Not looking good for Loyola

[WSUwatcher]

Probably. And it makes you wonder what the MVC was thinking.

Indeed it does, DJ. Pretty much all major league towns -- and with a total of five teams in the big four sports, Chicago trails only New York and San Francisco (really, SF/Oakland/SanJose) as a major league town -- focus heavily on their pro teams and treat college sports as something of an afterthought. That's definitely true of Chicago, where even Notre Dame football just an hour and a half away isn't as big a sports story in Chicago as the Bears are. And if that's the case in football, you can imagine how big a deal Loyola basketball ISN'T now, fifty years after their championship, in a city where the basketball attention goes first to the Bulls, and then to a mix of DePaul, Northwestern, and even Illinois before Loyola pops up these days.

Maybe the Valley should expand to 12 and bring in Illinois-Chicago and Chicago State to lock up the market completely, since Illinois State isn't going to get the job done. Yeah, right -- that's the ticket!

[ShauXTyme]

Didn't know UPenn had scandles lately. Now, Penn St. on the other hand...

[Kung Wu]

Didn't know UPenn had scandles lately. Now, Penn St. on the other hand...

Good call! LOL

[1972Shocker]

People like to make fun of Evansville, and often they have good reason, but as recently as 5 years ago Evansville was Top 100 in attendance. That year and the 12 years prior (data I have, I would actually expect it to go UP considerably if you include the other 2 years they have been in the Valley), Evansville averaged 7,093 fans per game. All while amassing the fewest league wins of any team in the conference, at a rate 0.7 losses/year LOWER than the next worst.

I visited Evansville for the 1st time this past Saturday, walked the campus and attended the WSU-Evansville Volleyball match. I had not really ever given much thought to Evansville as a community but I was generally positively impressed by what I saw. The population of the Evansville MSA is around 358,000 which compares favorably to Peoria's 379,000. The business and industrial base seems fairly well diversified including a large Toyota plant just north of Evansville among other major employers. Evansville is the 3rd largest city in Indiana behind Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne.

The campus is very nice but small. The fact that it is a small, Methodist affiliated university perhaps keeps the support level below what it would be if it was in the state university system. The student body is small at around 2,500 total enrollment, 90% of which live on or within walking distance of the university. 95% of full-time students receive financial aid and scholarships which the average package of $26,000 per year.

Evansville is only 3 hours from St. Louis, 3 hours from Indianapolis, 2 hours from Nashville, 2 hours from Louisville, and 4 hours from Cincinnati. That is not a bad recruiting territory, although they are not going to be in on the first line of recruits.

One thing Evansville and WSU have in common is the name Koch. One of the main buildings on the campus is the Koch Center for Engineering and Science. I am not 100% sure but my guess is this Koch is Koch Enterprises, Inc. headquartered in Evansville. I can't say if it is pronounced coke, cook, or cotch and I don't think there is any relationship to Charles and at $1 billion in annual revenues they are tiny compared to the $115 billion in annual revenues of Koch Industries.

[Shocker-maniac]

Didn't know UPenn had scandles lately. Now, Penn St. on the other hand...

I think there may have been a recent pumpkin smashing scandal at UPenn. Let me tell you, heads are going to roll.

[1972Shocker]

BTW, if you do happen to visit Evansville I can highly recommend Turoni's which is just north of the Evansville campus. :good:

Thanks to the Evansville student for that tip.

[MadaboutWu]

Penn State would not look to Loyola's AD even if he was pretty good at cleaning house. That would probably crack up their board.

[Kung Wu]

Penn State would not look to Loyola's AD even if he was pretty good at cleaning house. That would probably crack up their board.

She. But funny stuff.

I wonder why she fired two coaches that took their programs to the championships? In fact, she fired a TON of coaches at LoyChi. I should read up on that, but if anybody already has, please spoon feed me.

[capnkirk]

Let's not forget, Loyola is only in year 2 of a 20 year rebuilding process. Patience my peeps, patience........ :/

[Cdizzle]

Let's not forget, Loyola is only in year 2 of a 20 year rebuilding process. Patience my peeps, patience........ :(

Sooooo, why not let them work on the first 10 years of the rebuilding process while NOT destroying the RPI of the league? Any rebuilding process that involves Porter Moser as head coach is a farce.

[_kai_]

Let's not forget, Loyola is only in year 2 of a 20 year rebuilding process. Patience my peeps, patience........ :/

[Ricardo del Rio]

While no one would argue that the MVC's quality has declined and that the bottom feeders have been particularly bad at times, there is little basis for the idea that the Valley as a whole is approaching Chicago State levels and what argument there is would be as much about Chicago State having an abnormally good year last year as it would be about the Valley having an abnormally bad year. Here are the rpi numbers from the past 3 seasons (excluding WSU):

	Chicago State	Loyola	DU	Mo. St.	UNI	Il. St.	In. St.	SIU	EU	BU
2013-14	260	292	179	93	112	133	73	201	210	264
2012-13	321	221	140	198	80	106	72	188	90	179
2011-12	337	310	142	127	72	99	137	256	143	268

In 2012-13, the only school within 100 rpi slots of Chicago State was Loyola (who wasn't even in the MVC at that point). In 2011-12 that number was at three (Loyola, SIU, and Bradley). As bad as last year was for the Valley, if Chicago State hadn't improved their rpi by over 60 slots, that number would have only returned to two teams being within 100 rpi slots (Loyola and Bradley).

Historically, Chicago State has been a 300+ rpi team. Even with the decline in the Valley, the only team flirting with 300 in the rpi is Loyola. Even if we consider Bradley and SIU as being in that category (which as bad as they have been is a hard sell with their best year in the past 3 seasons each being 70 slots better than Chicago State's best year and never finished within 30 slots of 300), those three teams represent the entirety of MVC teams that are even remotely comparable to Chicago State (and that does include some seasons with major injury or dismissal problems).

Evansville is the only other team to have a single 200+ rpi season, but that comes on a rebuilding year after a top 100 year and a top 150 year. Drake and Missouri State have more finishes in the top 150 (4) than outside it (2) including a top 100 finish. UNI, Illinois State, and Indiana State have not been outside of the top 150 in that timespan.

So if we want to say that the bottom three in the Valley are at risk of resembling Chicago State, especially if injuries play in, there is a case to be made (although I would contend that only Loyola really fits that bill). Even excluding WSU, however, that leaves 6 teams that clearly don't fit that profile, even if they don't resemble the Valley at the height of its power.

Thoughtful.

[capnkirk]

Sooooo, why not let them work on the first 10 years of the rebuilding process while NOT destroying the RPI of the league? Any rebuilding process that involves Porter Moser as head coach is a farce.

It was my attempt at sarcasm....

[Cdizzle]

It was my attempt at sarcasm....

Exactly. Adding Loyola to the league didn't even make sense sarcastically. That's tough to do.

[Kung Wu]

Hey, I found something looking good for Loyola!