Anybody read Bob Lutz' article today?

[ShockTalk]

ABC - You and I are thinking much alike. Few differences - Memphis won't happen. I believe they want in the Big East. I'm OK with NMSt, but if we leave the Valley, I see St. Louis taking our spot.

Add for your consideration - LA Tech, LA-Laf, Tulane, North Texas, Creighton. Not sure ORU would poney up enough to match this group in overall athletics. Missouri State would need to go D1 in football. Would like Western Kentucky, but they're probably too far east for this group.

I think a great 10-12 team league (with 8-10 for football) could be formed from your group and my additions. Very sound regionally and much mosre pleasant for fan travel as well.

[jocoshock]

Right now I will settle for WSU learning how to compete more consistently in the Valley. Moving to a larger more competitive conference may mean nothing more than us being a doormat.

The Valley has a good brand. Improve the brand, and the teams that are in it. How many of the other non-BCS conferences have their Tourney Championship game on national television?

And I agree with previous posts that dumping Drake is a non-starter. You don't dump a charter member.

[pinstripers]

Agreed, but replacing Evansfreakingville, Indy State, and UNI would be very nice.

[ABC]

The notion that a team has to dominate a conference before jumping is bunk. (See Arkansas, South Carolina, Marquette, Cincinatti and even Tulsa - etc etc etc)

We have the facilities and support equal to or better than many BCS league teams. It seems to me we need to think about stepping up to better competition.

Our main problem is geography. There just aren't that many good D1 programs that aren't in real BCS conferences already like OSU, Arkansas, OU et al.

And maybe Conf USA is the best option with Tulsa, Memphis, Rice, Houston, and SMU. But East Carolina, Marshall, UCF and Southern Miss seems like a ways away.

[jocoshock]

Slightly off topic, but US News Ranking of the Valley by School ranking

1 Creighton University Omaha, NE 1² Bluejays
2 Drake University Des Moines, IA 5² Bulldogs
3 Bradley University Peoria, IL 6² Braves
4 University of Evansville Evansville, IN 11² Aces
5 University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA 17² Panthers
6 Missouri State University Springfield, MO 45² Bears
7 Illinois State University Normal, IL Tier 3 Redbirds
8 Southern Illinois University--Carbondale Carbondale, IL Tier 3 Salukis
9 Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN Tier 4 Sycamores
10 Wichita State University Wichita, KS Tier 4 Shockers

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/masters-midwest-search

Perhaps the new Valley should look like this:

1. Creighton
2. Drake
3. Valpo
4. Xavier
5. Evansville
6. Northern Iowa
7. Bradley
8. Butler
9. Missouri State or Western Kentucky
10. Western Kentucky or Tulsa
Based on the fact that these schools are considered Master Universities by US News.

IllSt, SIU, WSU and IndSt, being tier 3 and tier 4 schools can find another conference....based on their facilities, etc, etc, etc....although WSU still has a geography problem in with the other 3 schools....maybe something like this:

1. Ball State
2. Cleveland State
3. Illinois State
4. Southern Illinois
5. Indiana State
6. Oral Roberts
7. Rice
8. Wichita State
9. Missouri State
10. Houston

[SpanglerFan316]

Those academic rankings have long been known to be a joke. SIU & WSU have PhD programs. MSU does not and I don't think CU, DU, ILSU do either.

Rice is a great academic institution; a friend of mine got his PhD there. They have a good baseball program. I'd love to be in a conference with Rice.

[shocky]

The Valley has a good brand name at this point. The conference needs to rebound next year to keep our image as a top 10 league going. We just have been down for a couple of years and that is the nature of the beast in sports. Again, the key will be to rebound next year. Any move to a different league would have to be a big improvement before we should consider it.
My main concern is the UNI dropping baseball because dropping sports is never a good thing and shows a weakness in the overall support of the athletic programs. Also EU, Drake, ISU Blue continue to struggle in all sports. They just don't have the support that most of league enjoys. The only additions we should make is St Louis and WKU if they would ever give up on the Sun Belt. Image losing UE and gaining St Louis. That would take us to the next level.

