Butler to the A-10?

[cjp27]

More and more that's what I'm leaning towards. Not sure if the money is really there to support the move or not. That's splitting a lot of money in basketball. But being put in a division or pod with Tulsa and North Texas wouldn't suck. I'm assuming we'd be with Rice as well. There's talk of them adding UT-A or UT-SA as well. Travel wouldn't be horrendous. We'd be in a conference with the likes of New Mexico, UNLV, Nevada, Colorado State, Southern Miss, Tulsa, North Texas, and possibly Utah State. But you would be talking about 24 or so schools splitting money. That wouldn't make basketball sense unless we were confident that this conference was going to get say 6 bids or so a year with teams making runs. And not sure what kind of TV contract would be offered. Some nice markets as a whole though.

I think that league would have a chance of being a 4-6 bid league every year. You are competing with schools that have much bigger budgets than schools such as UNI, Drake, ISUb which is also nice. Finally, maybe there is the chance of dropping the "mid-major" label as well. Remember, ESPN doesn't refer to CUSA and the MWC as mid majors. Teams in those leagues get much more respect than those from the Valley. (whether it's deserved or not).

[SubGod22]

Actually I would like this addition for several reasons.

1. location
2. Market
3. Another public metro based University without football in the conference

They have a relatively young coach with some success. He went to school there, was an assistant there and now has had a couple good seasons there. Including an ncaa team in 2008 and an NIT team this year.

Oh and they just built this

http://www.arlingtonvoice.com/sites/default/files/images/2012/02/college_park/IMG_9359.JPG

Their rpi sucks but they are in the southland, how couldn't it suck? will be interesting next year when they are in the WAC. Not much better but still better than the southland.

Fair enough. I haven't looked into all of them and potential plays a part. There's a lot that goes in but on the surface, it's iffy. And I've mentioned in the past teams that based on RPI would at least be an upper half type team and they get frowned upon. So UT-A would be a hard sell to many fans. Milwaukee is one that intrigues me as it'd be a nice new market. Same for Wright State. Belmont is in Nashville but a small private school.

I enjoy thinking about these things but Elgin isn't going to do anything. And would Arlington want to join anyway? As it is, they're grouped with UT-SA and Texas State I believe. That has to be pretty attractive for them when compared to Evansville, Drake and Indiana State.

[Shockerman]

Actually I would like this addition for several reasons.

1. location
2. Market
3. Another public metro based University without football in the conference

They have a relatively young coach with some success. He went to school there, was an assistant there and now has had a couple good seasons there. Including an ncaa team in 2008 and an NIT team this year.

Oh and they just built this

http://www.arlingtonvoice.com/sites/default/files/images/2012/02/college_park/IMG_9359.JPG

Their rpi sucks but they are in the southland, how couldn't it suck? will be interesting next year when they are in the WAC. Not much better but still better than the southland.

You have got to be kidding me.....I was only joking about ORU and UMKC, If the likes of UTA join the Valley then stick a fork in it cause were done.

[shockmonster]

Despite Bradley being a little down, they're a good school near Chicago with a strong fan base. Not to metion they're a private school which is basically what the A10 is all about. And the location is much better when compared to the other schools.

Tulsa is private too.

[SubGod22]

Tulsa is private too.

They also play football.

[Ta town]

You have got to be kidding me.....I was only joking about ORU and UMKC, If the likes of UTA join the Valley then stick a fork in it cause were done.

No I'm not kidding...Sub had a list and out of that list UTA was the one I viewed the most favorably. I gave my reasons why, sorry you are offended. Please note I'm not suggesting the Valley add anybody, Sub presented potential schools in a backfill situation. I simply picked out the one I liked best of the schools he listed.

News flash, if the Valley has to back fill then the options will suck.

[Shockerman]

And I don't know what the Valley can really do. Is anyone excited by the thoughts of adding any of the following?

North Dakota State
South Dakota State
Western Illinois
UMKC
Oral Roberts
Wright State
Milwaukee
Green Bay
Detroit
Cleveland State
Belmont
Little Rock
Nebraska-Omaha
SEMO
Tennessee Tech
North Dakota
South Dakota
Murray State
Austin Peay
Tennessee State
UT-Arlington
IUPUI
Valpo
Loyola-Chicago
Chicago State

Those are pretty much the list of teams in a reasonable area that we'd possibly be able to pick from. We're not getting SLU, Xavier, Butler, Dayton.

Take out the Horizon teams cause they are not going anywhere with Butlers cash flowing in from the NCAA and with CU and BU gone why would they want to come to the Valley? All Valley schools will nix aexpanding with teams from their state for recruiting reasons and that leaves us with the following realstic list...


