American Athletic Conference

[VALPOfan]

The problem with a new conference is that unless it's a stacked conference covering a huge geographic area, it's not going to be much better than the Valley long-term. the all-star mid-major conference that the Valpo fan posted would be great short term but could turn disgusting in 5-10 years. Don't get me wrong, I would take Valpo over an Evansville, Drake, or Loyola any day, but we don't share a long-term vision with Valpo and shouldn't be spearheading a new conference with them.

"Shared long-term vision" is great to have if you can get it. Some of the most durable and iconic conferences are great in part because of their shared vision. The Big 10 and SEC at the highest level and the West Coast Conference and Ivy League among the mids. How would you define WSU's long-term vision? To me, the main elements (again as an outsider) seem to be elite basketball and no football at a mid-size public university. This is an extremely unique combination (only VCU really matches it) meaning that WSU will by necessity always be in conferences with schools that differ significantly in their athletic and academic make up.

As for the future of the potential conference...The purpose of the data in the first post is to make the best educated guess about how these teams will continue to perform going forward. However, as the current decline of several MVC members shows, this kind of data is no guarantee of future performance. Maybe there are some better metrics that weren't included, but I'm not sure what they'd be. Maybe something to track the effect of individual head coaches?

[AndShock]

"Shared long-term vision" is great to have if you can get it. Some of the most durable and iconic conferences are great in part because of their shared vision. The Big 10 and SEC at the highest level and the West Coast Conference and Ivy League among the mids. How would you define WSU's long-term vision? To me, the main elements (again as an outsider) seem to be elite basketball and no football at a mid-size public university. This is an extremely unique combination (only VCU really matches it) meaning that WSU will by necessity always be in conferences with schools that differ significantly in their athletic and academic make up.

As for the future of the potential conference...The purpose of the data in the first post is to make the best educated guess about how these teams will continue to perform going forward. However, as the current decline of several MVC members shows, this kind of data is no guarantee of future performance. Maybe there are some better metrics that weren't included, but I'm not sure what they'd be. Maybe something to track the effect of individual head coaches?

You're completely right about it being a unique combination and that's exactly why arranging a new conference isn't going to be able to move us closer to long-term stability with like-minded schools...and if that's the case is it really worth leaving the Valley to start a conference that may or may not be better than the Valley in 10 years? (Although giving the Valley the finger would be incredibly satisfying and might even make taking a small step down worth it.)

In my opinion, the best way to pick 10 teams in the region that have the highest chance of long-term success would be to look strictly at head coach salaries.

[proshox]

Guess what folks? The MVC isn't hurting the Shockers.

There has been no correlation between MVC power and WSU success. Many on this board worry too much about this.

The only thing a better conference would do is produce is more entertaining match ups.

[giskard]

Guess what folks? The MVC isn't hurting the Shockers.

There has been no correlation between MVC power and WSU success. Many on this board worry too much about this.

The only thing a better conference would do is produce is more entertaining match ups.

Being in the MVC means that WSU is very dependent on its nonconference season to position it for a decent seed in the NCAA tournament. If something like FVV's injury happens, it torpedoes any chance that WSU has for a decent seed since so many of the Valley opponents have lousy RPIs.

Your margin for error is small when you are in a conference like the Valley.

[im4wsu]

Originally Posted by VALPOfan

Good afternoon Shocker fans. I've been lurking around here since it seemed likely that a WSU exit from the MVC was the only way that Valpo would potentially be getting an MVC invite.

You have no idea the irony of this first sentence, in the context of the flaming bag of poo the MVC instead placed on our front porch a couple of years ago.

I cannot find anything wrong with the first sentence: "Good afternoon Shocker fans."

[ShockTalk]

Guess what folks? The MVC isn't hurting the Shockers.

There has been no correlation between MVC power and WSU success. Many on this board worry too much about this.

The only thing a better conference would do is produce is more entertaining match ups.

Care to elaborate?

[ShockdaWorld]

Guess what folks? The MVC isn't hurting the Shockers.

