I'm just gonna drop this here

Discuss the MVC hoops season here.

Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby MissouriValleyUnite » April 22nd, 2017, 5:40 pm

Of realistic/busable candidates:
Murray
Valpo
--cliff drop--
10-12 schools at the same level

Stand pat at 11 and wait for someone to rise to the top for #12. Meritocracy.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby uniftw » April 22nd, 2017, 5:41 pm

Jsnhbe1Birds wrote:I see your point but last time there was more than this.

And lastti
E was an S show.

They came out, from the very start and said this would be extremely descrete. Given that statement why would we be shocked we haven't heard anything?
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby PantherU » April 23rd, 2017, 6:38 pm

There's a note I want to make that I've heard mentioned about Milwaukee in other places.

It's been brought up how Milwaukee hasn't won a game in the NCAA Tournament in 10 years, and has only one appearance since then. This is true.

One of the people I saw bring this point up mentioned that college basketball at mid-majors is cyclical; that almost no one is great every single year, and the ones that are have moved up to high-major conferences (Butler, Xavier) or exist on their own island (Gonzaga). This is also true.

A little background, because I want you all to know how Milwaukee was built up at pretty much the worst possible time.

Keep in mind that Milwaukee was the best team in the conference at the end of the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons not named Butler. They literally ran into the greatest mid-major of all time in the semifinals in 2010 and missed a three-pointer that would have tied it late, then Butler made their free throws and went on to absolutely trash Wright State in the title game on their way to finishing a couple inches from the NCAA Title. In 2011, Milwaukee won at Butler and destroyed them in Milwaukee, then Butler took the conference title game and went to the NCAA Title game again.

I say all this because, as I said, Butler in 2010 and 2011 was the greatest mid-major basketball team of all time. Of. All. Time. So what do you think of Milwaukee if they had NCAA Tournaments in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2014? What if they had a tourney victory in 2011 and had Big Dance W's in 2005 (Sweet 16), 2006 and 2011?

That team's probably a shoo-in for the MVC. So are we really going to dismiss Milwaukee because they ran into the Best Mid-Major of All Time? 'Sorry, you'd be getting into the MVC, but you hit the upside of your cycle right when you were facing Brad Stevens, Gordon Hayward, Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack. Valpo's for sure in because they hit the top of their cycle after 2011, when Butler fell off and then left.'

Don't get me wrong, I think Valpo is the #10 team for the MVC. I just think it's real easy to dismiss Milwaukee without looking at history more closely.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby Jsnhbe1Birds » April 23rd, 2017, 6:44 pm

Well...you convinced me.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby squirrel » April 23rd, 2017, 7:12 pm

PantherU wrote:There's a note I want to make that I've heard mentioned about Milwaukee in other places.

It's been brought up how Milwaukee hasn't won a game in the NCAA Tournament in 10 years, and has only one appearance since then. This is true.

One of the people I saw bring this point up mentioned that college basketball at mid-majors is cyclical; that almost no one is great every single year, and the ones that are have moved up to high-major conferences (Butler, Xavier) or exist on their own island (Gonzaga). This is also true.

A little background, because I want you all to know how Milwaukee was built up at pretty much the worst possible time.

Keep in mind that Milwaukee was the best team in the conference at the end of the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons not named Butler. They literally ran into the greatest mid-major of all time in the semifinals in 2010 and missed a three-pointer that would have tied it late, then Butler made their free throws and went on to absolutely trash Wright State in the title game on their way to finishing a couple inches from the NCAA Title. In 2011, Milwaukee won at Butler and destroyed them in Milwaukee, then Butler took the conference title game and went to the NCAA Title game again.

I say all this because, as I said, Butler in 2010 and 2011 was the greatest mid-major basketball team of all time. Of. All. Time. So what do you think of Milwaukee if they had NCAA Tournaments in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2014? What if they had a tourney victory in 2011 and had Big Dance W's in 2005 (Sweet 16), 2006 and 2011?

That team's probably a shoo-in for the MVC. So are we really going to dismiss Milwaukee because they ran into the Best Mid-Major of All Time? 'Sorry, you'd be getting into the MVC, but you hit the upside of your cycle right when you were facing Brad Stevens, Gordon Hayward, Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack. Valpo's for sure in because they hit the top of their cycle after 2011, when Butler fell off and then left.'

Don't get me wrong, I think Valpo is the #10 team for the MVC. I just think it's real easy to dismiss Milwaukee without looking at history more closely.


Until 1999, Milwaukee was among the worst programs in DI. Period.

From 1999 until 2005 Milwaukee was fortunate to have Bo Ryan and Bruce Pearl in succession. Even Ryan in his 2 seasons only managed to get them to 3 over .500 for his two years-a testament to just how horrendous the program was in the nineties. Pearl was able to take a good situation and lead the program to 3 NCAA bids before leaving in 2005. They were probably very fortunate to avoid any sort of NCAA problems stemming from the Pearl era.

