A-10 vs. MVC

[bauman]

I know it's early but I thought we needed to get off the "who's negative/I agree with Billikan/I don't think Roy knows anything about basketball/IV had 3-4 guys hanging all over him last year and that's why KL & TL aren't as good this year/RM is a god/RM did (didn't) change his offense last game/VTIME, why do you think player X is a Div. I level recruit in 2010" threads. How about revisiting an old favorite of mine?

"The MVC is better than the A-10 because they got more teams in the "Big Dance" last year and the year before."

Well, well what about this year (I know it's early)? At this early point it appears that the A-10 has revived itself and the up cycle of the MVC is OVER! URI, X, Dayton & UMASS all appear to be superior to anything the Valley has to offer-you might even add Charlotte to that list. Creighton at this point appears to be the only above average team in that Conf, since SIU-C is likely the second best team and they appear to be just average. Has the worm turned? I think so!

We are just about at the end of the Non-Conf schedules for all teams and, if the NCAA was sending out invites tomorrow, I believe the Valley would be a one-bid Conf., while the A-10 would have a reasonable shot at 4 invites.

How about this for next year-why not have an a-10---MVC challenge? I know the greater # of teams in the A-10 would present some minor issues, but surely those could be worked out. It would be fun, provide all teams with an opponent of somewhat comparable RPI strength w/o having to go out and find such a team and would lay to rest the who is the best Conf issue in most years---see the ACC domination of the Big 10 this and most years. Does the Big 10 really have an argument that they are even close to the quality of the ACC? Nope.

[SShoe]

My guess is some clown will point out that the Valley's overall RPI is better than the A-10, which is terribly misleading. Unfortunately, the bottom four really drag down the league's overall RPI. This will probably be the case for some time, unless something drastic is done, ala knocking out a few of the bottom dwellers.

But there is little doubt that the top teams in the A-10 are superior than the top teams in the Valley. One would only need to look at the Xavier and Creighton or Charlotte and SIU games to recognize that. Either way, the A-10 currently has about five teams that have positioned themselves to make a tournament run, while I'd say that the Valley is back to being a one-bid league.

[billiken_roy]

My guess is some clown will point out that the Valley's overall RPI is better than the A-10, which is terribly misleading. Unfortunately, the bottom four really drag down the league's overall RPI. This will probably be the case for some time, unless something drastic is done, ala knocking out a few of the bottom dwellers.

But there is little doubt that the top teams in the A-10 are superior than the top teams in the Valley. One would only need to look at the Xavier and Creighton or Charlotte and SIU games to recognize that. Either way, the A-10 currently has about five teams that have positioned themselves to make a tournament run, while I'd say that the Valley is back to being a one-bid league.

imo. sshoe is exactly right.

the bottom of the A-10 is really killing the a-10 overall. i wonder what our conference rpi would be if we took out richmond, george washington, lasalle and st bonnie right now? 4 teams over 200 is not good.

what if just lasalle and st bonnie were gone?

my guess is that we would be far ahead of the mvc in either instance.

[kshoe]

I know it's early but I thought we needed to get off the "who's negative/I agree with Billikan/I don't think Roy knows anything about basketball/IV had 3-4 guys hanging all over him last year and that's why KL & TL aren't as good this year/RM is a god/RM did (didn't) change his offense last game/VTIME, why do you think player X is a Div. I level recruit in 2010" threads. How about revisiting an old favorite of mine?

"The MVC is better than the A-10 because they got more teams in the "Big Dance" last year and the year before."

Well, well what about this year (I know it's early)? At this early point it appears that the A-10 has revived itself and the up cycle of the MVC is OVER! URI, X, Dayton & UMASS all appear to be superior to anything the Valley has to offer-you might even add Charlotte to that list. Creighton at this point appears to be the only above average team in that Conf, since SIU-C is likely the second best team and they appear to be just average. Has the worm turned? I think so!

We are just about at the end of the Non-Conf schedules for all teams and, if the NCAA was sending out invites tomorrow, I believe the Valley would be a one-bid Conf., while the A-10 would have a reasonable shot at 4 invites.

How about this for next year-why not have an a-10---MVC challenge? I know the greater # of teams in the A-10 would present some minor issues, but surely those could be worked out. It would be fun, provide all teams with an opponent of somewhat comparable RPI strength w/o having to go out and find such a team and would lay to rest the who is the best Conf issue in most years---see the ACC domination of the Big 10 this and most years. Does the Big 10 really have an argument that they are even close to the quality of the ACC? Nope.

