Know nothing Valley fan gets space from Gary Parish

[brianstl]

FIrst off Josh, SIU-C and MSU have never got more coverage than SLU on a consitent basis.

Josh and Gary you don't need to worry about it. We will be in the A-10 for the foreseeable future. Josh hope you enjoy Evansville and Bloomington.

"From: Josh

You wrote a column about how you think Saint Louis University should join the Missouri Valley Conference. And I do see how they could benefit from this. But you never state why it would benefit the Valley and many fans have been wondering the same thing. They're at best the fifth option in their market as far as fans are concerned, and Southern Illinois and Missouri State already get more pub in St. Louis than SLU does.

OK, this is easy. First, I'm not sure where SLU basketball ranks in the pecking order of the St. Louis market, but with Rick Majerus in charge it automatically goes up a few notches. Remember, that program has been missing the NCAA Tournament with a boring style of basketball under Brad Soderberg, but if it started making the NCAA Tournament with an exciting style of basketball under Rick Majerus, people would pay attention.

As for everything else, the positives outweigh the negatives. If the MVC added SLU it would have, A) A new most-famous coach in the league, a new most-accomplished coach in the league, C) a new state-of-the-art facility in the league (that might rank only behind Creighton's), and D) another tie to the major media market that is St. Louis.

SLU would be lucky to have the MVC and the MVC would be lucky to have SLU. It's a match made in Doug Elgin's heaven, and I think it'll eventually happen."

[Eddie_Gaedel]

And why is he a no-nothing Valley fan? He pretty well states truth except tha Missouri State gets more pub than Saint Louis U. I'm pretty sure SIU does. I just don't think this guy is that far off.

[SLUDrew]

Obviously, this is by no means true across the board, but it is present. I think a lot of them think that we think we are above the Valley as we turned our noses up at them the first time around, and would be eager to leave the Valley for greener pastures should a better situation arise.

Personally, I don't think SLU is a good fit in the Valley at all, but we have all been over this before.

[brianstl]

SIU-C doesn't even come close. When they get their own beat writer at the Post and get their results covered on the local news come talk to me about that. In a few years they won't be the team getting the most coverage in town with SIU in their name.

[slu72]

I'm sick of hearing about why we should jump the A-10 to go the valley. Other than SIU, Bradley, and Mo State (in that order) who do we really have an interest in seeing play? Besides I think the A-10 is back on the move. X, Dayton, UMass, St.Joes, Temple, URI, Charlotte definitely have more appeal nationally and play in far larger markets. Yes, I wish St.Joes' and GW had bigger arenas, and yes, we wish Linda Bruno would do something about a TV deal, but that's all. The Valley's had a nice little run but a lot of those teams lost some talent...let's see how next season shakes out. If anything has been shown by the events of the last two weeks, there may be some people behind the scenes at SLU who might think about formation of a new conference down the road. I still keep thinking about RM's comment at the PC about the Big East....what does he know?

[Billikan]

Wow! Stop the presses! Drew, SL72 and Billikan have exactly the same view on a subject! I could not agree more. I have absolutely no interest in joining the valley. In terms of the national press, I think it would be a bad mistake to go to the Valley now that we have Rick M. All you need to do is to look at the cities where the A 10 schools are located and the size of those metro areas with the attendant newspapers, talk radio, etc and compare them to the MVC cities. There is no comparison.

[MusicCityBilliken]

I recall some years ago when Gonzaga played St. Joseph's. It was when Gonzaga had Morrison and St. J's had Nelson.

The game was a national event. Played at Madison Square Garden with a packed house. I remember how they showed the students of both schools got up for this game.

Nothing in the MVC compared.

It should not be long till we have a similiar game playing a Marquette or Boston College.

[cheeseman]

You wouldn't want to play Creighton?

[MusicCityBilliken]

Cheese,

We could get Crieghton now and it would be like the SIU game. Not that that is bad.

But to have Marquette return or play Georgetown, that would be one of our marquee games.

[GOSLU68]

the other Bowling Green; they are a good fit for the Valley and that would give them another nice bus trip; the Hilltoppers are on the rise in basketball and academics and probably would

vie for a top spot as the scholar-athletes of the second tier after

Drake, Creighton, and Bradley-they fit right in with MO State, Siuc,

and Evansville, etc. They have a good radio station WKBO; I'm sure they have TV and they have a daily newspaper

[saluki762]

>the other Bowling Green; they are a good fit for the Valley

>and that would give them another nice bus trip; the

>Hilltoppers are on the rise in basketball and academics and

>probably would

>vie for a top spot as the scholar-athletes of the second

>tier after

>Drake, Creighton, and Bradley-they fit right in with MO

>State, Siuc,

>and Evansville, etc. They have a good radio station WKBO;

>I'm sure they have TV and they have a daily newspaper

WKU is going D-1 in football. They will be in a conference with that.

[courtside]

After a two year transitional period they will play in the Sunbelt conference for football...the same conference they play in for other sports.

[rchif0]

Most Valley fans don't even recognize adding SLU. It's a non-issue for most of them, so there's not much need to worry about it. The fire just got fueled when that whole thing about Majerus wanting the Valley got started. It's a bunch of BS.

[Clock_Tower]

It may be a bunch of BS - but - notice that Doug Elgin is always involved in each episode of SLU and the Valley. Elgin is always interviewed, always denies active or on-going communications but then always leaves the door open with, IMO, the intent to increase the speculation. If Elgin and the Valley had no interest or desire for SLU to join, the message would get out and this story would be dead. Elgin is really a media mastermind and possibly the best commission in college basketball. Don't think for a minute that Doug Elgin is not helping fuel the fire being spread by the MVC's official news outlet: the Post Dispatch.

[rchif0]

You just said it yourself.. media mastermind. I said it before.. it's BS. Put two and two together. He keeps up with these things because it keeps the conference in the papers, and people have it on their minds. The old adage.. any attention is good attention. It's working out for SLU and Majerus too, I imagine. Recruits that wouldn't have had SLU on their minds before know they exist now, and know that there's a big-name /body coach there now too.

[cheeseman]

Tarheel - not sure about getting Creighton whenever you want - if that was so then we would have played them already but we have not. Also, my point was that the teams that were listed that we would want to play that are in the MVC Creighton was left off. I have little interst in playing in the MVC.

[MusicCityBilliken]

Cheese, don't get me wrong, I would be more then happy replacing Creighton with Western Ill as a yearly home and away.

But for my suggestions to open the new arena (which we would need a marquee program), I would much rather go with Georgetown or a Marquette. I look at Marquette and Georgetown being national powers and Creighton being a regional power. Both Marq and Gtown have national championships and recent final fours.

Tarheel