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Post by fairbornfan on Apr 20, 2013 23:10:18 GMT -5
I think we need to add as many teams as possible as soon as possible. Valpo is gonna jump ship in the near future, they are the hottest commodity remaining in the Horizon League, they have name recognition from that one buzzer beater over ten years ago and someone will snap them up in the next year or two. When we lose a team in the Horizon League they should look for the next best team standing and bring them on board right away. We have been waiting a year to add members and it makes the league look weak and indecisive, stop the bleeding, if Oakland wants to come, bring them into the fold now. There is strength in numbers. I would like to have a 16 team league like the A10. Then if a couple of teams bolt you still have over ten teams and you go out and cherry pick the best teams available from weaker conferences. Currently the Horizon League is in the top third of all conferences, our position of strength is not going to get any better than it is today. Strike now from a position of moderate strength or wait and get bullied and passed over by the rest of the NCAA. Come on Lecrone, do something! Now!
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Post by Retired Coach on Apr 20, 2013 23:40:42 GMT -5
I think we need to add as many teams as possible as soon as possible. Valpo is gonna jump ship in the near future, they are the hottest commodity remaining in the Horizon League, they have name recognition from that one buzzer beater over ten years ago and someone will snap them up in the next year or two. Where exactly do you think Valpo is going to go? The only conference that made any sense for them to leave the HL for was the MVC and they just passed on adding them. There are no other conferences ranked higher than the HL that make sense for Valpo. The A-10 is moving back to a east coast conference with their last few additions so they are not an option. The MVC doesn't want them. If they do expand further in the future they are going to go after Saint Louis, Dayton, or maybe even Oral Roberts before they would go after Valpo. They passed on Valpo because their overall athletic budget is pretty low for a school with a football team and they have horrible facilities. That is the main reason they added Loyola. Loyola is in a good location and they have invested millions recently into their facilities. Valpo has horrible facilities and no plans (or money) to upgrade them.
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Post by fairbornfan on Apr 21, 2013 1:08:40 GMT -5
Valpo has the one thing none of the other Horizon League schools has, that is name recognition in basketball. Heck they even ran a commercial every five seconds during the tourney titled "Valpo Goes Down, but The Astronaut Lives on in History." Valpo has a good chance of being the next Butler and who would of guessed five years ago that Butler would be in the Big East now. The MVC commissioner, Doug Elgin, confirmed that he and the MVC presidents toured the campuses of Illinois-Chicago, Missouri-Kansas City and Valparaiso before deciding on Loyola. Valpo was being considered for the MVC, that is alot better than where WSU is at now. I think Valpo will do what it takes to make themselves more attractive in the future so that they will not be passed over again. Not sure what plans WSU has for the future. The current WSU team is good, but not great. It would be nice to pull off a major upset every couple of years, but it never happens. There used to be men with dreams at WSU. Ralph Underhill did incredible things at WSU. Ed Schilling dreamed big, top 50 team and a final 4, it didn't happen, but at least he had a vision, and alot of us bought into it and thought he was the real deal. Not really sure what the vision is now for the Raiders, probably just striving for status quo. I want WSU to be great, the way they were great back in Division II, I guess I want WSU to be like Butler.
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Post by Class of '83 on Apr 21, 2013 9:51:03 GMT -5
First, take a real look at what Valpo has done in the last decade and more importantly since they joined the HL. In the last decade they have 1 NCAA appearance. Guess what, so do we. They have an overall record of 183-141 (including 4 years in the Summit League). We have a record of 181-135 in that time span. Since they joined the HL they are 117-85 overall. We are 116-81 in that span. We both finished 63-43 in the HL in that time span. So the 2 biggest thing separating us is they have some name recognition from a miracle shot they took in the NCAA tournament 15 years ago and we have state of the art facilitis for a mid-major conference.
