In addition to the basketball reasons SIUE doesn't make sense, SIU-Edwardsville and SIU-Carbondale constantly fight over funding. I don't know much about the politics between the schools, but I know it can get heated. I have to imagine that SIUC would fight hard to keep SIUE out of the league.

It’s also not like Murray state has had an nba lottery pick recently so I’m sure we can pass them up for Edwardsville

I hope we either get Belmont and Murray State or dip to the A 10 if things are going to shake up.

cant disagree with anything said about SIUE.........but remember their were not a lot of teams in the Valley that wanted the Ramblers in , and our budget was at the bottom. So I am sure there were promises that had to be made. but someone had the foresight to say lets get Chicago in the mix and lets even up public and private........My point is that an institution may be in one spot but change a lot if they see long term gain. So this would balance private and public and bring St.Louis into the picture...and yes there would be a lot to be worked out. I actually think the biggest deterrent is that their fan base is small. Geographically adding Murry and Belmont would really shift the balance to the East and leave Missouri St. even further isolated. So if the league wanted to balance both geographically and private ,public and lets say we add Belmont as East and Private who could we add West and public? There are also 6 schools in the Valley Football Conference that are not in.....Youngstown St, Western Il, and the 4 Dakatos... and by the way does anyone have any legitimate info that the Valley is looking to expand?

Eh, I’m not sure about Missouri State having an issue. Murray, KY and Nashville are pretty easy trips from Springfield, MO, almost directly East and almost all 4 lane expressway (US 60). They’d also be pretty good travel partners for both SIU and Evansville. In terms of markets, St Louis is already an MVC market, even without a school there. Nashville would be a good (and fun) addition.

Murray State and Belmont also have pretty decent baseball programs. Creighton and Wichita State leaving were HUGE hits to the conference baseball-wise, and that hole was basically ignored when they added us.

As others have said, there’s no way in h-e-double hockey sticks that SIU would want SIUE in. Bad blood there historically goes beyond just funding, up to and including power struggles in the Board of Trustees and proposals to take schools away from the Carbondale campus. It’s best that they don’t share a room.

I’ve thought about the A-10 a lot and I just don’t think it’s the right time to make a move if we were to actually get invited. My overall dream for the Loyola program is that we consistently win the conference regular season title, and on the years we may miss, we still have an overall impressive record worthy of being considered for an at-large. We’ve compiled three 20+ winning seasons and are on the verge of a fourth (even with a condensed schedule). We’ve got 2 of 3 regular season titles, and if things go well, it could be 3 of 4. We went to the tournament, the NIT, and I still think we were gonna get into the NIT last year. We are getting a ton of nationally televised games. We are consistently ranked as a top 5 to top 10 mid major team. Just the fact that we are getting talked about as a “bubble team” right now with no major signature win is impressive. The Valley is working just fine for us in my opinion.

Going to the A10 seems like a gamble as a private school that would require them to increase their travel budget for all teams significantly to join. There seems to be more risk than reward to making the jump - especially when you have it really good where you’re at. If we went, the best we could hope for the first couple years is finishing in the middle of the pack.

Butlers jump to the Big East seems like it worked out. I’m not sold on Wichita State’s move as a good one yet. I just wouldn’t want us to end up in the same situation with a conference jump as Valpo did. Valpo could have just stayed in the Horizon League, dominated and went to the tournament at least every other year. Instead - they jumped to the Valley, cannot pull themselves up to the top of the league, can’t seem to recruit kids to small-town Indiana (or keep recruits) that are Valley level talent. On top of that, they are a private school with severely outdated facilities, and in the wake of the pandemic and the financial hit I’m sure they’ve taken, there’s little-to-no chance that they are going to spend the money to upgrade any time soon. Granted they had a good arch madness run last year l, but I legitimately wonder if their administration and fans, in hindsight, regret making the jump.

Everyone seemed worried the Valley would fall when Creighton left - Wichita State stepped up. Everyone seemed worried about the Valley when Wichita left - Loyola stepped up. It’s a solid league and I think it’s fairly well run. I hope we don’t go anywhere for a long time.

Amen Toledo.
I totally agree with your line of reasoning. The Ramblers are comfortable in, and should remain in "The Valley."
It appears to me that the conference is improving from top to bottom, except maybe Valpo.
Even Evansville is becoming competitive after the fiasco it went through a couple of years ago.
Illinois State and Southern Illinois are very young and Northern Iowa will be back with a vengeance next season.

_________________
Let's go Braden!

The valley hasn't stepped up though. It was a consistent multi bid league, and now we're desperate for the number three team in the league to win so that they'll be a Q2 opponent. Also, covid notwithstanding, Loyola is not in the financial situation Valpo is in and we're obviously able to attract talent and keep it here. The A-10 is a stronger league that offers more opportunities for quality opponents. 5 teams are in the top 75 and one is 76. We could run the table in the valley and then lose in the tourny and have no Q1 wins and maybe 2 or 3 Q2 wins.

I like the valley. I hope we get more schools like Belmont and Murray State that have had success and built a consistent winning program. But if the A-10 comes calling Watson should jump on it. I love the MVC regular season but it blows knowing that it probably doesn't mean a damn thing.

Edit: my quad math is wrong and 2 wins at Drake would count as quad 1 unless they have a disaster of an end to the season. But the point stands - quality victories are hard to come by in the MVC conference season.

Boy this kind of talk makes me wish we were still in the old MCC. But I digress. Insofar as Ramblers fans are now rambling on about moving "up" to a better conference I would like to remind you where our program was 6 years ago.

If we want to be the next Butler, we better know what we are hoping to be.

Would we be in a better place in the A10 for long term success?

The A10 is a really good conference, but the closest opposing team would be St. Louis, 295 miles away, the second closest is Dayton 300 miles away, and the third is Duquesne, 350 miles away. Plus there are trips to Charlotte NC, DC, Philly, NYC, and Western Massachusetts and Western New York. Imagine the cost for non-revenue sports.... So I'd say not worth it.

But if St. Louis and Dayton joined the MVC, the MVC would be better than the current A10...