Now reports are saying the HL isn't done with NIU and the sentiment has been either EVille or Valpo should be dumped to the HL. Now while I don't think Valpo would ever return to the HL. I'm just curious what the sentiment would be if a return was possible.
From my end I think it would be a very poor decision
It would be a dumb move and a sign of weakness. Valpo makes more money being in the MVC. The issue is that Valpo needs to quit being a cellar dweller and needs to act like they should be in the MVC. I understand the cash issues, but Bradley and Drake are in a similar situation.
Program trajectory would be the same with slightly less talented competition. Vast majority of games still on ESPN+. Still need a conference tourney win for the tournament. From an alumni I don’t think it’d be anything detrimental. I do think casual observers would appreciate a better record. I don’t think MVC or Horizon we are having spectators come to visit the gym for the opponent outside of friends and family
IMO keeping Powell is more important than keeping our conference
Agreed on keeping Powell if that's a goal of the program.
What's the money difference?
The MVC is a terrific mid-major conference ranked in the top-10 with several awesome gameday environments. Arch Madness is a dream conference tournament and it makes me sad that it's the same 20 of us who go every year. So many more of our fans should be going, yet it's always the same faces.
Sadly, I think the reality is we are so far underfunded in NIL and behind with our arena, that we likely make the NCAA Tournament once every 25 years in the MVC. Outside the same 20 of us who attend every year, our fan base has not treated Arch Madness with enthusiasm, so those games are effectively quasi-road games unless we're playing UIC or Belmont.
In years past, I would've said returning to the Horizon League would be a terrible idea. Now, I think it might be the only path for us to sustain success. I love Powell, but I think he's recruiting/coaching with two arms tied behind his back, given how much we're over our heads with NIL/ARC in the MVC.
This institution just does not have the health it did 10 years ago. We're in such a different place enrollment-wise.
I think most of our alumni realize this, even if it's really hard to admit. It's taken me years to come around and admit it.
So if we move to the Horizon League, I don't think our alumni would oppose it. I think most would be pretty understanding and feel we can now be a consistent contender for the NCAA Tournament again in a league that we've dominated before and have a lot of institutional/financial parity with (as opposed to starting with a massive disadvantage across the board). Also, with the conference tournament being in Indy, it won't feel like road games. We should be 3rd or so in crowd size.
The quality of recruit severely diminishes in a downgrade. You wont get the All Wrights, the Cooper Schwiegers, ect ect. NIL is really just a factor of success at the mid major level. if your program is good, so will be the cash flow. Same with fans. VU fans dont want to go to St Louis because they expect a first round exit. Winning solves a lot of problems. Powell has proven that he can get good talent to go to VU despite its many shortcomings
This is a slam dunk. Emphatic YES. No question we are grossly underfunded compared to other MVC schools. No question we have failed to perform at even a mid-level since joining. No question we have watched Belmont, UIC, Murray State, Loyola all adapt faster and better.
There are two modes of thinking:
A) Let's stay because the money is too good in the MVC even though that comes at the cost of finishing in the bottom 4 every year. Let's stay because we get better recruits in the MVC, even though we still finish bottom 4 every year. Let's stay because MVC has more ESPN and ESPN2 games, even though we are never on them since we are bottom 4 every year. Lets stay because HL is a 1-bid conference even though MVC most 'recent' years is also a 1-bid conference.
B) Let's try to win. Let's align our resources with that of our competition. Let's stop believing in some imaginary years long rebuild or magic bullet of a coach. Let's accept the reality of our current situation and our future prospects. I want to win again. If a decade in the MVC doesn't convince you that we are in over our heads, nothing will.
Powell has proven that he can get good talent to go to VU despite its many shortcomings
Roger has done as well as anyone could. The result is back to back freshmen of the year (or close to) and really upped the talent. The result..........6 wins instead of 3 wins. Same place in the standings. Also, the one team that we will finish in front of is leaving the conference. At the start of next year we enter as the worst team from the prior year.
Some of you guys really look at the HL days with rose tinted glasses and it shows
Some of you guys really look at the HL days with rose tinted glasses and it shows
I think what we (or maybe just I) are trying to say is that some are looking at our never ending misery in the MVC with rose colored glasses. There are no tangible reasons to believe things will get better here. We don't want to look weak? what? Just gotta start winning. Great plan. Why didn't we do that years ago. We aren't in a lull. This IS who we are. I am not trying to reminisce for the glory days of the HL. If we return, we will NOT dominate. I am trying to get some here to look forward. It's bleak. But at least we'll get more money for finishing last if Drake steals a couple wins in the NCAA.
Some of you guys really look at the HL days with rose tinted glasses and it shows
You don’t need rose-colored glasses. In the last 6 years of Horizon League play, Valpo won the conference 5 times. The reality was so bright you needed sunglasses!
The HL is also a pit of less money and less exposure. Valpo had the perfect resume to move up and they did. Unfortunately, they didn't have a coach who could carry that success through the transition period. I also would not call UIC and Murray "Success stories" in the transition. UIC was a bottom feeder last year and is middling this year. Murray is also bottom of the pack for both their years of Valley play. The only success story, if you can even call it that, has been Belmont. Evansville also spends less than VU on their athletics, and yet, they are not thinking of leaving anytime soon. As for Loyola. They made a lateral Move. The A-10 and the valley are sister leagues. No matter how much people dont want to admit it. The main benefit to being in the A-10 is that they get more games on live tv, which is what Loyola wanted.
"Making more money" doesn't really do anything for us when the 10 schools standing in the way of us and the NCAA Tournament are also getting that same money and already have better funding/NIL and facilities on top of it.
I'd be curious how many people opposed to moving to an easier conference actually go to Arch Madness every year. I can tell you being on the ground there, it's a bit disheartening to see the 20 of us who do go be completely towered over by the fans at Bradley, Indiana St, Drake, Illinois St, Northern Iowa, SIU, Murray St, etc. I'll walk into Ballpark Village and it's packed and overrun with those fan bases...while I'm the only VU fan there.
Watching us trash can teams that are clearly ahead of us in the standings is just beautiful. Even marginalizing a team that went to the Final Four. It's as if we don't hear the words coming out of our own mouths. I swear we can rationalize ourselves being a one piece away from a top contender every single year. We are worried about exposure at 6-12? I am channeling my inner Jim Mora. Exposure! Exposure? You're talking about Exposure??
In the span of two years we lose the best player in program history (Alec Peters) as well as the last member from a 30 year stretch of NCAA basketball hall of fame coaches (the Drew Family). We can point to that same window as the time the university started to really go downhill from a fiscal and reputational (and as an extension, recruiting) standpoint.
And somehow we still have people pointing to the upgrade to the MVC, a league we regularly beat members of while in the HL, as the main driver of failure for the program? Please take a step back and look at why we had success. Generational coaching talent any NCAA team would dream of, development of overseas talent while adding quality transfers. Would any of this work nowadays? If the year was 2025 and we were in the HL would we be able to add a Shane Hammink or David Skara over a higher bidder? I think absolutely not.
We had a generational staff that was able to recruit players based on culture. Money wasn’t a factor back then otherwise we would’ve never had our golden age. It’s exactly what Powell is trying to build now. If it’s going to work, it’s going to work regardless of MVC or HL. If it’s not going to work, going back to the HL is not going to do anything more than buy us a couple extra wins a year. Lipstick on a pig.
This feels like hindsight bias in a nutshell.
