Think the MVC made the right call from a basketball standpoint here. Will be interesting to see who they end up going with for the potential 12th spot. Personally think UIC is the best option to keep the Chicago market, but UT-Arlington and UMKC were the ones to present along with Murray a few weeks ago.

Norlander also commented below that tweet that he believes UIC is the most likely choice, I agree.

Yeah, it's gotta be UIC. I don't see any real justification for the other two...less basketball history, longer travel times, and smaller markets than UIC.

You really have to hand it to the Valley. It really is a great conference, and with the exception of the Valpo addition, they’ve done an amazing job of preserving the league whenever there has been movement. Belmont and Murray are fantastic additions.

UIC is going to get the nod for the 12th team most likely. Good for them. Hopefully they make the most of an unbelievably great opportunity. If their administration plays it right and invests, they could rise to our level. If UIC gets in, I only see Valpo getting worse. With Loyola in the A-10 and UIC in the valley, they’ll have a tough time getting Chicago area kids.

The school I feel the worst for is Detroit-Mercy. I always liked their program and their fans when we were in the Horizon. It’s a shame they are eternally dammed to that conference.

Yeah, Detroit has a cool, old arena and some history, but it's a small school in a rough part of town. I get the sense money isn't abundant there. If they were well-funded and dominating the Horizon League, then they might be a better fit in the A-10 than the MVC, but neither of those things seem likely in the foreseeable future.

Also, Valpo over Murray St. is a head-scratcher. With the new additions the MVC would be interesting had we stayed, but I still like the A-10 move due to the urban Catholic schools and higher profile/schedule strength.

Had the Valley acted sooner to add Murray St and Belmont, I wonder if we would have been less inclined to move. I'm sur someone has done the comparison, but there's a lot less daylight between the current A10 and an MVC with us, Belmont, and Murray.

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It would be interesting, but even without us the A-10 has 8 teams in the top 112 of the NET. MVC has 2 without us (4 with Belmont and Murray). Also, probably the two premier programs in the A-10 (Dayton and VCU) took some early losses bc they are reliant on highly-rated freshmen. St. Bonaventure is their best team but has lost top players to injury for the beginning of the season. Basically, those 3 teams are all underperforming their talent, and the A-10 is still looking much better than the Valley.

Also, being in the A-10 opens up recruiting pipelines to the Northeast, which has a lot more talent than the Omaha pipeline we are currently leveraging

All in all, I still don't see why we wouldn't make the move.

Agreed. These are all nice moves, but we are shifting away from our current footprint. The A10 is a good match both from a sports perspective and an academic perspective. I think the school sees itself moving away from being solely a Chicago-Illinois centered school to a higher profile institution. Even though I liked the MVC and it has some great natural rivalries, it doesn't fit with the current direction of the school.

I know it’s because of us, but also interesting to see if the private/public split goes away. Always seemed to be a bigger deal in the past, but if publics are dominant (most with FCS football) could change a lot of the league direction