Horizon League will expand, IPFW to announce move Tuesday

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I'd agree with that too, it'd be a step down, but we'd probably see better success with FB, men's and women's BB.

Most HL message board fans seem to be advocating for NKU, Belmont, and Murray State. None of those teams are moving to the HL in my opinion. They have it good where they are. The two schools (of 3, if they want to go to 12 schools) they need to add are IUPUI and IPFW. Those are perfect geographical fits.
 
Horizon and NKU rumors have been around for awhile. League really blew it when Butler left by being completely flat footed and not adding anyone then. Many thought they would go after NKU and then try to expand down to Belmont but it didn't happen.

Would be surprised if they added two teams just because it would create an odd number again. If they can't add three, they would better served adding just IUPUI. Jags are better positioned for success than IPFW.
 
Step down? nooooooooooo way.. Just cause it was a shitty year for mbb, we did finish 3rd you know.. FB is back and the track and cc does a outstanding in the mvc why leave??? THe womens sports are getting better why have the attidute we get a busted lip this year, go play with the little guys next year??
 
Im not going to kill you for it, but I dont agree with it.. We are competing just fine in the MVC (we are 4th and almost 3rd in the 2014-15 MVC all sports standings at the moment), and I enjoy being apart of a higher quality league. The MVC basketball is much more enjoyable to attend and holds more prestige nationwide. I realize that we dont make the tourney as often and I see that more of an ISU issue, not so much an MVC issue.. WSU is on another planet funding wise, but the others arent big time finanical programs. I would have argued that Illinois schools are much bigger, but they have been in the tank lately and the Illinois government is cutting funding to colleges big time this upcoming year, that will trickle down to athletic budgets.

We'd win more games but I dont think we'd dominate the HL enough to warrant the move down. You tell me that we're going to make the tourney 8 out of 10 years with 25+ wins a year?? Sign me up.... otherwise Im fine with where we're at currently.
 

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We struggle to compete in the MVC because of poor finances. I don't know how long we can keep it up but every year our fans bitch when we collapse at the end of the season and then puff out their chests and boast about being in the MVC. Makes no sense to me.
 
People can bash the OVC, but at least they do it right. All but one of their schools is publically funded and all but three of their teams play football in the same conference (unlike the MVC where we have NDSU dominating in football but not playing basketball in conference, and WSU doing the same with basketball).
 
bent20 said:
People can bash the OVC, but at least they do it right. All but one of their schools is publically funded and all but three of their teams play football in the same conference (unlike the MVC where we have NDSU dominating in football but not playing basketball in conference, and WSU doing the same with basketball).
Click to expand...

We'd actually fall in line financially with the member schools there.
 

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The OVC is a nice conference, geographically centered too. I have mentioned it here before. The MVC should be working feverishly to get the football schools to come on board with other sports.... but that creates some additional costs with travel... Those MVC football schools are not ideal geographically speaking - at least not for ISU. So maybe they shouldn't reach out to the football schools - what am I saying? LOL - I don't know... Looks like a difficult situation... The OVC has always seemed to be a good fit for ISU for multiple reasons...
Crazy things could happen... MVC football schools come on board with all sports.... IUPUI joins MVC... IPFW joinns Horizon... MVC creates two divisions... who knows... and what about UE - they seem to be a fit for the OVC, too.... They could give Belmont a "like" school in the OVC. UE is dead center of the OVC geographically. Could talk for hours about pros and cons....
 
southernindianaballer said:
The OVC is a nice conference, geographically centered too. I have mentioned it here before. The MVC should be working feverishly to get the football schools to come on board with other sports.... but that creates some additional costs with travel... Those MVC football schools are not ideal geographically speaking - at least not for ISU. So maybe they shouldn't reach out to the football schools - what am I saying? LOL - I don't know... Looks like a difficult situation... The OVC has always seemed to be a good fit for ISU for multiple reasons...
Crazy things could happen... MVC football schools come on board with all sports.... IUPUI joins MVC... IPFW joinns Horizon... MVC creates two divisions... who knows... and what about UE - they seem to be a fit for the OVC, too.... They could give Belmont a "like" school in the OVC. UE is dead center of the OVC geographically. Could talk for hours about pros and cons....
Click to expand...

