Mid-Con Tuesday Night

[tmh8286]

Three teams played, three teams beaten. Inauspicious evening for conference teams. Without wins in the OOC season, the Mid-Con will continue to lag behind where we would like it to be, RPI-wise.

So far Mid-Con teams are 6-10 on the season, which may actually be a little better than last season's start. Hopefully ORU can add a couple W's to the win column this weekend.

[TrueBlue82]

Unfortunately, the 6-10 W-L record is somewhat inflated (if that's possible!) by early games against non-Division I opponents. Against D-I opponents, the Mid-Con is a dismal 2-10.

There's hope on the horizon, though. Tony Mejia of CBS predicts two Mid-Con wins tonight (ORU and Valpo), and only one loss (S Utah).

[tmh8286]

Yes, but Valpo better watch out, IUPUFW still has the sweet taste of victory in their mouths after beating Southeastern State Monday night. They're on a winning streak of one game, and have Valpo squarely in their sights.

[TrueBlue82]

It's truly sad how poor the Mid-Con is. And, until we win the league multiple times in a row, we have no valid reason to complain about how the league "pulls down our RPI". As described in previous threads, this and the next few years may be the new "glory days" of the ORU program, and we need to take advantage of the opportunity to separate ourselves as the "elite" of a lowly conference.

This is not meant to offend our Valpo friends. Valpo is already in this position as the elite program, and their fairly recent success in the NCAA has allowed them to rise above the Mid-Con. ORU needs to be in a similar position, and as for me, it doesn't mean ORU taking away Valpo's spot, but at least sharing the same status.

I'd really like to see ORU and Valpo together, in a different higher echelon conference within the next five years. It could happen...but ORU has a lot of work to do first.

[tmh8286]

Yes, we have a lot to do to qualify for another conference in terms of basketball. Baseball is already there. I believe that the powers that be would argue that overall the Mid-Con is a pretty good fit. EVEN if we were to dominate the Mid-Con for several years, would it be advantageous to move to a conference where we might be closer to the middle of the pack, and getting an NCAA bid would be more difficult? Also, consider our intraleague rival Valpo, another small Christian school. After dominating our league for nearly ten years, they're finding it difficult to maintain that level of momentum. Five years ago they were all over their board talking about a conference change, based on their basketball success (obviously not their baseball - a little dig there!). Do you think that they are wishing they were in a stronger conference at this point? I think few would argue that it would be to their benefit.

I'm not saying that we SHOULDN'T consider another league at some point, but I think that the Mid-Con fits us pretty well at this point. I DO understand what you're getting at, though, Blue.

On the other hand, the Powers of the Mid-Con need to respect our league more when considering who they add to the conference. Adding a school like Centenary only drags our conference down - RPI-wise and competition=wise.

[tbone77]

I continue to hope that someday we could find a home in the Missouri Valley. The MVC would provide several good opportunities to travel (Wichita, Missouri State, and even Creighton or So Ill) and we have seen that we can compete in hoops. MVC baseball would be a huge step up. I agree with Doc and Blue that we can't look down at the Mid-Con until we have won it several times and even then we should remember how fortunate we were that the Mid-Con took us in when we really needed a conference home. Prefer to think of it as looking up to the MVC.