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Post by stillaphoenixphan on Apr 13, 2013 14:44:09 GMT -6
KSDK Sports-The Missouri Valley has found a replacement for the Creighton Blue Jays. NewsChannel 5 Sports has learned that Loyola University Chicago will take the spot left vacant by Creighton's move to the Big East.
Loyola's basketball team is coached by Porter Moser, a former assistant to Rick Majerus. This was on a St. Louis news report last night. Also a Loyola player tweeted it and then cancelled the tweet? At this point this is all speculation, it isn't the first time an incorrect announcement has been made. If a official announcement comes it would be next week.
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Post by gbbrl97 on Apr 13, 2013 21:11:31 GMT -6
This goes against Rob D's article just over a week ago in which UIC was going to the MVC.....Are they both going, and adding another unknown team to go to 12 teams, or did UIC get left at the MVC altar?
Losing both Chicago teams would be a body blow to the Horizon League.....
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Post by stillaphoenixphan on Apr 14, 2013 9:25:46 GMT -6
This goes against Rob D's article just over a week ago in which UIC was going to the MVC.....Are they both going, and adding another unknown team to go to 12 teams, or did UIC get left at the MVC altar? Losing both Chicago teams would be a body blow to the Horizon League..... Reading the UIC board like ours is only part of the news. The UIC board seems to think their school has withdrawn from competition(decided to stay in the HL)? They're convinced that 1 Chicago school will be tapped and because of the newcast in St. Louis it's Loyola. Other partial facts were a tweet from a Loyola player and the news that Loyola is adding Baseball. The official release is suppose to be this coming week. It's a interesting week on the Loyola and UIC boards. Ps this was tweet from a Chicago Tribune reporter. By Fred Mitchell, Tribune reporter 9:23 p.m. CDT, April 13, 2013 Loyola University has accepted an invitation to join the Missouri Valley Conference, the school confirmed to the Tribune on Saturday. The Ramblers' membership begins July 1, 2013, and details of the formal agreement are being worked out. A vacany was created in the MVC when Creighton decided to join the new Big East conference that also includes DePaul. Illinois-Chicago had also been considered to fill Creighton's void. The Ramblers men's basketball team finished 5-11 last season in the Horizon League. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Loyola men's basketball team winning the NCAA championship in 1963. A formal announcement is expected to be made about Loyola's inclusion in the MVC next week. fmitchell@tribune.com
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Post by gbbrl97 on Apr 14, 2013 11:19:14 GMT -6
As far as recent success, both schools were mediocre.......UIC has the larger facility and attracted slightly more fans on the average versus Loyola, but Loyola has more of a basketball history, although the heydays were in the 60's and the 70's.
I wonder if the decision was to replace a private school like Creighton (in a mid-size city; Omaha) with another private school like LU from a large city (as with Chicago), although the program has been mediocre for a very long time. It doesn't do much for the MVC's conference RPI with the Loyola addition.
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Post by stillaphoenixphan on Apr 14, 2013 14:15:45 GMT -6
As far as recent success, both schools were mediocre.......UIC has the larger facility and attracted slightly more fans on the average versus Loyola, but Loyola has more of a basketball history, although the heydays were in the 60's and the 70's. I wonder if the decision was to replace a private school like Creighton (in a mid-size city; Omaha) with another private school like LU from a large city (as with Chicago), although the program has been mediocre for a very long time. It doesn't do much for the MVC's conference RPI with the Loyola addition. It was mentioned in both blogs that may have had something to do with it. Also LU may have made some financial promises as far as attendce and larger facilities? They supposely promised to add a Baseball program. The UIC blog said they couldn't compete with LU when it came to finances. It also sounded like MVC wanted a large school from the Chicago area for recruiting and media market. Alot of posts from people in the MVC welcoming LU.
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Post by stillaphoenixphan on Apr 14, 2013 14:50:19 GMT -6
Here's a post from LU saying it was official Friday when players were told.
Just wanted to re-post what I posted on the Indiana State message board earlier this morning (www.sycamorepride.com). As some of you may know, I am from Terre Haute and grew up a huge ISU fan. I also have a brother that plays football there, so as you can guess I am extremely pumped about our addition into the MVC!
Well now that the Chicago Tribune article has been posted, I think I can finally post about this (I had been asked to keep quiet until it was announced). It is 100% confirmed that Loyola will be added to the MVC. The players were told in a meeting around 3:30 Friday. They were also told that they (Loyola) would be the only school added to the MVC this year.
