MVC schools' '23-'24 schedules

[Da Coach]

Valparaiso:

https://www.valpoathletics.com/mbasketball/schedule/

Valparaiso will be in a rebuilding mode under Roger Powell. But, this may be the weakest overall non-conference schedule of any MVC team.
Here is a breakdown-
Home- Trinity Christian College- NAIA- 12-16, 6-14 - Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conf- 11th place
Home- IUPUI 5-27 (3-27 vs. D1)- 2-18 in Horizon- NET 360
Home- Green Bay 3-29 - 2-18 in Horizon- NET 361
At- Illinois - 20-13, 11-9 in Big Ten- NET 36
Home- WIU 16-14 (13-14 vs. D1), 9-9 in Summit- NET 248
Home- Southern 15-17 (13-17 vs. D1), 11-7 in SWAC NET 278
At- Central Michigan 10-21 (8-21 vs. D1), 5-13 in the MAC NET 331
At- Virginia Tech 19-15, 8-12 and 11th place in the ACC- NET 75
Home- Chicago State 11-20 - NET 302
Home- Samford 21-11 (18-10 vs. D1), 13-3 in Southern Conference - NET 135
At- Elon 8-24 (6-24 vs. D1) 6-12 in the CAA, tied for 9th - NET 337

5 opponents with 300+ NET
Only 3 opponents who had winning records vs D1 last year (Illinois, Virginia Tech, and Samford)
7 Home games- one against a poor NAIA team, and 6 against teams with an average NET over 280
4 Road games- 2 are Buy games at Power 5 Conference teams, and 2 are against teams with 330+ NET

[64NIT]

Murray State:

https://twitter.com/RacersHoops/status/1696953770016444783/photo/1

[64NIT]

SIU:

https://siusalukis.com/news/2023/9/7/mens-basketball-saluki-mens-basketball-announces-2023-24-non-conference-schedule.aspx

[64NIT]

It's been nearly a month since SIU released their schedule, the 11th of 12 MVC teams to do so. Still waiting on UNI to release theirs. D1 Docket is up to 340 schedules released out of 362 teams. Will UNI be the last D1 school to release their schedule? haha

[Da Coach]

UNI releases their schedule-

https://unipanthers.com/news/2023/10/13/mens-basketball-panther-mens-basketball-announces-2023-24-non-conference-schedule.aspx

[Da Coach]

Indiana State played a secret scrimmage against Northern Kentucky yesterday, and "won by double digits".
South Florida transfer Ryan Conwell scored 30 points for the Sycamores.- https://twitter.com/hoops_mvc/status...87150410428765

Ryan Conwell was a Bradley recruit from the portal last spring- https://www.bradleyfans.com/forum/sp...053#post510053

Illinois reportedly beat Kentucky by 30 in a secret scrimmage over this past weekend- https://twitter.com/IlliniBurner/status/1713267691492966523

Here is a partial list of secret scrimmages- https://burnerball.com/secret-scrimmage-list/

The NCAA requiring these teams not to report the scores or allow spectators is ridiculous. The results obviously get out for many of the "secret scrimmages", and some even have multiple videos posted.
Here are videos from Vanderbilt's win over West Virginia Saturday-
Links- https://twitter.com/billyderrick10/s...97606372503975
https://twitter.com/WVUhoops/status/1713315870376612316

[Da Coach]

Northern Iowa played a scrimmage today against Wisconsin.
Apparently, they broke it into 3 periods, and Wisconsin won 2 of the 3- https://twitter.com/brandonharrison/...55505745178663

Leading scorer for Wisconsin was A.J. Storr. He spent last season at St. John's before transferring to Wisconsin.


Future opponent Akron (Dec. 5) lost a secret scrimmage today to Youngstown State- 81-50 blowout-https://twitter.com/trillydonovan/st...49161239658807

[yoda]

open exhibition games start this weekend with Evansville on 10/28, ISU on 10/29 and UIC on 10/31

Missouri State had their preseason intrasquad exhibition, the comments on their message board were mixed...
Some said Chance Moore had a good outing, a few others liked two of their freshmen Bey & Hill, but otherwise
some seemed disappointed and I couldn't find anywhere that mentioned Clay.

