Chicago State is a Home and Home

[Chicago Billiken]

Did anyone else see this in the latest Timmerman article:

Though the game with Chicago State may look like one of those games that's on the schedule to fill it out - Chicago State was 9-23 last season with an RPI of 347 - it's actually the first game of a home-and-home because next season, it's Kwamain Mitchell's homecoming game. Majerus said efforts to get a school in Mitchell's hometown of Milwaukee or one of the bigger schools in Chicago such as DePaul were unsuccessful.

Chicago State has a new facility that is about 3 years old: http://www.gocsucougars.com/sports/2008/4/13/GEN_0413080224.aspx?path=mbball and I don't think it is ever full. Hopefully Majerus can get a weekend game for us there.

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[Box and Won]

Where in the city is their campus? I wouldn't mind making the road trip.

[bleedtheblue]

way on the south side. closer to the indiana border i believe. i grew up on the northside so im not too familiar with that area

[Pistol]

Southern edge of the city, walking distance from the last stop on the Red Line (which may be extended in the near future) called 95th/Dan Ryan. The Jones Convocation Center is at the Corner of 95th and King Drive. Looks like a nice facility: http://www.gocsucougars.com/sports/2008/4/13/GEN_0413080224.aspx?path=mbball

It would have made more sense to go back and play a home-and-home with Loyola since Rick has such a chubby for playing Jesuit schools. We played a home-and-home with them during the Soderberg years, which was nice because I was living in Chicago when we went up there (and won a close one). If you really want to split hairs, since this game was allegedly to get one close to Mitchell's home of Milwaukee, Loyola is also on the far north side and CSU is on the far south side. May not seem like a huge difference, but that city takes some time to get across, especially north-south.

Either way, this is a no-brainer road trip for me if it's on a weekend. I might be able to pull it off on a weeknight, too. Looking forward to it already.

[bauman]

Southern edge of the city, walking distance from the last stop on the Red Line (which may be extended in the near future) called 95th/Dan Ryan. The Jones Convocation Center is at the Corner of 95th and King Drive. Looks like a nice facility: http://www.gocsucougars.com/sports/2008/4/13/GEN_0413080224.aspx?path=mbball

It would have made more sense to go back and play a home-and-home with Loyola since Rick has such a chubby for playing Jesuit schools. We played a home-and-home with them during the Soderberg years, which was nice because I was living in Chicago when we went up there (and won a close one). If you really want to split hairs, since this game was allegedly to get one close to Mitchell's home of Milwaukee, Loyola is also on the far north side and CSU is on the far south side. May not seem like a huge difference, but that city takes some time to get across, especially north-south.

Either way, this is a no-brainer road trip for me if it's on a weekend. I might be able to pull it off on a weeknight, too. Looking forward to it already.

Wouldn't it be great if we could get enough SLU fans for a weekend game that we could reserve our own Amtrak car?

[Pistol]

Wouldn't it be great if we could get enough SLU fans for a weekend game that we could reserve our own Amtrak car?

That would be a blast. I like where your head's at.

I guess we can get going on this in about a year- let's just hope for a weekend game.

[kevinfootes]

Southern edge of the city, walking distance from the last stop on the Red Line (which may be extended in the near future) called 95th/Dan Ryan. The Jones Convocation Center is at the Corner of 95th and King Drive. Looks like a nice facility: http://www.gocsucougars.com/sports/2008/4/13/GEN_0413080224.aspx?path=mbball

It would have made more sense to go back and play a home-and-home with Loyola since Rick has such a chubby for playing Jesuit schools. We played a home-and-home with them during the Soderberg years, which was nice because I was living in Chicago when we went up there (and won a close one). If you really want to split hairs, since this game was allegedly to get one close to Mitchell's home of Milwaukee, Loyola is also on the far north side and CSU is on the far south side. May not seem like a huge difference, but that city takes some time to get across, especially north-south.

Either way, this is a no-brainer road trip for me if it's on a weekend. I might be able to pull it off on a weeknight, too. Looking forward to it already.

Again, do we know for sure that RM chose Chicago State over Loyola? I've read several posts suggesting this, and there may be more to the story. Maybe Loyola was somehow unavailable, etc.

