Report: Loyola-Chicago to join MVC

[Ta town]

If this happens MVC < Horizon

Pssst Please

[hizzshock]

Hey, at least Sheryl Swoops will make her way to CKA. That girl can ball.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

The Ramblers men's basketball team finished 5-11 last season in the Horizon League. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Loyola men's basketball team winning the NCAA championship in 1963.

Everything I feel about this add is summed up in this quote.

[Kung Wu]

[rrshock]

I feel like we, fans and school, just got kicked square in the grapes. This is painful. WSU has got to leave now before the poor sisters invite another Evansville.

[The Mad Hatter]

Let me be clear, I have my skepticism about Loyola, but this is much more of a boom or bust situation than most are giving credit for.

Loyola has undergrad enrollment of over 9,000 and an endowment of ~$450 million (both figures are bigger than Creighton's). They have been working on major investments in campus construction to increase growth.

The statements we have seen out of the Valley presidents is that they were looking for a school that would commit to investing in their athletics programs. Loyola's inclusion in the MVC is undoubtedly based on promised investment, and Loyola has the money to do it. If the investments work, good decisions on coaches are made going forward (there is certainly the name cache of recently hiring Cheryl Swoopes), Loyola has the resources to be a major player. Loyola is a program that had lots of success in basketball in the 60s and 80s only to see the bottom fall out after that. Sound familiar? Loyola may be a program that has been struggling, but it is not a school like UNI that will constantly be scratching for resources. They have way more top end potential than a lot of current Valley members.

That being said, there are three concerns in my book:

1. Potential doesn't do you any good until you fulfill it. Just having they resources and even the willingness to spend them is no guarantee of success on the court and taking a school purely on potential and not on proven success is risky (even if the upside is strong).

2. How certain is the commitment to athletics over the long run? They may be committed to spending at this point, but if on the court success does not come quickly and/or there is a change of AD or president, will the financial commitment remain? This would be less of a concern at a school with recent success to build on that is less likely to fade than would the exuberance around a program with potential that faces the difficulty of meeting said potential.

3. Fan support and facility size is concerning to say the least. This is the starkest difference between WSU's fall off after the 80s and Loyola's. WSU has a big time facility and kept strong attendance in the midst of poor results. Loyola has a very nice facility, but a very small one and they don't even fill that up. Maybe that would change with success on the court, but it is not an encouraging start. In addition, Chicago schools in general have had trouble with attendance. Even when Depaul has been good, their attendance has been mediocre. They failed to averaged 10,000 per game each of the last two years they made the NCAAs (while playing in a 17,000 seat facility). Part of the problem is choosing between a small on-campus facility because of space constraints (Loyola), or a large off-campus facility in the suburbs that is inconvenient to go to (DePaul). The other problem is that Chicago appears to be much more of a pro sports town than college town. I'm not sure that can be changed, even with success.

[DUShock]

This sucks.

[tropicalshox]

Let's stop worring about who is leaving the AAC or A-10. Let's just hope one of them or the MWC gives us an invite. Any of them, no matter what, will be much stonger than the future MVC.

[Capitol Shock II]

I like that post but really? Here's to hoping we move.

[Rambler63]

Jerry Harkness is not dead.

[shockerofandover0943]

Jerry Harkness is not dead.

Hello Rambler. Welcome to the Valley. Please spend money, lots of it, and breathe more life in to your program than has been displaced over the past quarter-century.

[The Mad Hatter]

I like that post but really? Here's to hoping we move.

Don't get me wrong, if we get a chance to move on to the MWC, AAC, or A10 (if the Big East staying at 10 rumors are true), it is clearly a big upgrade for us. I'm just saying that the talk that the Valley presidents were nuts to pick Loyola is unfounded. It is certainly a risky pick, but it fit into the stated goal of choosing a school with the means and willingness to invest big money in athletics. I still would have preferred Denver (although it is still unclear how interested they were) or Murray State, but let's not treat this like it is similar to picking the UMKC's of the world.

[Rambler63]

Loyola has a long tradition in college basketball, including a national championship, 2 NIT runner-up finishes, 2 Sweet 16s, a #1 overalll NBA draft pick, two Hall of Fame entries, and an undefeated season. For the past two decades, Loyola has been stuck in a 1-bid conference behind Butler. Loyola is 6-6 in its last 12 games against MVC teams, including a 2-1 record against MVC NCAA teams.

Furthermore, Loyola is ranked as the 106th best National University in the nation by U.S. News and World Report-- in a higher class than any MVC school. Loyola has a higher endowment that departing Creighton, which had the highest endowment by far of any school in the MVC. Loyola has had a higher graduation rate than any other school in the Horizon for many years, including Butler. Maybe that had a role in the MVC decision.

[Rambler63]

Loyola best overall school for sports in the Horizon? http://www.horizonleague.org/blog/loyola-leads-mccafferty-trophy-standings-heading-into-spring-championships.html

[Rlh04d]

If this happens MVC < Horizon

That's not true.

However, the MVC is clearly now behind the WCC.