Can the Blow Valley ever get back top 5-6 RPI conference?

[WillieJeffJeffries]

First let me say I dont believe the RPI is a tru indicator of how strong a conference is. The B12 is currently the #1 rated RPI conference and after KU those teams are avg at best. But since RPI is how the talking heads judge a teams strength, can the MVC get back to a respecable level? What is the problem? There is a lot of talent coming out of the upper midwest, can Valley teams/coaches not recruit some these guys with hi upside. Shouldnt the recent success of WSU, and b4 they left, Creighton help the other Valley teams bring in some quality four year players?......IMO its the lack of coaching stability that has hurt the Mo Valley. Coaches who happen to do well (SIU guys) bolt for the first BCS job and the program soon takes a dive. I bring this up because I think the Valley getting better is a better option for WSU than heading to a watered down A10 or BE..........Please Discuss.

[ABC]

I agree that the best option is for the MVC to get better

It doesn't seem clear to me one way or the other if that can happen

[Dan]

Start with scheduling better non-conf games. Next is to win the games in the non-con.

[ShockerPrez]

Misery Valley.

[tw805]

It really doesn't matter. The "big boys" will just change the rules. They've actually gone so far as to push the NCAA to give them the explicit authority to change the rules. When the Valley was a top five RPI conference, all we heard was how the Valley had learned to "game" the RPI, so the RPI doesn't count. Now that the Valley has a crappy RPI, the RPI is suddenly a legitimate point of comparison again. So the metric will just shift again if the Valley tightens up RPI in the future.

College basketball exists in a world where having six losses is considered by some to be better than having zero losses. You can't win against those rules.

[WuShock16]

College basketball exists in a world where having six losses is considered by some to be better than having zero losses. You can't win against those rules.

This to the power of infinity.

[_kai_]

The issue would be coach stability. But what pushes the coaches to BCS jobs? It's not stability or prestige, it is $$$$$$. If the administrations of the other Valley schools actually wanted to spend money on athletics then there would be the answer. But we have administrations in the MVC who sell cattle to pay for arenas with no locker rooms, we have presidents who threaten to take away athletics as if that won't hurt recruiting in the present, we have adminstrators who replace Creighton with Loyola...

And when I say "we" I mean the other Valley schools. Wichita's administration is excellent. Forward thinkers who have put our coaches in positions to win, and win right now and for the future. Great facilities and great alumni support of our athletics.

[Shocks2005]

I'm not so sure even if there is the possibility of it getting fixed. Especially with some of the MVC football schools that are currently looking to move their teams. Those schools are the ones that could potentially pay their coach and put enough money into their basketball to make it worth the while. Specifically I'm talking about MO State. Upgraded facilities, some decent runs the last decade and a football team that needs a lift. I think if we lose a program like them we don't have much room to improve and/or replace them with.. I honestly don't see the MVC regaining from Creighton's departure.. sadly.

[wu_shizzle]

The issue would be coach stability. But what pushes the coaches to BCS jobs? It's not stability or prestige, it is $$$$$$. If the administrations of the other Valley schools actually wanted to spend money on athletics then there would be the answer. But we have administrations in the MVC who sell cattle to pay for arenas with no locker rooms, we have presidents who threaten to take away athletics as if that won't hurt recruiting in the present, we have adminstrators who replace Creighton with Loyola...

The rest of the Valley must look to Indiana State as their model.

They are proof you can get mediocre results by spending little to no money.

[pogo]

The only way the valley can get back into the upper reaches of conference strength is to recruit and develop 4 year players with the occasional juco thrown in to cover a miss in the recruiting circuit. They can only do this if they can retain very good coaches and their staffs, and upgrading the facilities. WSU and the other school that left and will remain nameless had stable coaching and staffs along with very nice facilities. Some of the schools are caught in trying to support football and not having the funds available to help with basketball. Unless they come up with dedicated support for basketball only, the funds to upgrade their basketball will always be lacking. I would assume its a double edged sword for them and there are no Presidents or AD's willing to make the choice to drop football and concentrate on the "other" sports. Retaining good coaches is paramount but has got to be difficult. Use Drake as an example and when Dr Tom retired and left his son to take the reins and had a tremendous year and promptly left and then floundered in his new job. It takes a special kind of coach to stay the course.

[_kai_]

The rest of the Valley must look to Indiana State as their model.

They are proof you can get mediocre results by spending little to no money.

