norsefan92
Team Operations
Die Hard NKU Norse Fan and Season Ticket Holder
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Post by norsefan92 on Feb 15, 2018 9:06:49 GMT -6
Any news or updates regarding expansion this off season. The Missouri Valley message boards are pretty hot and thinking that NKU will get an offer along with Murray State to join the MVC this offseason. I am not sure NKU is really in the position to be making that jump due to the financial situation the kentucky schools are in. That being said it would be hard to turn down an offer.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2018 12:28:15 GMT -6
Any news or updates regarding expansion this off season. The Missouri Valley message boards are pretty hot and thinking that NKU will get an offer along with Murray State to join the MVC this offseason. I am not sure NKU is really in the position to be making that jump due to the financial situation the kentucky schools are in. That being said it would be hard to turn down an offer. I saw your post on the Valley board. Quite enlightening. I thought it was right on point. Having said that, no, there have been no rumors nor fan speculation as of late. That would be the only updates we'd get anyway (fan speculation) seeing as Commissioner Jon LeCrone is very close to the vest when it comes to expansion. He's already said the HL will expand...maybe even to 14 teams. Fans have speculated the 2 new ones will be Robert Morris and Purdue-Fort Wayne. Outside of that, it's anybody's guess. The Commissioner has also said that they have an extensive list of candidates. The main thing, in my opinion, is to build up the conference from within. From the new coaching hires within the past 3 years, you can see some improvement. NKU, Wright State, UIC and Milwaukee seemed to have either turned the corner or have shown they have the right pieces in place. Oakland has been snake bitten, Green Bay is in rebuild mode, Cleveland State & YSU are a couple years away, IUPUI has to recruit to the level of the league and Detroit is just a mess! They may have hired the wrong guy. Anyway as it pertains to expansion, I just hope the League brings in a team or two with baseball.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2018 19:22:31 GMT -6
No news is the best news for the HL right now. We are in no position to attract anyone we would want so if you hear we are expanding this off season we are adding more bottom feeders like IUPUI. Best case scenario for the HL is we put together 3-4 really good years in a row where we keep improving our conference RPI and get some teams in the dance that can win some games. Then and only then are we going to start looking like a good option for desirable teams again. This was actually an insightfully positive comment!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 14:17:00 GMT -6
These next couple months will prove if the HL will expand or stand pat. Whatever decision is made or invites handed out, I don't think will go into June like last year. The decision and/or process will be quick, considering all the info gathered on prospective programs, comments made by LeCrone and the assumed apparent upcoming expansion of the Valley which will undoubtedly affect this conference.
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Post by kevinudm on Mar 15, 2018 12:46:03 GMT -6
The HL is not currently in a position to initiate any positive changes. Fort Wayne or NJIT would accept invites, but just about no one else. So any HL changes would be driven by other conferences.
The Big East is standing pat at 10 for now, and Dayton and Saint Louis did nothing this year to improve their prospects of moving up.
There was talk of the MVC adding Murray St. But they passed on them last year, and there is no obvious place for the Racers to put their football program. NKU might make sense for the MVC but NKU has no track record of success and has not gone thru the review process that UIC/Milwaukee/Murray St./Valpo went thru a year ago. So the MVC doesn't appear to be doing anything this year.
Gonzaga has had talks with the MWC; they could balance off Hawaii's football-only membership so that the MWC would have an even 12 in both football and basketball. Would Gonzaga really want to leave a conference where they have prospered and have an excellent cultural fit, for a new home with marginally better and where they would be a second class (non-football) citizen? I don't see the logic, but Gonzaga would likely make the move if Mark Few insists.
If Gonzaga leaves the WCC but BYU stays, the WCC could stand pat a 9 for a while. Or they could consider Seattle (WAC), Grand Canyon (WAC) or Denver (Summit). If any (or all 3) move, UMKC likely goes to the Summit and the WAC is kaput. Any remaining WAC schools will be scrambling to find any new home they can, and the HL might have an interest in New Mexico St., Grand Canyon and/or UMKC if they are in play.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2018 20:27:36 GMT -6
I agree with both you and Big DWSU. Will be quite interesting to actually see what happens.
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Post by gbphoenix1 on Nov 28, 2018 14:13:11 GMT -6
I haven't heard a peep about expansion. What is interesting is all of the metrics were stacked against the HL for the past few years. Now that seems to have swung and conferences like the Summit, ASun, WAC and OVC are back behind the HL. I guess this proves it is cyclical. It also makes me think the time to strike might be upon us as a league.
What I also find interesting is that if you look back through the threads on this board you will find 4+ years of talk on this topic. So many of the teams discussed still are down. Omaha, UMKC, Denver, SIUE, Morehead among others haven't made any progress. Teams that were trending up like PFW and Robert Morris seem down right now. Teams like Murray and Belmont are still the ones that hold value. A team like Lipscomb is doing things never before imagined while FGCU is in the middle of a reboot.
Anyway, I will stick to this. If the league is going to expand do it with programs that really do make sense on many levels and not just some team with a couple of recent wins.
