kshoe Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I don't think its that people on this board are anti-Valley but really that they are pro SLU. When SLU took the spot in the A-10 the school received a lot of criticism from the local media and the die-hards here went on the defensive, which by definition includes ripping the Valley. If we had gone the Valley route I feel fairly certain these same people would have become very pro-valley. We probably would have felt slighted at the time to move from CUSA to the Valley. No doubt about it. But I am confident that given the success the Valley has had the past few years the same people would now be singing the praises of joining. The same folk that argued last year that the Valley RPI wasn't real would have been screaming that Missouri St. got screwed. Its all about defending whatever side of the fence you are on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box and Won Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I think our baseball team would not have been as successful in the MVC - Missouri State, Creighton, Evansville, etc. would have given us a hard time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box and Won Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I would think they would have kept the tourney in St. Louis had we joined the MVC. St. Louis has been a great fit for their tournament, and it would be crazy for them to tinker with success. And with us moving to our own arena, the Scottrade Center would no longer be our home court. Hell, I've been to a few SLU home games over the years that have felt like we were playing on a neutral court. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I think over time our baseball team would have competed very well with these schools. Given the success we had last year in the A10 I think our baseball team was not as bad as it looked all of those years in CUSA--which was a real baseball powerhouse conference back then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 The MVC tournament has been in St Louis ever since they started having a neutral site for it. That being said, I would have expected a kind of rotation to have started if SLU joined. I think KC and maybe Des Monies and maybe somewhere in middle Illinois along with St Louis, in order for not one school to have an advantage year after year. I seem to remember there being bad feelings about Dayton getting the old MCC conference tourney. I would hope SLU wouldn't have put themselves in that same situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 That is not at all the impression I remember. I remember hearing many posters state they would not donate a dime for a new arena if SLU went to the MVC. Also some said they would rather drop to Wash U status in sports than taking such a step down as the MVC represented. Also who can forget traveling to small backwater cities in the MVC rather than the bright lights in the large market A10. Of course, once you realize almost no one pays attention to those A10 schools in Pittsburgh, Philly, NY, DC, etc, while the MVC is averaging BCS type attendance numbers, I guess this kind of changes things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 "the die-hards here went on the defensive, which by definition includes ripping the Valley." Thats all it is. Take it for what its worth, but I believe none of what those posters said would have been true had we gone to the valley (can you really imagine a die-hard giving up on our program just because of conference affiliation). It was nothing but hot talk meant to defend our decision on the A-10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 Actually the ripping of the MVC was happening long before the A10 came into the picture as a possible destination for SLU. I agree though that many of these die-hards would now be completely pro MVC, even if they won't admit it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 will seem like a neutral court or worse....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box and Won Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 You'll probably be right about that. I freaking hate bandwagoners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 >I think our baseball team would not have been as successful >in the MVC - Missouri State, Creighton, Evansville, etc. >would have given us a hard time. You also tend to recruit to the level of your conference. If the MVC is a better baseball league as you suggest, we would probably be more likely to attract a better caliber player. Good players tend to like to play in good conferences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 >"While the A10 is not ideal, it is significantly better for >the school than the MO Valley...or SLU would be in the >Valley. I am not exactly sure how this is even a >discussion." > >Well, this is a basketball message board and we are >discussing how bad our current conference is and how good >the conference that we spurned turned out to be. That is how >the discussion started. > >Your point that SLU wants to attract more East Coast kids is >a good one, but I'm wondering if anybody has any evidence >that this is working. Did we see a large spike in kids >interested in SLU from New England and Philly during the >past couple of years? Well said. I'm not sure how this is not a discussion. Basketball is your most highly visible and biggest money making sport. It better be a big priority in your decision. Being in a league with more bids and the strong possibility of having the conference tournament in your home town are huge pluses. NCAA Tournament bids are worth a lot of $$$, which in turn benefits the entire athletic dept. The travel for the non revenue sports would certainly be much better in the Valley. This is not a fan friendly conference. Think of all the basketball roadtrip possibilities in the Valley - Mo State, Il State, Bradley, SoIL. The best atmosphere at our home games now seems to be when we're playing some of these regional teams. If the move to the A-10 got us more tv exposure or had some other benefits, I would be for it. I haven't seen any evidence of it yet. I kept an open mind about the move to the A-10, but I don't like the early returns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 ace, i dont buy the road trip angle. often in the cusa days i was at the louisville, memphis, cincy or depaul games that were a short road trip away and the majority of the time i was there you would see maybe 20 billiken fans there and normally the same ones. our record of attendance at the conference tourneys at memphis, cincy and louisville was horrible even though most years we finished in the top half of the conference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 conference usa was one of the best baseball conferences in the country and that sure didnt bring us better baseball players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 well that is why we as season tix holders should have bought and distributed the available tix. we had first crack at them and could have insured it was a home court advantage. i had 16 extra's and did not give any to known unc fans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 >conference usa was one of the best baseball conferences in >the country and that sure didnt bring us better baseball >players. It shows you that players recruited to a bad C-USA program were still better than A-10 teams. Now that we're in the A-10, the program will likely become even less attractive to recruits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 Going to the A-10 certainly isn't going to build that. We never get A-10 fans visiting us. SoIL and Mo State fans turnout for our games. There's a much better atmosphere. There are alums from those schools in the region. I went on a roadtrip during the Spoon years to Chicago and I thought SLU had a big turnout there. If we have a really good team, more people will travel. I think a lot of SLU fans would make the journey to the Scottrade if the Bills were playing in the Valley Tourney! We'll likely NEVER host an A-10 Tourney. