO. They have the money to make a greater commitment to all of their programs (and have vowed to do just that), and in turn the Valley will better allow them to have success while doing so. I think its great for the Valley to get into Chicago.

Welcome to the Missouri Valley Loyola fans.

[valleychamp]

And the overreaction to RPI and scheduling hits that Loyola will cause is a little silly.

Nobody likes to hear it or believe it because it doesn't allow fans to blame others for their lack of success and failures, but the fact is that for the most part individual schools control their NCAA fate much more so than being bolstered by their conference.

The Valley has been, and still is, a very good basketball league. The Valley is not going to be the reason that your favorite school does not get a bid.

[m-v-c]

rih - Just beat us twice by 25 and win the tourney and you've got nothing to worry about

I hope you guys get good enough in the future to enjoy the misery that is Arch Madness.

You mean the misery of a conference tournament that a league like the Pac-12 would be jealous of? Nothing miserable about it. If it's torturous for some teams then here's the solution: win more games. That's what all of this comes down to, all this stuff about the MVC killing RPIs in the future, etc. Win more games. Especially in WSU's position now, there's absolutely no excuse for them not to be scheduling a lot of big names and winning big games in and out of conference. If they can't do it then nobody can do it, and if they can't make the NCAAs it will have nothing to do with their peers in the Valley and everything to do with not taking care of their own business. The WCC didn't keep Gonzaga from a 1 seed this year, and the MVC isn't going to keep WSU from accomplishing anything it wants to in the future.

[m-v-c]

And the overreaction to RPI and scheduling hits that Loyola will cause is a little silly.

Nobody likes to hear it or believe it because it doesn't allow fans to blame others for their lack of success and failures, but the fact is that for the most part individual schools control their NCAA fate much more so than being bolstered by their conference.

The Valley has been, and still is, a very good basketball league. The Valley is not going to be the reason that your favorite school does not get a bid.

on both of your posts

[Shockerfan13]

And the overreaction to RPI and scheduling hits that Loyola will cause is a little silly.

Nobody likes to hear it or believe it because it doesn't allow fans to blame others for their lack of success and failures, but the fact is that for the most part individual schools control their NCAA fate much more so than being bolstered by their conference.

The Valley has been, and still is, a very good basketball league. The Valley is not going to be the reason that your favorite school does not get a bid.

So strength of the conference has NO affect on the RPI of teams? And it has NO affect on bids? So the margin of error for schools in strong conferences is the same for those in weaker conferences?

This kind of small time thinking definitely belongs in the Valley......