Second, I want people at Wright State that achieve success, not talk about it. Ed Schilling talked a big game while he was at WSU. He never achieved anything. Donlon has done more in his 3 years here than Ed did in his entire tenure here and Donlon has us poised to win the HL next year and get us back into the dance. I don't need Donlon to talk a good game. He is doing it on the court.
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Post by Retired Coach on Apr 21, 2013 11:07:28 GMT -5
Valpo has a good chance of being the next Butler. Here is Butler's resume: HL regular season champions or co-champions: 96/97, 99/00, 00/01, 01/02, 02/03, 06/07, 07/08, 08/09, 09/10, & 10/11 HL tournament champions: 97, 98, 00, 01, 08, 10 & 11 NIT appearances: 99, 02, 06, & 12 NCAA tournament appearances: 97, 98, 00, 01, 03, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 13 NCAA Sweet 16 appearances: 03 & 07 NCAA finals appearances: 10 & 11 On top of all of that success, Butler has a great location in a major city. They have historic facilities. They also have a great fan base. Valpo has none of that and needs to have 20 years of major success before they can be mentioned in the same sentence as Butler. You still didn't mention my last question--where do you think Valpo is going to go?
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Post by fairbornfan on Apr 21, 2013 11:11:19 GMT -5
You are letting reality get in your way. People like you who go to message boards know that WSU and Valpo are very similar in regards to their basketball programs. But the casual fan and the kind of people who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials think that Valpo is a great basketball school. They have been running the replay of that one shot over and over for the last 15 years. Even knowledgeable fans of the big six conferences who don't follow mid majors are surprised when told that Valpo only had that one moment of success. Valpo has name recognition, Bryce Drew's shot and Jim Valvano running around are the two biggest images leading up to the NCAA Tourney every year. That is what separates Wright State and Valpo, it's all about marketing, and most Americans have not heard of Wright State, but most folks have heard of Valpo. Even though Wright State has a better arena and basketball facilities Valpo comes out ahead because of product recognition. And that is why Valpo will get an invite from a better conference because of name recognition. As Gordie Wise taught me 30 years ago it is all about perceived value.
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Post by wsutommygun on Apr 21, 2013 11:38:03 GMT -5
I wonder if the casual fan can name the product endorsed in the Valpo/astronaut commercial. I wonder if they know what state Valpo is in. I think if a conference wanted to invite Valpo or anyone else, they would not do it based on one shot in a basketball game. If Valpo was still in the Summit League do you think your opinion of Valpo as a national name would be as strong? I know for a fact that people still ask what city Butler is in.
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Post by Class of '83 on Apr 21, 2013 11:49:58 GMT -5
You are letting reality get in your way. it is all about perceived value. I think those 2 statements show the error in your thinking. Fans do not decide conference expansions. University presidents and conference commissioners make those decisions based on reality and real value. The MVC added Loyola for their location, their finances, and their facilities. Period. It had nothing to do with perceived value. It was all based on what they offered the conference. Valpo was passed over because they are not in a good location (limited potential to increase their fan base because they are not in a well populated area), they have poor facilities and no finances to improve them. Without the potential to increase their fan base, they do not have much potential to improve those facilities anytime soon. That is the reality of their situation. That is why they are still in the HL while Loyola is in the MVC even though Valpo has all of that perceived value you keep trying to push.
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Post by fairbornfan on Apr 21, 2013 11:59:19 GMT -5
Time will tell. I still stand behind my argument that Valpo is in a better position than we are. All I know is that we are in a decaying league and no other league is even showing interest in adding us. Valpo was in the hunt for the MVC. If the Horizon League does nothing we are doomed.
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Post by keithfromxenia on Apr 21, 2013 15:19:55 GMT -5
i guess one could say that the evidence would seem slightly in fairbornfan's favor. the mvc did come to valpo and look at them for expansion. best of my knowledge no one has been to the wsu campus to discuss adding us to their league. that says something.