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 nm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SShoe Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 that certainly wasn't the case when we played Gonzaga. There may be some NC fans, but the majority will certainly be cheering for SLU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 >do you know for a fact it would have stayed??? >I understand that the tourney has been in STL for years. >I understand that the mvc is based in STL. >But since this is all specualtion, let's look at SLU winning >the mvc tourney 4 years in a row. Do you think the other >AD's and coaches in the conf would just sit there and allow >that to continue while the tourney is played in STL? >You think SLU was negotiating from such a position of >strength to get a guarantee the tourney would remain in >STL??? >If this guarantee was in place, then slu is nuts for not >going to the valley. I think SLU absolutely was netotiating from a position of strength. Elgin makes no bones about how badly they wanted SLU. The rest of the conference travels well to St. Louis and they are used to coming here so I don't think most of them would want to chenge either. It wouldn't have purely been a home court advantage, but it would certainly help playing in a conference tournament here as opposed to freakin' Atlantic City. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
courtside Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 "Early Returns."....was the comment above. This is a long term process, and I expect improvements to be made. Basketball pays the bills at non-football schools. A10 has 12 of 61 tv markets. 73 million people in those markets, roughly 25% of the U.S. population. SLU is a private, city school, nothing in common with the Valley..and SLU has stated it wants more of a national school reputation. The Valley is a nice conference, well run in St. Louis...it just isn't the best fit for SLU. Not really sure why this comes up so much to be honest. Sure short term, some of the non-revenue sports teams aren't as good, thus SLU's ability to be more successful than they would be in other conferences...perhaps a plus. But this is a long term business deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 >"Early Returns."....was the comment above. This is a long >term process, and I expect improvements to be made. >Basketball pays the bills at non-football schools. > >A10 has 12 of 61 tv markets. 73 million people in those >markets, roughly 25% of the U.S. population. > >SLU is a private, city school, nothing in common with the >Valley..and SLU has stated it wants more of a national >school reputation. > >The Valley is a nice conference, well run in St. Louis...it >just isn't the best fit for SLU. Not really sure why this >comes up so much to be honest. Sure short term, some of the >non-revenue sports teams aren't as good, thus SLU's ability >to be more successful than they would be in other >conferences...perhaps a plus. But this is a long term >business deal. The stats about population seem a bit misleading. Programs like LaSalle, Duchesne, Fordham and GW, while located in big cities, play in tiny gyms and have small fan followings. This conference is getting little or no national exposure now. I'm not sure what we have in common with schools like Rhode Island and Charlotte. Athletically speaking, I like to think we don't have a lot in common with the likes of LaSalle, Duchesne, St. Bonaventure and Fordham. Creighton seems quite comfortable in the Valley even though they don't fit the profile of a lot of the other schools. We have to hope the long term is better for the conference, because the short term sure hasn't been good. I guess I'm just a little skeptical that programs that have never really done anything like Duchesne, Fordham, LaSalle and St. Bonaventure are all of the sudden going to get better. We also have to hope that some of these idiots buy a clue about how to schedule. To Brad's credit, he made a real effort to step up the RPI. Unfortunately, some of these other programs just don't seem to get it or care. On top of having bad strength of schedule, some of these weak programs are performing very poorly in the non-conference part of the schedule. Where does that leave us? Scrambling for 1 or probably 2 at the most NCAA bids. Those bids raise $$ for the athletic department and bring national exposure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 courtside is correct, this was done with long term vision. what makes anyone think the past two years and this year will be the norm as opposed to all the years prior to that. remember this decision to join the a-10 was done the year the a-10 had two teams in the final 8 and a string of seasons where the a-10 consistently had more teams in the ncaa tourney, consistently was the higher rated conference, consistently had the better sos and rpi. who was to know that would all flip flop in the last two seasons? and even then, all the other advantages still favor the a-10 imo. like tv markets, like universities ethically and philosophically, etc. the only non-on court advantage that the mvc had upfront was geography. and in this day and age of travel i fail to see that as a deciding factor. i would kill to have a visionary like doug elgin as our commish instead of digglehead linda bruno. fix our conference leadership and i bet this scenario goes back to where it was quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 In addition to being better geographically, the MVC has better leadership as you point out, better SOS, better tv coverage, better attendance and better performance. Based on what others have said, they are also better in the non-bball sports. The MVC has more alums in the area. Geography helps create rivalries. Rivalries help create fan interest. The last I checked, our attendance has been in a slow, steady decline over the last decade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SluSignGuy Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 The length of this thread speaks volumes....nm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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