Mid-Con Expansion.....

[ORUJason]

In an article that John Klein wrote last week in the Tulsa World, he mentioned that with Valpo and Chicago State leaving the Mid-Con, "That leaves the Mid-Con under the minimum to retain its automatic NCAA Tournament bids."  I have included an excerpt of that article below....

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ORU is at Mid-Con Conference meetings this week for discussions about the league's future.

Valparaiso, arguably the highest-profile basketball school in the conference, is leaving for the Horizon League. Chicago State is also leaving the league. That leaves the Mid-Con under the minimum to retain its automatic NCAA Tournament bids.

That is especially important to ORU. The Golden Eagles earned automatic bids to the NCAA men's basketball and baseball tournaments this past school year.

So, there is some urgency to get new membership to stay above the new minimums within the next two years.

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From our previous discussions and analysis of the auto bids, it looks like John Klein was wrong, and that the info posted by Hammersmith is correct and that the Mid-Con is NOT "under the minimum" requirements. 

And that if IPFW is added, then considering the grace-period, there would be a one-team buffer. 

Based upon that, I feel much better about the conference situation than I did a couple months ago when I thought there was no buffer.

Also, John Klein was interviewed on AM 1430 "The Buzz" on Thursday or Friday of last week. 

He said that while the Missouri Valley has no interest in expanding beyond 10 teams right now, a highly respected source told him that if 1 or 2 openings come up in the MVC within the next few years (due to other conference shifts), the MVC would probably add Western Kentucky 1st and ORU 2nd in order to maintain a conference-wide balance between public and private schools.

He insinuated that if ORU maintains their current level of success and sits tight,the MVC may be a very real possibility within the next 2-3 years.

He also mentioned that he suspects that conference shifting could occur down the road when a few teams from the eastern part of Conference USA such as UCF and East Carolina find better regional options.  I have to admit that I don't necessarily see that happening, but it was an interesting comment.

Based on his comments, I would guess that if the MVC ever decided to expand to 12 teams, it sounds like Western KY and ORU would be the most likely candidates. 

In another possible scenario, if the MVC lost 1 team, and added Western KY, perhaps the Sun-Belt would consider ORU to replace Western KY.  Once again, since ORU is not a football school, I'm not sure if they would look our way.

On another note, I still don't understand why St. Louis is in the Atlantic 10 instead of the MVC.

[89rabbit]

He is wrong.

[tmh8286]

He is wrong.

Who's wrong, 89rabbit? 

[89rabbit]

John Klein about the auto bid.

I posted the link bellow before, you can listen to an interview of Commissioner Douple by our local ESPN affiliate, and when Commissioner Tom Douple was on "The Sports show with Brad & Scotty" he talked about many things and one of them was the auto bid.  Sorry I can see how my very short post was easy to misinterpret. 

http://www.brookingsradio.com/douple6-29-06lo.mp3

[tmh8286]

Thanks for the clarification.  Until a few days ago I was totally unaware of the intricacies of the automatic bid.  Apparently, so was John Klein.  I haven't had a chance to listen to the audio yet, but will try to do that sometime today.  Thanks for the link.