[SubGod22]

I don't get the love affair with SLU. They may be an upgrade over a UE but that's not saying a whole lot. The problem with the Valley is there are only a handful of schools, if that, that seem to be dedicated to spending money on athletics and trying to be successful.

UE, DU and UNI just can't keep up there. UNI has had some success but I don't think they can/will maintain. ISU blue could do well I think if they'd commit to it, but I don't see that happening. SIU has stretched itself pretty thin at this point and if they don't rebound on the court soon they could be in a lot of trouble.

I do think CU, MSU, BU and ISUred are capable of doing what they need to do. The 'Birds I'm not totally sure about but I believe they're capable if they'll commit to pushing their programs.

If a conference shake up happens there are some teams I wouldn't mind being involved with. Some probably aren't options but Houston, TCU and Tulsa would be up there. I believe they all three play D1 football though. I wouldn't mind being in with a UTEP, North Texas or Rice.

Of course if you wanted to go East with things a dream school would be Memphis but that's not going to happen. Western Kentucky, Dayton and Xavier would be interesting.

I'm not really sold on any LA teams. Tulane I believe is good in baseball but aren't really heard from in basketball. Same with LA-Tech and LA-Laf. I'd really have to do more looking into things to come up with my ideal conference that would be somewhat possible.

I do like ABCs list but agree with ShockTalk that Memphis and SLU would be unlikely. If we took out them two I wouldn't mind adding in North Texas and someone else. Maybe we add Tulane to help baseball and be a doormat in basketball

[Shock Top]

This would be my dream conference! Although it would never happen. I guess it doesn't hurt to dream though :)!

BRADLEY
BUTLER
CREIGHTON
DAYTON
HOUSTON
ORAL ROBERTS
RICE
ST LOUIS
TULANE
WESTERN KENTUCKY
WICHITA ST
XAIVER

Most every university would provided a challenge in duo sports (either volleyball AND/OR baseball AND/OR basketball) and the ones who don't have a premiere program in one of the sports (i.e. Butler and Xaiver). None of the teams play DI Football, so it's not completely implausible for this to happen

[SubGod22]

This would be my dream conference! Although it would never happen. I guess it doesn't hurt to dream though :)!

BRADLEY
BUTLER
CREIGHTON
DAYTON
HOUSTON
ORAL ROBERTS
RICE
ST LOUIS
TULANE
WESTERN KENTUCKY
WICHITA ST
XAIVER

Most every university would provided a challenge in duo sports (either volleyball AND/OR baseball AND/OR basketball) and the ones who don't have a premiere program in one of the sports (i.e. Butler and Xaiver). None of the teams play DI Football, so it's not completely implausible for this to happen

Western Kentucky does play or is in the transitional phase of D1 now.

[Shock Top]

This would be my dream conference! Although it would never happen. I guess it doesn't hurt to dream though :)!

BRADLEY
BUTLER
CREIGHTON
DAYTON
HOUSTON
ORAL ROBERTS
RICE
ST LOUIS
TULANE
WESTERN KENTUCKY
WICHITA ST
XAIVER

Most every university would provided a challenge in duo sports (either volleyball AND/OR baseball AND/OR basketball) and the ones who don't have a premiere program in one of the sports (i.e. Butler and Xaiver). A couple teams do have FBS football teams, as that could pose a little problem but crazier things have happened

Western Kentucky does play or is in the transitional phase of D1 now.

I should have checked. I guess since they were already speculated, that they didn't. Oh well.

[TheWheatShocker]

This would be my dream conference! Although it would never happen. I guess it doesn't hurt to dream though :)!

BRADLEY
BUTLER
CREIGHTON
DAYTON
HOUSTON
ORAL ROBERTS
RICE
ST LOUIS
TULANE
WESTERN KENTUCKY
WICHITA ST
XAIVER

Most every university would provided a challenge in duo sports (either volleyball AND/OR baseball AND/OR basketball) and the ones who don't have a premiere program in one of the sports (i.e. Butler and Xaiver). None of the teams play DI Football, so it's not completely implausible for this to happen

Rice, Tulane, Western Kentucky, and Houston have FBS (Division 1) football.