[bsheldon]

Wouldn't it be great if we could get enough SLU fans for a weekend game that we could reserve our own Amtrak car?

Sign me up.

That would be a blast.

[b.hayes]

Hopefully the Bills put on a better show than they did when they last graced the greatest city on earth. Although it was nice to see Conklin make Harangody cry.

[Clock_Tower]

Again, do we know for sure that RM chose Chicago State over Loyola? I've read several posts suggesting this, and there may be more to the story. Maybe Loyola was somehow unavailable, etc.

No. I am the one who brought up Loyola. If we are adding a "buy" game, then adding an RPI 343 makes no sense. Believe we all agree that Rockhurst (Div 2) is better than an RPI killer. Here, we schedule a Home & Home with RPI killer. Why?? If the reason is to play a "home" game for KM, then I threw out that Loyola (RPI of 220) would seem like a better fit. Yes, it's possible that Loyola and SLU tried to schedule a series but could not find common available dates. I doubt it, though, b/c if either DePaul or Marquette agreed to play us, I have no doubt that RM would clear our entire schedule to make it work and I suspect, though do not know, that Loyola Chicago would do the same. Again, Loyola and UIC seem to make more sense if Northwestern, DePaul, Marquette and Milwaukee-Wisconsin all said no.

[cheeseman]

Wouldn't it be great if we could get enough SLU fans for a weekend game that we could reserve our own Amtrak car?

That would be a great party travel way but if you want to actually arrive in time for the game you better go the day before.

[kevinfootes]

No. I am the one who brought up Loyola. If we are adding a "buy" game, then adding an RPI 343 makes no sense. Believe we all agree that Rockhurst (Div 2) is better than an RPI killer. Here, we schedule a Home & Home with RPI killer. Why?? If the reason is to play a "home" game for KM, then I threw out that Loyola (RPI of 220) would seem like a better fit. Yes, it's possible that Loyola and SLU tried to schedule a series but could not find common available dates. I doubt it, though, b/c if either DePaul or Marquette agreed to play us, I have no doubt that RM would clear our entire schedule to make it work and I suspect, though do not know, that Loyola Chicago would do the same. Again, Loyola and UIC seem to make more sense if Northwestern, DePaul, Marquette and Milwaukee-Wisconsin all said no.

I agree with your ranking of the potential opponents. UWGB would also be better. That said, If I were RM I'd try to play a game in Chicago as often as possible.

[billiken_roy]

I agree with your ranking of the potential opponents. UWGB would also be better.

chicago is closer to milwaukee than green bay though. if the thought is to provide a game that mitchell's family can attend and uw-milwaukee and marquette wont play, then the chicago schools indeed make more sense as the third choice.

[kevinfootes]

chicago is closer to milwaukee than green bay though. if the thought is to provide a game that mitchell's family can attend and uw-milwaukee and marquette wont play, then the chicago schools indeed make more sense as the third choice.

Green Bay is about 30 miles farther away, but considering traffic it might take a lot less time. Especially going down to the south side.

[billiken_roy]

Green Bay is about 30 miles farther away, but considering traffic it might take a lot less time. Especially going down to the south side.

i used to have a sales territory that went from chicago to greenbay. i would fly into chicago midway rent a car, and take a week to drive to green bay and back and see clients along the way. from december to march, somewhere north of chicago around the wisconsin border, it is like going from the tropics to the north pole. and i still get cold thinking of shebogian to green bay.

i.e. the travel from milwaukee to chicago would be easier than milwaukee to green bay.

[bsheldon]

I did some research on the Chicago St.

Their RPI will be much better this year. I am not saying that it will be a good game for our RPI, but they won't be in the bottom 5 this year. Maybe only the bottom 50 or maybe only 100. They were almost as young as we were last year. Similar to us, they are returning almost everyone. They have their top 4 scorers back as well as their 6th. Plus they just brought in a Freshman who averaged 18pts and 12 boards a game in HS. Plus, they are playing in the South Padre Invitational--a tournament we would be lucky to play in and has much better teams in it than the Cancun Governer's Cup. It has BYU, Texas Tech, St. Mary's and Southern Florida--not bad. Some real NCAA expereince in that group. Point is, even if they lose every game in the Tourney it will probably still help their RPI by playing teams that have RPI's well under 100 and probably under 50, depending on how the brackets play out. Hopefully they can win just a road game or 2 or 3 next year to really help their RPI. They were 0-17 on the opponets' floor. That is why their RPI was so low. They did win 9 games, but 7 came at home and 3 were against non-D1 opponents. Several of their losses were pretty close, so with some improvement--who knows maybe they win 12 or 13 games this year. They also have a new coach so the Administration obviously wasn't happy with the results from last year and are making an effort to improve.

