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Post by kiyoat on Mar 24, 2018 9:17:11 GMT -6
Just wondering what people's major hang-ups are about UMKC.
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Post by Yotes on Mar 24, 2018 9:46:01 GMT -6
They are a bad team, with poor facilities, and zero fans. A team that will rarely make it to the middle of the Summit standings. All they bring to the table is added security in case multiple teams bolt.
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Post by elcoyote on Mar 24, 2018 12:37:55 GMT -6
They are a bad team, with poor facilities, and zero fans. A team that will rarely make it to the middle of the Summit standings. All they bring to the table is added security in case multiple teams bolt. I think your last sentence summed up why they would to have be considered at this point. |
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Post by kiyoat on Mar 28, 2018 7:38:07 GMT -6
I was not shocked at the result of the "reason for not wanting Augustana" poll. I WAS surprised that the majority of posters here support adding UMKC. Likely only for stability reasons.
Also, the two major reasons for not wanting them (on this poll) are essentially the same thing: RPI and athletic viability. To me, this is a minor and temporary thing. I'm more concerned with their potential than their current situation. The finances worry me more than the current competitiveness.
IMO a basketball-first school in a large urban area has huge potential, regardless of the current state of affairs. We have seen other urban-based programs suddenly take on large numbers of casual fans when they have success. Keep it up, and some of those fans stay. In a sport like basketball, sometimes the competitiveness can turn on a dime. One or three excellent recruits or transfers --- a great coach --- a couple of deep-pocketed donors --- can turn things around in a hurry, and Kansas City is rife with talent.
The Geography just makes too much sense, too. KC is approximately equidistant from WIU, UNO, and ORU.
I know this might be an unpopular stance, but Chicago State is similarly situated like UMKC. A Geographic outlier in the WAC, equidistant to WIU and IPFW, urban campus in large city, etc. The major issue with me is the financial situation.
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Post by Coyote Fan on Mar 28, 2018 8:37:17 GMT -6
we can't rely on what could be but rather what is. UMKC is currently a dumpster fire and if we have to rely on them to keep the Summit's survival than I would rather have the Summit unravel. Sometimes it takes something like that to come out the other end stronger. USD fits the profile of a MVC school more so than a Summit school and competively are now closer to that level as well.
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Post by usdcoyote on Mar 28, 2018 9:03:51 GMT -6
we can't rely on what could be but rather what is. UMKC is currently a dumpster fire and if we have to rely on them to keep the Summit's survival than I would rather have the Summit unravel. Sometimes it takes something like that to come out the other end stronger. USD fits the profile of a MVC school more so than a Summit school and competively are now closer to that level as well. Have I missed the boat on the MVC being interested in us? Is the MVC an option? |
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Post by Coyote Fan on Mar 28, 2018 11:52:20 GMT -6
We probably don't know whether it's truly an option or not but my hope would be that the Coyotes would be exploring their options. I have higher aspirations than the Summit League especially if they are going to add UMKC. The League doesn't need anymore non football schools as well.
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Post by yote14 on Mar 29, 2018 7:20:46 GMT -6
I think we need to be very careful wishing for something other than the summit league. Currently the only option in the Midwest is the MVC. And I don't think there is a lot of interest there for any of the Summit schools. Especially after the success of Loyola Chicago this year has worked out so well.
If we do not make saving the summit as a main option the 4 Dakota schools may end up in the WAC themselves. The Big Sky is not much better for expenses. Ask UND. And the Big Sky is a worse basketball conference than the Summit even with UMKC. The Montana's moving to a new conference with the Dakota schools is a pipe dream.
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Post by Yote 53 on Mar 29, 2018 8:00:16 GMT -6
The more the Big Sky gets diluted the less of a pipe dream it becomes. Idaho falling back to the FCS is a big wild card in this scenario. They might be the impetus to getting something new started. I would guess they don't mind aligning with the Montana schools and a few others but I'm sure they bristle at the thought of being in a conference with some of the others in the BSC. Idaho should be the school we are approaching to get something going and the Montanas could be brought to the table once we get the ball rolling.
Maybe we should bring UMKC in as that would be a domino in the destruction of the WAC. Get the WAC blown up and you could see a complete restructuring of D1 conferences out west. Chaos is a ladder. From that chaos we build our conference. Ok, too much Game of Thrones.