Think what they could do if they spent some money?

[CBB_Fan]

The MVC needs the following to be relevant:

1. Non-conference scheduling: The MVC had the 21st best OOC SOS of the 32 conferences. That is unacceptable. We need a new conference-wide scheduling mandate to insure that we can have years like 2006, where the six top teams where in the RPI Top 50. This year? Us. It is vitally important for every member of the conference to schedule the toughest schedules they can, not just the teams that want to have a shot at the postseason. If the Thursday teams continue to have OOC SOS numbers in the 240+ range they'll continue to drag the rest of the league down with them.

This year two MVC schools had a top 50 OOC SOS, us and UNI. The third best was Illinois State at #125. That isn't the formula for success.

2. $$$, coaching: To get a Gregg Marshall a school needs to be willing to pay for a Gregg Marshall. Last year, 6 Valley schools were content to pay less than $500,000 (UNI and Bradley at exactly $500,000). This year that number jumps to 7. The bottom coaches are earning what amounts to assistant coaching salaries at major conferences. Coaching is the single biggest factor for a team's success in college basketball, and the MVC has gotten what it has paid for. Not only do good coaches jump from the MVC to take power conferences jobs, we've seen head coaches leave to take assistant coaching jobs in the AAC, and many will skip over the MVC and go to a higher paying job in the MWC, Big East, A10, or AAC.

3. JUCOs: The Valley cannot continue to be stubborn about taking JUCO players. Wichita State has made living mixing JUCO recruits in with their four year players, letting us avoid the 4 year cycle of most other MVC schools (horrible, bad, mediocre, good). Other Valley schools must do the same. For too long the Valley has been the land of the fabled four year recruit, but that means that Valley teams often are horrible unless they have a good senior class. This year was especially hard because the Valley lost a ton of seniors and had to replace them with freshmen, and not 4 or 5* freshmen at that. We need to recruit JUCOs to create some consistency, because otherwise we'll continue to have RPI 200+ teams at the bottom to drag our good teams down.

[Rosewood]

1) The programs in the valley must want to get better. Bradley, for example, has to say "We want to be #1" and mean it. They need to work towards that goal and that goal should be enough of a carrot in and of itself.
2) The Valley office needs to be the stick to that carrot. There needs to be real, enforced punishment for poor scheduling. I was looking at Bradley's schedule and jesus. I don't know what kind of punishments should be dished out for that but they need to be punished. Maybe a bad schedule means you don't get your share of the NCAA money.

[RoyalShock]

As long as most of the schools with the most potential for having consistently good programs (ISUr, ISUb, UNI, MSU, SIU) continue to pour money into FCS football programs with the hope of getting invited to the MAC or some other crappy basketball conference with FBS football, the MVC will never become a top-7 conference for more than one fluke year, let alone a top 5/6 conference.

I rarely speak of the future with certainty, so I'm going out on a limb with that one.

Now, with all the realignment, having a goal of being 8th or 9th every year isn't horrible, and should produce multiple bids more often than not.

[Aargh]

FB schools leaving the Valley for a FBS league? Forget it. The cost is enormous and there's no TV or bowl revenue the first several years. Attendance wouldn't rise enough to pay the additional costs. The FB schools are mostly lacking financial stability already.

$$$. Most Valley schools don't have the financial resources available for athletics that WSU has. They CAN'T pay enough to retain a good coach. There's no one willing to put up their share of a $250K bump for a successful coach.

Coaching stability. Lusk will have some success at MSU - and be gone. Jacobsen at UNI could have left already, but I think he missed just when that window was open. Now he'll probably stay and wander back and forth between 2nd and 5th ala Barry Hinson at MSU. Maybe get an NCAA bid every 4 or 5 years - MAYBE! Hinson could have some staying power at SIU 'cause he's already "damaged goods", and doesn't seem to be as cash-driven as some younger coaches. That might give SIU a chance to regain respectability. MVC coaching is either "leave when success happens", or "get fired when it doesn't". There won't be the coaching stability necessary to build programs.

Commitment to excellence. This has to exist from top (President) to bottom (team managers). I'd rather not comment on this, because it's can never be anything but a guess based on evidence that may or may not support the guess. There may be a couple of schools with the right "attitude" to raise the level of their programs. Some other schools would probably need some changes (please note that is intentionally plural) at the very top end to have the institutional attitude that seems to drive successful programs.