Who's panicking?

[zooropa]

Re: Who's panicking?

The Summit Commissioner went to the press with that information and UALR slammed the door on him for using UALR for his own self interest

Your grasp of the facts is somewhat lacking. On at least one occasion your AD said, publicly, that UALR was considering the Summit League as an alternative, should the Sun Belt require FBS football.

And while I must acknowledge ignorance of the intricacies of your athletic programs, I find the idea that UALR will join the MVC (Chair of the MVC expansion committee: "We are only interested in programs that can bring us shares") along with ORU to bolster baseball to be ludicrous. Almost as ludicrous as launching a $4M FBS program.

Also, I note your Sun Belt tournament couldn't outdraw the Summit League tournament in Sioux Falls, so IMO, it doesn't really matter where you hold it. Oh, and the Sun Belt finished below the Summit League in MBB RPI this year.

--

In short: Don't assume that your current conference is better than the Summit, and get your facts straight before posting something that starts off, "must correct some misinformation"

[J.J.]

Re: Who's panicking?

I guarantee Douple and the league office is not panicking about losing Oakland. The future of the Summit League is the Dakota schools. The history of the Mid-Con/Summit has been that of a geographical far flung league. The dapartures of outlier schools (SUU, ORU, and Centenary) will help the league establish a solid geographical footprint and the loss of Oakland would only further enhance the new Summit League. Southern Utah always wanted the Big Sky, ORU wanted the Southland prior to joining the Mid-Con and Oakland wants the Horizon.

Douple knows he does not have to do anything to keep the other eastern schools happy. He knows that Oakland is the only school that might have options. He has resisted moving to 12 schools with east/west divisions with a rotating tournament which might appease Oakland.

Douple had 40k butts in seats in Sioux Falls and with a new facility coming on line, I doubt he gives a rip what Oakland decides.

[zooropa]

Re: Who's panicking?

if you guys think that any school more than 100 miles from Sioux Falls would honestly be excited by playing a tournament there in March

Seems nobody more than a hundred miles from Hot Springs wanted to go THERE for a tournament in March either.

[LRTrojan]

Re: Who's panicking?

Your grasp of the facts is somewhat lacking. On at least one occasion your AD said, publicly, that UALR was considering the Summit League as an alternative, should the Sun Belt require FBS football.And while I must acknowledge ignorance of the intricacies of your athletic programs, I find the idea that UALR will join the MVC (Chair of the MVC expansion committee: "We are only interested in programs that can bring us shares") along with ORU to bolster baseball to be ludicrous. Almost as ludicrous as launching a $4M FBS program.Also, I note your Sun Belt tournament couldn't outdraw the Summit League tournament in Sioux Falls, so IMO, it doesn't really matter where you hold it. Oh, and the Sun Belt finished below the Summit League in MBB RPI this year.--In short: Don't assume that your current conference is better than the Summit, and get your facts straight before posting something that starts off, "must correct some misinformation"

To be honest, have never encountered such snarkiness. You have a right to stay delusional, but don't stay by the phone waiting for UALR to ring.

[Nidaros]

Re: Who's panicking?

To be honest, have never encountered such snarkiness. You have a right to stay delusional, but don't stay by the phone waiting for UALR to ring.

Oh yeah thats my favorite school.

[LakeJack]

Re: Who's panicking?

To be honest, have never encountered such snarkiness. You have a right to stay delusional, but don't stay by the phone waiting for UALR to ring.

To be honest you came in with a lot of attitude for a school from the Sun Belt. I certainly don't think the Summit wants or needs your school. SDSU went to the NCAA Tourney with both our Men's and Women's teams, while your men were what 15-16 on the year? And your conference representative to the Dance had to pull off a miracle to beat a SWAC team in the First Four. Sorry but you aren't the Razorbacks, you could stand to lose the attitude.

[zooropa]

Re: Who's panicking?

To be honest, have never encountered such snarkiness. You have a right to stay delusional, but don't stay by the phone waiting for UALR to ring.

First of all, I'm sure you have encountered such snarkiness.

Secondly, nobody said that UALR was going to 'come calling'. Your own AD, though, said that the Summit was the 'fallback' if the Sun Belt required football.

Finally, if you're talking about delusions, you might want to check out your notion that the Sun Belt is a better conference than the Summit.

[FargoBison]

Re: Who's panicking?

If Oakland leaves the Belt is better, maybe even much better. That said the Belt could lose schools to the MWC-CUSA alliance so both leagues could take some hits in the near future.

[filbert]

Re: Who's panicking?

To be honest, have never encountered such snarkiness. You have a right to stay delusional, but don't stay by the phone waiting for UALR to ring.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

[zooropa]

Re: Who's panicking?

maybe even much better.

Have you seen the Sun Belt RPI? They got some real dogs in that conference. Seven of their 12 teams finished under .500.

And if the Mountain-USA conference picks up MTSU, Sun Belt's looking even worse.

[FargoBison]

Re: Who's panicking?

Have you seen the Sun Belt RPI? They got some real dogs in that conference. Seven of their 12 teams finished under .500.

And if the Mountain-USA conference picks up MTSU, Sun Belt's looking even worse.

They were 19th this year, the conference has some solid programs and some dogs but yes the conference could get pillaged. That said if the Summit loses Oakland the league will struggle in the short term, it might be a bottom six conference for a while.