Rob Jeter, a Bo Ryan product, took Pearl's program to the tournament in his first year, and then proceeded to finish higher than 4th just twice over the next 10 years, and just 4 times higher than 5th. While he did have a second NCAA appearance, it was as a fifth place finisher.

As for the two seasons you cite, Milwaukee finished 4th in 2010, behind Wright St and Green Bay as well. So they ran into more than just The Greatest Mid-Major of All-Time (which is openly debatable.) I'll give you 2011 since they not only tied Butler for the league title, they also beat them. But they won fewer overall games and didn't even make the tourney because of a schedule that wasn't good enough to get them in...that's a Valley no-no, unless you're the Redbirds, but they'll never get it. :roll:

They've had losing Horizon records in 3 of the last 5 years.

Look, its OK to try and sell Milwaukee, they're not at the top of my list, but if we're being honest about history, the program has largely been a trainwreck. Now, they haven't been as terrible as they were in their early DI days, but they have had more teams closer to the bottom of DI than they have RPI 100 teams since Bo Ryan and Bruce Pearl have been out of the picture.

Their performance profile beyond that is the very definition of meh.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby PantherU » April 24th, 2017, 1:42 pm

squirrel wrote:Until 1999, Milwaukee was among the worst programs in DI. Period.


Keep in mind that Milwaukee reclassified to Division I in 1990, so it's not like they were one of the worst teams in D-I for 95 years or something. Also, the 1992-93 team was a great team to not make the NCAA Tournament; they were still in the provisional period as a program and were ineligible, but got hosed by the NIT.

Probably the worst decision in hoops history happened when Steve Antrim was replaced by the wrong assistant in 1995 - Bud Haidet hired Ric Cobb instead of Ron Hunter. Imagine how different the programs at Milwaukee, IUPUI and Georgia State would be if Hunter had been offered and taken the job? He did apply for it even though he had just finished his first year at IUPUI. Haidet did pretty well with the Ryan/Pearl hires.

squirrel wrote:As for the two seasons you cite, Milwaukee finished 4th in 2010, behind Wright St and Green Bay as well. So they ran into more than just The Greatest Mid-Major of All-Time (which is openly debatable.)


That's fine. I'm going by the fact that Butler needed every minute to beat us, yet squashed Wright State in a matter of minutes just a couple days later. Of course these are minor details, but let's go with your assumption, that in 2010 we wouldn't have made it. That's still 2003, 2005, 2006, 2011, and 2014 in the NCAA Tournament. That's a demonstrated cycle that takes us dancing.

squirrel wrote:They've had losing Horizon records in 3 of the last 5 years.

Look, its OK to try and sell Milwaukee, they're not at the top of my list, but if we're being honest about history, the program has largely been a trainwreck. Now, they haven't been as terrible as they were in their early DI days, but they have had more teams closer to the bottom of DI than they have RPI 100 teams since Bo Ryan and Bruce Pearl have been out of the picture.

Their performance profile beyond that is the very definition of meh.


Call it what it is: transition. Rob Jeter's teams at the end weren't cutting the mustard in the AD's eyes, so she made the change. But each of those teams has a story.

In 2012-13, the team was completely deflated by having to play in the Klotsche Center. This is like if Bradley moved from Carver Arena to the Renaissance Coliseum on campus, except if the Renaissance Coliseum were built in 1974 and for general student use, not for intercollegiate athletics and certainly not for Division I. The Klotsche Center is a pile of garbage for a D-I men's basketball team. I can think of five high school gyms in Milwaukee that are better than the KC off the top of my head. Imagine coming to play in Kareem's House and instead playing in an intramural gym. I don't blame those kids at all for not having their heads in it. They still opened the season by losing in OT to South Carolina in Frank Martin's first game there and beating a Davidson team that almost upset Marquette in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

In 2014-15, the team was on an APR ban. They had nothing to play for in the Horizon League. They tried getting the players up by scheduling a bunch of high-majors in buy games, but it was impossible to motivate that team when they weren't eligible to go to any postseason, including the HLT. They still won seven of their last nine that year.

This year the team was in transition. It wasn't enough for the AD, so she made the change. LaVall Jordan's program is just getting started, so using the team this year as an indication of what we're going to be for the next 25 is kind of ridiculous. Even still, they were a couple possessions from the NCAA Tournament. And this is despite losing starters to transfer to Minnesota, Wake Forest and UNLV.

Add up Evansville, Drake, Bradley, Illinois State, Indiana State, Loyola and Missouri State - the entire MVC outside of UNI and SIU. Since 2000, they have a total of 5 NCAA Tournaments, with 3 victories in the NCAA Tournament. The most recent NCAA Tournament appearance was 20-14 Indiana State's surprise 2011 MVC Championship.

Milwaukee has four NCAA Tournaments since 2000, with three victories. Our most recent NCAA Tournament appearance was 2014, which was a surprise appearance by a 21-14 team.

