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Post by Grizzfan1 on May 9, 2015 16:38:26 GMT -5
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Post by ouguy on May 10, 2015 12:23:26 GMT -5
Seems like a good move. I bet they have better attendance than 75% of the league come next year
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Post by oudrummer on May 11, 2015 10:23:30 GMT -5
NKU officially added today.
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Post by PantherU on May 16, 2015 16:45:30 GMT -5
Congratulations on not being the new kids anymore.
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Post by PantherU on Dec 26, 2015 17:34:27 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this since I first saw NKU play. I know they'll be better, and I know that I'll be happy once they're adjusted, but I really think we should have explored reversing the worst decision in conference history - Youngstown State.
There's precedent; Temple was kicked out of the Big East's football conference. That's the most recent one I believe.
Forgive the repost from the other thread:
The Horizon League was known as the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (MCC) in 1998 when they sent three schools to the NCAA Tournament (School and seed: UIC 9, Butler 13, Detroit 10). Only Detroit won a game, beating St. John's before getting whacked by Purdue. But here's the point: 2 of those 3 schools are still here. The third, Butler, was not the Butler we know today and wouldn't be for over a decade.
This conference had a year with two at-large bids. Here's the thing - we only had EIGHT teams in the Horizon League that season. Here were the schools: Green Bay, Milwaukee, UIC, Loyola, Cleveland State, Wright State, Butler, Detroit. Six of the eight are still here. Loyola was then and is today a sham of a program that only got into the MVC because their ancient, loaded alumni decided to pour money into facilities just before they all died to see if they could get one more run. Butler outgrew us.
My point is that much of this conference has had runs, and in 1998 three schools were good enough to be there.
- Cleveland State made runs at the end of the 2000's. - Green Bay had four NCAA Tournaments in the 1990's. - Wright State went in 2007 and was dominant in D-II before coming up (and have the best all-around hoops facilities). - Oakland dominated a low-major conference. - Valpo dominated that low-major conference first. - Detroit has a long history and the Jesuit Hoops connection. - UIC has had multiple stretches with tournament runs. - Milwaukee owned the mid-2000's and has conference titles since.
What if, instead of adding Northern Kentucky to the conference, we had voted to boot Youngstown State? NKU will hopefully be good down the road, but I think it might have been better for us to dropkick the worst program right out.
We'd have eight teams and only one of them, UIC, would be an anchor.
I've beaten the Kick-Out-YSU drum for years, but I think this year we're looking at losing at-large bids directly due to conference anchors. Valpo loses in the conference tournament and maybe 2-4 HL games, they will probably lose out on a bid to the NCAA Tournament. The rest of the mid-major conferences would have a bunch of anchors dragging them down when conference play starts. For us it would be UIC and that's it.
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Post by sportsdoctor05 on Apr 7, 2017 16:27:01 GMT -5
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Post by Grizzfan1 on Apr 7, 2017 18:17:54 GMT -5
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Post by Blackbird on Apr 7, 2017 19:27:58 GMT -5
UMKC was a weak team in the Summit, I have no reason to believe they wouldn't be weak in the Horizon too.
Anyway, since expansion talk seems to be back on the table, here's my thoughts.
If Valpo does leave, IPFW makes the most sense to replace them. The Mastodons are by far the easiest geographic fit of the schools worth considering, in any event.
If we go up to 12, I really like the idea of adding Niagara and Canisius. It opens up more recruiting territory for the conference, it puts Detroit pretty close to the centre of the league's footprint (which helps with Motor City Madness), and it adds a couple private schools to the league to appease Mercy (and Valpo, if they stay).
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Post by oudrummer on Apr 7, 2017 20:32:38 GMT -5
I've heard multiple times that IPFW may go down to div 2.
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Post by john on Apr 10, 2017 16:36:16 GMT -5
If we go up to 12, I really like the idea of adding Niagara and Canisius. Make sure your passport is up-to-date!
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