Wufan wrote:Of the teams named above that would potentially leave:
UNI has 4 NCAA appearances in the last 10 years and 3 wins
SIU has one appearance and one win
ISUb has one appearance and zero wins
MSU has zero appearances
ISUr has zero appearances
Of those proposed to stay:
WSU has five appearances and nine wins
Bradley has one appearance and two wins
Drake has one appearance and zero wins
Loyola has zero appearances
Evansville has zero appearances
UAB has three appearances and three wins (third best of the 11 teams noted)
Average RPI of each of those teams over the last 12 seasons (as far back as realtimeRPI goes
UNI - 69.75
SIU - 133.92
ISUb - 144.50
MSU - 113-08
ISUr - 127.25
WSU - 64.33
Bradley - 163.42
Drake -164.08
Loyola - excluded
Evansville - 176.58
Seasons over 500 in conference play
UNI - 9
SIU - 5
ISUb - 3
MSU - 5
ISUr - 5
WSU - 9
Bradley - 3
Drake -1
Loyola - excluded
Evansville - 1
Totals seasons over .500 overall
UNI - 12
SIU - 5
ISUb - 5
MSU - 7
ISUr - 7
WSU - 10
Bradley - 5
Drake - 4
Loyola - excluded
Evansville - 3
So, again, outside of WSU you are left with the bottom half of the conference
Who is going to replace those teams? You aren't getting another UNI. UAB is probably most similar to a Missouri State (sans the giant mess they have with Marshall leaving).
Again, is a conference of Bradley, Drake, Loyola, Evansville, Belmont, ORU, Valpo, and some combo of Denver/UI-Chicago/Milkwaukee enough to attract UAB? Hell, is it enough to keep WSU....and that's assuming you can bring all of those in and not have to dip into the SIU-Edwardsville's of the world.
It sounds really nice, in theory, to you non-football schools to say "GET RID OF FOOTBALL SCHOOLS...BASKETBALL ONLY!!!!" until you have to start figuring the logistics and getting back AT LEAST what you're losing.
After WSU your next biggest draw/bragging piece is Bradley was good in 2005-2006. At least with the football schools you have UNI and most years one of ISUb, ISUr or MSU is respectable.