Peoria_bradley_fan
New member
Bradley going to the A-10 would be huge for our program. The Valley doesn't seem to be on track to getting to multiple bids anytime soon. Larger markets as well. This would be a dream for this Bradley Fan.
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Missouri State leaves the MVC
- Thread starter Stryker
- Start date
Afreck2430
Member
Seattle University and Grand Canyon University just accepted invites to the WCC. I wouldn't be shocked if Bradley is already exploring options because football will drive a lot of the decisions but that's just my opinion
Tommy
Well-known member
Grand Canyon beat St Mary’s in round one of the NCAA and Seattle was the CBI champ. Just an interesting tidbit!
Stryker
New member
I agree. As much as I like the history and tradition of the valley, things are just changing too much right now. With BU's fanbase, a basketball focused conference could very well be interested in adding us imo. It would be a big shame if the MVC diminished greatly over the next several years and BU doesn't take any chance it has to move to a better position.
They are adding Kennesaw State this year and then Delaware next year with the Bears to get to 12.
houstonbrave
Member
Conference USA
LittleBrave
Active member
Green Bay seems like the best choice, followed by N. Kentucky/Milwaukee - hopefully at least 1 of them is interested.
LittleBrave
Active member
NKU = Northern Kentucky? (metro Cincy??)
Afreck2430
Member
Texas Arlington is going back to the Southland conference
Absolutely agree too. Reynolds and Wardle seem like smart guys, and Reynolds seems to have made a lot of national in roads. I would hope they’ve been looking at possibilities for a while now and now seems like the time to strike.
All the more reason this season is so important, another good year this year makes us seem like a consistently good and top 70-100 program that belongs in such a conference.
Hopefully fans show up more this year too to make our case better. Make it a good non-con schedule cause there won’t be much in conference it seems. Hopefully next spring we could be announcing an agreement to move to an A10.
Stryker
New member
Agreed, hopefully BU gets an NCAA tournament appearance next year and makes a bit of noise. Just from market and attendance though, BU average 4,947 last year at Carver. Significantly higher than the A10 average of 4,354 last year, and near the AAC average of 5,737. The PAC-12 and MWC only averaged 6,373 & 6,624 respectively.
Also, when I am at Carver I do not see as large amount of fans as blue hairs anymore like I did when I graduated in 2008. The large amount of fans that were adults in the 70s & 80s have filtered out now for the most part, and the attrition shouldn't be as bad in the future. If the program stays relevant I only see attendance being stable or continuing to increase in the future for BU. I think in the current sports climate BU is positioned fairly well. Hopefully that can be used to the programs advantage going forward.
Each time this discussion about Bradley being "proactive" comes up, we start looking at other conferences and talking about which would be the best for BU. But my opinion hasn't changed. I believe Bradley needs to stay in the MVC and try to help the conference make the best decision on adding new schools.
There is realistically only one non-football option that would be equal to or superior to the MVC-- the A-10. But I do not see that the A-10 would have any interest in Bradley. If they are even interested in expanding, which is unlikely since they already have 15 members- the largest mid-major conference in the country, they would want schools in big cities and major media markets. And they obviously favor schools from the states on the East Coast.
So IMO, Bradley isn't going to waste time and resources reaching out to other conferences. The MVC will survive and losing Missouri State isn't going to set them back a bit. Missouri State will be a lot easier to replace than Creighton, Wichita State, Tulsa, and even Loyola was. No offense to their sports programs (though they haven't made the NCAA Tournament this century), but nobody liked going to southwest Missouri anyway. I know I won't miss them.
There is realistically only one non-football option that would be equal to or superior to the MVC-- the A-10. But I do not see that the A-10 would have any interest in Bradley. If they are even interested in expanding, which is unlikely since they already have 15 members- the largest mid-major conference in the country, they would want schools in big cities and major media markets. And they obviously favor schools from the states on the East Coast.
So IMO, Bradley isn't going to waste time and resources reaching out to other conferences. The MVC will survive and losing Missouri State isn't going to set them back a bit. Missouri State will be a lot easier to replace than Creighton, Wichita State, Tulsa, and even Loyola was. No offense to their sports programs (though they haven't made the NCAA Tournament this century), but nobody liked going to southwest Missouri anyway. I know I won't miss them.
Just seem like we’re a couple moves away from being a low major conference. Who are the traditionally good schools in the Valley anymore? Murray and Belmont, who are pretty new. Indiana State outside of a few years hasn’t had much since Bird. We will see what happens with them.
UIC, Valpo, Evansville are all not traditional Valley type high mid major programs. Illinois State hasn’t been much of a program nationally that I can ever remember. Drake hasn’t been good consistently outside of DeVries so now we will see.
That leaves SIU and UNI and they’re football programs that could make decisions based on that. So there’s maybe 4-6 really solid basketball programs left outside of us and that’s it. The bottom half is bad. If there’s a path to making the Valley relevant or multi-bid consistently again I’d be all for it, and I agree the A10 will take some more success, but I have to believe we should at least be discussing what to do. Certainly we have to be by far the most storied historical basketball program left in the Valley from 10 years ago.
Note that Conference USA had a conference RPI ranked 16th this past season. The MVC was 9th- https://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2024/rpi-conference
Stryker
New member
This is reality at this point.
Indiana State & Drake - Have had some good seasons over the past 15 years but before that weren't relevant at all and basically low major programs.
ISU and SIU - have the capability of being strong mid majors but haven't done much in 15 yrs seemingly...
UNI - Probably has had the most success in the Valley since Creighton and WSU left besides Loyola, and BU to an extent.
Belmont and Murray - have the chance to be solid programs, but who knows. They are kind of a toss up but I'd bet they will fairly solid, but probably not consistently top 100 programs.
Valpo - Honestly the MVC should probably force them out at this point.
UIC & Evansville - Likely to remain near the bottom of the MVC and 150+ type programs indefinitely.
Ultimately with how drastically things are changing right now, I am not sure what to think. I think success in the portal is going to drive wins at this point going forward. Bradley is positioned very well in comparison to most the Valley teams. If I were to guess I think UNI, SIU, ISU, Murray St. & Belmont have a decent shot at being solid mid major programs going forward. ISUb and Drake are real toss ups at this point.
I agree with DC, unless it's the Big East calling, I wouldn't move. I would rather build a team capable of dominating the Valley, see Gonzaga, than move conferences for a somewhat lateral move. Maybe the Valley should get creative and go to a school like Saint Louis and see what it would take to lure them away. There would have to be no revenue sport benefits. Alternatively, I like the idea of NKU or maybe Tennessee Tech.
Afreck2430
Member
I disagree that we should stay in the valley if the A-10 has called. I understand the tradition and history with the valley but at some point you can't lean on that and have to move forward. I think you need to reach out to potentially better options if it presents itself. I believe the valley will eventually fold in the next 5 years because of the football schools
houstonbrave
Member
I am not a big college football fan but does this really bring in that much money ? I mean FIU, Jacksonville State, Liberty,La Tech, Middle Tennessee,New Mexico State, Sam Houston, UTEP, Western Kentucky, Kennesaw State, Delaware. I see a bunch of travel cost but no real TV revenue…..ya do get to visit Las Cruses and Huntsville, Texas though.