What Team(s) Does HL Backfill With?

I think Robert Mortis would do well in the HL. They are building a new arena, that alone should help attendance but playing in the HL should help attendance too compared to the NEC. Playing in a new arena, in front of more fans in a better conference should help recruiting. Robert Morris Coach also has a good history recruiting the Midwest. Playing in a purely Midwest conference should help their recruiting. On the flip side, I think adding a school in Pittsburgh will help HL recruiting. There are a lot of great recruits in that area and most HL schools don't currently recruit much from there. It's a win/win from that standpoint

This makes sense to me.  

If the SW teams don't pan out, would anyone have any interest in expanding further east to NJIT?  They are putting up a new building as well.  Some of the same logic could apply to them that applies to RMU.  RMU is a obviously a more established brand.  I know I am not the first to mention it, I'm just seeking the opinions of others.


njithighlanders.com/facilities/?id=129

Some random thoughts:
Obvious move--pick up one or both Indiana alphabet schools. I personally don't see a significant difference between IUPUI and Milwaukee. The latter is a bit larger university, bit bigger budget, but both are large, second-tier state schools with pretty good facilities in good markets. Arguably, Ft. Wayne has more potential as a big dog in a small market, but they've got to get their finances together.

I'd love to expand south with Murray State, Belmont, and either Evansville or Morehead State. Prediction--ain't gonna happen.

Why not a move east? I've been a bit surprised by the lack of interest in Niagara and Canisius. Well, not totally surprised. Both have relatively small budgets and small attendance. They wake up some nostalgia from we older Detroit fans--they were solid mid-majors back in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, and Canisius was a regular on the Titan schedule. They're private, obviously, and Catholic. I presume no one else left in the HL cares about those factors. A three-play east would include Robert Morris. The Buffalo area schools would be closer to Oakland, Detroit, CSU, YSU, and Bob Morris than to most teams in their current conference, the MAAC. Even Wright State and NKU would be no further than all of their current MAAC brethren save each other and Siena. The reality is, in style and attitude, Buffalo is a midwest city, not an east coast town. And it works the other way, too--Buffalo is closer to most of the current Horizon schools than are MIlwaukee and Green Bay. Obviously this would be hard travel for Green Bay, but not that bad for most everyone else. We inch into a couple of decent markets in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Bob Morris has a new arena coming, and is 55 miles from YSU.

I'm not as dismissive of the western-play as most are, either. New Mexico State, which we know at least had some very preliminary talks with the HL a year ago, is the one school out there that would immediately replace Valpo in terms of on-court prowess in recent years. They've even got a Final Four in their past. Couple 'em with Denver, another school with a healthy budget that has been pretty competitive (top 100 RPIs) in recent memory (2012/'13) and shown the capacity, in those better years, to draw up towards 3500 per game. Sure, it's more travel, but it may not be as bad as some think--Denver is certainly easy to get to. You could add in Omaha or UMKC if you wanted the three-play, I suppose.

So lots of options, but they basically boil down to: stay in the footprint (Indiana schools, maybe with Bob Morris if going to 12); a push south; a push east; a reach west.

In the end, the biggest thing, as with the MVC, is not who we add, but whether teams in the conference already will do better. What will move the conference back up in the rankings is better performance from Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and UIC (I'll take whatever we can get from YSU, and it looks like they may be getting serious about hoops).

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The former has an enrollment 3k larger. Plus, geographically speaking getting back into the Hoosier state makes a ton of sense. New arena plus large metro plus IN basketball + George Hill seems like a home run, no? 

Expanding E/W/S is genius. Sure, the league could stick to the Great Lakes/Midwest+KY, but there are some gems out there if you stretch your comfort zone. My bad if this has already been brought up, but Jacksonville State has an amazing coach in Ray Harper, who has lower division national championships under his belt and took WKU to the NCAA tourney. If HL can convince The Mules of Murray State and Belmont to jump, bringing a northern AL team might assuage Belmont's travel concerns...

There are about 200 teams that don't play FBS football or are totally out of the HL's level (Big East, Gonzaga). When you take out the A10, MVC, Ivy, WCC, Big West, MEAC and SWAC there are about 140 teams left to choose from. When you start to get realistic about who is additive or near the footprint you could stretch and say there are about 26 D1 possibilities. I have the 15 from PantherU's expense list plus Belmont, Chattanooga, EKU, North Dakota, St. Francis PA, Canisius, Niagara, Little Rock, Arlington, NJIT and SIUE.

Here is my point. The pool isn't all that big. Then consider who is really in play and I would submit the number of programs to consider is way less than 26. The HL probably wants to add one baseball playing (likely), solid men's hoops team that is a geographic fit within the next year. Then keep working on MSU and Belmont to get to 12 members. If they don't join, then they could add USI if they make a move to D1. They could add them along with another team in that area like Lipscomb and be set. I am not thinking the HL would invite USI NOW but I would be very confident that the HL is very well versed in what USI is doing and wouldn't wait 8 or 10 years to grab them if they made a move and the league wasn't at 12 already. With the small pool of candidates of course it is relevant to keep tabs of a team right in the backyard. Especially since the best targets seem to be reluctant to join right now. Expansion to 12 doesn't have to happen all at once.

Does not adding a team this off season indicate they are waiting on an ideal fit from their best target or are they moving on and waiting for the backups to get their affairs in order?

Also, maybe some of the bad vibes people get about IUPUI is the acronym, in which case y'all really need to stop talking about some fictional school called Fort Wayne and address them by their actual, preferred nomenclature: IPFW. There is no school in the US of A called Fort Wayne. I'm from Indiana and nobody talks about IPFW, and if you said Fort Wayne they would assume you're talking about a tiny NAIA private college or something. For the record, in IN, IUPUI has more pull than Valpo, Evansville, ISU, even Ball State depending on the day of the week. 30k enrollment in the basketball capital, plus a beautiful arena. I don't get the hesitation you guys? Ask George Hill about recruitment problems.