There has been no correlation between MVC power and WSU success. Many on this board worry too much about this.

The only thing a better conference would do is produce is more entertaining match ups.

The MVC is exactly what caused us to play an extra game in the NCAA tourney just this past season.

[ShockTalk]

You're completely right about it being a unique combination and that's exactly why arranging a new conference isn't going to be able to move us closer to long-term stability with like-minded schools...and if that's the case is it really worth leaving the Valley to start a conference that may or may not be better than the Valley in 10 years? (Although giving the Valley the finger would be incredibly satisfying and might even make taking a small step down worth it.)

In my opinion, the best way to pick 10 teams in the region that have the highest chance of long-term success would be to look strictly at head coach salaries.

I believe there were 12 conferences ahead of the Valley last year including such basketball powers as #10 Summit, #9 Mid-American, and a greatly depleted #8 Colonial (VCU, ODU, and George Mason all recently departed). In RPI, we were closer to being 17th in RPI calculation than 12th and closer to 20th than 10th. This is with WSU included. Where would the Valley have ranked without WSU?

Hopefully, the MVC will be better this year. However, to think there is not enough other schools out there that want, and will commit, to grow as a basketball conference into a regular top 8-10 conference while saying the Valley is as good as anywhere, might not be objective enough. I do agree that if the Valley grows a spine or enough Valley schools sees the writing on the wall, it probably is the best place to start that rebuild. Unfortunately, many of those best schools may be blinded by FCS football "success" and find themselves hanging in the wind if other quality non-Valley schools leave.

[ShockerFever]

Guess what folks? The MVC isn't hurting the Shockers.

There has been no correlation between MVC power and WSU success. Many on this board worry too much about this.

The only thing a better conference would do is produce is more entertaining match ups.

You can't be serious.

[Kel Varnsen]

Guess what folks? The MVC isn't hurting the Shockers.

There has been no correlation between MVC power and WSU success. Many on this board worry too much about this.

The only thing a better conference would do is produce is more entertaining match ups, which means more TV, ticket sales, and ad revenue, produce a higher-profile conference tournament, which means more revenue, and send more teams to the NCAA tournament, which means more revenue.

FYP.

[pie n eye]

The MVC is exactly what caused us to play an extra game in the NCAA tourney just this past season.

I respectfully disagree. We were arguably a winnable game @ Seton Hall or UNI at the Valley tournament away from avoiding the play in round. In my opinion, anyways. But I'm certainly no expert.

[Cdizzle]

I can't believe that this is still a thing people don't understand.

[ShockdaWorld]

I respectfully disagree. We were arguably a winnable game @ Seton Hall or UNI at the Valley tournament away from avoiding the play in round. In my opinion, anyways. But I'm certainly no expert.

You're probably right. I probably simplified that too far. With our wins and losses, had the Valley been a Top 8-ish conference, we don't play in the play-in game. If FVV doesn't get hurt, we win several OOC games and the Valley wouldn't have hurt us near as much, but being in the #12 rpi conference almost certainly pushed us down a couple of seed lines on top of that.

[ShockingButTrue]

Agree. Heading into the NCAA tournament most of the shows I listened to claimed the N. Iowa loss in the MVC tournament was a bad loss. Practically a show stopper. I'm grateful the selection committee decided (8 out of 10) to do Ron & Fred a favor.

Perception is reality it seems.

[proshox]

The MVC is exactly what caused us to play an extra game in the NCAA tourney just this past season.

I disagree - we had plenty of chances to solidify our resume and didn't. WSU was very strong on defense and average on offense. The lack of balance made WSU beatable by descent teams.

Put WSU in a different league and we would have seen more losses; therefore, the net effect of being in the MVC was minimal. WSU was well served by the weakness in this year’s MVC which allowed WSU to quickly climb the polls multiple times as a result of “poll mechanics and winning streaks.”

When you set expectations for last year, was our non-conference record anywhere near your worst case projections? I would guess not. We still got in.

WSU needs to stay focused on supporting the coaches, the facilities, and taking care of players. The MVC isn’t a problem.