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Drakey wrote:From a success standpoint WSU is better off in the Valley than they would be anywhere else. If it is about money, they could probably get more moving on, but I'm not sure they would be as successful. I guess it depends what they are playing for.

How do you define success? If it is regular season conference titles, then you are correct that WSU would probably be more successful in the Valley. If you measure success by the NCAA tournament, I think the last two years have shown that the Valley is dead weight working against you there. Last year's team won the Valley by four games and barely squeaked into the tournament (FVV's injury did contribute to that-imagine last year's team with a healthy FVV and Shamet). Even if Illinois State gets into the NCAA this year, they are going through a very long week this week not knowing if they are going to get to go to the NCAA or not, even though they went 17-1 in the Valley and co-regular season champions.

The last couple of years have shown that for a Valley team there is an extremely small margin of error in the nonconference part of the season.

LanceShock wrote:

Drakey wrote:From a success standpoint WSU is better off in the Valley than they would be anywhere else. If it is about money, they could probably get more moving on, but I'm not sure they would be as successful. I guess it depends what they are playing for.

How do you define success? If it is regular season conference titles, then you are correct that WSU would probably be more successful in the Valley. If you measure success by the NCAA tournament, I think the last two years have shown that the Valley is dead weight working against you there. Last year's team won the Valley by four games and barely squeaked into the tournament (FVV's injury did contribute to that-imagine last year's team with a healthy FVV and Shamet). Even if Illinois State gets into the NCAA this year, they are going through a very long week this week not knowing if they are going to get to go to the NCAA or not, even though they went 17-1 in the Valley and co-regular season champions.

The last couple of years have shown that for a Valley team there is an extremely small margin of error in the nonconference part of the season.

Every game for WSU and ISUr this year in conference provided ZERO chances for quality wins and 16 chances for bad losses. That's why we are on the bubble and probably out.

Read this fantastic article written before Arch Madness, but it is a sobering truth to the status of the MVC conference for basketball:

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/20170302/w ... -them-down

The quote below sort of sums it all up right? Why don't we reinstitute the scheduling mandate?

But the scheduling mandates were allowed to go away. In 2007, nine of the 10 Valley teams played schedules ranked in the top 100, and the 10th team's schedule ranked 112. By last year, only two MVC teams played top-100 schedules, and three teams' slates ranked 226 or worse. Poor scheduling ultimately results in mediocrity.

GrandpaBear wrote:The quote below sort of sums it all up right? Why don't we reinstitute the scheduling mandate?

But the scheduling mandates were allowed to go away. In 2007, nine of the 10 Valley teams played schedules ranked in the top 100, and the 10th team's schedule ranked 112. By last year, only two MVC teams played top-100 schedules, and three teams' slates ranked 226 or worse. Poor scheduling ultimately results in mediocrity.

Why go away from something that clearly worked?

I suspect one of the factors (but probably not the only one) was because once MVC teams became competitive against those schedules it became more difficult to renew those contracts or get games against equivalent competition.

Once we stopped giving top teams the results they were after, they stopped wanting to play. But after the past several years, that shouldn't be the case anymore. The MVC is roughly back to where it was 15 years ago.

RoyalShock wrote:I suspect one of the factors (but probably not the only one) was because once MVC teams became competitive against those schedules it became more difficult to renew those contracts or get games against equivalent competition.

Once we stopped giving top teams the results they were after, they stopped wanting to play. But after the past several years, that shouldn't be the case anymore. The MVC is roughly back to where it was 15 years ago.

Except you can still find good games and have a decent schedule. Even if it's not quite as good. There's no reason to load up on SWAC level competition. We don't need everyone to have top 100, but 200+ is mostly a lack of trying. Things sometimes happen that hurt your schedule. We've seen that in Wichita this year, but you can see the attempt to schedule up. You can't say that at all with most.

SubGod22 wrote:

RoyalShock wrote:I suspect one of the factors (but probably not the only one) was because once MVC teams became competitive against those schedules it became more difficult to renew those contracts or get games against equivalent competition.

Once we stopped giving top teams the results they were after, they stopped wanting to play. But after the past several years, that shouldn't be the case anymore. The MVC is roughly back to where it was 15 years ago.

Except you can still find good games and have a decent schedule. Even if it's not quite as good. There's no reason to load up on SWAC level competition. We don't need everyone to have top 100, but 200+ is mostly a lack of trying. Things sometimes happen that hurt your schedule. We've seen that in Wichita this year, but you can see the attempt to schedule up. You can't say that at all with most.

Absolutely agree. The excuse that "no one will play us" is totally bogus.

Just saw this from an interview earlier today:

We have no interest in expanding at this time

@American_Conf Commissioner Mike Aresco on #Playbook.

GrandpaBear wrote:Just saw this from an interview earlier today:

We have no interest in expanding at this time

@American_Conf Commissioner Mike Aresco on #Playbook.

Bit of a downer, but not enough of one to kill all hopes of secret helicopters and sealed envelopes.

If WSU leaves and I would not blame them (I don't see them letting off the gas anytime soon), I wonder if it makes sense for the to form a Big East Light with the following teams?

Drake
Bradley
Valpo
Loyola
Evansville
Belmont
Oral Roberts

Throw a couple more in and see what happens ...SLU and Omaha

Then maybe you could "mirror" the MVC football and basketball with something like this....
NDSU UND SDSU USD MSU UNI WIU ISU EIU SIU INSU

I'm sure this isn't this first time this has been proposed .... and I'm sure there are better options