brot4britu wrote:
You may be correct 08 , but where would they go ? The Mountain West is the most local to them, I believe , and that is rather far flung--Southern Kansas to Alberquerque (sp?) to San Diego to Boise--WOW !! But then WSU is a "public" as it were. I think they stay put and the Conference grows in prestige plus maybe size (Tulsa and Valpo perhaps or maybe even St Louis !! )
We , of course are now on our way to helping the Valley rise from 9 to 8 or above.
We would take the MWC, but the AAC has closer schools (Tulsa/SMU/Houston/Memphis). Both have a "spot" for a nonfootball to offset Hawaii/Navy who only play football. With that said, either is a long shot.
As far as the MVC growing to 12, I'll believe it when I see it. Tulsa will never happen as they play football. SLU has no desire to be in a midwest conference. They love their eastern exposure and are waiting for the Big East to go to 12. If we move to 12, it will be because UAB is getting booted from CUSA and that's a program that's probably too good to pass up. The question would be who would be number 12? Many have speculated that we'd take a shot with Belmont to keep a public/private balance. Would put us in another decent sized city and a new area and not a crazy distance from the eastern members. Of course, ORU would get mentioned, but I don't see it.
If we didn't care about the public/private aspect, Murray State would be a definite possibility.
But if UAB gets booted from CUSA, the MVC better be giving them spot 11 before they're all packed. I don't care if they're a bit far and in the south, you can't let a program like that get away. Especially since they wouldn't be spending millions on football anymore and could focus on basketball, which they have a pretty solid history with anyway.