[zooropa]

Re: Who's panicking?

it might be a bottom six conference for a while.

Can you support this with statistics? Or do you think NDSU is going to stink that bad for the next several years?

[FargoBison]

Re: Who's panicking?

Can you support this with statistics? Or do you think NDSU is going to stink that bad for the next several years?

Well with Oakland and ORU the Summit's average RPI is basically 22 or 23 over the past nine years, remove them and I don't think for the short term saying the league will be 25 or 26 is all that big of a leap.

The only programs with any real commitment and support would be NDSU and SDSU but neither program has shown that it can be consistently successful at the DI level yet. You could say that IUPUI has been consistent but without Hunter I have my doubts.

A number of Summit schools have major support and facility issues and until they figure out some kind of solution to the problems they will consistently struggle.

[zooropa]

Re: Who's panicking?

Well with Oakland and ORU the Summit's average RPI is basically 22 or 23, remove them and I don't think for the short term saying the league will be 25 or 26 is all that big of a leap.

I just dropped SUU, ORU, and Oakland from the Summit RPI, and added an entry identical to Binghampton's (worst RPI in D-1) to simulate a worst case scenario for UNO, and the Summit was *still* better than the Big Sky.

And, I'd point out that the Sagarin ratings for the Summit have improved, and unlike the RPI, Jeff Sagarin weights his averages around the median, which gives a better indication of where the core of the Summit sits.

At the end of '09/10, the SL was in 24th, per Sagarin's 'central mean' weighting. Right now, the SL is 18th. This provides a solid indication that the conference *as a whole* is getting better.

Also, note the comparative rankings of the SL in '09/10 vs. '11/12:
2009/10:

  24  SUMMIT LEAGUE           =  66.52      66.83  ( 24)   TEAMS= 10      66.73  ( 24)
FINAL College Basketball 2009-2010    Div I games only    through games of 2010 April 5 Monday - NCAA Championship Game
HOME ADVANTAGE=  3.78           RATING    W   L  SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 25 | VS top 50 |  ELO_CHESS   |  PREDICTOR  
 109  IUPUI                   =  76.08   23  11   70.36( 219)    0   1  |    0   2  |   76.30  112 |   75.59  114
 113  Oakland-Mich.           =  75.96   24   9   70.39( 218)    0   4  |    0   5  |   79.15   78 |   72.94  148
 146  Oral Roberts            =  73.61   19  13   70.59( 211)    1   0  |    2   1  |   73.97  141 |   72.97  147
 226  South Dakota State      =  67.44   12  16   68.83( 252)    0   1  |    0   2  |   66.85  233 |   67.73  220
 229  IPFW                    =  67.02   14  15   68.10( 269)    0   2  |    0   3  |   67.73  222 |   66.00  238
 254  North Dakota State      =  65.13    9  18   69.14( 246)    0   0  |    0   0  |   64.40  261 |   65.55  248
 280  Western Illinois        =  63.11   10  17   67.26( 287)    0   1  |    0   1  |   63.17  277 |   62.77  279
 289  UMKC                    =  62.52   10  18   67.93( 277)    0   1  |    0   1  |   63.25  276 |   61.45  295
 319  Centenary               =  58.93    6  21   69.24( 243)    0   0  |    0   2  |   59.78  310 |   57.67  320
 321  Southern Utah           =  58.44    5  22   69.50( 236)    0   0  |    0   2  |   59.40  317 |   57.03  324

2011/12:

  18  SUMMIT LEAGUE           =  71.27      71.60  ( 18)   TEAMS= 10      71.53  ( 18)
College Basketball 2011-2012          Div I games only    through 2012 March 24 Saturday
                                RATING    W   L  SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 25 | VS top 50 | ELO_CHESS    | PREDICTOR  
                HOME ADVANTAGE=[  3.51]                                               [  3.56]       [  3.50]
  64  South Dakota State      =  80.97   25   8   72.09( 188)    0   1  |    1   2  |   80.36   68 |   81.02   60
  91  Oral Roberts            =  78.56   27   7   71.84( 197)    0   1  |    1   2  |   80.42   67 |   78.03   98
 134  Oakland-Mich.           =  75.21   19  15   73.09( 157)    0   1  |    0   2  |   75.89  134 |   74.93  133
 156  North Dakota State      =  73.92   16  14   71.07( 230)    0   0  |    0   1  |   72.29  176 |   74.22  148
 179  Western Illinois        =  71.82   16  15   72.15( 186)    0   1  |    0   1  |   72.63  170 |   71.51  181
 203  IUPUI                   =  70.30   12  18   72.24( 184)    0   2  |    0   2  |   69.89  211 |   70.29  199
 232  Southern Utah           =  68.38   12  17   71.46( 209)    0   0  |    0   0  |   69.41  220 |   68.00  238
 268  IPFW                    =  66.08   10  19   71.50( 207)    0   1  |    0   2  |   66.86  261 |   65.77  273
 278  UMKC                    =  65.65   10  20   71.58( 204)    0   3  |    0   3  |   66.67  269 |   65.27  278
 285  South Dakota            =  65.11    8  18   71.20( 221)    0   0  |    0   0  |   65.73  274 |   64.84  287

[zooropa]

Re: Who's panicking?

Mostly, I'm saying that the Summit's improvement over the past few years is has been across the board, not just at the top.