ORUTerry Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 I know the Mid-Con is meeting towards the end of this month.... I think it is the Presidents (and Athletic Directors?) annual meeting to discuss conference issues. I suspect that some sort of expansion will be discussed given the decision of Chicago State to 'leave' the conference and Valpo's defection. We have had a lot of conjecture about who we might invite - and how many schools it might be. I think the consensus was that we will probably see the Dakota schools - notwithstanding the attendant travel issues - invited into the conference. The interesting thing will be to see what, if anything, happens with Southern Utah and the Big Sky Conference. Let's hope nothing - at least for a few more years. We also need Centenary to stay put. We could know something in the next couple of weeks.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogus Smith Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 I don't believe that the Dakota schools help the Mid-Con with the Automatic Qualification problems that the Conference officials are most concerned about. I do think you're right, Terry that both Dakota schools will be given high consideration with the meetings this month, along with IPFW. IPFW meets the AQ requirements and is a more attractive addition to the Conference in the near term, especially if SUU bolts for the Big Sky. I don't know if the meetings are at the point where they are ready to pull the trigger on making offers to these schools, but as volatile as the Mid-Con has been since March with losing CSU and VU, it wouldn't surprise me either way whether we add or stagnate on these schools. As surprised as the schools were on VU's move to the HL, I think that they would err on the side of pulling the trigger than the status quo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VUFreak Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 Heard from some national college basketball people that the Dakota schools are leaning towards the Big Sky, but would certainly take the Mid-Con if it comes calling and the Big Sky does not. IPFW WILL be invited and WILL accept a bid...\ That's what I've been hearing...this information is from a writer for ESPN.com IPFW offers more to what the conference needs right now, and that is stability...for years, the Midwestern schools have been playing IPFW and they have a location advantage over the Dakota schools... For the sake of the conference, I hope that they do add IPFW and the Dakotas, and that Southern Utah and Centenary leave... That would leave Oakland, ORU, IPFW, IUPUI, WIU, UMKC SDSU, NDSU...which would work out nicely for travel partners (at least better than now), and would keep the conference at 8, with an opportunity to add in the future...hopefully keeping the conference at an even number... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crow4435 Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 with the news of OCU moving up i wonder if they will be brought up as potential members? would ORU push for an invitation for them? or is OCU looking south for a conference? i think a OCU - ORU rivalry would be good for both schools...kinda like TU - ORU but on a much larger scale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORU Eli Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 I agree...would be a good thing but they won't be competitive for awhile I'm guessing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcboy2000 Posted June 16, 2006 Share Posted June 16, 2006 R u serious? How can OCU and ORU be bigger than ORU and TU? What can be bigger than 2 D-1 programs with 2 alumni bases in the same city. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest EagleBackr Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 Oklahoma City University is returning to D-1? Seriously?!? We REALLY need to get them! Think of the television market that represents, not to mention the travel partner element. We had some SERIOUS rivalries with them in basketball and baseball back in the 70's. Where did you hear that OCU is going D-1? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest EagleBackr Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 Oklahoma City University is returning to D-1? Seriously?!? We REALLY need to get them! Think of the television market that represents, not to mention the travel partner element. We had some SERIOUS rivalries with them in basketball and baseball back in the 70's. Where did you hear that OCU is going D-1? Hey, look! I'm answering my own question! The Daily Oklahoman June 16, 2006 OCU To Move To NCAA Division I By Scott Wright Oklahoma City University will pursue membership in the NCAA's Division I level, the school's president and athletic director said this morning. OCU President Tom McDaniel and Athletic Director Jim Abbott said they expect the process of developing and executing a plan to prepare the school's athletic programs for competition at the highest collegiate level will take several months. The university, in conjunction with the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, commissioned a study of the feasibility of the move from the NAIA, which OCU has competed in since 1985. The study was performed by a five-member committee from Carr Sports Associates Inc. and included current and former athletic directors from NCAA Division I institutions. It lasted nearly five months and was sent to OCU last week. The study lays out an eight-step plan to prepare OCU for advancing to the NCAA. "Our plan is to