Conference Shake Up 2.0

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

Denver is on the rise, but it's set to join the WAC next year so I doubt they'd be interested in joining up with any midwestern schools.

[RoyalShock]

There is a downside to a newly formed conference. As DJA pointed out in another topic, new conferences have to wait five years before receiving an auto-bid to the NCAA tournament. Yes, you could argue that two or more teams will be worthy of an at-large bid, but there are no guarantees.

And as much as I wish WSU and CU could join the A-10, they will look to the CAA first, specifically VCU, ODU and GMU.

[ShockTalk]

There is a downside to a newly formed conference. As DJA pointed out in another topic, new conferences have to wait five years before receiving an auto-bid to the NCAA tournament. Yes, you could argue that two or more teams will be worthy of an at-large bid, but there are no guarantees.

And as much as I wish WSU and CU could join the A-10, they will look to the CAA first, specifically VCU, ODU and GMU.

Wonder how a combination conference like what MWC/C-USA is doing works with that? Combine 2 conferences, remove the sluff (maybe guarantee them their share of NCAA money earn up to that date), and this new combination makes arrangements for a few outside school additions.

[SubGod22]

I never thought about the 5 year aspect and I'm glad DJA brought that up. Having A10 schools leave to form another conference also costs them more money than it would us right now due to their conference shares of the NCAA. For us to join the A10 would take a lot more chaos to go down as I've said before, and as Royal points out above, the CAA would be the first to be raided. If it got to the point where they wanted a CU or WSU, it probably wouldn't be worth joining.

Our best hope continues to be chaos elswhere that leads to Valley expansion or expulsion. Temple was kicked out of the BE years ago for failing to meet certain financial standards. I wish the Valley had something like that to at least put pressure on certain schools that show little effort to upgrade or to simply push them out and replace them with schools that would be willing to compete.

I know the dream scenario for that would still be for the A10 to go nuclear and for us to pull in Dayton and Xavier, but I'm wondering if they wouldn't be more likely to go to the Horizon. It's a solid conference that's a small step down currently from the Valley but is progressing. It would also be a little less travel I believe. Not that that's a major concern for those schools, but you add those two and that conference gets a huge boost. Any conference would get a nice boost from those two.

I'm not sure what the Valley's dream scenario is other than getting an average SLU team to join. No clue who they'd look to for the 12th if that were to happen.

The only other option that could be likely to present itself is the National Conference adding a handful of non-football schools in an attempt to make it a 24 team conference with some sort of East/West division. But it could be pretty watered down as well. However, you have a huge conference that would likely lead to a number of at large bids. But you have to believe that it would get enough to make financial sense as you'd be sharing all that money with a lot of schools.

It's all just so confusing.

I wish we had football.

[rrshock]

I really hope that WSU will at least make an inquiry to the A-10 about there vacancy. Especially after this weekend.

[SubGod22]

Screw it. At this point I'd be okay with joining the OVC, Horizon, Summit, Sun Belt, Southland, Big Sky, WCC, Big West, Southern, MEAC, Northeastern....

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

Screw it. At this point I'd be okay with joining the OVC, Horizon, Summit, Sun Belt, Southland, Big Sky, WCC, Big West, Southern, MEAC, Northeastern....

Lol. Hell, I'd go basketball independent.

[RoyalShock]

Easy fellas. I'm reminded of the scripture, "There is a way that seems right to man, but assuredly it leads to death."

Those conferences will lead to death. Don't succumb to the temptation!!!

[SubGod22]

Been having some discussion with a few posters over at College Sports Nation about this whole thing. I asked if they thought the A-10 would consider going farther west and adding CU and WSU. They liked the idea but I don't think it'll happen. Then we got on the topic of if the Valley were to expand and a few of them are convinced that if it happened that it would be NDSU and SDSU because of football. Apparently there's talk that the Summit could form its own football conference and that'd take half of the MVFC away and force them to add the XDSU schools as full members.