OVC is 10 times better than Horizon....Not just basketball, but football and baseball. I don't think it would ever happen but that's where ISU should be.
 
southernindianaballer said:
The OVC is a nice conference, geographically centered too. I have mentioned it here before. The MVC should be working feverishly to get the football schools to come on board with other sports.... but that creates some additional costs with travel... Those MVC football schools are not ideal geographically speaking - at least not for ISU. So maybe they shouldn't reach out to the football schools - what am I saying? LOL - I don't know... Looks like a difficult situation... The OVC has always seemed to be a good fit for ISU for multiple reasons...
Crazy things could happen... MVC football schools come on board with all sports.... IUPUI joins MVC... IPFW joinns Horizon... MVC creates two divisions... who knows... and what about UE - they seem to be a fit for the OVC, too.... They could give Belmont a "like" school in the OVC. UE is dead center of the OVC geographically. Could talk for hours about pros and cons....
Click to expand...

That doesn't fix the issue and would actually likely widen the gap for us.

The biggest issue with the MVC stems from the fact that it isn't a unified league. Having splits for the revenue sports allows for each conference to have programs that "specialize" for that particular revenue sport. You can define specialize however you want but I will point to that being focus and spending more money on that sport.

If our college athletics program is going to succeed long term, I think we need to get into a conference where each school offers the same product line, has similar spending and is a geographic fit so the cost of doing business is cheaper.
 
Jason... agree... good points... if I may speak selfishly... I would rather travel south rather than west or northwest to see the trees... I think most current students feel the same... alumni would depend on current residence...
The OVC has some nice locations... Nashville, Cape Girardeau, Clarksville, Edwardsville/St.Louis, Jacksonville AL is actually close to Atlanta... MVC has what? Chicago now... but who doesn't go there for business a few times a year? Much better road trips for fans and alumni in OVC.... Heck I would like to see UE in the OVC...
Question: Would having our Illinois neighbor (EIU) in the OVC increase attendance much to speak of and create a rival? Just curious... not that it matters...
 
southernindianaballer said:
Jason... agree... good points... if I may speak selfishly... I would rather travel south rather than west or northwest to see the trees... I think most current students feel the same... alumni would depend on current residence...
The OVC has some nice locations... Nashville, Cape Girardeau, Clarksville, Edwardsville/St.Louis, Jacksonville AL is actually close to Atlanta... MVC has what? Chicago now... but who doesn't go there for business a few times a year? Much better road trips for fans and alumni in OVC.... Heck I would like to see UE in the OVC...
Question: Would having our Illinois neighbor (EIU) in the OVC increase attendance much to speak of and create a rival? Just curious... not that it matters...
Click to expand...

Evansville doesn't belong in the OVC as they don't have football. You could schedule them and have them be part of your yearly OOC slate just as football could rotate between SIU/Illinois State, both schools with long time series.

EIU is a rival to me. They've close geographically, have similar footprint, similar athletic expenditures, etc. We used to play them pretty much every year in football.

http://www.sycamorefootball.com/series.php?opponent=25
 

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I think Evansville originally was a member of the OVC. Not sure how long ago that was.

And EIU is one of our historic rivals in football. Rivalry has just been dead for a number of years since we no longer play each other in the non-conference.
 
bent20 said:
I think Evansville originally was a member of the OVC. Not sure how long ago that was.

And EIU is one of our historic rivals in football. Rivalry has just been dead for a number of years since we no longer play each other in the non-conference.
Click to expand...

Evansville also used to have football. Different landscape now for non-football schools.
 
I suspect the Horizon will announce an addition after the NCAA tourney is over. July 1 is the usual conference switch date. Again, I think IUPUI and IPFW have to be front runners.

I wonder if the MVC will add 2 schools and go to 12 this summer? That's a possibility as well. Elgin discussed it in a podcast in December. Not saying we would, but that they were "preparing" for it.

I don't ever want us to leave the MVC, but if we were ever forced to for some reason the OVC would be a good fit, or the Horizon.
 
For those of you who want to step down in conferences, just be careful what you wish for. A step down ensures you lower level recruiting, which means less chance for success of the national stage, fewer of those "big wins" talked about in another thread, and even less reason for the Hulman Center project. We can only put 6,000 in there now with teams like UNI and Wichita coming to town. What do you think happens when we start seeing SIUE every year. We might as well move back into the Arena. So we'll be much more small time with even less reason for people to attend our games. It will also impact alumni giving and involvement (not that it's good now), and I'm sure there are myriad other unintended consequences that will end up with ISU being a third rate program that has no hope of success on a sustained level. People who supported ISU in the MVC simply won't support at the same level because they will, generally, see it as ISU going down the crapper. Maybe a generation from now support could improve.

And also on the "be careful what you wish for" line, we'll probably see an athletic department budget CUT if we move down. You really think that wouldn't happen? Be serious. We might as well stay where we are and be a mid-pack MVC program than move and become a mid-pack OVC program.
 
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