Possible Missouri Valley Conference Expansion

[vu72]

I just checked MapQuest and from DFW Airport it's 194 miles.  There isn't much "2-3" in 194miles. It's "3+hours".  I've driven it. 

[usc4valpo]

you can make it in 2.5 hours. you can drive your car on Texas highways as if it were the Batmobile. The issue only is how much time you spend at Buc-ees.

[vuny98]

I know a lot of people in Davenport that say they live in the Chicagoland area.

You know a lot of liars, haha

[may know]

We can drive our car like a Batmobile in TX and drive 194 miles in 2.5 hours.

Busses carrying the players and staff can't. That's 3+ hours for them.

And the entire objective of TX expansion for university presidents is to be *IN* DFW. A school 194 miles away doesn't achieve that purpose. That's like an east coast conference adding a hypothetical DI school in the Quad Cities to drive enrollment from Chicago.

SFA is a non-starter and not a realistic candidate.

[usc4valpo]

Ok, so keep the conference as is. UMKC detriments, although road trips would be great since the BBQ is outstanding.

but never ever underestimate the power of Buc-ees.

[VUGrad1314]

I read somewhere that MVC teams are building their schedules with the understanding that there will be 20 conference games. That gives me hope that sanity has prevailed in this expansion process and we will be going to 11 with only Murray State and playing a 20 game double round robin. That is by far and away the best path forward. If we expand it should only be for solid basketball adds and nothing else. Their market is and should be irrelevant but if a worthy school also happens to be in a big market then that is even better (like Belmont). We cannot go around adding schools with potential and hoping we hit it big like we did with Loyola. What Loyola did is the exception not the rule. I am certain of that. I think it was legendary coach John Thompson who said "Potential will get you fired if you're a coach" so it is as well with conference realignment. Making decisions based on potential will tank your metrics and be a detriment to your conference far more often than it is a blessing. Look at CUSA. They bet big on potential and it almost destroyed the conference. Now the AAC is making the same mistake and I expect similar results. We as a basketball conference that thrives on our teams' ability to punch above their weight class need to only consider adding teams that can fit that profile regardless of where they are located. Markets will do nothing for the MVC unless those teams win and only if those teams win.

[usc4valpo]

Why Murray state

[Just Sayin]

Why Murray state

Why not?

[usc4valpo]

What have they done? I don't get it. Small media area where KFC is king.

[Just Sayin]

So you think SFA?

[usc4valpo]

More than Murray's St., just compare. Not to mention SFA is in a growing state.

[valpotx]

More than Murray's St., just compare. Not to mention SFA is in a growing state.

Louisiana, right?  Natchitoches?

[VUGrad1314]

I mean they're a great program but do we really want a school in our conference founded by a professional wrestler?

[Just Sayin]

usc4valpo: What have they [Murray State] done? I don't get it. Small media area where KFC is king.
I like SFA more than Murray's St., just compare.

Kenpom Program Rankings from 1997-2021 Seasons

Overall Rating of all teams: (Range +49.72 through -24.00

SFA +4.49
Murray St. +5.79
Valpo +5.67

Best/Worst Rating

SFA 61/254
Murray St. 35/218
Valpo 42/226

A Top 50 Ranking (Number of times)

SFA 0
Murray St. 1
Valpo 2

Made Round 1 of NCAA Tourney (Number of times)

SFA 1
Murray St. 10
Valpo 8

Made Sweet 16 (Number of times)

SFA 0
Murray St. 0
Valpo 1

[VUGrad1314]

Okay, this might be a totally off the wall bonkers unrealistic theory but hear me out: Maybe the reason why we haven't heard anything yet is because Murray State is the one (and only) choice for the league AND the MVC is holding that twelfth spot open for an unexpected (and welcome) surprise: the return of Wichita State sometime between now and 2025. If you think about it all the dominos that we know of right now seem to be pointing this way:

1. The MVC is going to a 20 game conference schedule suggesting perhaps that only one team is going to be added right now (though of course that isn't a guarantee since many leagues with 12+ teams have already taken this step.

2. Murray State has football. If they were just going to add UIC UTA or UMKC (or just two of the three) they could and would have done so already. Murray State's football issues being unresolved has to be what's holding up any expansion moves.

3. The lack of talk from Murray State sources about different conferences or even negotiations with different conferences

4. The lack of smoke from any beat writers recently (outside of one tweet from UMKC that seems to have really jumped the gun because it doesn't mesh well with the other rumor of them starting hockey which might soon become a Summit League sport with so many teams (North Dakota Omaha Denver and St Thomas off the top of my head) already playing it.

5.  The seeming loosening of Murray State's market size as a detriment to its candidacy after Loyola's departure

6. The growing likelihood that the AAC is going to suffer more defections of prominent members sometime in the next few years when the Big XII potentially expands again (Memphis? SMU? South Florida?)

7. The lesser media contract the AAC (understandably agreed to post 2025 that will see reductions in payouts for any program left making AAC less palatable especially for a partial member like Wichita State.