Far be it for me to be a defender of the MVC and hopefully nobody will start personally attacking me on this issue but I just don't get how you can say the A-10 is clearly better than the Valley.

Consider:

1) The Valley currently has an RPI higher than the A-10. Granted the A-10 has more teams with strong RPIs (4 in the top 20) but we also have more teams with terrible RPIs (4 teams at +200 compared to only 1 in the Valley). When a conference is valued from top to bottom, the picture isn't nearly as rosey for the A-10.

2) The prediction of 4 in the NCAA as of right now might be accurate but don't forget that while those 4 are playing the bottom dwellers in the A-10 their RPI will likely to drop, both relative to BCS schools and relative to Valley teams which will on average be playing teams with a better winning percentage.

3) Albeit a small sample size, the Valley is 4-3 against the A-10.

4) If this is the big "up-year" for the A-10 and the big "down-year" for the Valley and the conferences are effectively tied, that doesn't bode well for the future.

5) All things being equal, if the A-10 and MVC were dead on equal, I would expect 1.4 times more NCAA teams out of the A-10 simply given the size of the league. If the A-10 gets 3 and the Valley gets 2 that is effectively a tie in my book.

[billiken_roy]

creighton would be 5th if the two leagues were one and the same right now. the mvc is benefitting from the fact that they arent stupid enough to have a 14 team league with a lasalle and st bonnie in it.

[Quality Is Job 1]

4) If this is the big "up-year" for the A-10 and the big "down-year" for the Valley and the conferences are effectively tied, that doesn't bode well for the future.

No. The arrow is pointing up for the A-10, and it's pointing down for the MVC, so in the future it won't be a tie.

I've always hated this "debate." I don't see any long-term benefit for SLU to be in the Missouri Valley Conference. The league's reputation doesn't match up with the reputation I want SLU to reach.

[Pistol]

4) If this is the big "up-year" for the A-10 and the big "down-year" for the Valley and the conferences are effectively tied, that doesn't bode well for the future.

While this is an up year for the A10 compared to the last few, I don't think it could be considered an up year overall. It's more of a step back in the right direction, or return to form. With the recruiting classes being assembled by A10 schools, it shouldn't be as weak as the past few years again for a long time.

The Valley was at an absolute peak (no pun intended) while the A10 was at its nadir. If I were drawing a graph, this year would be their intersection.

I would think, or hope, that the selection committee is smart enough to see through the RPI numbers and see what the bottom feeders of the A10 do to the rest. The Valley doesn't have any complete RPI killers, but no one is necessarily that strong, either. I gotta hand it to Elgin and the coaches in the Valley, they figured out the system before any other non-power conference did. But the top half of the A10 is no joke this year. Compare it to the Valley and I don't think it's even close. Watching Creighton and XU play a couple weeks ago was like watching Penn play UNC. XU could have and should have beaten them by much more but got lazy and let them back in within 10 in the second half. If those are the best each conference has to offer, then that tells me a lot.

I'm not going to get cocky about the SIUC win, but they didn't seem to be as high-level as billed, either. SLU is a middle of the pack A10 team this year, and SIUC was supposed to win the Valley.

I just don't see the RPI as a compelling argument for the Valley over the A10 this year, and if it has to be, then I would point to the 4 A10 schools in the top 20 and the bottom half of conferences do not matter come tournament time anyway.

[kshoe]

imo. sshoe is exactly right.

the bottom of the A-10 is really killing the a-10 overall. i wonder what our conference rpi would be if we took out richmond, george washington, lasalle and st bonnie right now? 4 teams over 200 is not good.

what if just lasalle and st bonnie were gone?

my guess is that we would be far ahead of the mvc in either instance.

The problem isn't just that those teams are in the conference and drag down the "reported RPI", the problem is that the top 4 teams have to play them and will see their RPI drop even with wins. A loss to any of those teams will kill you.

GW for example is playing RI and Xavier twice this season. So really, RI and Xavier have 5 games against 200+ RPI teams remaining while there are a total of 5 BCS teams (in 6 conferences) with RPIs below 200. The fact is, the RPIs for the top 4 teams in the A-10 are as good as its going to get and it would take a miracle for them to stay up there.

The bottom 4 simply can't be ignored.

[SShoe]

I guess it's how want to look at it. I think this is the biggest problem with the RPI. The MVC is a conference that has ten teams with fairly average to above-average RPIs, that is made to look good as a whole. The A-10 is a conference with five good teams, five average teams, and five awful teams. So which conference is better? I'm going to go with the one that actually has five good teams.