I am absolutely thrilled with this addition as my brother was a freshman on the team this year. But I know a lot of you aren't excited about it by most of the posts I've read, so I just want to try to debate some of the points I've seen:
Loyola finished 5-11 in a bad Horizon League: First, the Horizon League is not as crappy of a league as a lot of people seem to think. The league was 12th in RPI, which puts it in the Top 5 mid-major conferences and well ahead of the MAC and OVC. The MVC was just a couple of spots ahead in 9th. As for the record, 6 of Loyola's conference losses were on shots by the other team with under 5 seconds to play. The team could have easily finished 11-5 in the conference.
Loyola will be dead weight next year: The team was 15-16 this year, but again 7 of the losses were basically at the horn. They had an 8 game improvement over the previous season, which was Coach Moser's first. Moser cleaned house when he was hired, and now has all of 'his guys' in so the improvement should just continue. The team was the 6th youngest in the nation this year, and started 3 freshmen and 1 sophomore the last 10 games of the year. They will also be getting the services of Milton Doyle who sat out this year after transferring from Kansas. And it's not like they didn't win some pretty big games this year either - they won at conference champ Valpo, won at DePaul, demolished Mississippi State (granted, they were not good, but a BCS conference team).
UIC is a better addition than Loyola: Loyola's on-court product is just as good if not better than UIC. The teams split the season series this year. And I honestly feel Loyola has a much bigger future potential.
Loyola does nothing to bring up the conference: Loyola doesn't offer baseball at this time, but as bigsportsfan mentioned the Loyola President has said he will add baseball if the conference wants it. In addition, Loyola's other sports have been strong lately and the school currently has the lead in the conference's All-Sports Champion trophy race.
Loyola averaged just under 2300 fans a game last year and plays in a small gym: I'll give it to you that attendance has been an issue, but there are very few schools where that isn't the case. However, Loyola has a large alumni base and good sized student body, so there is potential there. The move to the MVC should only help by bringing in more marquee teams and some rivals that date back decades (Bradley, Evansville, etc.). In regards to the gym, it is a great venue that they just completely gutted and remodeled in 2011 (images here). Yes, it only seats 5,000, but to me I'd rather fill a 5,000 seat gym to capacity than have a 10,000+ gym only half full for most games.
Loyola is in the Chicago Market but that means nothing: Now I will give it to you that right now Loyola doesn't have a big foot in the Chicago market (barely a toe), but absolutely none of the teams up there do (including DePaul and Northwestern). It is definitely a professional sports market. That being said, that also means that there is potentially room for one of the Chicago teams to stake a claim to being 'the college team' and with Loyola's resources I think they're doing what they can to make that happen.
As Bluethunder pointed out in a post earlier tonight, ISU Athletics were in the same situation as Loyola not too long ago in regards to coming off a terrible administration that put no focus on athletics and nearly killed the athletic program. Therefore, I think it's too early to get on a school for being a drain and a terrible addition before you give them a chance.
From reading their message board, many of their alumni have lamented the fact that in the 90's and early 2000's they had an AD and President who blew off athletics and they are just now coming out from behind that with a new President who has stated a commitment to athletics. Sound familiar? I think most of you will end up being happy with the addition of Loyola over time.
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Post by gbbrl97 on Apr 14, 2013 15:39:10 GMT -6
Interesting.....Great read. Thanks for posting this.
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Post by GBPhoenix1 on Apr 15, 2013 7:38:14 GMT -6
My take on this is two fold.
In the here and now who cares? They aren't good at men's basketball and have never won the trophy for the best all around athletic department in the horizon. Of the teams the HL could have lost this is by far the least impactful on the here and now.
With that said, there is no reason a school like Loyola couldn't be on a "new big east" level. They have the history, they play in a big market and they probably have access to the money to build a winner. Long term I wouldn't be surprised if we look back on this and think it was the start of when Loyola jumped back to the big time. I really think the difference between Loyola and Marquette is that Marquette had the belief and vision to raise the money to build their program. I get the sense that the powers that be at Loyola view this move as a big step in having that belief and vision.
This is where I would challenge the people at Green Bay. When are we ever going to start thinking big and thinking about raising the money it takes to compete on a bigger scale?
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Post by stillaphoenixphan on Apr 17, 2013 18:48:13 GMT -6
MVC/Loyola press conference will be Friday at 11:00 a.m
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