8. The lessening likelihood that Wichita State (who will probably look to leave the AAC especially if one or more of Memphis SMU and possibly Temple (who could choose A10 membership and Football Independence over remaining in a depleted AAC and traveling to Texas several times a year) will have other options. I doubt the A10 will take them on institutional and (especially) geographic and academic grounds and the Mountain West who is reluctant to add non-football members beyond Gonzaga would only have space to accommodate them if Gonzaga declines OR Gonzaga accepts and Hawaii rejoins as a full member (unlikely but possible) OR if Gonzaga accepts AND the Mountain West is willing to (or Gonzaga insists on) bringing St Mary's along with them (unlikely). At this point Wichita State would be faced with three options:

1. Stay in an AAC without Cincinnati Houston UCF and possibly one or more of Memphis SMU Temple or South Florida or

2. Join another league that would almost assuredly be worse than the MVC especially if the MVC also adds Murray State or

3. Go back to the MVC

Sure there's more money involved with option 1 but that will be eaten up in travel most likely especially if most of the eastern schools stay and they complained about seeding before playing an MVC slate. How are they going to feel when they're playing the likes of Rice UTSA and Florida Atlantic? They'd have almost no choice but to accept option 3 as much as they wouldn't want to do it.

The best thing the MVC can do right now is finalize the Murray State addition and wait. It could  potentially pay off very big in the near future. The Current MVC minus Loyola but Plus Belmont Murray State and Wichita State would have no problem being a 2-3 bid conference annually and will provide quality games from top to bottom for all institutions. I hope it happens.

[usc4valpo]

Bunch of BS Just Sayin. Kenpom is Midwest biased and hates the conference of champions. SFA has been in the tourney 5 times, and has won 2 games and almost beat ND to get in the sweet 16.

Regarding Valpo, we need to quit bringing up 1998. We are sounding like Bear fans reminiscing 1985! SFA right now is a better program than Valpo.

[Just Sayin]

Bunch of BS Just Sayin. Kenpom is Midwest biased and hates the conference of champions. SFA has been in the tourney 5 times, and has won 2 games and almost beat ND to get in the sweet 16.

Regarding Valpo, we need to quit bringing up 1998. We are sounding like Bear fans reminiscing 1985! SFA right now is a better program than Valpo.

You have just confirmed that you are divorced from reality. KenPom reports facts. You just don't like facts that disagree with your ill-informed, everything-USC-rose-colored opinion.

[usc4valpo]

Like Fox News and their Stepford anchorwomen?

[usc4valpo]

What rationale proves that a KenPom ranking is factual?  Note that conference of champions teams were under seeded for the tournament and outperformed overranked Big 10 teams which surely had higher PomPom rankings. 3 conference of champion teams were in the elite 8, and who knows if it could have been four since USC faced Oregon in the Sweet 16, which was a conspiracy by the NCAA and clowns like Gary Barto.

It

[vu84v2]

Ratings of team's strength on sites like KenPom, collegebasketballreference.com, etc. are constructs. They are estimates of how good a team is based on the author's algorithm. The people who write these algorithms are certainly very skilled at statistical modeling, but the limitation is the same as any type of similar measure. Constructs are not facts.

Using a different site's construct measuring performance (collegebasketballreference.com) over the last 20 years (in which 0 is the average of all D1 teams)
SFA: Average team strength: -0.555  Best: 9.23 (2015-2016); Worst: -10.99 (2018-2019)
Valpo: Average team strength: 1.376  Best: 10.71 (2015-2016); Worst: -4.43 (2008-2009)

It is safe to say that, using this measure of performance, the data shows that there is no statistical difference between SFA and Valpo - but that is probably because only 20 years were used.

By the way, this site has the Pac-12 rated as the second best conference this season (so far). They were also second last year with two teams in the Top 10.

[usc4valpo]

Since the Valpo board is Big10 biased, it is imperative that the Pac12 gets represented properly. USC defeated MVC powerhouse Drake decisively and no one gave Troy credit for their win. The PAC 12 has significantly more NCs than any other conference and overwhelmingly leads in Olympic success. No Kenpom ranking will ever show that.

[Just Sayin]

Ratings of team's strength on sites like KenPom, collegebasketballreference.com, etc. are constructs. They are estimates of how good a team is based on the author's algorithm. The people who write these algorithms are certainly very skilled at statistical modeling, but the limitation is the same as any type of similar measure. Constructs are not facts.

Using a different site's construct measuring performance (collegebasketballreference.com) over the last 20 years (in which 0 is the average of all D1 teams)
SFA: Average team strength: -0.555  Best: 9.23 (2015-2016); Worst: -10.99 (2018-2019)
Valpo: Average team strength: 1.376  Best: 10.71 (2015-2016); Worst: -4.43 (2008-2009)

It is safe to say that, using this measure of performance, the data shows that there is no statistical difference between SFA and Valpo - but that is probably because only 20 years were used.

By the way, this site has the Pac-12 rated as the second best conference this season (so far). They were also second last year with two teams in the Top 10.