I think it's also fairly evident that the top MVC teams aren't that good, which is based on their lack of success against good team this year. When two middle-of-the-pack A-10 teams beat the so-called top MVC team, it's hard to say that the Valley is better than the A-10.

[Bay Area Billiken]

SLU was smart to not return to the Missouri Valley, irrespective of the short-sighted opinions of the local media talking heads and scribes. If SLU had returned to the MVC, SLU would be stuck there, perhaps forever, and would not be positioned for the next conference shift.

I have read some reports of rumblings from Syracuse and Louisville re the Big East situation. Syracuse was left out of the NCAA Tournament last year. A year or two more of that, and we might see some more conference domino games.

If SIU is the second best team in the MVC, then the A-10 is far superior to the MVC, irrespective of the RPI. There are a number of A-10 teams that are better than SIU, including SLU.

[StLouBlue]

The MVC went through 5 coaching changes in this last off season. That is half of the leagues coaches changing in one off season--too big of a turnover to not have some consequences. I am not surprised there have been some struggles in the non-conference, just look at how our team has struggled with our new coaching staff.

I still think by the end of the season the MVC will get 2 bids maybe a 3rd but things would have to break right for that to happen. Creighton, Drake, Bradley and SIU and even UNI could still have a shot at the NCAA.

Those top four teams in the A10 are looking very good at this point. They will really need to separate themselves from the rest of the league though to make the NCAA. I don't think a 9-7 or 8-8 league record will get an NCAA bid out of the A10. This year a 10-6 record in the A10 could be tough to come by though also. As far as the RPI though, look at the SOS for the bottom 6 schools in the A10--it is ugly, 193 or above. If you are going to play a soft schedule then at least end up with a winning record. Those teams are going to anchor down the league once again, why does this sound like a broken record.

If I had to guess today, I would say the A10 will get 3 and the MVC 2.

[saluki762]

Don't you all ever get tired of this stupid debate? Last I heard SLU wasn't in the MVC and had no desire to be there. Just because some media people in STL bring up the subject occationally doesn't mean anything. Remember these are the same media people that think MU is a major program.

[Quality Is Job 1]

Don't you all ever get tired of this stupid debate?

Yep! Hear, here! Nevertheless, I do respect the Valley teams, period.

[p diddy]

it's just the cyclical nature of college basketball. anybody that was paying attention knew that this was coming. The MVC was senior dominated for the past two years while the A-10 was playing a lot of kids in major roles.

I'm not breaking any new ground here, but the major difference is the number of big road non-conference wins this year by the a-10. (UMass and Rhody both win at syracuse; UMass wins at BC, Dayton wins at Louisville and X whips Indiana in front of a pro-IU crowd in Chicago.) then toss in X's beatdown of Creigton, Charlotte's victories over SIU and Davidson and our victory over SIU and you have some meaty non-conference wins, especially those BCS road and neutral-court wins.

I was hoping for a little more from SJ with virtually its entire nucleus back, but Nivins is struggling. A home victory over Gonzaga would have been big. we had our shots as well on the road, but we took an o-fer.

One thing that we've established is that NO valley team is going to come into St. Louis and get a victory unless its the conference tournament. If you play SLU, you're leaving with a loss, which is how it is supposed to be because we rarely win on the road at an MVC school. We played SIU and MSU home and home in the past two years and split those two games.

by contrast, the MVC has no hang your hat victories this year over good BCS teams, except for beating up on terrible Iowa and Iowa State. They are lacking top 50 or top 100 rpi wins for that matter.

the valley run was two years and it was great. what most of you tend to forget that the A-10 run of success was two DECADES. just go back and look at what some of those teams accomplished, leading up to 2004 where two made it to the elite eight. You're bound to have a few down years after running out some great teams over the course of a 15 to 20 year period. The A-10 was what the CUSA was at the time of the breakup three years ago.

bad boyz for life

[kmbilliken]

it's just the cyclical nature of college basketball. anybody that was paying attention knew that this was coming. The MVC was senior dominated for the past two years while the A-10 was playing a lot of kids in major roles.

I'm not breaking any new ground here, but the major difference is the number of big road non-conference wins this year by the a-10. (UMass and Rhody both win at syracuse; UMass wins at BC, Dayton wins at Louisville and X whips Indiana in front of a pro-IU crowd in Chicago.) then toss in X's beatdown of Creigton, Charlotte's victories over SIU and Davidson and our victory over SIU and you have some meaty non-conference wins, especially those BCS road and neutral-court wins.

