Just saw this on The Valley's Instagram page. I'm curious as to how Loyola's McCafferty success will translate over to the MVC going forward. I had to crop the image so it would fit. Therefore, Missouri State was in 9th place with a score of 6.05 and Bradley was in last place with a score of 6.25.

I would hope we are near the top. I think our programs will have success in the MVC.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Not having a baseball team will likely hurt our ranking a bit

Not having a team ie baseball will not affect your ranking. The MoValley takes the ranking of your sports adds them together and divides by the number of sports you participate in in the Valley. Wichita does not have mens soccer so it neither helps nor hinders in the rankings.

I believe the 2.38 we achieved this year is a new record for the award. It seems to typically come down between us and ISU for the top spot with a few others making a showing at times. I hope you guys are able to compete at a level that puts you in the picture. The more competition the better. I think we've won something like 7 of the last 10 and we really enjoy winning this thing. We take great pride in our overall athletic department strength and if we can ever get softball turned around, watch out!

I don't know how the Horizon compares to The Valley in some of the sports, but it appears that your XC and T&F teams did pretty well last year and I'm curious to see how they do in the MVC. We have some fairly strong XC and T&F programs as well. I couldn't find your VB results as your athletic website has moved on to the upcoming year and the last season I can seem to go back to was 2010. We normally get multiple teams into the NCAA in VB and that's the one sport outside of basketball that I take a decent amount of interest in.

From what I've seen just looking through you athletics site, I'd think you could potentially be in the middle of the pack with a chance to be in the front of that group of schools behind WSU and ISU. Granted, this is pure speculation on just looking at how you finished in different sports in the Horizon and I don't know how the two conferences compare outside of basketball. You appear to be pretty strong in XC and T&F and softball didn't appear too bad either. Looked like golf was OK and I couldn't find much on soccer or volleyball.

I'm going to predict a year one finish of 5th. Which is better than I would have predicted before looking into how you did in the Horizon. I'm anxious for the school year to start so we can start seeing results for everyone.

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The Roundhouse

Our women's volleyball team has been down as of late. I can't speak to the forecast for this season.

Our soccer teams are pretty good. Men's soccer was in the NCAA last year (2011) and was in the HL Championship this past year. Women's soccer has been competitive. Not sure on history.

Softball has been very consistent for us. We lost in the Championship game this year. We also have been competitive against the MVC.

Men's volleyball (which I wouldn't imagine is included) has been probably our most successful program. We've consistently been competitive and this year were in the Final Four.

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Cigarboy sucks!

The array of sports that some MVC schools don't have, the ones they do have, and the ones that some schools are adept in is sometimes mystifying.

For instance, Bradley has one of the best and most consistent men's soccer programs, but they don't have women's soccer at all, even though more full membership MVC schools have women's soccer than men's soccer.

Did you know that SIU-Edwardsville and Central Arkansas are MVC conference members in men's soccer? That's because SIU, Illinois State, Indiana State, and Northern Iowa don't have men's soccer.

Southern Illinois doesn't have men's OR women's soccer.

Indiana State doesn't have men's soccer or golf. But they DO have women's soccer and golf.

Loyola and the Iowa schools don't have baseball, but everyone else does.

Loyola, Indiana State, Evansville, Missouri State, and Northern Iowa don't have men's tennis. But Northern Iowa and Evansville have women's tennis.

If Loyola is going to add some sports to fill out the league roster, it seems to me the top candidates should be men's and women's tennis. It would also be less expensive, I think. I would love to have baseball, but given our location near the lake-- where it's often 10 degrees colder than inland in March and April-- I don't see how we could swing it. I remember training for high school baseball in Virginia in February, and we had guys getting nosebleeds from breathing sub-freezing air on running drills. And forget about batting and fielding practice....

63 - Baseball is possible with the weather. We have softball, and UWM and UIC run baseball programs. But I think Title IX would be more of a speedbump.

Before putting resources into new teams, I'd prefer to see the current sports compete more frequently.

I keep hoping that WSU will eventually add women's soccer to the mix. We don't have soccer of any kind on campus. Some want to see a restart of football here and soccer and even women's swimming/diving would be options to help offset Title IX.

I'm not sure if there's anything else the MVC has that we don't participate in. You also benefit a bit from participating in sports that fewer schools have when it comes to the All Sports Trophy as finishing last isn't as bad as in say basketball.

But you're right in that Tennis would probably be the easiest/cheapest addition to make. Baseball in cold weather areas are difficult early in the year. I know it was always a struggle in Wichita and is a reason that the first month of the season is typically played in California, Hawaii and Texas. Thankfully we were able to build an indoor practice facility a few years ago to allow our out baseball and softball teams to get in some decent work regardless of the weather. It's not the same as outdoors work, but it's a lot better than nothing.

School can't start soon enough. If only it weren't for those damn classes...

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The Roundhouse