Kenpom uses the data from box scores as the primary aspect of rating teams. Those are facts about what happened on the court. He only  estimates items which are not shown in the box scores such as possessions. (See this estimate below in bold in Pomeroy's explanation of the stats)
Pomeroy writes:

Offensive/Defensive Efficiency – This is the number of points scored or allowed per 100 possessions. There are only about 70 possessions for each team in the average college basketball game, so these numbers are higher that the points-per-game statistics you see used by the media.
Like tempo, I average each team's efficency by game. The other way to do this would be to take a team's total points on the season and divide it by total possesions. But this gives some games more weight than others depending on the number of possessions in a particular contest.
The raw numbers are computed from the data contained in a box score

His rankings page ranks both offensive and defensive efficiency. The final rank (AdjEM = Adjusted Efficiency Margin) is Offensive Efficiency minus Defensive Efficiency for every team.  AdjEM "represents the number of points the team would be expected to outscore the average D-I team over 100 possessions."   He does use algorithims and incorporates some of Dean Oliver's work on the four factors. But those are based on what happens in the box scores. He provides many actual stats from every game for each team and incorpates that into his rankings. He doesn't explain how he incorporates these stats into his rankings, it's proprietary, but here Ken explains some of the other stats he utilizes:

Stats Explained
Ken Pomeroy | 08.01.05
Let's start with the most basic stats to measure the ability of a team's offense and defense.


Offensive efficiency
Points scored per 100 offensive possessions.

Defensive efficiency
Points allowed per 100 defensive possessions.

In order to compute efficiency, we need to know how to compute possessions.

Possessions
We can estimate possessions very well from box score stats by using this formula.

FGA-OR+TO+0.475xFTA

For each team, possessions are counted for the team and their opponents, and then averaged.

Efficiency gives us broad view of how well the offense or defense functions, but we can break efficiency into what Dean Oliver dubbed the Four Factors. Shooting, rebounding, turnovers, and free throws provide the basic components of efficiency.

Effective field goal percentage (eFG%)
(FGM + 0.5*3PM) / FGA

Shooting is measured by effective field goal percentage, which differs from conventional field goal percentage by taking into account the extra value of a made 3-pointer.

Offensive rebounding percentage
OR / (OR + DR)

Defensive rebounding percentage can also be computed, using defensive rebounds in the numerator.

Turnover percentage
TO / Possessions

Free throw rate
This can either be FTM/FGA or FTA/FGA. Typically, for team offense FTM/FGA is used, while on defense FTA/FGA is used. This is FTA/FGA for both offense and defense.

There are other team stats that are less important than the Four Factors, with the common approach of converting the standard per-game stats to per-opportunity.

Assist Rate
A / FGM

Block Rate
Blocked shots / Opp. 2PA

Steal Rate
Steals / Defensive possessions

All of the above stats can apply to individuals in some form, also. There are two other stats that are applied to individuals that aren't applied to teams. These stats were developed by Dean Oliver, and the formulas are far too complicated to list here. His book, Basketball on Paper, is worth buying if you are interested in how the calculations are performed.

Offensive Rating
This is the personal version of team offensive efficiency.

Usage (% of possessions used)
This describes a player's role in the offense, by explaining how many of his team's possessions a player is personally responsible for ending while he is on the floor.

A simpler version of personal efficiency is this one

True shooting percentage (TS%)

Points scored / ( 2* (FGA + 0.475*FTA)

Pomeroy is a very smart and knowledgable statistician. And what I like best is the effort he puts into making the rankings predictive. He wrote:

So I've dusted off that algorithm, spent some time tuning the various parameters, and applied it to the efficiency model to improve the predictive power of adjusted offense and adjusted defense

KenPom provides the probability of winning for each game played every day. He's good. He's not perfect -no one is- but he's very good. My hobby is using the plethora of stats from his site and using multiple regression analysis, I come up with several models to test and compare them to his predictions. I pick the best models, time allowing and use them in March Madness competitions to see how they fare against milliions of others who do the same. The ESPN Tourney Challenge is the best one in my view. You can use several models and you can join other Valpo fans for a separate reporting of just Valpo fans. I encourage people to join that one come Big Dance Time and to use your moniker that you use on this forum.

[vu84v2]

I think we both agree that KenPom is very detailed and that Pomeroy does a great job continuously working to refine his model. But since he uses facts to make predictions or suggest overall performance differences between teams, he is creating constructs (which, by definition, are not facts or 'the truth').

[vu84v2]

Since the Valpo board is Big10 biased, it is imperative that the Pac12 gets represented properly. USC defeated MVC powerhouse Drake decisively and no one gave Troy credit for their win. The PAC 12 has significantly more NCs than any other conference and overwhelmingly leads in Olympic success. No Kenpom ranking will ever show that.

I cannot speak for others, but my biases are teams in the Big 12, Big East and MVC - because those are the teams that I see the most.

[usc4valpo]

Just having some fun here, but all models are wrong, but some are useful