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For the past several years I’ve been on a mission while covering the Final Four. I find anyone associated with the Missouri Valley Conference and lobby the league to add Oral Roberts University as a member.
My plea has always been met with either silence or negative feedback. But that wasn’t the case at this year’s event in Houston.
“You’re preaching to the choir,” said one person with MVC connections. “ORU would be a great fit.”
ORU leaving the Summit League for the MVC may never happen. Or it could come about quicker than many doubters believe.
The Golden Eagles’ chances apparently come down to one person – Saint Louis University President Rev. Lawrence Bondi. It’s Bondi who has resisted pleas from his own coaches to leave the Atlantic-10 Conference and join the MVC.
“We belong in the Missouri Valley,” men’s basketball coach Rick Majerus has said repeatedly.
The MVC would obviously love to add a school that’s located in the same city as the league’s headquarters.
And if that ever happens, the 10-member MVC would look to expand to 12 schools. Several insiders have said ORU would be a strong contender to be that 12th school.
MVC officials are aware of the dramatic impact Mart Green and his family have had on ORU’s financial stability. In the past, those MVC administrators always dismissed my campaign because they knew the school at 81st and Lewis faced some serious financial issues.
The MVC, which was once home to the University Tulsa and had its headquarters in T-Town, has a great basketball tradition. It’s also a much better geographical fit for ORU that the Summit League, which is also the reason Majerus wants out of the A-10.
“The A-10’s a good league, but you’ve got to cross two states,” Majerus told reporters in January 2010, after the Billikens played against A-10 member Fordham, which is located in Bronx, N.Y. “You want to fly to Rhode Island, New York, Charlotte, all those places and stay out and spend and be in high-end cities, or do you want to go on a bus and go to Bradley and Southern Illinois and Indiana State and those places?”
I haven’t contacted ORU officials to gauge their interest because they aren’t about to say anything to upset their Summit League partners. But it’s well known that they would love to become part of the tradition-rich MVC.
Well it ever happen? For now, that’s apparently up Rev. Bondi, the school president since 1987 who has stubbornly resisted the suggestions of the outspoken Majerus and other SLU coaches.
Bondi, who CBSSports.com college basketball writer Gary Parrish once wrote has a “famously massive ego,” obviously isn’t going to be at SLU forever. But it would be nice if he changed his mind soon, because I’m running out of Final Four lobbying opportunities.
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