Sounds like Wichita St to the AAC... Who gets an Invite?

[uniftw]

Is there some reason we can't play 20 or 22 conference games?

Not entirely but 22 is far to many. Add in 4 MTE games and you have only 4 OOC games. Oh and the MWC/MVC deal, which likely does soon. So three OOC games.

UNI and Drake have the Big 4. So 2 OOC games.

UNI is locked into a few series.

To play more than 18 conference games this year.

20 would be feasible, but that is the absolute max.

[Rogers101]

I'm against more than 18 conference games. We need to beat up other conferences. Conference games force us to beat ourselves. We need to schedule better whether that means more road games. Let's get that rpi up.

[SMUfan]

Maybe part of the holdup is finding out which school could join right away.

Murray State would have to wait until 2018-2019 because they are committed to their football schedule.

MVC may be trying to find out who can join for 2017-2018. So a guess would be one school added for 2017-2018 and 2 schools for 2018-2019.

Football has nothing to do with it. OVC would make them ineligible for conference title and let them play. See every fcs school that's ever gone FBS.

The issue is the one million dollar OVC buy out.

It concerns me that our best options can't afford their buy out of only a million

How do you know Murray can't afford the buy out?

[Drakey]

I'm against more than 18 conference games. We need to beat up other conferences. Conference games force us to beat ourselves. We need to schedule better whether that means more road games. Let's get that rpi up.

We can't get games. Everybody other than the FBS and Big East are in a position of having nobody to play. I'm guessing the extra conference games would be against better teams than most can schedule. If we only had to come up with 7 games, we could probably schedule a couple on the road against the big conference teams and keep our RPI's up, if that even matters anymore.

[Murraygrad05]

It concerns me that our best options can't afford their buy out of only a million

This is not the problem we are having. That is the least of our worries.

What I have kinda heard and am guessing at so don't rely too much on this but we are trying to figure out what to do with football and we also have rifle. Our rifle team has won the NCAA championship and is ranked in the top 3 nationally year in and year out. I'm personally hoping that we can keep that as an affiliate member with the OVC since it is so successful. Does not draw any crowds or anything but it gives us some name brand with that sport.

Like I said though I have no affiliation with the university or anything. That is just the word going around but it makes sense. Nobody knows but our administration what we may be looking at.

[SMUfan]

It concerns me that our best options can't afford their buy out of only a million

This is not the problem we are having. That is the least of our worries.

What I have kinda heard and am guessing at so don't rely too much on this but we are trying to figure out what to do with football and we also have rifle. Our rifle team has won the NCAA championship and is ranked in the top 3 nationally year in and year out. I'm personally hoping that we can keep that as an affiliate member with the OVC since it is so successful. Does not draw any crowds or anything but it gives us some name brand with that sport.

Like I said though I have no affiliation with the university or anything. That is just the word going around but it makes sense. Nobody knows but our administration what we may be looking at.

Any chance Murray would drop football?

[Murraygrad05]

Many of us fans would not mind a bit. Murray football has not been relevant since Houston Nutt was here in the 90's and we were ranked in the top 5 I believe in the 1-AA poll. We've gone through a few questionable coaches and horrible program maintenance and recruiting to where now it's just a shell of what it used to be. Now if we actually ever have the balls to do away with it who knows. Our AD has gone on the record to say that Murray is a basketball driven school and everything else follows. Which is true.

What has been talked about is dropping to non scholly football, but if we do that we will be traveling all across the country and it's really not worth it in the long run.

If we drop it completely what would happen is that would be a stream on revenue that gets cut. Although we could put the expenses to other sports for upgrades or whatever, we would be losing the intake (tickets, concessions, merch... etc).

[Murraygrad05]

I know I keep saying this, but we should NOT create divisions if we go to 12 teams.

We need the top teams all playing each other twice every year. Divisions get in the way of that.

There can still be elements of geography in the schedule, we can always insure the least amount of travel for the bottom teams. But there's a reason there's only 2 conferences that currently employ divisions.

Yes. Absolutely. Do any conferences do divisions for basketball?

Unless you want to replace the conference tournament with a game (or maybe 3 game series) between the two division champs, it just doesn't make sense.

The MAC does it, and the OVC.

It's pretty telling with the MAC. They're the greatest underachievers in mid-major land the last decade. Although most of the power in the league is in the East currently, so it's not as bad for them.

Did you know Belmont and Murray are in different divisions in the OVC, and only played once this year? That's a travesty of the highest order.

This is right on. When we split to east and west it killed our oldest rivalries in the conference with EKU and Morehead. It replaced us playing Belmont twice to having to play SIU-E twice every year. This is why we have no trust in our OVC administration or the future of the conference.

[uniftw]

It concerns me that our best options can't afford their buy out of only a million

This is not the problem we are having. That is the least of our worries.

What I have kinda heard and am guessing at so don't rely too much on this but we are trying to figure out what to do with football and we also have rifle. Our rifle team has won the NCAA championship and is ranked in the top 3 nationally year in and year out. I'm personally hoping that we can keep that as an affiliate member with the OVC since it is so successful. Does not draw any crowds or anything but it gives us some name brand with that sport.

Like I said though I have no affiliation with the university or anything. That is just the word going around but it makes sense. Nobody knows but our administration what we may be looking at.

The buy out deal was what I read on your forum.

Football has no option but to play as an affiliate OVC member for at least a year. The reason UND football isn't joining the MVFC until 2020, even though they are joining The Summit in 2018 is that the MVFC schedules are done until 2019. I can't imagine The MVC willing to make an exception for Murray they didn't for UND. The only possible exception would be YSU deciding, in next few months, to pursue a CAA membership and move in 2018. That would mean Murray State would be OVC for 17, and take YSU's spot in the conference in 2018 - that may piss off UND but F them. I've heard zero, even fan rumors, that the CAA is looking for another team. They are also currently at 12 teams. There are only about 4 CAA schools that are more than 50 miles from the Atlantic Ocean - Albany, Richmond, James Madison, Elon. Maybe if JMU goes MAC or CUSA in the next year. Even if Murray went PFL, it's too late to not play next year as the OVC.

[Phi13]

I've run some numbers regarding strength of basketball programs. For each school, I've calculated the average Sagarin Predictor rating in the 18 years it's available. Based on this, here are the best programs not part of an FBS conference, the Big East, or the A-10:

10 Gonzaga – WCC
34 BYU – WCC
78 St. Mary's – WCC
86 Northern Iowa
91 Southern Illinois
96 Missouri St.
103 Illinois St.
109 Murray St. – OVC
111 New Mexico St. – WAC
112 Valparaiso – Horizon
119 Belmont – OVC
124 Hawaii – Big West
125 College of Charleston – CAA
126 Iona – MAAC
128 Vermont – America East
132 Wright St. – Horizon
133 Detroit – Horizon
135 Oral Roberts – Summit
136 Princeton – Ivy
137 Green Bay – Horizon
138 North Dakota St. – Summit
141 Indiana St.
142 Pacific – WCC
143 Bradley
144 UCSB – Big West
146 Santa Clara – WCC
148 Oakland – Horizon
149 Hofstra – CAA

Remaining MVC schools:
152 Evansville
161 Drake
175 Loyola-Chicago

Conclusion: if the conference wants to improve its hoops without significantly expanding its geographic footprint, Murray St., Valpo, and Belmont are the schools to pursue.

EDIT: 3 weeks later, I looked back at this post and realized I omitted Milwaukee (122).