We are literally one NCAA Tournament appearance short of having the same exact NCAA Tournament resume since 2000 as seven of the nine MVC members combined, with a more recent NCAA Tournament appearance by three years. And this wasn't cherry-picking - I could have said since 2002, then we'd have a better resume because Indiana State's 2000 and 2001 appearances would have fallen off. But I'm magnanimous.

You use the fact that Milwaukee's NCAA Tournaments are all by former coaches, yet Valpo's last appearance was with Bryce Drew and Murray State last went under Steve Prohm. I'm not saying that we're better than either of those programs - if I were Czar of the MVC, I'd take those two as #10 and #11 - I'm just saying that we're clearly #12, and saying we're not qualified because that tourney success was achieved under previous coaches is disregarding the fact that #10 and #11 are the same way.

We're a perfect geographical fit. If the television market matters, having the city of Milwaukee is a huge deal. If it doesn't, this is still an extremely fertile recruiting ground that MVC schools will be able to more easily access. Our success level in regards to the NCAA Tournament is almost identical to most of the MVC since 2000. We give the MVC the opportunity to grow its brand and set itself up for future growth. We're willing to spend the money to play in the MVC - our MBB expenses for the last reporting year easily eclipsed Murray State, was comfortably higher than Valpo and was very close to UNI and Evansville and within shouting distance of Bradley.

And here's the last thing: we really, really, REALLY want to be there. SLU couldn't care less. Belmont has told you guys to screw off twice now. Milwaukee? We're eager to join up. Just give us a chance.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby squirrel » April 24th, 2017, 2:00 pm

Complaining about APR hamstringing the program doesn't help Milwaukee's case any.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby mvfcfan » April 24th, 2017, 3:12 pm

squirrel wrote:Complaining about APR hamstringing the program doesn't help Milwaukee's case any.


Totally agree with that. We could add Texas Southern or any of the SWAC teams. One of those schools is always on probation down there. We don't want any of that in the MVC.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby PantherU » April 24th, 2017, 6:56 pm

mvfcfan wrote:
squirrel wrote:Complaining about APR hamstringing the program doesn't help Milwaukee's case any.


Totally agree with that. We could add Texas Southern or any of the SWAC teams. One of those schools is always on probation down there. We don't want any of that in the MVC.


I will repost something I wrote earlier in a different thread:

The APR ban was due to mishandled paperwork by a former compliance officer who left in 2013. He failed to file paperwork on several players who had been playing pro ball and would be exempt from the APR score (including Chiefs TE Demetrius Harris, who has since gotten his degree). He also failed to file paperwork on subsequent appeals, and was the only employee in athletics to be aware of it (as he was both the only person in compliance and the administrator overseeing academics in MBB). He left in summer 2013. Since they discovered the problem, the basketball team has put up a perfect 1000 APR score. Academics are not an issue.

Academics are, and will not be, a problem for the foreseeable future with this program. In the NCAA's final ruling, they blamed the decision on an administrative screw-up. The athletic department knew nothing because the compliance officer was the only one in his office, he was pulling double duty as overseer of men's basketball, and he was negligent; he repeatedly updated the coaching staff with incorrect information.

The compliance officer at fault fled for a high school athletic director job (a major step down for someone who had reached mid-major Associate AD in his early thirties) before anyone knew anything. It was discovered by his replacement.

In the time since the department found out, they have put in all kinds of redundancies to avoid anything like that ever happening again. If someone has concerns about the amount of wins Milwaukee has had in the last several years, I can understand that. I just want you guys to understand that academics aren't a problem moving forward. Our APR score is now well above the NCAA minimum.
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Re: I'm just gonna drop this here

Postby ptownbraves » April 24th, 2017, 8:53 pm

PantherU wrote:
Add up Evansville, Drake, Bradley, Illinois State, Indiana State, Loyola and Missouri State - the entire MVC outside of UNI and SIU. Since 2000, they have a total of 5 NCAA Tournaments, with 3 victories in the NCAA Tournament. The most recent NCAA Tournament appearance was 20-14 Indiana State's surprise 2011 MVC Championship.

Milwaukee has four NCAA Tournaments since 2000, with three victories. Our most recent NCAA Tournament appearance was 2014, which was a surprise appearance by a 21-14 team.

We are literally one NCAA Tournament appearance short of having the same exact NCAA Tournament resume since 2000 as seven of the nine MVC members combined, with a more recent NCAA Tournament appearance by three years. And this wasn't cherry-picking - I could have said since 2002, then we'd have a better resume because Indiana State's 2000 and 2001 appearances would have fallen off. But I'm magnanimous.


That's the definition of cherry picking. You're excluding 4 Valley schools to try and prove the point that Milwaukee belongs. You're leaving out the fact that Creighton was dominating the MVC until 2013 while Wichita State was building a juggernaut in the mid 2000s. Of course it would be more difficult for the remaining schools to win the conference title and make the tournament in a top-heavy conference since their only route would be at-large berths.
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