MVCfans.com

Well Oral Roberts is dead and his son Richard got the boot back in 2007. So you can rest assured knowing that the Roberts family is long gone now.

uniftw wrote:I want nothing to do with ORU
ORU, with all those winning seasons, has just 3 all time NCAA appearances, going 1-3 and that was a 3 year run between 06-08 - which was a nice run, don't get me wrong.
Just one NIT bid
They never really dominated the Summit

Has UNI ever made the Elite Eight? Have they ever even beat a P5 team?

GoldenEagle wrote:Has UNI ever made the Elite Eight? Have they ever even beat a P5 team?

I'm generally nice to visiting posters, especially those from schools who might be in consideration for membership. But honestly, bring a little something to the till, do a little research if you just don't have a clue before posting. Perhaps you remember a guard named Ali and a game against KU a few years ago, or perhaps UNC visiting UNI two years ago.

GoldenEagle wrote:

uniftw wrote:I want nothing to do with ORU
ORU, with all those winning seasons, has just 3 all time NCAA appearances, going 1-3 and that was a 3 year run between 06-08 - which was a nice run, don't get me wrong.
Just one NIT bid
They never really dominated the Summit

Has UNI ever made the Elite Eight? Have they ever even beat a P5 team?

Northern Iowa is 2-0 against #1 ranked teams. Both wins were this decade.

In Oral Roberts defense they've beaten two top 10 teams themselves within the past 10 years (#3 Kansas in 2006-07 season, #8 Xavier in 2011-12 season). Even as bad as they were last season they almost beat another top 10 team in Creighton where they only lost by 1.

They might not be as sexy of an add as Murray State and Valparaiso, but when you compare their budget, tournament appearances, arena, and other factors they fit in with the rest of the Valley quite well.

GoldenEagle wrote:

uniftw wrote:I want nothing to do with ORU
ORU, with all those winning seasons, has just 3 all time NCAA appearances, going 1-3 and that was a 3 year run between 06-08 - which was a nice run, don't get me wrong.
Just one NIT bid
They never really dominated the Summit

Has UNI ever made the Elite Eight? Have they ever even beat a P5 team?

UM...

Since the last time ORU made the tournament.

More NCAA tournaments as ORU has all time
Multiple different seasons with top 25 rankings
A top 10 ranking
Few different Sports Illustrated covers/articles
All American
Sweet 16
Made it out of the first round of the NCAA tournament every NCAA tournament we've been in
20 All MVC players
2 POY winners
Top 10% APR honors 5 times
Winning record vs Iowa State (actually we are something like 9-6 in the last 15 vs Iowa State. ISU was top 5 in one of them and top 20 in another)
Winning record vs Iowa - i think 1 might have been a top 25 win
P5 wins over
#1 Kansas
#1 North Carolina
Texas - ranked in the top 25
Auburn
Boston College
TCU
Indiana - ranked
Virginia Tech
Northwestern
Arizona State
Oklahoma

Oh, throw in a handful of wins over Big East teams like Providence, DePaul, Marquette, Creighton (MVC at the time). A winning record vs the MWC conference over teams like UNLV, New Mexico, Wyoming. More than a few wins vs Wichita State. A couple wins over Shaka Smart's VCU teams. A couple wins over Brad Underwoods SFA teams. Wins over ODU and George Mason at their primes. Quite a few of those were over ranked teams.

Congrats on making the Elite 8 in 1974. You can go sit over by Drake when they talk about how good it used to be 4 or 5 decades ago. Remember that S16 win vs Louisville in 1974? Yeah, that was the last time you won an NCAA tournament game.

I'm not real concerned about what an ORU fan thinks about UNI. Something about a lion and a sheep....

mvfcfan wrote:Oral Roberts had 14 consecutive winning seasons from 2002-2015. Yeah their last two seasons haven't been great and they are going to have a new coach and probably be rebuilding for a couple of years, but they definitely have potential to be good in the MVC and to bring the conference up. I'd much rather have a team join the conference that has had a history of winning, rather than bring in a team that finished 4th in the Horizon League their first year of being D1 and got lucky that all the good teams lost in the first round of the HL tournament.

Oral Roberts is the obvious 12th team in my opinion (with Murray State being #11). Murray State has had a winning season 34 of the past 36 seasons, so anyone not wanting them clearly isn't using their head. And before anyone claims that ORU's and Murray State's success was because they played in poor conferences just let me say that 8 of the 10 teams last year in the MVC were Summit and OVC level. None of our schools are where they should be. It's best to bring in schools with winning traditions and actual fanbases that have the potential to bring the league up.

