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Post by vugrad1314 on Jun 11, 2020 15:44:03 GMT -6
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think a top half finish in year one is a farfetched proposition at all for RMU. I think they'll be competitive from the very beginning ala Oakland when they joined in 2013. Maybe not McCafferty trophy level but in basketball? Absolutely. Any word on what RMU is going to do with its litany of non-HL sports: football LAX and the like?
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Post by letsgoromo on Jun 11, 2020 16:01:23 GMT -6
Lax I have no earthly idea. CAA, AE, Patriot, MAAC would all be fine landing spots. Have not heard anything about it though. MLAX in particular is pretty darn good, and should be this year also.
Football has 3 realistic options. Pioneer (non scholarship) so they would need a waiver, but "non scholarship" is definitely in quotes for top programs. The others are independent which would be a tough road obviously, and the best realistic possibility would be the Big South.
When Monmouth left the NEC for the MAAC, they wanted to keep football in as affiliate, they were voted down and joined the Big South. So that blue print is kind of there. RMU president played football at Air Force, so I do not see him wanting team to regress to non scholarship.
I think FCS football maximum scholarship level is 63. NEC caps their teams in the low 40s, I think 43 but not certain. So a move to Big South is a big expenditure to be competitive. I will say they have been more tweets of football recruits say "full scholarship offer" of late which leads me to believe either independent or Big South.
Sidenote, would love horizon to start lax. Bell would help a lot.
What do you guys put the odds of other schools joining? Bell 50%? That would be 4 lax teams.
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Post by vugrad1314 on Jun 11, 2020 16:30:54 GMT -6
It's going to take some time and depend on their performance in Division I. If they take off immediately the move will be quick like it was for NKU. But I know the HL wants the Louisville market and another ready rival for NKU. They are a catholic private school as well which makes them something of a peer of Detroit even though they lack the history of the Titans.
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Post by rogobob77 on Jun 11, 2020 16:54:42 GMT -6
Good luck coming up with divisions if that happens. East/West would be more logical i think geographical but it probably means existing travel partners/rivals might get divided: East Robert Morris Clev St YSU WSU NKU Oakland Detroit West GB UIC Milwaukee IUPUI PFW Not sure who they would slide from East to West to even it up. One of the Michigan teams would probably be most logical but i'd hate for them to be split unless they get agreed 2 games every year. This is how I would set it up: East Cleveland St. Detroit Mercy Oakland Purdue-Fort Wayne Robert Morris Youngstown St. West Green Bay IUPUI Milwaukee UIC Northern Kentucky Wright St. Travel partners: Detroit/Oakland; Youngstown/RMU; CSU/Fort Wayne Green Bay/Milwaukee; NKU/Wright; UIC/IUPUI
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2020 17:39:38 GMT -6
This is how I would set it up: East Cleveland St. Detroit Mercy Oakland Purdue-Fort Wayne Robert Morris Youngstown St. West Green Bay IUPUI Milwaukee UIC Northern Kentucky Wright St. Travel partners: Detroit/Oakland; Youngstown/RMU; CSU/ Fort Wayne Green Bay/Milwaukee; NKU/Wright; UIC/IUPUI This actually makes the most sense. It keeps rivalries intact (RMU/YSU is a budding one anyway) and it makes both divisions competitive. Someone had to be a bit inconvenienced, so I guess it had to be PFW. For them though, it's still better than travel in the Summit.
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Post by iwokeuplikethis on Jun 11, 2020 17:57:39 GMT -6
I think people will find the Horizon League a model for other mid-majors to follow. A sensible footprint with a cohesive (midwestern/great lakes) identity that entirely hits big markets or niche markets.
Pittsburgh Cincinnati Cleveland Detroit Indianapolis Chicago Milwaukee
Youngstown Dayton Fort Wayne Green Bay
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Post by rogobob77 on Jun 11, 2020 22:08:47 GMT -6
Here’s a proposed divisional alignment that would keep schools from the same state together:
Horizon East (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio)
Cleveland St. Detroit Mercy Oakland Robert Morris Wright St. Youngstown St.
Horizon West (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin) Green Bay IUPUI Milwaukee Purdue-Fort Wayne UIC Northern Kentucky
Rogobob77 Senior Posts: 3580 Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 9:37 pm Top
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Post by vugrad1314 on Jun 12, 2020 4:15:43 GMT -6
I wouldn't want to separate Wright State and NKU. That's the HL's best rivalry by far and those things have to be factored in when considering who to move. If MBB is going to divisions these are the rivalries\relationships the league has to consider with the understanding that as things stand right now (Pre-Bellarmine and USI) one of these has to fall by the wayside:
RMU\YSU (No danger of losing this one These are the easternmost schools both will be in the east
GB\Milwaukee (Again no danger of losing this one both schools are the westernmost schools they will be in the west.
UIC is more or less the center of the western division and most likely considers the Wisconsin schools their main rivals. That will be their home.
