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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2021 2:27 pm 
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Location: Livin in the middle, between the two extremes
m52 wrote:
I'm having a hard time thinking of a game Loyola could lose in the valley this year. Maybe at UNI and perhaps at MO State or Drake.


I don’t want to fall into that trap. I don’t care what the rankings are, the MVC is never going to be easy. Especially on the road.


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2021 6:33 pm 
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The last year that a team went undefeated in the Valley was 2014 Wichita State. That was an amazing team that was undefeated heading into March Madness and ranked in the top 5 most of that season. The Valley was also down that year.

The fact is this is an extremely tough league and 15-3 will win it most years. As much as I'd love to see an undefeated Valley season, that's never a realistic expectation.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2021 10:02 am 
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Location: New York Fan
01grad wrote:
m52 wrote:
I'm having a hard time thinking of a game Loyola could lose in the valley this year. Maybe at UNI and perhaps at MO State or Drake.


I don’t want to fall into that trap. I don’t care what the rankings are, the MVC is never going to be easy. Especially on the road.


I too don't think they'll go undefeated, but they had only 3 losses in 17-18, and 2 last year. That's where I expect they could be this year.


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2021 3:19 pm 
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Hey All,

Not that this matters to you all a whole bunch, but I put together a deep dive on the MVC expansion candidates. This article was a long time coming and its quite a long read, but I think there is good stuff here if you are interested in MVC expansion. Take a look if you want!

https://www.missourivalleybeat.com/post ... e-profiles


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:03 pm 
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MVCBeat wrote:
Hey All,

Not that this matters to you all a whole bunch, but I put together a deep dive on the MVC expansion candidates. This article was a long time coming and its quite a long read, but I think there is good stuff here if you are interested in MVC expansion. Take a look if you want!

https://www.missourivalleybeat.com/post ... e-profiles


Thanks for all that...great breakdown, and I agree that Murray St and UIC seem to be no-brainers, while the rest are head-scratchers. One thing I would add is that KU is only 40 minutes from Kansas City, which would further deter me from thinking I could get the KC market with UMKC. Similarly, Lincoln is only an hour from Omaha.

I also don't understand the point of massive mid-major basketball conferences when there is only one auto-bid per league. From an NCAA tournament bid perspective, you would think schools like UTA, UNO, and UMKC would rather be in a conference they could feasibly win. For the same reason, the Valley should only be adding teams that will boost their NET rankings. UIC is the exception due to their potential and the number of MVC alumni in Chicago.

St. Thomas is interesting long-term and similar to Loyola 10 years ago. They were actually kicked out of their D3 conference bc they were winning every football game 80-0, which forced them to move up to D1.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 9:06 pm 
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Mertz2003 wrote:
MVCBeat wrote:
Hey All,

Not that this matters to you all a whole bunch, but I put together a deep dive on the MVC expansion candidates. This article was a long time coming and its quite a long read, but I think there is good stuff here if you are interested in MVC expansion. Take a look if you want!

https://www.missourivalleybeat.com/post ... e-profiles


Thanks for all that...great breakdown, and I agree that Murray St and UIC seem to be no-brainers, while the rest are head-scratchers. One thing I would add is that KU is only 40 minutes from Kansas City, which would further deter me from thinking I could get the KC market with UMKC. Similarly, Lincoln is only an hour from Omaha.

I also don't understand the point of massive mid-major basketball conferences when there is only one auto-bid per league. From an NCAA tournament bid perspective, you would think schools like UTA, UNO, and UMKC would rather be in a conference they could feasibly win. For the same reason, the Valley should only be adding teams that will boost their NET rankings. UIC is the exception due to their potential and the number of MVC alumni in Chicago.

St. Thomas is interesting long-term and similar to Loyola 10 years ago. They were actually kicked out of their D3 conference bc they were winning every football game 80-0, which forced them to move up to D1.


I completely agree. Thanks for reading!


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 8:46 am 
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still pondering the move to the A-10 what has more interest in the Chicago area....LU v Fordham or UIC v Illinois State ?


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 9:16 am 
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natetheskate wrote:
still pondering the move to the A-10 what has more interest in the Chicago area....LU v Fordham or UIC v Illinois State ?


LU vs Dayton or LU vs Indiana State. LU vs SLU or LU vs Evansville.

Not to mention...the A-10 is just a better conference overall. Look at how many teams it has in the NET top 100 (5, with another three ranked 100-110) compared to the Valley (2 (us and MoSt) with Drake at 101). And this was supposed to be a banner year for the Valley.

I still occasionally have mixed feelings about it as I'll miss playing most of the teams in the conference and I love Arch Madness. But there's a reason Dayton and SLU (two similar Catholic schools to us) have no desire to move to the Valley.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:37 am 
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To add to Go’s point:

I’ll miss Arch Madness too, but hopefully in the A10 we’ll get to a point that I won’t miss having to win the conference tournament to get in the dance. Fordham might not be a big chicago draw, but consistent tourney appearances will be. Also have to imagine it will allow us to schedule more P5+Big East games OOC, the A10 seems to schedule well


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 12:43 pm 
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Dansen wrote:
To add to Go’s point:

I’ll miss Arch Madness too, but hopefully in the A10 we’ll get to a point that I won’t miss having to win the conference tournament to get in the dance. Fordham might not be a big chicago draw, but consistent tourney appearances will be. Also have to imagine it will allow us to schedule more P5+Big East games OOC, the A10 seems to schedule well


To add to both of your points:

I really appreciate the Valley's foresight in choosing LUC over UIC 10 years ago. It was a risk but ended up being the right move and very beneficial for both sides. However, I was a walk-on during the Horizon League years and don't feel much connection to the Valley nor do I think LUC as a school has much in common with the rest of the Valley schools. I think for Loyola to reach its potential, our rivalries should be with schools like SLU, DePaul, Northwestern, and Marquette. The A-10 move gives us the SLU rivalry and makes it much more likely that the other 3 will schedule us regularly.

We're a better fit in the A-10. It will boost our conference SOS, give us rivalries with other urban Catholic schools, and also increase the profile of Loyola so that we can schedule better out of conference. The only good argument I see for staying in the Valley would be IF we could guarantee a really strong non-conference schedule every year and then pull away from the rest of the conference like Gonzaga did. I just don't think we can rely on getting 5 P6 non-conference games a year like we did this year.

I feel for MVC fans in Chicago losing their local game, but I think UIC is an easy replacement for that. I also don't care about selling out Gentile bc a bunch of ISU or Bradley fans show up...I care about continuing to build interest in LUC basketball so that we sell out Gentile with all LUC fans every night. I think games against SLU, Dayton, VCU, Bona, and better non-conference games are much more likely to get us to that point.


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