PEORIA — Missouri State will quickly begin its basketball farewell tour within the Missouri Valley Convention because it exits subsequent spring on the finish of the 2024-25 season to affix Convention USA.
What ought to the Valley do subsequent? Keep at 11 groups? Return to 12? Usher in a number of groups and dramatically elevate its numbers with a watch on the day when the music stops within the convention re-alignment growth and somebody will get left with no chair?
From Valley commissioner Jeff Jackson to athletic administrators and head coaches with distinguished groups like Bradley College, Belmont and Northern Iowa, opinions differ.
MVC candidates: Missouri State is gone. 11 faculties that might exchange them within the Missouri Valley Convention
“We want Missouri State the very best, they have been an incredible associate of the Missouri Valley Convention,” Valley commissioner Jeff Jackson stated. “(However) … I do not suppose we really feel any have to fill the spot. I do not suppose between myself and my board room — the presidents and chancellors who make the selections on who we deliver into the Valley — I do not suppose we really feel the necessity to do something or change something in our method to how we take a look at membership realignment.”
Jackson went on to say if the fitting match comes alongside and may “improve the general worth” of the Valley, the league will surely have a look — however they haven’t modified their method. Valley basketball sits at 12 groups headed into the 2024-25 season and can drop to 11 after Missouri State’s departure.
“I do not suppose even quantity, odd quantity, matter. It is math,” Jackson stated. “In most of our sports activities, not all of our establishments take part.
“We have now not had any severe conversations with anybody about enlargement. None.”
One factor was clear in speaking to these within the league workplace, coaches on the helm or athletic administrators overseeing applications: The Valley’s current focus is extra focused towards getting a second group within the NCAA Match through an at-large bid. For the primary time, the league this offseason put into play a scheduling directive requiring all its applications to guide at the least 4 video games with projected Quad 1 or Quad 2 groups in its nonconference schedule.
What Bradley thinks concerning the Valley’s future
No matter what number of groups comprise the Valley lineup, the league is chasing that second bid with high quality, slightly than amount, as a precedence.
“I need basketball within the Missouri Valley Convention to be as aggressive as it may be,” Bradley coach Brian Wardle stated. “We have now an incredible commissioner, nice coaches. I do not know what’s going to occur. Possibly we’ll determine to remain at 11. But when we add, we want a well-resourced program that cares about basketball, or it will not win in our league. I am blessed to have an athletic director and administration that’s dedicated to basketball at Bradley and helps us succeed.”
Extra: Bradley basketball has a 2024-25 nonconference schedule. Here is each group BU performs
That athletic director, Chris Reynolds, has a agency imaginative and prescient of the sport’s large image after serving as chairman of the celebrated NCAA Division I Males’s Basketball Committee in 2022-23.
“I am actually large on controlling the controllables,” Reynolds stated. “Do every part I can to place Bradley athletics in the absolute best place to maneuver ahead. Within the larger image, until a group goes so as to add worth to our league, then do you have to add a group only for the sake of changing Missouri State … ?”
The view from rival Valley sidelines
Belmont joined the Valley for the 2022-23 season. In its first season, it completed tied for third within the MVC at 21-11 (14-6 in convention) and with a NET rating at 118. Final season, the Bruins tied for fourth within the MVC at 20-13 general (12-8 in convention) and with a NET rating at 117.
“My opinion does not matter while you discuss enlargement or not enlargement,” Belmont coach Casey Alexander stated, laughing. “I am glad we have now nice management that may make these selections. I am positive with it the place it’s, I like having the ability to play 20 video games and being a full round-robin.
“I do not perceive something concerning the financials concerned or the larger image panorama. I strive to not fear about it … let the Jeff Jackson’s of the world and the college presidents make these big-boy selections.”
On what led Belmont to decide on the Valley two years in the past — a standards groups in different conferences are possible utilizing now to maybe make the identical resolution whereas evaluating the Valley — Alexander stated:
“It was the whole dedication to basketball throughout the board that was an incredible match for us. To not say the groups that had been within the OVC weren’t dedicated. However there is a completely different degree of sources, a special degree of historic success that you simply see within the Valley. It was nice for Belmont to be hooked up to that model.”
The dean of the Valley head coaches, Ben Jacobson, regarded on the topic, too. The five-time MVC Coach of the Yr and the league’s all-time winningest coach in convention video games has had a busy summer time rebuilding his group after a number of hits from the switch portal.
MVC basketball: Which Missouri Valley gamers used the NCAA switch portal? Here is the record
“To some extent, all of us are excited about it (the variety of groups within the league),” Jacobson stated. “One of many issues I’ve discovered over the past three, 4, 5 years is, these dominoes are going to fall once they fall. One of many large positives about our league is the management. For us as coaches, we have ideas. However I belief our management. I belief they’re monitoring it and are going to make the very best selections to maneuver our league ahead.”
Jacobson re-iterated the Valley’s larger give attention to pursuing a second NCAA Match bid and the way the MVC group lineup may influence it.
“And actually in males’s basketball, what will we do to greatest place ourselves to get that second bid, that at-large bid?” he stated. “To get extra groups within the NCAA Match. Clearly convention re-alignment, when you return to 12, keep at 11, drop all the way down to 10, that clearly has an influence on the place we wish to get to when it is all stated and performed from a big-picture standpoint.”
In the end, for Jacobson, it comes all the way down to getting extra groups from the Valley into March Insanity — regardless of the variety of groups within the league.
“For me, personally, I haven’t got a solution whether or not 11 is greatest, going again to 12 is greatest or (even) dropping all the way down to 10,” Jacobson stated. “For me, it is (about) let’s decide that’s going to greatest place our league to get some extra groups into the NCAA Match.”
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports activities columnist, and covers Bradley males’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports activities column for pjstar.com. He could be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Observe him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This text initially appeared on Journal Star: NCAA basketball: Evaluation Missouri Valley Convention alignment