Wright State\NKU. This is the big one. This is the HL's signature rivalry. Its bread and butter game. These two CANNOT be separated. They must play twice. Separating these two schools is as dumb as the OVC occasionally not allowing Murray State and Belmont to play twice a year. It's just bad for the league.
UDM\Oakland. These are so close it would make less than zero sense to separate them. They absolutely should play twice.
IUPUI-PFW. In-state rivalry. Former conference mates in the summit league. Even though I live in Indiana I don't know how hotly this one burns. It could probably be broken up which would make the one game they do get together even more special and significant. I imagine both would prefer to be in a conference with former conference mate Oakland but that probably can't be accommodated. In my opinion this rivalry is probably the most likely to be broken up.
Cleveland State's relationship with the Ohio schools\NKU is also a tenuous spot. CSU-YSU doesn't strike me as one of the HL's hotter rivalries, and their rivalry with Wright State has cooled with the Vikings decline on the court. They make a lot of sense as the team to move but as a longstanding member of the conference with a lot of tradition they probably have some say in where they end up playing.
That leaves this potential set up:
West
Green Bay
Milwaukee
UIC
IUPUI
Detroit
Oakland
East:
RMU
YSU
Cleveland State
Wright State
NKU
PFW
Alternative: Send the Michigan schools east and place Cleveland State and PFW in the west, though with the three best teams (by NET last year) already in the east, and a clearly ascending program in YSU, adding the Michigan schools to that mix (particularly Oakland) probably isn't great for competitive balance. I would go with the first proposal that splits the Indiana schools. They are the newcomers to the conference and they also have the least basketball tradition of any schools in the conference. Not to be rude and this hurts me to say as a fan of Indiana mid major basketball but both of these schools should probably just accept whatever the HL tells them to do even if it means losing out on the opportunity to play their rival twice a year as a thank you for saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in travel by pulling them out of the Summit League.
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Post by freewind on Jun 12, 2020 5:55:13 GMT -6
You can always put rivals in different divisions and still have clauses that they get to play 2 guarantee games every year and that should be good enough not to step on toes.
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Post by vugrad1314 on Jun 12, 2020 7:40:08 GMT -6
of course the issue with that is that it upsets the schedule for the cross-division games but that is probably a lesser concern than making sure the rivalries get full billing.
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Post by gbphoenix1 on Jun 12, 2020 11:13:03 GMT -6
I guess I can get invested in this now that it is happening.
I agree with what Big D wrote.
My thought about divisions is that is great for every sport not called basketball. If there is no money or interest in some sports than by all means keep things close by. There is no sense in sending Robert Morris soccer to Green Bay if you don't need to.
For basketball my hope is for a 20 game league schedule. Play everyone once. Play your "rival" twice. Play the other 8 teams that most closely mirror your program based on some reasonable preseason analytics. In 2019-20 terms give WSU a second game with RMU but not IUPUI. Give IUPUI a second game with UDM but not NKU. Maybe doing that actually helps analytics and fan interest.
From a men's hoops perspective going to 14 teams in the future doesn't excite me in a 1 bid league. I do like the two programs, Bellarmine and USI, if that is in fact happening. At least there is some potential in those programs.
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Post by ougrizz05 on Jun 12, 2020 11:31:00 GMT -6
I think we will go to 2 divisions like the MAC. Travel costs will still be low.
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Post by vugrad1314 on Jun 12, 2020 11:54:58 GMT -6
Was that the NMSU\GCU rumor you're referencing Big D? I still don't understand why that never went through. Fly to Phoenix bus to Las Cruces fly back out of Albuquerque or something doesn't sound that bad. Would that have added appreciably to travel costs? Probably so. Flying isn't cheap.
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Post by kevinudm on Jun 12, 2020 12:13:32 GMT -6
The would make no sense for the Horizon League to have two divisions for basketball. The MAC and the OVC scrapped divisional play years ago and no D1 conference does it anymore.
Divisions work in football because the two divisional champs meet to determine a conference champion. In basketball, most or all of the league members will meet in the conference tournament regardless; the divisional title is meaningless.
Divisions won't help in travel costs either. With 12 members the HL can move to a 20 game conference schedule; that means everyone has a full round robin with all but two schools.
The best ways to control travel costs are (1) go to a 20 game conference schedule, (2) make full use of travel partners, and (3) cancel the HL/Summit challenge series. Then no one needs to go the Dakotas in winter.
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Post by freewind on Jun 12, 2020 14:38:02 GMT -6
Yeah no way we're going to become a 2 bid league without a program going beast mode. There used to be a kind of clear line of success by matching up teams with better RPI records towards the end of the season to at least help improve the rank of the team we did send as a league. Now with the secret NET formula, it's kind of harder to know what they weigh more. I'm going to guess its still better to have your best teams in the league bye their way to the end of the tournament than to play an extra game or two and smashing a bottom tier team and drag down your average level of competition down a bit.
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