P.S. It looks like Robert Morris needs a new coach. They can't keep anyone for 4 years and they don't seem to be able to win any games.
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Post by ougrizz05 on Nov 28, 2018 19:26:36 GMT -6
I haven't heard a peep about expansion. What is interesting is all of the metrics were stacked against the HL for the past few years. Now that seems to have swung and conferences like the Summit, ASun, WAC and OVC are back behind the HL. I guess this proves it is cyclical. It also makes me think the time to strike might be upon us as a league. What I also find interesting is that if you look back through the threads on this board you will find 4+ years of talk on this topic. So many of the teams discussed still are down. Omaha, UMKC, Denver, SIUE, Morehead among others haven't made any progress. Teams that were trending up like PFW and Robert Morris seem down right now. Teams like Murray and Belmont are still the ones that hold value. A team like Lipscomb is doing things never before imagined while FGCU is in the middle of a reboot. Anyway, I will stick to this. If the league is going to expand do it with programs that really do make sense on many levels and not just some team with a couple of recent wins. P.S. It looks like Robert Morris needs a new coach. They can't keep anyone for 4 years and they don't seem to be able to win any games. I dont know if we are 'ahead' of those conferences. This whole NET tool is different from RPI. For instance Ohio state was ranked #1. Time will tell where we are.
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Post by tommyboy on Nov 29, 2018 3:22:52 GMT -6
I have to agree that using NET at this point doesn't tell us much but, how can anyone use it for a basis and then turn around and say that a few games wouldn't be a reason to consider a team? I would want to add teams that helps basketball but, the other sports have factored in when we needed to maintain a minimum to keep an automatic bid. I hope the HL can reverse the recent trend of the last few years but, I don't see it yet.
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Post by gbphoenix1 on Nov 29, 2018 9:04:56 GMT -6
If you want to keep apples to apples, here is a link to the current RPI. realtimerpi.com/rpi_conf_Men.htmlAll I know is at this time last year everyone was freaking out about the HL being dead and left behind. Well some of the teams have rallied and it is fair to say the league is better off this year than it was last year at this time. Use whatever metric you want. I will use the eye test and just keep it simple. If the league is better and does want to expand it would be timely to hold conversations. P.S. RMU is apparently just fine...when playing YSU.
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Post by tommyboy on Nov 29, 2018 9:36:12 GMT -6
Well, if I were a school considering the HL, wouldn't I want to use more than a few weeks of out-of-conference results to consider? If the HL has any signature wins to this point, what would they be? And, does everyone agree that they are signature wins.
Personally, I'd like to at least wait until league play to see how we did OOC.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2018 9:43:46 GMT -6
... If the HL has any signature wins to this point, what would they be? And, does everyone agree that they are signature. At this point, I'd have say IUPUI's win over a P6 Boston College ON THE ROAD is a signature win.
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Post by tommyboy on Nov 29, 2018 9:54:30 GMT -6
Chuck A, I would have to agree that was pretty good. I think I remember seeing something on Raider Nation ( one of WSU's message boards ) that had a post that said Murray State was #1 in the RPI before they even played a game. So, if the HL is 15th or 20th as a conference the first of the year then I would consider how it stacked up against last year and other leagues. But, other than a knee-jerk decision then I'd still want to see a 3 to 5 year average if I was deciding to jump leagues.
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Post by gbphoenix1 on Nov 29, 2018 11:27:47 GMT -6
Decisions to switch leagues are made at a bigger level than metrics. An interested program is going to be interested because of the overall fit with the league. Metrics are mostly a media and fan selling point. If you are a school interested in the league you can make a move with less questioning by the media and fans when the metrics are good. Right now the metrics are good, most likely in next 4 weeks will remain good and a 5 year number for the league probably isn't bad.
As far as good wins there are less than 30 wins year to date by teams outside of the top 90 of spending over teams in the top 90. Of those wins several are against SMU, West Virginia and Wake Forest who are struggling. About 1/3 of the wins occurred during a neutral site tournament. So yes that IUPUI win over BC is impressive and across college hoops hard to come by. Needing a marquee win for the league is fan stuff, institutions don't care about that. A marquee win is actually more of a selling point for prospective members to the league than it is the league to perspective members. If that were really important the league should be beating down Lipscomb's door but I doubt very much if anyone at Lipscomb would care if an HL member had a P6 win.
I think there is a lot of negativity around the HL fan bases right now. I know this much, negativity doesn't attract anything of value when it comes to expansion. The league members should be happy that right now only one team is looking really bad (YSU) and everyone else is looking pretty competitive. A year ago, heck 3 months ago very few would have seen that coming.
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Post by tommyboy on Nov 29, 2018 11:52:12 GMT -6
I wasn't thinking of a win over Boston College as a factor in expansion, I was thinking more about whether that would skew a league's overall ranking in the short term. For the purpose of this thread, I care how we stack up against other conferences more than how their individual teams are doing. I also care if we, as a conference, are improving in the rankings. Since it isn't quite December, I'd like to wait to see another month of games.
I'll let the fans decide if they think negativity is justified, I expect to be a top 15 conference. ( Used to be that was pretty much a given ).
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