[Da Coach]

MVC teams' exhibition games-

10/28- Evansville vs. Wabash
10/29- Illinois State vs. Illinois Wesleyan
10/31- UIC vs. Clayton State
11/1- Bradley vs. St. Ambrose
11/1- Murray State vs. Brescia
11/1- Northern Iowa vs. Coe
11/1- Valparaiso vs. St. Mary of the Woods
11/2- Drake vs. Truman State
11/2- Missouri State vs. Westminster

Belmont, Indiana State, and Southern Illinois do not have public exhibition games scheduled

[Da Coach]

MVC teams' exhibition games...
10/29- Illinois State vs. Illinois Wesleyan

Illinois State easily defeats Illinois Wesleyan 78-46 -
Stats- https://goredbirds.com/sports/mens-b...boxscore/21389
Attendance was 6,386- but from someone who was in attendance, many of those attending were IWU fans

Senior Darius Burford, who was voted 3rd-team Preseason All-MVC, was ISU's leading scorer with 19 points. He had 15 in the first half.

[Da Coach]

MVC teams' exhibition games....
10/31- UIC vs. Clayton State
11/1- Bradley vs. St. Ambrose
11/1- Murray State vs. Brescia
11/1- Northern Iowa vs. Coe
11/1- Valparaiso vs. St. Mary of the Woods
11/2- Drake vs. Truman State
11/2- Missouri State vs. Westminster

One MVC exhibition game tonight (10/31)- UIC vs. Clayton State.
Clayton State is a Division II school in Morrow, Georgia. It is rather unusual for a D2 team to travel that far for an exhibition game. They were 3-25 last season, and 1-17 in the Peach Belt Conference.
Oddly, this game isn't even listed on Clayton State's schedule- https://claytonstatesports.com/sports/mbball/schedule

This game does not seem to be of much interest to UIC fans, either.
Their fan message board does not even mention of the game- https://uicflames.proboards.com/boar...ops-discussion

UIC finished 11th in the MVC last season, and were picked 10th in this year's preseason poll.
They lost their top 2 scorers - Jace Carter (16.5 ppg- transferred to Texas A&M) and Tre Anderson (12.9 ppg used up his eligibility), and they return only 2 of last year's top 5 scorers. Their top freshman from last year, Jalen Jackson (7.4 ppg) also transferred (to Purdue-Fort Wayne).
Coach Luke Yaklich has a bunch of new players including 3 transfers from other 4-year schools, 3 juco transfers, and 3 freshmen.

[yoda]

UIC is quite an enigma. They boast of having well over 300,000 alumni, many (if not most) living right there in the Chicago area. They’ve had a Division I program for 42 years, a nice arena, in a new & competitive conference and a winning season as recently as 2020 and a couple post-season appearances as recently as 2017, 2018. Yet, as we saw when we went there to play them, they draw only a few hundred fans and have almost no real student interest & no enthusiasm among those attending.

Seems their people are trying to generate more interest. Maybe hire a Chicago legend or one of their popular players from the past to help with marketing.

[Da Coach]

UIC is quite an enigma. They boast of having well over 300,000 alumni, many (if not most) living right there in the Chicago area. They’ve had a Division I program for 42 years, a nice arena, in a new & competitive conference and a winning season as recently as 2020 and a couple post-season appearances as recently as 2017, 2018. Yet, as we saw when we went there to play them, they draw only a few hundred fans and have almost no real student interest & no enthusiasm among those attending.

Seems their people are trying to generate more interest. Maybe hire a Chicago legend or one of their popular players from the past to help with marketing.

UIC also has a total enrollment of over 33,500 students, far more than any other MVC school, and yet most obviously do not care about athletics.
They list and average attendance last season of 1,781 per home game, but the real attendance has to be much lower than that. Interestingly, their average attendance the prior year when they were a bottom half team in the Horizon League, was actually better- 2,093 per game.
So the move to the MVC hasn't helped interest or attendance yet.

[bradleyfan124]

UIC also has a total enrollment of over 33,500 students, far more than any other MVC school, and yet most obviously do not care about athletics.
They list and average attendance last season of 1,781 per home game, but the real attendance has to be much lower than that. Interestingly, their average attendance the prior year when they were a bottom half team in the Horizon League, was actually better- 2,093 per game.
So the move to the MVC hasn't helped interest or attendance yet.

So what parameters did the MVC use in selecting them? I hope they didnt flip a coin

[yoda]

I am certain that the success of choosing the last school for membership as a Chicago-market school was a factor. If SLU had interest like they did back in the Majerus era the MVC would have taken them.