American Athletic Conference

[Rlh04d]

Sometimes it's nice to just look at a map. I found one on the Wikipedia page for the MVC, and I tossed in a few other schools in green. UAB is not really much of an outlier at all. WSU remains the one school that makes no sense :)

It's absolutely insane that 80% of this conference is located in Illinois-Indiana-Iowa.

I would trade Evansville, Drake, Loyola, and Southern Illinois for UAB, Belmont, Murray State, and Milwaukee in a second. Better programs and we add four new states for recruiting.

[Rlh04d]

I'll take it a step further: As long as John Bardo and Eric Sexton are here, don't expect any conference move.

I don't get the sense either is interested in leaving the Valley.

I don't need WSU to leave the Valley.

I do need President Bardon and Eric Sexton to start working to have the Valley leadership changed. Doug Elgin has 27 years as the MVC Commissioner, and realistically what can anyone say that he's done to make the conference better in that time frame? He pointed Marshall to WSU, helped get the conference to work the RPI in 2006, and brought in UNI. The four schools to join the Valley since he took over are UNI, Evansville, Missouri State, and Loyola -- four schools with nearly 80 years combined in the league now, yet just four regular season championships, five tournament championships, and nine NCAA appearances combined. And UNI has the majority of that success. 20+ years later we could still drop Evansville or Missouri State and no one would have even noticed, and I'm sure in 20 years we'll probably be saying the same thing about Loyola. Both Evansville and MoSt are worse programs now than when they joined the league, so I'm hardly going to hold my breath that MVC membership is going to be the magic change Loyola needed, when it did nothing for either of them. Hell, Evansville and MoSt combined to average just 54% of their 1990 attendance this year.

It's 2015, conference TV contracts are exploding in value, and I'm just hoping he can negotiate us to a break even point where we're not losing money to be aired on ESPN. Kindly push him into retirement and hire a skilled negotiator to work the Valley's next TV deal.

[tgcshock]

I don't need WSU to leave the Valley.

I do need President Bardon and Eric Sexton to start working to have the Valley leadership changed.

Let's get Jim Schaus to come be Valley Commissioner.

[Dave Stalwart]

The more I look at that map, the more obvious it is that UMKC needs to stop sucking, become a juggernaut mid-major athletic program and join the MVC. There's just a big hole in the MVC right around the Kansas City area. Can someone donate them $100 million and tell them to pull their heads out?

[AZ Shocker]

I'll take it a step further: As long as John Bardo and Eric Sexton are here, don't expect any conference move.

I don't get the sense either is interested in leaving the Valley.

Well that sucks with a capitol "S"!!!! Lol

There's quite a few reasons I and probably most here would want to see Wichita St. join the AAC or Mountain West....but my three main reasons are...

1. - Higher profile with better teams coming into Koch Arena. Good competition is fun for fans!!! Not that I can attend home games at Koch...but when I did...I sure was tired of playing the Evansville, Bradley, Southern Illinois and the Drakes of the world. Even when we absolutely sucked back in the 90's...it still just felt wrong. Lol

2. - Recruiting. Houston, Dallas, Florida, Philly, New Orleans, Ohio, East Carolina!!! Very fertile areas!!! Have we ever got a recruit from Carbondale, Peoria, Cedar Rapids, Normal or Terre Haute???

3. - Change of scenery would be simply just nice. Who wouldn't want to go to New Orleans or South Florida twice a year in Jan. and/or Feb??? I bet a lot of college athletes would. Again..good for recruiting.

[Dave Stalwart]

I'm just super into maps right now. I'm gonna waste an awful lot of time looking at conference maps. By the time I'm through with this, I should be well on my way to becoming qualified to be the next MVC commissioner.

Here's one really big reason why St. Louis should be in the MVC. A picture is worth a thousand words.

[Shocker-maniac]

I'm just super into maps right now. I'm gonna waste an awful lot of time looking at conference maps. By the time I'm through with this, I should be well on my way to becoming qualified to be the next MVC commissioner.