[Maggie]

I guess I will weigh in on this issue, sort of... Should the situation arise, whatever the circumstances, in which WSU has an opportunity to join a conference with a higher “national” profile – then I am all for WSU seriously exploring such a move - how that opportunity might come about, and what teams would be involved, is obviously highly speculative.

That being said, I think some of the comments in this thread represent a “knee-jerk” reaction to the MVC. In short, I am not sure that the MVC is “stale”, yet, but I am starting to feel that way. In my judgment, the MVC is, for lack of a better word, in a basketball purgatory. I wouldn’t classify it as a true “mid-major” conference nor can it be considered a member of an “elite” conference. Therefore, it still suffers from some of the obvious maladies of lower conferences, i.e. the difficulty in non-conference scheduling, a lack of consistent national T.V. appearances and the inherent inability to earn “NCAA” tournament worthy wins in conference play (this, of course, results in an over reliance on non-conference wins to bolster an NCAA tournament resume – which is, in and of itself, a significant disadvantage – as a conference loss by a top 20 MVC team is often not perceived as a reflection of the MVC’s overall strength but rather that the top 20 team is overrated to begin with).

I am not sure that some of the proposed “new” conferences in this thread remedy this problem – except the obvious “dream” conferences. In fact, I am not sure how it can be practically solved. The MVC has, admittedly, been a young league the past couple of years and has had some coaching turnover. It goes without saying that the loss of coaches and experienced players will affect programs like those in the MVC much more drastically than those in more high profile conferences. I have always thought that the key was consistency – which the MVC did exhibit prior to 2008. However, I have been disappointed in the programs in the MVC that did not experience or should not have experienced such turnover, which shall remain unnamed, in maintaining the consistency and standards already in place. If this is what people mean my “stale” then I am inclined to agree but not just yet.

I want to see what happens next year and the year after before passing judgment on the MVC as a whole, in part, because I don’t see a better alternative out there for WSU – as they say the grass is not always greener on the other side. I don’t buy into the argument that WSU needs to dominate the MVC before considering a move to another conference or a newly formed conference that might be beneficial to WSU’s overall exposure. However, I do think it is obvious that the better WSU performs the more attractive it will be should the opportunity arise.

As for WSU – I do believe it is on the rise. Based upon what I have observed of CGM and how others I have met from S.C. who know him personally have told me I am confident he has what it takes to be successful at WSU. And I believe he will be consistently successful – in other words, I do not believe he viewed accepting the job at WSU as a stepping stone to a job at a higher conference which would predispose him to rely on a couple good recruiting classes to raise his profile, while subconsciously neglecting later recruiting classes, which would hurt the long term health of any program. I appears to me CGM’s vision of WSU Basketball involves much more than merely cutting down the nets after a regular season conference championship – we can only hope he succeeds.

While it is fun to speculate, I think all this talk about moving to a new conference is a bit pre-mature. If CGM is successful in the next two or three years I think, and this might be perceived as a bit arrogant and “homerish”, he and WSU will force some of the other programs in the MVC to compete at his/its level – which may in turn help the MVC’s overall reputation making a move to another conference a moot discussion. That is, of course, if the other programs have the will, resources, etc. to follow suit.

[vbird53]

In addition to what Maggie describes above, I would offer that as WSU goes, so goes the Valley. When the Shocks played at the level achieved from 2004-2007, the national media took notice along with the nation. Same goes for the 1960s and 1980s. Those eras were some of the best the Shocks have ever seen, and the national reputation of the league was also high during those times.

I'm not saying WSU is the end-all-be-all, but it can certainly make a very plausible case.

[Veritas]

At the very least, we need to be in a strong position to move up when the opportunity arrives.
I only get excited to win and take a look at the standings. However, beating UE, CU, SIU, Drake, etc does not in the LEAST make me proud of WSU. The Valley is a nice little conference that does not deserve WSU but should be left to the UNIs, CUs, and UEs of the world.
We need to be prepared to move.

I wonder what the plan is from AD Sexton?
Is he happy in the Valley?
Does he want to bring back football?
What are his dreams, visions, and goals?
Is our athletic department simply on cruise control?