I was hoping for a little more from SJ with virtually its entire nucleus back, but Nivins is struggling. A home victory over Gonzaga would have been big. we had our shots as well on the road, but we took an o-fer.

One thing that we've established is that NO valley team is going to come into St. Louis and get a victory unless its the conference tournament. If you play SLU, you're leaving with a loss, which is how it is supposed to be because we rarely win on the road at an MVC school. We played SIU and MSU home and home in the past two years and split those two games.

by contrast, the MVC has no hang your hat victories this year over good BCS teams, except for beating up on terrible Iowa and Iowa State. They are lacking top 50 or top 100 rpi wins for that matter.

the valley run was two years and it was great. what most of you tend to forget that the A-10 run of success was two DECADES. just go back and look at what some of those teams accomplished, leading up to 2004 where two made it to the elite eight. You're bound to have a few down years after running out some great teams over the course of a 15 to 20 year period. The A-10 was what the CUSA was at the time of the breakup three years ago.

bad boyz for life

The A10 could match up with CUSA during the stretch in which St. Joes and X both went to the Elite 8, but not year in and year out. Cincinnati, Louisville and Memphis were normally better than the best of the A10 and the overall conference was stronger. Consider after those 3 CUSA had Marquette, Depaul and Houston all schools that with solid traditions and often capable of putting top 25 teams on the floor. Has the A10 ever had that kind of depth?

[brianstl]

The A10 could match up with CUSA during the stretch in which St. Joes and X both went to the Elite 8, but not year in and year out. Cincinnati, Louisville and Memphis were normally better than the best of the A10 and the overall conference was stronger. Consider after those 3 CUSA had Marquette, Depaul and Houston all schools that with solid traditions and often capable of putting top 25 teams on the floor. Has the A10 ever had that kind of depth?

There was an A-10 vs. Great Midwest/CUSA challenge from the 94/95 season to the 97/98 season and the A-10 more than held its own.

[Pistol]

it's just the cyclical nature of college basketball. anybody that was paying attention knew that this was coming. The MVC was senior dominated for the past two years while the A-10 was playing a lot of kids in major roles.

I'm not breaking any new ground here, but the major difference is the number of big road non-conference wins this year by the a-10. (UMass and Rhody both win at syracuse; UMass wins at BC, Dayton wins at Louisville and X whips Indiana in front of a pro-IU crowd in Chicago.) then toss in X's beatdown of Creigton, Charlotte's victories over SIU and Davidson and our victory over SIU and you have some meaty non-conference wins, especially those BCS road and neutral-court wins.

I was hoping for a little more from SJ with virtually its entire nucleus back, but Nivins is struggling. A home victory over Gonzaga would have been big. we had our shots as well on the road, but we took an o-fer.

One thing that we've established is that NO valley team is going to come into St. Louis and get a victory unless its the conference tournament. If you play SLU, you're leaving with a loss, which is how it is supposed to be because we rarely win on the road at an MVC school. We played SIU and MSU home and home in the past two years and split those two games.

by contrast, the MVC has no hang your hat victories this year over good BCS teams, except for beating up on terrible Iowa and Iowa State. They are lacking top 50 or top 100 rpi wins for that matter.

the valley run was two years and it was great. what most of you tend to forget that the A-10 run of success was two DECADES. just go back and look at what some of those teams accomplished, leading up to 2004 where two made it to the elite eight. You're bound to have a few down years after running out some great teams over the course of a 15 to 20 year period. The A-10 was what the CUSA was at the time of the breakup three years ago.

bad boyz for life

Not to mention back-to-back national player of the year awards to David West and Jameer Nelson in 2003 and 2004.

To be fair, that's based on the Rupp and Oscar Robertson awards; the Wooden and Naismith awards in 2003 went to T.J. Ford over West, but Nelson got all 4 in 2004. I would be a lot more surprised to see those kind of players in the Valley again after Hersey Hawkins took the Robertson and Rupp awards in 1988 and Bird won them all in 1979.

[p diddy]

kmbilliken,

The a-10 was really going strong for quite a while. Temple had made multiple Elite 8 appearances (four or five I think) under Chaney and they were ranked No. 1 on the country at various times.

UMass went to the Final Four in '96 and Elite 8 in '93 and were ranked No. 1 in the nation of Cal

Rhody went to the Elite Eight in '98 right here in St. Louis.

