One of the things Porter talked about in his post-decision interviews that I thought was interesting was that he is frustrated that being in a league like ours, the “body of work” in the regular season doesn’t matter. He also talked about being frustrated with winning the league, and then Marques had a bad game, we lose to Bradley by only 2 - and all of the sudden he felt like he had to apologize to everyone for having a perceived “disappointing season.” I feel like if we were a 2 bid league Porter would probably think less and less about leaving. His drive is obviously to make it to the tournament year in and year out and have a chance to win. I think he has proven that money is not his driving factor in coaching, but if you really try to pinpoint what he doesn’t like about his Loyola experience, it is obvious it boils down to only 2 things:
1) scheduling 2) the Valley being a 1 bid league.
Unfortunately, I don’t know that there’s a whole lot Loyola can do to ease any of those frustrations for him, short of mounting an all-out campaign to move to a better conference. Obviously the Big 10, Big 12, ACC, SEC, PAC 12 are out. So where can you go? The American or the Big East. The American seems like it would give us the best chance to stay relevant and win, but the travel would be insane. The big east would be the same issue, but if you look at how DePaul has done since they’ve been there, that doesn’t make me feel great about making that jump. Plus - we would actually need to get invited. The valley just seems destined to be a one-bid league, and that’s not necessarily its fault. It’s a double edged sword - sure the big east gives you more chances at getting into the tournament - but I am of the mindset that with that type of schedule and travel, it’s probably easier to win the valley for Loyola than it would be to grab one of those at-large bids playing that grueling conference schedule.
The only team from a league like ours who has figured out the magic formula for getting at larges in a lower league is Gonzaga - and it seems incredibly hard to replicate.
ON SCHEDULING
Trying to get fair shakes on scheduling and getting home-and-homes is never going to be easy.... but —
Short term - it seems to me that we should be able to co-host a Battle for Chicago every year. Loyola, DePaul, Northwestern, and UIC should play every year at the UC (or whatever DePaul’s arena name is) on a Friday, with a winners and a losers game on Saturday. 4 leagues, 4 Chicago teams - one winner every year. Local media will eat it up - there’s no complaining about “home floor,” If you do it the first week of the season it gets all casual fans interested in all four schools (hopefully sparking interest for each school for the rest of the season - and sells more home tickets for future games). It gets area alums interested - bragging rights at the water cooler, etc. It would give all of us 1 to 2 quality games to fill our schedules on “neutral courts.” It shuts out annoying Notre Dame and U of I (a happy unintended consequence - but helps DePaul and Northwestern who they recruit against). Everyone makes a profit. It might spark interest from up-and-coming talent, and make kids want to stay in Chicago instead of bolting. Getting this deal done should make sense for everyone, and it blows my mind that it hasn’t happened. These are two solid games on all four teams schedules locked in for every year that would knock 2 headaches out of 12 each year for all 4 coaches.
Throw a coaches banquet the Thursday night before and have all four coaches show up and have a town-hall setup where fans can buy in for tickets to have dinner and see them interacting with each other and talking about their expectations for the season in each of their leagues.
Schedule an alumni game for all 4 programs between Game 1 and Game 2, and make it an all-day event.
Make sure the Cardinal has floor seats for Loyola and DePaul... we can put sister jean next to him to clue him in on the game.
None of the 4 schools are too good to try this, at least for a 1 year commitment. I would legitimately like to know valid arguments against it.
On the conference thing....
I think we are doing almost as much as we can do in the Valley. We are winning, spending more money, recruiting better players, and going to post seasons (CBI, NCAA, NIT last five years).
For fun - and this is crazy, off-the-wall-idea...The only thing I can even think of to fix the scheduling/one-bid issue would be to try and rally a bunch of schools for a new league - which seems impossible. But, ideally, this would be an amazing, multiple bid league:
Loyola - Chicago, Illinois DePaul - Chicago, Illinois St. Louis - St. Louis, Missouri Marquette - Milwaukee, Wisconsin Creighton - Omaha, Nebraska Xavier - Cincinnati, Ohio Dayton - Dayton, Ohio Seton Hall - greensburg, Pennsylvania Notre Dame - South Bend, Indiana Saint Joseph’s - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Saint Bonaventure - New York Georgetown - DC That’s an all-catholic league of no football schools, in major tv markets (new York, Chicago, Philly, DC) and I think a HSC (“Holy See Conference”) would gain a lot of traction. It’s fun to dream....
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