Here's one really big reason why St. Louis should be in the MVC. A picture is worth a thousand words.

As I understand it, a large percentage of SLU students are from the east coast. It most likely benefits their student recruitment to be in the A10.

[Jhook89]

I'm just super into maps right now. I'm gonna waste an awful lot of time looking at conference maps. By the time I'm through with this, I should be well on my way to becoming qualified to be the next MVC commissioner.

Here's one really big reason why St. Louis should be in the MVC. A picture is worth a thousand words.

So if you want to do this showing us in the AAC, BE, and MWC I wouldn't complain

[Shock Top]

So if you want to do this showing us in the AAC, BE, and MWC I wouldn't complain

And Big 12 and Big 10. You know, just for kicks.

The ACC and Pac 12 would just look silly, but the other "P5"s not as much (SEC would look better then either coastal one)

[Ta town]

As I understand it, a large percentage of SLU students are from the east coast. It most likely benefits their student recruitment to be in the A10.

You understand wrong...They like to think that but it's not true. Looks like a mere 200 students from what I would consider NE states go to SLU. 8500 of the 13,200 come from Missouri and Illinois and roughly 9,000 from Valley States. I do think they recruit the east coast hard for students just obviously not to successfully at actually getting the students to SLU. Regardless the real reason is they wouldn't want to associate with "little people" the Valley is made up of.

http://www.slu.edu/Documents/enrollment_management/Domestic-CENSUS-2014.pdf

[Shocker-maniac]

Regardless the chance of SLU moving to the MVC is roughly one in a billion. Most of their fan base would think that would be a huge step backwards. The only move I see them making is to the BE. I recently came to the conclusion that WSU is in the MVC for the long haul. So, this thread at best is fictional reading and nothing more.

[Shock Top]

Sometimes it's nice to just look at a map. I found one on the Wikipedia page for the MVC, and I tossed in a few other schools in green. UAB is not really much of an outlier at all. WSU remains the one school that makes no sense :)

Screw it, let's blow it all up! Create a true Mid-West(ish) basketball ONLY conference.

We start with the flagship, of course:
- WSU

The five close Big East Schools:
- Creighton (welcome back)
- Butler
- Depaul
- Xavier
- Marquette

The close A10 school:
- SLU

Now, we add the outsiders:
- UAB
- Belmount
- ORU (wost basketball school, but helps even out the map some)

If you go to 12 schools:
- Detroit
- Cleveland State

(Schools like Murry State, Dayton, Valpo, etc. were not considered due to having football programs)

Gives a good mix of "media markets" and successful basketball programs.

What would this look like mapped up @DJ06Shocker:? ;)

[Topshock]

[Topshock]

I don't understand the increased travel argument. The five home and home teams in the western division would be very little farther that Valley schools. We would only play 3 of the 6 Eastern schools on the road every year. That could be done easily with two road trips.

[isu87]

Well that sucks with a capitol "S"!!!! Lol

There's quite a few reasons I and probably most here would want to see Wichita St. join the AAC or Mountain West....but my three main reasons are...

1. - Higher profile with better teams coming into Koch Arena. Good competition is fun for fans!!! Not that I can attend home games at Koch...but when I did...I sure was tired of playing the Evansville, Bradley, Southern Illinois and the Drakes of the world. Even when we absolutely sucked back in the 90's...it still just felt wrong. Lol

2. - Recruiting. Houston, Dallas, Florida, Philly, New Orleans, Ohio, East Carolina!!! Very fertile areas!!! Have we ever got a recruit from Carbondale, Peoria, Cedar Rapids, Normal or Terre Haute???

3. - Change of scenery would be simply just nice. Who wouldn't want to go to New Orleans or South Florida twice a year in Jan. and/or Feb??? I bet a lot of college athletes would. Again..good for recruiting.

I'd say you've gotten some pretty good recruits from Vincennes, in Indiana, very close to Terre Haute