Bottom line, as bad as the Home-Home with them the next 2 years looks on paper now, it may turn out not to be that awful after all.

[bsheldon]

Just a side bar on Chicago State, they say they play in the Great West conference, but I can't find an independent sports page that lists them that way--they are lumped in with the rest of the Great West as independents. Does anyone know anything about why this is? Is the Great West not "official" with the NCAA or something?

[bauman]

I did some research on the Chicago St.

Their RPI will be much better this year. I am not saying that it will be a good game for our RPI, but they won't be in the bottom 5 this year. Maybe only the bottom 50 or maybe only 100. They were almost as young as we were last year. Similar to us, they are returning almost everyone. They have their top 4 scorers back as well as their 6th. Plus they just brought in a Freshman who averaged 18pts and 12 boards a game in HS. Plus, they are playing in the South Padre Invitational--a tournament we would be lucky to play in and has much better teams in it than the Cancun Governer's Cup. It has BYU, Texas Tech, St. Mary's and Southern Florida--not bad. Some real NCAA expereince in that group. Point is, even if they lose every game in the Tourney it will probably still help their RPI by playing teams that have RPI's well under 100 and probably under 50, depending on how the brackets play out. Hopefully they can win just a road game or 2 or 3 next year to really help their RPI. They were 0-17 on the opponets' floor. That is why their RPI was so low. They did win 9 games, but 7 came at home and 3 were against non-D1 opponents. Several of their losses were pretty close, so with some improvement--who knows maybe they win 12 or 13 games this year. They also have a new coach so the Administration obviously wasn't happy with the results from last year and are making an effort to improve.

Bottom line, as bad as the Home-Home with them the next 2 years looks on paper now, it may turn out not to be that awful after all.

Thanks for adding some facts to the discussion.

[bsheldon]

Thanks for adding some facts to the discussion.

No problem.

[slufanskip]

i used to have a sales territory that went from chicago to greenbay. i would fly into chicago midway rent a car, and take a week to drive to green bay and back and see clients along the way. from december to march, somewhere north of chicago around the wisconsin border, it is like going from the tropics to the north pole. and i still get cold thinking of shebogian to green bay.

i.e. the travel from milwaukee to chicago would be easier than milwaukee to green bay.

From my first base in the USAF, K.I. Sawyer we used to drive 3 hours south to Green Bay to party and warm up a bit.

[bsheldon]

I just noticed another oddity CH ST. They only played 12 of their 32 games on their home floor. Again they were awful on the road--as bad as you can be, but at home they were 7-5. If they schedule this season (it isn't released yet) with 14 or 15 home games they might squeak out a couple more victories. Heck, they might get all way up to 300--25 points higher than Miss Valley state from last year.

Also, they only average about 1300 people a game for their home games, so if we could travel well (if the Amtrak dream or any other mass road trip comes to fruition) we could essentially have a home crowd in Chicago. I for one will go the game one way or another. My cousin lives in Chi-town so I will have a place to crash.

[Chicago Billiken]

Just a side bar on Chicago State, they say they play in the Great West conference, but I can't find an independent sports page that lists them that way--they are lumped in with the rest of the Great West as independents. Does anyone know anything about why this is? Is the Great West not "official" with the NCAA or something?

I do know that the Great West Conference doesn't have an automatic bid.

Chicago State has been a laughing stock for years...although from the looks of it, they probably have the best arena of all the Chicago area schools. I am hoping that the game is on a weekend that would make the most sense for the Mitchell family. I will be interested to see if the Chicago SLU alumni club does an event for it at a "local" bar or it is a meet and greet with bus. I would love to see the Billiken faithful fill up a train car to come on up.

