Generally I don't follow how other schools are doing but I was curious after looking at the Valley standings as to how other teams are doing that may be of interest.
(The standings for the MVC had Valpo and us tied for first at 4-1 but Valpo was listed first. Makes no sense either alphabetically or overall or head to head.
We are both 4-1, but L comes before V in the alphabet and we are both 11-7. Must be that we lost to Evansville which is lower than a loss to us.
But that was not the point of this

Northwestern is 1-5 in the Big whatever they are;
Wichita is at 1-3 and 8-8 overall;
Butler is at 2-3 in the Big Least same as DePewl.

On the other hand Buffalo where Jim Whitesell is 16-1 overall,
and Detroit leads the Horizon at 5-1.
Western Michigan where Larry Farmer is is 0-5 in their conference.
Creighton which also left the Valley is 1-4.

Sometimes when you reach for that brass ring you can't stretch far enough and fall off the ride. I wonder what the thoughts are in Wichita?
I always thought a good part of Gonzaga's success is that it does not change conferences and does not overreach but does well every year.

Fans who think their league is the root of all their problems are always good for a chuckle.

Gonzaga laughs away at that notion 20 years running.

Speaking of Jim, isn't this his brother? https://www.aol.com/article/entertainme ... /23640402/

Yes. His brothers are all in show business.

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Cigarboy sucks!

And by the same token, what would the Loyola men's basketball program look like today if the Ramblers hadn't gotten out of the Horizon?

As with so many things, it's just as much about implementation as it is the quality of the idea to begin with.

Obviously, the move from the Horizon to the Valley was a good one. If we would have stayed, we would probably still be a middle of the conference program, and the basketball team would still be a novelty and not one of the highlights of the university. That league was just not set up for us to succeed. The administration, management, and marketing in the Valley is leaps and bounds over the Horizon. Couple that with the enthusiasm for basketball that ALL of the Valley conference schools have and the move was a no-brainer. Before we won the CBI, I wasn't wondering if the Valley was good enough for us as much as I was wondering if we were good enough for them. We were lucky to get the invite, and have made the most of it.


I don't know how everyone else feels, but at this point, even if we were given the opportunity to jump to a bigger/better conference, I would not want us to do it. Moving to a bigger conference would make us have to reset the rebuild clock after waiting this long and working this hard to get the program where it is today. I don't want to do that. I'm perfectly happy with the Valley, the competition, the other schools, the conference tournament format, etc.. I also think being the only big-city school in a conference of all other rural-type campuses gives us a leg-up, recruiting-wise, and gives us the best chance at building a winning team year-in and year-out that can complete for a conference title. We have the benefit of having a completely different type of campus and geographic atmosphere that makes us stand out from all the other conference schools in the Valley. That has to help when it comes to Valley-caliber players making decisions on where they want to spend their next 4 years. Our arena is virtually brand new (and the right size), all our other facilities are brand new and state-of-the art (by next year), our reputation is now #1 in the conference from a national viewpoint (which will last a few years unless another team wins two or three valley tournaments in a row), In short, everything is set up for us to be the Midwest version of Gonzaga if we can keep Porter, keep recruiting, and sustain our success.

I'd rather be like Gonzaga than like Georgetown, Marquette, Xavier, Butler, Wichita St. Creighton, etc.

I tend to agree with you Toledo...my only request is that we play some more Jesuit schools in the OOC portion of the schedule. The Valleys lack of natural Jesuit rivals is my only complaint with it. And frankly another successful season or two & there is no reason that SLU would want to turn their nose up at an arrangement like that.

Garanzini's running the Jesuit's education division from Rome isn't he? Can't he lean on Georgetown and Marquette for some Home and Aways

Been a few years since someone here brought up the idea of Garanzini getting involved in basketball scheduling! Kudos

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