North Dakota State
South Dakota State
Oakland
Oral Roberts
Belmont
Little Rock
Tennessee Tech
North Dakota
South Dakota
Murray State
Austin Peay
Tennessee State
UT-Arlington

Out of that list, the only schools that doesn't get Elgin lyched are
ORU
Arkansas-Little Rock
Murray State

Murray State has a good thing going and would not leave as they would have to park there football program in the competive Valley Football conference which leaves us with ORU and AR-LR. Not real fired up about those schools but I guess they bring in new markets.

[Shockerman]

Best case scenario is that Butler goes to the A-10 and backfills with Evansville and the mvc stays at 9.

[SubGod22]

The Valley wouldn't stay at 9. 10 is the number they like and makes the most sense. I'd love for Evansville to take the spot of Butler though.

[pie n eye]

Did you guys just make up the term "back fill" for the purposes of this thread?

[shox1989]

Don't be fooled by FHSU's enrollment, about half of that 12K are Chinese taking classes in China. Pitt State wouldn't give up football and thats about what it takes to move up. Look at Omaha, they had to give up football and they have 15K students and obviously are in Omaha.

Washburn to me would be the only one who might eventually move up someday. Mainly due to the size of city than anything else. The summit would be a good fit for them with UMKC and Omaha in it.

BTW, Emporia is the smallest of the state schools

http://kansasregents.org/resources/P...lmentTable.pdf

The only reason they had to give up football (and wrestling) was politics. UNL pressured the Board of Regents. The only way they could get the votes to go to division 1 was to agree to give up football and wrestling. Wrestling is big at UNL and it was HUGE at UNO. UNO had won several national championships in division 2 wrestling. In fact they had won another one on the day they announced they were dropping wrestling and moving to division 1.

[Shockerman]

Did you guys just make up the term "back fill" for the purposes of this thread?

Yes, its march madness and standard English lexicon does not apply.

[ABC]

I thought Katz's comments about Tulsa firing Wojo were interesting - that Tulsa lost some of its national relevance being part of Conf USA. So what does he mean, that they had it with the MVC and then the WAC?

• I find it odd that Tulsa would fire Doug Wojcik a few hours before selections were announced in the NCAA tournament. Tulsa is simply not the same job it was when Bill Self coached the Golden Hurricane to the Elite Eight. Tulsa has lost a lot of its national relevance in CUSA and soon-to-be named merger conference with the MWC. Wojcik was likely going to be out. Still, Monday seemed more natural than burying this story on a Sunday afternoon two hours before the bracket. Wojcik is one of the genuinely great guys coaching. He served in the Navy and played with David Robinson. He will land well, somewhere. I'll be interested to see if Tulsa tries to get Scott Sutton to come from rival Oral Roberts.

[Ta town]

Best case scenario is that Butler goes to the A-10 and backfills with Evansville and the mvc stays at 9.

Even better is that plus ISUB and Odum take their game to a newly formed Indiana/N.Kentucky minor league thus leaving the league at 8. :)

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

I thought Katz's comments about Tulsa firing Wojo were interesting - that Tulsa lost some of its national relevance being part of Conf USA. So what does he mean, that they had it with the MVC and then the WAC?

• I find it odd that Tulsa would fire Doug Wojcik a few hours before selections were announced in the NCAA tournament. Tulsa is simply not the same job it was when Bill Self coached the Golden Hurricane to the Elite Eight. Tulsa has lost a lot of its national relevance in CUSA and soon-to-be named merger conference with the MWC. Wojcik was likely going to be out. Still, Monday seemed more natural than burying this story on a Sunday afternoon two hours before the bracket. Wojcik is one of the genuinely great guys coaching. He served in the Navy and played with David Robinson. He will land well, somewhere. I'll be interested to see if Tulsa tries to get Scott Sutton to come from rival Oral Roberts.

I don't think he was trying to say Tulsa has lost national relevance because of the C-USA. He seems to say, "Tulsa has lost national relevance while they've been part of C-USA, especially since Bill Self left."

As far as the rest of the discussion going on here, anyone who questions the ability of the MW-CUSA conference to generate a handful of NCAA bids is overlooking the fact that combined, these two conferences just sent 6 teams to the tournament. In 2010, combined they also sent 6. WSU would receive the same amount of money with this amount of money split between 20 teams as it would get if the MVC sent 3 teams to the tournament--and we all know how difficult it is for the MVC to get in more than just 2. The A-10 of course would be my first choice, but given problems with geography and other issues as pointed out by other posters, ADES needs to be all over the MW-CUSA conference like a fat kid at a cake buffet.