Personally, I don't like the idea one bit. SDSU is having a pretty good year in basketball this year. NDSU had one good year about 4 years ago. I've gone back and averaged their RPIs and NDSU is a few spots ahead of Evansville on average and SDSU is well behind UE. If Elgin ever tried to do this I may have to shoot him. I'm told that they have a very well run AD and if that's true, they still need 5-10 years to prove they could hang. I haven't looked into what kind of budget they have though.

If we were to add two teams, and Butler wouldn't join, I'm starting to favor looking at Milwaukee. It's been a pretty solid program and I think being in the Valley would help them and it's a nice, new, market. I'd like to grow the footprint as I've said before and don't mind the idea of going to 12. We'd lose the round robin aspect but it is what it is. I'm not sure who else we'd bring in though and I don't know if you could get Milwaukee without Green Bay. I don't know what kind of connection they have in that regard.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather add schools that could immediately compete in the top 3 or so. But adding a solid team that could be upper half isn't horrible. We don't have a lot of options around here. The list of non-football playing schools within a decent distance of the current footprint and not a part of the A10 or BE are:

Oral Roberts: Solid program that's moving to Southland. Not sure about financial situation.
Belmont: Solid program in Nashville. Small private school is a red flag.
Milwaukee: Solid program in a nice new market.
Wright State: Solid program that would bring Dayton and Ohio into the mix.

The above are in the Top 20 of RPI of schools that have no football at all. Below are the current members and average RPI in Gold. Other area teams will be mixed in. Non football will be in Red and football (FCS or lower) will be in Green.

Creighton - 66.25
Northern Iowa - 69.625
Butler - 76.25
Southern Illinois - 83.625
Wichita State - 87.75
Missouri State - 87.875
Oral Roberts - 110.25
Belmont - 112.75
Murray State - 114.5
Milwaukee - 115.25
Wright State - 115.375
Bradley - 118.75
Austin Peay - 135.25
Illinois State - 139
Green Bay - 140
IUPUI - 145.875
Eastern Tennessee State - 147
Oakland - 151.75
Drake - 156
Indiana State - 159.125
Valpo - 161.625
Chattanooga - 169.375
Illinois-Chicago - 177.375
Cleveland State - 177.75
North Dakota State - 189.2
Evansville - 193.375
Tennessee Tech - 193.5

Some of these obviosuly wouldn't be considered but are in there for reference. I think I picked just about every school within a reasonable distance and plugged them in to see where our lower level teams are. And SIUs numbers show how very good they were. To still be that high after such a horrid stretch is impressive. Anyone ranked ahead of Bradley would at least get consideration. But it also shows that there really aren't a lot of options out there.

It does sound though that the A-10 won't be able to pick off teams from the CAA as easily as some have believed.

[tropicalshox]

Yesterday on Twitter somebody was asking a couple of others if they heard the rumor of VCU, George Mason, Drexel, Butler and Wichita State to the A-10. At least one of them said yes.

[The Mad Hatter]

Yesterday on Twitter somebody was asking a couple of others if they heard the rumor of VCU, George Mason, Drexel, Butler and Wichita State to the A-10. At least one of them said yes.

Like most rumors, it probably has no basis in fact, but I would be very glad if it did.

[SubGod22]

I'd be really happy if true

[tropicalshox]

Apparently Tony Mercurio on ESPN radio put out Drexel, VCU, Mason, Butler to A-10 by 2014. I don't know who, if anybody added WSU for the 12th member. Heck of a basketball conference.

[rrshock]

That would be great. I doubt it is happening, but we can all dream. Better bring the A game every night in that one.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

I have a bad feeling that if ADES is not aggressive about moving to a different conference in the next year or so, we're going to find ourselves stuck in a very bad situation. You'd think at our level of athletic funding we'd have a good chance of getting in the mix of either the MW/CUSA or A-10, but those conferences aren't going to beg us to join either.