Rumor floating around that WSU has accepted an invite to the AAC. Different rumors have them joining next year or in 2019 depending who you ask.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Let the discussion begin....what happens....I am going to open with the Valley splitting with some staying and some leaving. So how about a new LU conference. Midwest Interstate Conference. IUPUI, St. Louis, UMKC, UW-Milwaukee, UIFW, Indiana St. U.Detroit, Bradley and Valpo( not on an interstate). In looking at it...misses the marquee schools.....

I haven't seen anything really concrete, except from WSU trolls on the MVCFans board and that's probably not the most reputable source on the matter. I think it's an open secret that WSU would accept the invitation, but from other articles out there, I don't think WSU is the only candidate (VCU and Dayton are also mentioned and would make intriguing choices). If that's the case, I think the AAC would at least wait out this season to see if Marshall leaves before offering. If say Indiana opens up and Marshall takes it, I don't see a massive upside between WSU over VCU/Dayton if you're going basketball only. Also, a move to the AAC does not mean Marshall stays there forever. That conference even adding another team is still a solid step below the Power 5 and AAC Wichita is still a less attractive job than a blue blood school like Louisville.

As for a replacement for WSU if they leave, I say lets cross that road when we get there. LU hasn't competed in either the MVC/Horizon League for a long time, so the first order of business for us is beating schools we should compare equally to (cough*SIU*cough) before we start talking about who would be a good fit for a LU league.

I would like to see Valpo or Detroit. However I bet they go west (Neb-Omaha, UMKC, etc). The best would be SLU but that won't happen. Part of me wishes LU would have joined the A10 a few years ago. LU would have been a good travel partner for SLU.

Short of adding teams like Valpo and SLU, I fail to see how the MVC saves face with WSU leaving. It essentially makes it the Horizon league before Butler left.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Short term it could be a good fit for them, but I'm not sure how wise a move it is long term. The current AAC exists because of football. Considering the transient nature of the schools that make up the AAC, and its base as a FBS football conference, I'll be shocked if it's still around in 5 years. There's a building split among division one schools between the power football conferences, and everyone else. I can easily see schools like UCONN and Cincinnati running back to a power football conference (Big 12 perhaps), with UCF and/or USF not far behind. There's no way that WSU can build up a program quickly enough to be on the right side of that divide.

I'm not so sure it'd be quite that dire. Many of the schools that would remain still have great histories, they've just made terrible decisions and hires the last 10 years.

Butler Horizon wasn't bad. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad. It got dire when they left. My main concern is that there aren't very many good options to pluck from the "lesser" conferences. Puts us in a rough spot. Could hope for another big realignment and maybe a move to the A10. But we don't have the money for that travel. So I think we're stuck.

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Cigarboy sucks!

LUSUPERFAN.....you are correct no physical debris flying around....just a watch and not a warning....but this is just for funsies......TO me of course the best would be a Midwest Catholic League if we could get to at least 8.
I am curious about St. Louis , They have really fallen off the map.

If we're really going for funsies, a disintegration of the Big East into a Big East Conference and a Big Midwest Conference would be best.

A Big Midwest featuring LU, DePaul (it'd be tough to dissolve the Big East and leave them hanging), Marquette, Butler, Xavier, Creighton, Dayton, St. Louis at the least would be great. 10 teams seems like a good number for the conference, so I'd have no problem with any of the last 2 spots going to Valpo, Evansville, Bradley, Detroit, Denver, or Duquesne.

The Big East would have the 5 east coast schools (Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Georgetown, and Nova) and 5 other A-10 schools (Fordham, St. Joe's, St. Bonnies, George Washington, Richmond, Duquesne, Siena, La Salle something like that).

Apparently having 10 private schools frees the Big East of a lot of FOIA inquiries.