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Post by wsutommygun on Apr 21, 2013 15:49:56 GMT -5
Keith, you might say FairbornFan makes a point but, a previous post by BigD might mean that the MVC thought UIC, Loyola or Valpo would all satisfy the hopes of the Chicago market having a team in the MVC. He gives too much credit to the average fan and I think perception is skewed about what the average fan thinks if you consider some of the states west of the Mississippi as opposed to the average fan in a Horizon league city concerning Valpo. Did FairbornFan or any of the loyal posters really pay that much attention to the Crusaders when they were in the Summit?
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Post by wsu97 on Apr 21, 2013 16:53:52 GMT -5
Some of you guys haven't been a fan of the program very long based on your comments. The HL has added a few teams since WSU became a member. We were in a similar position over a decade ago where we needed to add a team to keep our automatic qualifier for one of our Olympic sports. We panicked and added YSU. The other addition was Valpo. We did our due diligence on them before we added them to make sure they were the right program for the HL. I think we can all agree that has worked out for the HL much better. I would rather the HL take it's time and pick the right programs this time around. I don't want any more YSU type programs in the HL.
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Post by raiders93 on Apr 21, 2013 19:02:43 GMT -5
Some of you guys haven't been a fan of the program very long based on your comments. The HL has added a few teams since WSU became a member. We were in a similar position over a decade ago where we needed to add a team to keep our automatic qualifier for one of our Olympic sports. We panicked and added YSU. The other addition was Valpo. We did our due diligence on them before we added them to make sure they were the right program for the HL. I think we can all agree that has worked out for the HL much better. I would rather the HL take it's time and pick the right programs this time around. I don't want any more YSU type programs in the HL. +1
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Post by Black PantherU on Apr 22, 2013 10:01:29 GMT -5
Time will tell. I still stand behind my argument that Valpo is in a better position than we are. All I know is that we are in a decaying league and no other league is even showing interest in adding us. Valpo was in the hunt for the MVC. If the Horizon League does nothing we are doomed. Valpo literally only has the MVC to move up to. Dayton's geography puts WSU on the radar of any number of conferences. I also reject the notion that the Horizon League is a decaying conference. Can we give LeCrone a little credit here? In the past three years he hasn't added a single team, watched us lose two, and moved us from the 14th-best conference to 11th-best. Hell, losing Loyola to the MVC weakened them and strengthened us. It's not bad so much as great that Loyola left. We still have UIC to give us the recruiting base in Chicago. Since 2000, the only program worse than Loyola is YSU. This is a blessing in disguise. The MVC will rue the day they let Drake dictate who the new member was going to be.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2013 20:07:24 GMT -5
I can't believe the MVC wanted Loyola over UIC. I know Loyola has a national championship, but that might as well of happened in prehistoric times. UIC has more potential as a program IMO. So, if the Horizon League could only keep one of the Chicago teams, I think we made out well here. Is there a chance the MVC wanted UIC, but UIC turned them down? There's no way that happened, right? I still find it odd that the MVC wanted Loyola over UIC. That's borderline hilarious to me. Loyola does have a relatively new arena (really a "gym") but UIC's Pavillion isn't bad at all and UIC is a much-bigger school. Oh well, as long as we hang on to Valpo, we're all good. Need to add someone (or a few others) and get with the program though. Can't keep sitting around with our hands in our pockets doing nothing. We did not turn the Valley down! I am not in the business of "reporting from my sources", but I'll put it this way: If the President's Council of the MVC didn't vote for Loyola over UIC, there would have been a 3/7 private/public balance in the League and there would have been division among the Presidents. The AD's were livid that the MVC chose Loyola because they did not have a baseball team while replacing a team that did! They looked at our sports complex and were impressed. They also knew about the impending building of the Curtis Granderson Stadium. There's been talk about Loyola's huge endowment, but the latest one I saw (and it could be an old file) has UIC's endowment at 244 million. That's not too bad, but some people are just stuck on that public vs private thing. Go figure.
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