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[brianstl]

I do know that the Great West Conference doesn't have an automatic bid.

Chicago State has been a laughing stock for years...although from the looks of it, they probably have the best arena of all the Chicago area schools. I am hoping that the game is on a weekend that would make the most sense for the Mitchell family. I will be interested to see if the Chicago SLU alumni club does an event for it at a "local" bar or it is a meet and greet with bus. I would love to see the Billiken faithful fill up a train car to come on up.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of Kevin Shortal

You would think with that facility and being in the recruiting fertile Chicago era that this would be a program that could have son success down the line. That conference is a mess though. Teams in California, Texas, N Dakota, S Dakota, Utah, Texas, IL, and NJ.

SIU, also, has started a home and home with them.

[billikenbill]

Just a side bar on Chicago State, they say they play in the Great West conference, but I can't find an independent sports page that lists them that way--they are lumped in with the rest of the Great West as independents. Does anyone know anything about why this is? Is the Great West not "official" with the NCAA or something?

Here's the results of the '09-'10 Great West Conference season:

Men's Basketball

Overall GWC

Team W L W L

USD 22 10 11 1

HBU 12 21 9 3

UND 8 23 5 7

UVU 12 18 5 7

CSU 9 23 4 8

NJIT 10 21 4 8

UTPA 6 26 4 8

As you can see, the South Dakota Coyotes dominated the league, although they had some trouble putting away Houston Baptist in the Tourney Final. I listened online to the championship game. South Dakota will be joining The Summit League after the '11-'12 season. The other teams are Univ. of North Dakota, Utah Valley Univ, Chicago State, New Jersey Tech, and Texas-Pan American. They don't have an NCAA auto bid, and won't become eligible for one until 2020. The Collegeinsider.com Tourney did give their tourney winner an auto bid where S. Dakota lost in the first round.

Here's a link on their new coach, Chicago native Tracy Dildy: http://www.greatwestconference.org/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/071210aaa.html

[Clock_Tower]

I did some research on the Chicago St.

Their RPI will be much better this year. I am not saying that it will be a good game for our RPI, but they won't be in the bottom 5 this year. Maybe only the bottom 50 or maybe only 100. They were almost as young as we were last year. Similar to us, they are returning almost everyone. They have their top 4 scorers back as well as their 6th. Plus they just brought in a Freshman who averaged 18pts and 12 boards a game in HS. Plus, they are playing in the South Padre Invitational--a tournament we would be lucky to play in and has much better teams in it than the Cancun Governer's Cup. It has BYU, Texas Tech, St. Mary's and Southern Florida--not bad. Some real NCAA expereince in that group. Point is, even if they lose every game in the Tourney it will probably still help their RPI by playing teams that have RPI's well under 100 and probably under 50, depending on how the brackets play out. Hopefully they can win just a road game or 2 or 3 next year to really help their RPI. They were 0-17 on the opponets' floor. That is why their RPI was so low. They did win 9 games, but 7 came at home and 3 were against non-D1 opponents. Several of their losses were pretty close, so with some improvement--who knows maybe they win 12 or 13 games this year. They also have a new coach so the Administration obviously wasn't happy with the results from last year and are making an effort to improve.

Bottom line, as bad as the Home-Home with them the next 2 years looks on paper now, it may turn out not to be that awful after all.

Thanks for the research and I understand that you are not in charge our scheduling, but again, why the attraction to play a Home-Home with such a bad RPI? Even if they move up 50 points, they would still be 293 RPI. Move up 100 points, they would be 243 RPI - again, that would still be 23 points BEHIND Chicago Loyola which would a settlement after being spurned by Marquette, DePaul, Wisc-Milwaukee and Northwestern. Cannot believe this was such a needed game for us. BTW, if RM now has a new policy of giving everyone a home game, what happened to next year? All the Chicago schools filled up for next year as well? Maybe we should have just agreed to be Wisc-Milwaukee's "buy" game since we obviously have no connections and since even mediocre schools are afraid to play us.

If the real reason is to play in Chicago (b/c of MM and DE and/or possibly more such recruits next year),

then be honest with us and I would have no problem. Just not buying the stated reason.