proceed with those eight steps," McDaniel said. "We're not necessarily surprised by the report. We knew there were things that we'd need to do in terms of personnel, facilities and money that would be required to position us for a successful application. "I'm excited about the fact that we now we have an outside consulting firm outlining for us what those are. The yearly deadline for applying for NCAA membership is June 1. McDaniel does not see the school making the necessary additions to facilities, staffing and endowments in time for the 2007 deadline, meaning the earliest the transition could be made would be the 2008-09 academic year. The NCAA requires one exploratory year followed by six provisional membership years. During those seven years, OCU athletic programs would not be eligible to participate in NCAA postseason competition. OCU would have to increase to the NCAA-required 14 team sports, of which the school currently has 10. Heading the list of viable options are track and field, cross country and tennis, McDaniel said. The study says affiliation with a conference would be extremely important, especially during the provisional membership period. While there are logical geographic reasons for OCU to pursue certain conferences, McDaniel said they have not had any formal discussions regarding membership. "You could not survive in the NCAA unless you're a member of a conference, McDaniel said. "I'm not saying Notre Dame can't, but an entering school like us, to be able to schedule, would be difficult. "We have not done anything to even stick our toe in the water about that, so that's something we'd have to think about how we'd do it." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabidrabbit Posted June 22, 2006 Share Posted June 22, 2006 Not that this is IMMEDIATELY appropriate, but the Dakota's just added a THIRD D-I move up. http://www.und.edu/news/NEW_SCRIPTS/new ... sp?id=1833 We (NDSU & SDSU) are eager, and very hopeful, to be joining the Mid-Con shortly. Would love to add UND if/when Centerary moves on. OCU looks to be a good ORU partner! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89rabbit Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 From the Fort Wayne paper: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgaz ... 897256.htm Schools battle for Mid-Con acceptance IPFW, S.D. State, N.D. State vying for conference spot By LaMond Pope The Journal Gazette One headline screams, ?We?re where the action is!? Another proclaims, ?We?re the center of attention!? IPFW hopes that when it comes to expansion in the Mid-Continent Conference, both phrases ring true. With the impending departures of Chicago State and Valparaiso, the Mid-Con is on the lookout for new members. And IPFW, North Dakota State and South Dakota State are among the schools on the short list. The topic of expansion will be discussed Tuesday when the Mid-Continent Council of Presidents meets in Chicago. The conference has kept the expansion process quiet. According to Kristina Petersen, the Mid-Con?s director of media relations, no timetable has been set to add teams. But the thought is the conference would like new members by the start of the 2007-08 season. It?s also uncertain how many teams the conference looks to add. IPFW athletic director Mark Pope said he?s not even sure what will be announced after the meeting, although indications are site visits would soon follow. Mid-Con commissioner Tom Douple was in New Orleans this week attending the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics convention and could not be reached for comment. . . . (read more) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89rabbit Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 From the Fargo Forum (sub site, but it is free): http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index. ... ion=Sports Mid-Con match? By Kevin Schnepf, The Forum Published Sunday, June 25, 2006 It was a shot heard around the world. When Bryce Drew hit a game-winning 3-point shot at the buzzer to beat Mississippi in the first round of the 1998 NCAA men?s basketball tournament, it sparked Valparaiso to a shocking run to the Sweet 16. It gave the Mid-Continent Conference, in existence since 1982, instant notoriety and credibility as a Division I league. . . . Tuesday in Chicago, presidents of the Mid-Con schools will focus their annual meeting on possible expansion. Even though a vote is not expected, it?s promising news for North Dakota State. Ever since announcing its move from Division II to Division I in 2002, NDSU has struggled to find a conference. The Bison were shot down last year by the Big Sky Conference. This week?s meeting ? where Mid-Con presidents will evaluate NDSU, South Dakota State and as many as three other schools for possible membership ? provides another ray of hope for the Bison athletic program. ?Our hopes are high, but you have to be cautious,? said NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor. ?We?ve been down this road before.? . . . Douple confirmed that Division I independents NDSU, SDSU, Indiana University Purdue-Fort Wayne, Texas-Pan American and Utah Valley State have submitted institutional profiles for Mid-Con officials to evaluate. . . . Even though the five schools that hope to get into the Mid-Con are spread across the country, conference officials find them somewhat attractive because of the traveling partners that could be created. Adding five schools would give the Mid-Con 12 members and the following traveling partners: Oakland with Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne; Indiana Purdue-Indianapolis with Western Illinois; Missouri-Kansas City with Oral Roberts; Centenary with Texas-Pan American; NDSU with SDSU; and Southern Utah with Utah Valley State. The difference in cost between the flight for a single game at Southern Utah and two games at Southern Utah and Utah Valley State might make such an expansion appealing to Mid-Con officials. . . . Oral Roberts, a private Christian school with an athletic budget of nearly $8 million, is often the program to beat in the Mid-Con. Last March, its men?s basketball team earned an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament by winning the Mid-Con?s postseason tournament. This month, its baseball team advanced to the super regionals of the NCAA tournament. ?We fully fund every sport in regards to scholarships,? said Fowler, who has been the associate athletic director for the last 10 years. That?s why Fowler?s main concern with the Mid-Con?s current state of affairs deals with finances. After evaluating NDSU?s institutional report, she said she saw some positive figures ? notably an $8 million athletic budget that equals Oral Roberts. ?My biggest concern is the commitment and desire to want to be good and wanting to be successful with the schools that are already in our league,? Fowler said. ?There are some schools within our league already that struggle to fund. This possible expansion may be a wakeup call for our current league members.? . . . (read more) Just for the record, SDSU's budget last year was $7.78 million and will increase again this coming season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmh8286 Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 The discussion of athletic budgets reminded me of the The U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education Equity in Athletics Disclosure Website discussed briefly last winter. Here's a link to that thread: http://orusports.com/talk/index.php?topic=671.0 The interesting thing to me is the wide disparity of values between the budget figures and the reported cost of operation in the Equity in Athletics Disclosure. I wonder why the difference? Undoubtedly some things are included in one that aren't included in the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89rabbit Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 A couple of things that your associate athletic director said in the Sunday Fargo Forum story got me thinking ?We fully fund every sport in regards to scholarships,? and ?My biggest concern is the commitment and desire to want to be good and wanting to be successful with the schools that are already in our league,? Fowler said. ?There are some schools within our league already that struggle to fund. This possible expansion may be a wakeup call for our current league members.? about the athletic budgets of the 5 schools under consideration. These figures are from the US Dept. of Ed. for the school year '04-'05 (the most recent they have) http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/Search.asp NDSU - $7,668,848 SDSU - $6,547,381 UTPA - $4,338,791 IPFW - $3,545,299 UVSC - $2,987,781 Again these are older numbers, SDSU's budget for '05-'06 was $7,786,383 and will go higher still in the coming years (the plan is to keep adding scholarships through FY'10), but they do provide a snap shot of where each school was for comparison sake. I will say it might make a heck of a lot of sense to add all 5 as that would provide great travel partners for everyone. We should know more tomorrow. Just for fun, here are the current members of the Mid-Con ('04-'05) ORU - $7,513,752 WIU - $7,150,821 UMKC - $6,748,548 OU - $6,079,614 CC - $4,690,030 SUU - $4,317,587 IUPUI - $3,775,144 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORU Eli Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 All the more reason I'm impressed that IUPUI seems to field a competitive team every year.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
89rabbit Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Highlights from the Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader story on today's Presidents meeting: http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 70322/1002 Mid-Con presidents meet today Expansion talks once again on agenda Chris Solari csolari@argusleader.com June 27, 2006 As the remaining presidents of the Mid-Continent Conference meet today at a hotel in Chicago to decide the league's fate, South Dakota State's future could be on their agenda. SDSU and North Dakota State are among a group of schools that the Mid-Continent is considering for potential expansion. Mid-Con Commissioner Tom Douple, who spent last week at the Collegiate Commissioners Association meetings, said on June 16 that information about SDSU and NDSU had been given to the league's presidents. "It's on the agenda to discuss expansion," Douple said. "We're still gathering up information and doing our evaluation. ... And it's a time, too, when some folks have gotten to (the information) and some have not. There's just a lot of things to try and get in their hands before the meeting." . . . (read more) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmh8286 Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 Yesterday the University of North Dakota announced that they intend to make the Move to Division I. the University of South Dakota remains DII. IF USD should decide to go DI in the next year or so, and UND is still an independent at that point, will their be motivation