As has been mentioned, X and SJU were both in the Elite 8 in '04 with SJU going undefeated

GW also made a Sweet 16 appearance

That's a lot of success in about a 10-15 year period.

And look at the players, Eddie Jones, Aaron McKie, Lamar Odom, Jameer Nelson, Delonte West, David West, James Posey, Brian Grant, Aaron Williams, Mike James, Mark Macon, Rasul Butler, Marcus Camby, Cuttino Mobley, Smush Parker, Terence Stansberry, Tim Perry, Mardy Collins, Yinka Dare,

(the thick left-handed point guard at temple in the mid-90's), stephane lasme, J.R. Bremer,

That was what the C-USA was becoming when it broke up and maybe reaching a higher level if i had stayed together.

bad boyz for life

in the period, the mvc produced pros as Kyle korver, rodney buford, anthony parker and patrick o'bryant as well as a couple of sweet 16's.

[inthelou]

Don't you all ever get tired of this stupid debate? Last I heard SLU wasn't in the MVC and had no desire to be there. Just because some media people in STL bring up the subject occationally doesn't mean anything. Remember these are the same media people that think MU is a major program.

Yes it is tiresome and totally old. Let's make the best of the situation we are in. We are in the A-10 and if we do well we will reap the rewards.

[slu72]

Yes it is tiresome and totally old. Let's make the best of the situation we are in. We are in the A-10 and if we do well we will reap the rewards.

Agreed, this argument's older then our debates on whose being negative now The A-10 is having a solid year no doubt and hopefully that bodes well for NCAA invites.

[billiken_roy]

the problem with the a-10 remains the bottom. the top and middle are formidable for any of the top conferences. but 4 teams with over 200 rpi rankings is killing us. you have to go all the way to the 14th ranked conference and below to find another conference with 4 or more 200+ rpi ranked programs.

if our 11-14 coincided with our 7-10 programs, the A-10 would likely be ranked at least 5th right now ahead of the SEC and just behind the unbelieveable parity of the big east.

[StLouBlue]

kmbilliken,

The a-10 was really going strong for quite a while. Temple had made multiple Elite 8 appearances (four or five I think) under Chaney and they were ranked No. 1 on the country at various times.

UMass went to the Final Four in '96 and Elite 8 in '93 and were ranked No. 1 in the nation of Cal

Rhody went to the Elite Eight in '98 right here in St. Louis.

As has been mentioned, X and SJU were both in the Elite 8 in '04 with SJU going undefeated

GW also made a Sweet 16 appearance

That's a lot of success in about a 10-15 year period.

And look at the players, Eddie Jones, Aaron McKie, Lamar Odom, Jameer Nelson, Delonte West, David West, James Posey, Brian Grant, Aaron Williams, Mike James, Mark Macon, Rasul Butler, Marcus Camby, Cuttino Mobley, Smush Parker, Terence Stansberry, Tim Perry, Mardy Collins, Yinka Dare,

(the thick left-handed point guard at temple in the mid-90's), stephane lasme, J.R. Bremer,

That was what the C-USA was becoming when it broke up and maybe reaching a higher level if i had stayed together.

bad boyz for life

in the period, the mvc produced pros as Kyle korver, rodney buford, anthony parker and patrick o'bryant as well as a couple of sweet 16's.

The A10 was on a very good run for quite a while there. There were some very good coaches in the A10 at that time with Chaney, Calapari, Harrick and whomever was coaching X at the time. Martelli at St Joes is the only one still around. It still remains to be seen if the new coaches in the league are up to bringing the A10 back to where it once was. Gregory in Dayton needs a break through season and this could be it. Ford is about the same at UMass, a lot of expectations and looks like this team might fill them. Wittenberg at Fordham has had some success but not so much again in the non-conference this year. Giannini at LaSalle had a surprising first season but the team has really fallen off this year, but with only 1 senior this is still a team for the future. Baron at URI has had kind of a Soderberg run there record wise, but looks like a very good team this year. Dunphy at Temple looks like he could revive a program that should be one of the top in the A10 but had slipped in Chaney's last few years. I think the future is bright for the A10 but this conference season is very important to more than a few of these coaches and their futures.

Another couple of names for the MVC in the pros was Chris Carr & Troy Hudson from SIU. I think all the money that has come into the MVC the last few years has kind of fueled the coaching changes that occured. These schools saw there is an opportunity to move into a more national picture like SIU has done and were not just satisfied with being also rans. It will be interesting to see if teams like Drake, Ind St, Ill St & Evansville will be able to rise out of the bottom half of the league in the next few years.