The Rise & Fall of the Valley

[Shoxcity]

Valpo definitely brings more to the table for the Valley than Loyola did, but I'm not sure it can get the Valley back to a multi bid league.

[Play Angry]

Valpo definitely brings more to the table for the Valley than Loyola did, but I'm not sure it can get the Valley back to a multi bid league.

It will happen on occasion, just far less often than we've seen the last couple decades.

About half the teams in the league (ISUr, UNI and Bradley for sure, probably MSU) are certainly capable of cycling up to a top 30-40 level when the stars align. That, coinciding with a loss in the MVC Tournament, will sometimes produce a fluke multi-bid season. There may even be a miracle year once every three decades or so where somehow the league gets 3 bids as a couple teams cycle up concurrently.

However, I would guess that the new norm will be 1 bid for the MVC 80-90% of the time. They are in a tough spot.

[Topshock]

We dropped football and basketball promptly went into the tank for almost 20 years. If your Athletic department isn't actively trying to push the bar, you can drop all the sports you want and it won't make a difference. The only school that has dropped football recently and actually put an emphasis on basketball was St. Mary's. Everyone else is still right where they were. The rest including long beach, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Fullerton, Pacific, Northridge, Hofstra, Northeastern, Boston U, La Salle, Sienna, and Ionna, are all still right where they were...low major basketball programs.

The fact we didn't have the financial drain of football is a huge reason we were able to get basketball out of the tank.

[SHOCKvalue]

The fact we didn't have the financial drain of football is a huge reason we were able to get basketball out of the tank.

Ironically though, MBB wasn't even in the tank in 1986. It was doing fine.

We are where we are today in MBB because of a good head coach hire, then a great head coach hire, plus a slow but steady snowballing of donor giving - to include big fish all the way to the little guy.

WSU athletics gets very little in the way of institutional support. If we had the institutional support proportionally that most of our peers have we'd have a $40M or $50M athletics budget, and no trouble supporting football on a year-to-year operational basis at the AAC level.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the narrative that says we spend big today on MBB because of FB's cancellation 30 years ago is a warped view.

[Shoxcity]

It will happen on occasion, just far less often than we've seen the last couple decades.

About half the teams in the league (ISUr, UNI and Bradley for sure, probably MSU) are certainly capable of cycling up to a top 30-40 level when the stars align. That, coinciding with a loss in the MVC Tournament, will sometimes produce a fluke multi-bid season. There may even be a miracle year once every three decades or so where somehow the league gets 3 bids as a couple teams cycle up concurrently.

However, I would guess that the new norm will be 1 bid for the MVC 80-90% of the time. They are in a tough spot.

Going to be hard though with the budget cuts in Missouri and Illinois though.

[Aargh]

If IlSU couldn't get an at large this year, I don't see how the Valley is likely to be even a "sometimes" multi-bid conference.

[wufan]

If IlSU couldn't get an at large this year, I don't see how the Valley is likely to be even a "sometimes" multi-bid conference.

Other schools will have to be better to bring up the second team. Long row to hoe.

[ShockerPhi]

Hell, the only reason the Valley was a multi-bid league the few times after Creighton left is because we couldn't win the damn Arch Madness tournament. If we would have won the Arch Madness tournament every year, only 2015 would have been a multi-bid year (UNI and WSU being at-large worthy). The last current Valley team to be at-large worthy not named UNI was Drake (lol) in 2008.

[Shoxcity]

It will never happen if Elgin doesn't take a stance and setting requirements for scheduling.

[Topshock]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the narrative that says we spend big today on MBB because of FB's cancellation 30 years ago is a warped view.

I don't think there is any thing "warped" about it. If we had shouldered the financial strain and debt that would have been racked up by supporting a second class albatross of a football program we would be in a similar position to some other Valley schools. They can't build their basketball program because even if they find a good coach they can't retain him by paying the elite money required to do so. We can argue the point indefinitely but IMO if we had been supporting football the last 30 years there is no way we would have been able to find the money from any source to build the elite basketball program which we all now enjoy.

[ShockBand]

From the Valley office?
Non Action & Stop Excitement!

[Kung Wu]

From the Valley office?
Non Action & Stop Excitement!

HAHAHAHAHA

[Aargh]

It will never happen if Elgin doesn't take a stance and setting requirements for scheduling.

Last time Elgin did that, the Presidents didn't like it, so it was removed. There seems to be a lot of small thinking at the top of a lot of Valley schools. I think the admins at the various schools would be quite happy to be the biggest kid at the kiddie table. They've got that in football.

[1972Shocker]

Last time Elgin did that, the Presidents didn't like it, so it was removed. There seems to be a lot of small thinking at the top of a lot of Valley schools. I think the admins at the various schools would be quite happy to be the biggest kid at the kiddie table. They've got that in football.

Except right now the biggest kids at the MVFC table are not "Valley" schools.

http://www.valley-football.org/

[RoyalShock]

Last time Elgin did that, the Presidents didn't like it, so it was removed. There seems to be a lot of small thinking at the top of a lot of Valley schools. I think the admins at the various schools would be quite happy to be the biggest kid at the kiddie table. They've got that in football.

And this is why I take issue with laying the league's problems at the feet of Elgin. If the university presidents (his bosses), ADs and coaches won't do their parts, he can only do so much.