for the Mid-Con to try to pick up those two schools, and perhaps go to a two division system like the Big 12? Would having four teams in the Dakotas be a desirable or undesirable thing? I have no idea whether UND would even be interested in the Mid-con - it was just a thought. But there is also this - apparently in order to be eligible for the automatic bid, a conference not only is required to have seven members, it is required to have a number of "core" members. I found this post last night on the UMKC board by "filbert", I assume the same guy that moderates the SDSU board: "Here's how I read the NCAA Bylaws: For men's basketball, a conference may have a minimum of seven "core" institutions, six of which have been in the conference for 5 years. (For other sports, it's six "core" members, all of which have been members for 2 years.) A "core" institution is one that has been in Division I for eight years, or was in the reclassification process prior to April 27, 2000. I think IPFW and Texas-Pan American both would qualify as "core" institutions today, due to the 4/27/2000 grandfather clause. NDSU and SDSU will become "core" institutions in 2016. So the Mid-Con can't afford to lose one of its current members in the next five years to maintain their basketball autobid. (If IPFW or TPAU join the conference 2006-07, the actual window of vulnerability of the men's basketball autobid would be four years, 2007-08 through 2010-11, as Valparaiso will still be in the conference next year). The Mid-Con needs new members. Until the five-year waiting period expires, the conference will need to keep all of its current members happy and in place for the next five years. Someone who knows better is free to correct me if I'm wrong . . . " Maybe we can get a little more information regarding this from someone - either some SDSU fans or blevins or someone else in the know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORUTerry Posted June 30, 2006 Author Share Posted June 30, 2006 I think this is correct.... I am not sure whether we have a 'gap' during the 2007-2008 year when the league might have a problem because Centenary has been in the league less than five years. It is a bit confusing. This just goes to show that we 'need' IPFW to join the league. We also need everyone else in the league to stay where they are. I assume we are working to add associate members for baseball..... Dallas Baptist? They would actually be a very strong competitor as DB has built a competitive baseball program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammersmith Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 "Here's how I read the NCAA Bylaws: For men's basketball, a conference may have a minimum of seven "core" institutions, six of which have been in the conference for 5 years. (For other sports, it's six "core" members, all of which have been members for 2 years.) A "core" institution is one that has been in Division I for eight years, or was in the reclassification process prior to April 27, 2000. I think IPFW and Texas-Pan American both would qualify as "core" institutions today, due to the 4/27/2000 grandfather clause. NDSU and SDSU will become "core" institutions in 2016. So the Mid-Con can't afford to lose one of its current members in the next five years to maintain their basketball autobid. (If IPFW or TPAU join the conference 2006-07, the actual window of vulnerability of the men's basketball autobid would be four years, 2007-08 through 2010-11, as Valparaiso will still be in the conference next year). The Mid-Con needs new members. Until the five-year waiting period expires, the conference will need to keep all of its current members happy and in place for the next five years. Someone who knows better is free to correct me if I'm wrong . . . " You are quite close. I'm a NDSU alumnus/fan and have been trying to get a handle on all these issues as we (hopefully) gain membership into your conference. Men's basketball has the strictest requirements for automatic qualification so we'll use those. To keep the autobid, the Mid-Con needs a total of 7 core members; six of which must have been playing together for the previous 5 years. Currently, the Mid-Con has 8 core members (including Valpo but not Chicago); 7 of which have been together for the past 5 years. Assuming no changes, when Valpo leaves, the Mid-Con will be right on the edge of losing its autobid. However, there is a 2 year grace period before eligibility is lost. The beauty is that since Valpo is not leaving until 2008, by the time the grace period is over, Centenary will have been in the Mid-Con for the necessary 5 years. IPFW will count as the seventh core member and you will once again have a one member buffer. All of this means that if the Mid-Con adds IPFW in 2008, the conference can safely lose one member at any time without losing the autobid. You are also correct that NDSU & SDSU will not be able to help at all until we become core members in 2016. FYI, the difference between men's basketball and the other sports is that you don't need the seventh core member and the period of continuity is 2 years rather than 5. I hope this was clear and helps, and I also hope that I get many chances to see your teams in conference play. The relevent NCAA bylaws are: 31.3.4.2 Additional Requirements, Sports Other Than Men's Basketball 31.3.4.2.2 Grace Period 31.3.4.3 Additional Requirements, Men's Basketball 31.3.4.3.1 Grace Period Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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