bart Posted December 7, 2003 Share Posted December 7, 2003 I saw Bryan at today's game and he has written an excellent article on the Bills for tommorow's Post-Dispatch. Check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmolina Posted December 7, 2003 Share Posted December 7, 2003 "For all those folks who question the sense of SLU heading to the Atlantic 10 and swear it would have been wiser, safer and more comfortable to play in the more modest Missouri Valley Conference, they too, needed to be here." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pooch1918 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Burwell must still be making up for his earlier sentiments about SLU going to the Valley...but it really lifted my spirits...a must read for any SLU fan... http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/co...among+the+elite Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 the truth is that those that are still doubting the move to the a-10 probably werent at the game saturday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Doug Elgin is the Missouri Valley Conference commissioner (obviously). It's his job to promote the MVC. He wants the confernce to be seen in the best possible light. He also wants to improve the conference's reputation in the perceptions of college basketball fans everywhere. It can't help that media in the city where the conference's headquarters are, are degrading the Valley. It's unfortunate. I appreciate the MVC, though I'm not a big fan of the conference. I do feel for the commissioner and the athletic directors of the conference's schools, as their task at improving the conference's image so that it would be attractive to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee on an annual basis, to teams of the caliber of some of its one-time members (SLU, Mizzou, Tulsa, Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, etc.), and to recruits who would otherwise go to the Big Ten or Big XII is a very difficult one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmolina Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 If The Valley weren't HQ'd in St. Louis and playing their annual tourney here, would anyone locally care? I think not. Probably about as much as the conference UMKC plays in........... Just my opinion. P.S. - I do like to see SIU-Carbondale do well though. Living in S. Illinois and all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Exactly if the tourney was not here we would hear nothing of the MVC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 I think we would hear a little about the Missouri Valley even if its Tourney wasn't here because local media cover Southern Illinois and SMS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 what coverage? siu and sms have worse media coverage by far than even us in the st louis area. look at the way siu's football season was covered. just a few weeks ago they were one of the only undefeated teams in america. i dont recall any big followups on tv, radio or the written press. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 The only knock I have on the entire article seems to be the inferred reference to this "little engine that could" stuff. I see the A10 as a step down from CUSA but one being done out of necessity as opposed to need. We need to get out of CUSA as it stands to be reconfigured. The schools left have no comparisons with us. Our "brethern" are those heading to the Big East .... Marquette and DePaul. Our recently established rivalries with Louisville and Cincy are also going to the BE. About the only rival left in the reconfigured CUSA would be Memphis (with a nod maybe over to Charlotte). We have to leave. The A10 has some since schools that we reunite with in Dayton and Xavier. To me these replace DePaul and Marquette. We have a history there And we keep Charlotte so that's a wash and we replace the UofL and Cincy connection with a potential list of good programs .... St. Joes, Temple, UMass and Richmond. The bottom feeders wash out from either program ... Fordham, Duquesne and Rhode Island become the Houston's, ECUs and SoMisses of the CUSA basketball world. The others have potential .... for every UAB there is a St. Bonnies and so on. USF now become GeoWashington. I don't believe we've gone up per se. But going to the Valley certainly would have been going down. If we competed (AND WE DID!) in CUSA, it should be no tougher in the A10. Dayton was on a down cycle when they left the GMW ... they are now always in the hunt for the A10 West. I think that with no football schools to cloud the mix, we will be all that much better. Burwell's article was nice, but none of the true Billiken die-hards ever espoused running down to the MVC. Thicks is right in Elgin defended what he had to and most are right in that without the MVC tourney and HQ in St. Loo, little would be heard from these programs short of those in the local area. There is a reason all the schools that left the Valley did so ..... trying to move up. We all include Creighton in the Papal Conference discussions. That would be a move up for them, in my estimation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MUFAN2000 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 That was Northern Illinois. NIU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 I understand your general point about the A-10 but you are wrong to include Rhode Island as a bottom feeder. They are having a good season (only D-I loss is to Syracuse and they have beaten Miami and Providence) and will be in the running for an NCAA spot. They have had some down years recently but they have had some success in the recent past. They have a great coach now as well and that means they will be competitive for the next few years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 ...Lubbock Christian? Is that for real? Anyway .. no attempt to diss URI. Interchange that with maybe La Salle. In any case, it was just a comparison for comparison's sake. Each conference has its higher echelon teams, and each has its lower end teams as well. I would just argue that those in the lower A10 end have been there for a while. CUSA's lower end has had some high times ..... Tulane, USF, Houston, TCU. Even SoMiss did so-so well a few years ago. ECU is about the only one without some history to speak of. I would offer that its been a while for the Fordham's, Duquesne's and La Salles of the A10. So much so that talk is of dropping some from the league in the next few years if they don't commit the resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 no siu was 10-0 before they lost. you just proved my point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SluSignGuy Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Now, I may be a little bias, but GW deserves some credit this year. We have beat Charlotte (on the Road) and West Virginia (on a "nuetral" site). We put up a good match against Gonzaga. Our only questionable loss was to Apalachin State, but other than that GW has been a quality team. And basically our team is surviving off of one junior and freshmen. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MUFAN2000 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Hooray! But looking it up, I do see that you were correct. But their wins did come against the likes of Quincy State and such. Not exactly the highest caliber. And to be fair, they're 1-AA in football, which is why being undefeated garners less press. I thought you were referring to northern illinois because they're D1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 my biggest b!tch about all this bcs nonesense is the "classes" it has set up. it is easy to see that the whole intent is to create a top 50 programs or thereabouts that will be the only teams that have a chance to win anything of honor and revenue significance. you are proof of one that has fallen into the trap. do you think that siu wants to play that schedule? i doubt it. but i also doubt anyone wants or will play them. you can bet northern illinois wont get games versus top teams for a long time again. and that is my complaint. but back to the original thought. local media coverage. like i said, siu has this wonderful season, regardless of their competition, and no one knew it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 it's started. not long before steve is a full colonel. :-) i blame the slu athletic dept. they should have recruited steve hard and not let him get out of town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 GW is not a power or a program with any legacy ala those we miss (Marquette, UofL, Cincy, Memphis, UAB) nor ala those that replace them (Temple, UMass, St. Joes, etc). GW is more of a middle-of-the-road team much like us .... they had a nice recent run with Shawnta Rogers and his supporting cast but not much else I can think of other than serving as Mike Jarvis' "launching" pad (although he's comet is about to crash with the St. John's program as well). I did not lump GW in with the bottom dwellers for this very reason, much like I would not take cotton to SLU being lumped in with the CUSA rabble either. Both are okay programs at the very least with larger hills to climb than others. GW, I would say, is even behind in another area that it is not the top school in its town as far as DC is concerned ... most would argue that the school of choice in the district are the preppies up at G-town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schasz Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 That your GW team hung with the Zags because I believe Gonzaga is loaded this year and very capable of making a serious NCAA Tourney run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SluSignGuy Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 :shrug: I just don't think of power basketball when looking at South Florida, but looking at their past records I under-estimated them. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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