Very accurate post.

Baseball? ORU's 18 tourney appearances since '98.

Hoops? ORU's 3 straight tourney's 06-08. ORU was selected as an at-large in 2012 - until Andrew Nicholson and St Bonaventure caught fire for the A10 autobid knocking ORU out an hour before the selection show. MVC can't pass on a program that's actually proven an at-large resume this decade. Plus they've won at Kansas.

Budget? ORU's $2.74M would rank 5th (.01 from 4th) in the Valley.

Market? Tulsa would be MVC's #2 market. MVC has been successful in Tulsa before. Tulsa is also closer to MoSt than WSU was - which places ORU even slightly more within the footprint than WSU. Also 6/6 public/private split.

Attendance? ORU has dipped during their few recent lean seasons.
But how does ORU draw when they're winning?
Take a look at their Saturday games down the stretch of 2012.
9,005 vs Oakland (1/21/12)
6,850 vs UMKC (1/28/12)
8,617 vs Western Illinois (2/11/12)
7,745 vs Akron (2/18/12)



People need to push aside politics and a whackjob who died 10 years ago (ORU's athletic boosters tripled in the decade since his death). This is midmajor hoops (and baseball). Do you want the most reliable midmajor program in the vicinity not named Murray St or not? ORU has been there, done that. They have the bones for a sustainable midmajor.


I bet being in the Valley (as opposed to geographic outlier in Summit or bottom 5 league in Southland) would help them out a lot. ORU/Valpo rivalry from Mid-Con. Midwestern schools. Familiar names for market from Tulsa days.

uniftw wrote:It looks like the end of the Scott Sutton era isn't going to end well.

You know that era ended right? Because the new president kneecapped him. No tattoos and religious tests are now imposed on recruits.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/o ... 77a3d.html

Before Wilson became the ORU president in 2013, Sutton had a 14-season record of 278-177 with three Summit League Tournament titles and three NCAA Tournament appearances.

Since Wilson assumed leadership of the university — and, sources say, since he instituted recruiting policies that diminished the ORU basketball program’s horsepower — Sutton’s four-season record amounted to 58-70.

The 2016-17 Golden Eagles were 8-22 and failed to qualify for the conference tournament.

With Wilson as president, sources indicate, Sutton was instructed to recruit athletes who already were professed Christians and to evaluate prospects on their physical abilities, their intellect, their social history and whether they are spiritually alive.

Before Wilson, the ORU template seemed to center on the recruitment of solid student-athletes who might or might not already have been Christians. Those who weren’t became immersed in a Christian culture that resulted in numerous commitments to Jesus Christ.

These are not the actions of an administration committed to winning basketball games.

For the record, their administration denies that faith tests and recruiting restrictions were ever imposed on Sutton; but usually in those situations, where there's smoke, there's fire. Their denials may well mean nothing. What bothers me more is that Sutton, for all his loyalty to the program and everything he had been through with them for 18 seasons, allegedly found out about his firing the same time we all did from ESPN. In that case, if that is true, I want nothing to do with a school led by people who lack the honesty, decency, and internal fortitude to deal directly with their employees in matters of termination--particularly when the matter concerns a longstanding, formerly successful coach who by all accounts has been scandal-free and a credit to the university during his time there.

Mikovio wrote:

uniftw wrote:It looks like the end of the Scott Sutton era isn't going to end well.

You know that era ended right? Because the new president kneecapped him. No tattoos and religious tests are now imposed on recruits.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/o ... 77a3d.html

Before Wilson became the ORU president in 2013, Sutton had a 14-season record of 278-177 with three Summit League Tournament titles and three NCAA Tournament appearances.

Since Wilson assumed leadership of the university — and, sources say, since he instituted recruiting policies that diminished the ORU basketball program’s horsepower — Sutton’s four-season record amounted to 58-70.

The 2016-17 Golden Eagles were 8-22 and failed to qualify for the conference tournament.

With Wilson as president, sources indicate, Sutton was instructed to recruit athletes who already were professed Christians and to evaluate prospects on their physical abilities, their intellect, their social history and whether they are spiritually alive.

Before Wilson, the ORU template seemed to center on the recruitment of solid student-athletes who might or might not already have been Christians. Those who weren’t became immersed in a Christian culture that resulted in numerous commitments to Jesus Christ.

These are not the actions of an administration committed to winning basketball games.

Interesting. I did some Googling of photos. Sure enough, I don't see a tatoo on any of them that I searched. Quite a coincidence if not an enforced rule

Sounds like the Roberts family may be gone, but the same type of leadership and hypocrisy still exists.