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Post by Yote 53 on Mar 29, 2018 8:01:28 GMT -6
I was not shocked at the result of the "reason for not wanting Augustana" poll. I WAS surprised that the majority of posters here support adding UMKC. Likely only for stability reasons. Also, the two major reasons for not wanting them (on this poll) are essentially the same thing: RPI and athletic viability. To me, this is a minor and temporary thing. I'm more concerned with their potential than their current situation. The finances worry me more than the current competitiveness. IMO a basketball-first school in a large urban area has huge potential, regardless of the current state of affairs. We have seen other urban-based programs suddenly take on large numbers of casual fans when they have success. Keep it up, and some of those fans stay. In a sport like basketball, sometimes the competitiveness can turn on a dime. One or three excellent recruits or transfers --- a great coach --- a couple of deep-pocketed donors --- can turn things around in a hurry, and Kansas City is rife with talent. The Geography just makes too much sense, too. KC is approximately equidistant from WIU, UNO, and ORU. I know this might be an unpopular stance, but Chicago State is similarly situated like UMKC. A Geographic outlier in the WAC, equidistant to WIU and IPFW, urban campus in large city, etc. The major issue with me is the financial situation. A majority don't support bringing in UMKC. The NO votes are broken up amongst all the reasons for NO. Add them together and the No's outnumber the Yes's. |
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Post by kiyoat on Mar 29, 2018 8:29:01 GMT -6
A majority don't support bringing in UMKC. The NO votes are broken up amongst all the reasons for NO. Add them together and the No's outnumber the Yes's. It's an ongoing poll, and the numbers were a little more skewed when I posted that. However, keep in mind that it is a multiple-choice poll as well. There have been 27 votes, but only 24 voters. Those that support UMKC are not likely to choose other options, so 12 "Yes" votes out of a field of 24 voters = 50%. Not a majority, but darn close. Closer than I thought it would be, given the discussion. Those that are against UMKC are probably more likely to post about it, giving the impression that our online community is very anti-UMKC, when that is clearly not the case. That was really the point of the poll. Just trying to get the pulse of this online community. |
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Post by Coyote Fan on Mar 29, 2018 9:03:06 GMT -6
The more the Big Sky gets diluted the less of a pipe dream it becomes. Idaho falling back to the FCS is a big wild card in this scenario. They might be the impetus to getting something new started. I would guess they don't mind aligning with the Montana schools and a few others but I'm sure they bristle at the thought of being in a conference with some of the others in the BSC. Idaho should be the school we are approaching to get something going and the Montanas could be brought to the table once we get the ball rolling. Maybe we should bring UMKC in as that would be a domino in the destruction of the WAC. Get the WAC blown up and you could see a complete restructuring of D1 conferences out west. Chaos is a ladder. From that chaos we build our conference. Ok, too much Game of Thrones. nicely stated. if a MV all sports conference is not an option would it be too far out there to have an all sports conference involving only or mostly States and U's. Idaho, ISU, Montana, and MSU combined with the Dakota 4 would create a stable core to a conference and I think the Dakota's would actually give those mountain States reason to up their overall athletic departments and it would work in reverse as well. This is an opportunity for USD to be a leader and not a follower. |
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Post by yoteforever on Mar 29, 2018 9:26:19 GMT -6
My personal opinion on conference alignment/expansion is this is not an easy thing to do. I have similar feelings about Mr. Douple being a good leader as do many on here, but the solutions to this problem aren’t as easy as one thinks. Way back when we went forward to D1 I was a proponent of us going to Big Sky despite the travel issues because of the fact they were an all sports league. I prefer the Valley in football for the competitive reasons but I am not comfortable ( nor have been ) with the Summit, but that’s the on;y choice we have.
I still believe by being patient the answer will unfold. The MVC and MVFC need to look inside itself and figure out a way to merge and align with all schools current;y in either league. Figure out an east/west all sports minus football and incorporate into the football. Loyola going to the Final Four probably had a negative impact on any real short term development as the leagues stock has risen on their “new” member. If the WAC implodes totally, then there’s opportunity there as well, but now you’re back to travel issues/expenses.
One last closing comment is if we don’t get attendance figures to grow in earnest, and I’m not talking about assigning some BS number to each game/match, it won’t matter what league we are talking about because it won’t happen. I’m disappointed in the growth of attendance given the fact we have the new arena. It makes it tough to approach the donors for Dome expansion and upgrades if attendance doesn’t follow. I have ideas on what could be done to do that, but that’s another day.
In closing I just don’t think it makes sense to say the Montana schools or Idaho schools or whatever should join us. None of the Dakota schools are that appealing to them either. I think whatever happens in the future will come as a result of “no other choice”. I hate that, but I think that’s the way it is. If we were putting 5000 people in the arena for men’s games and 2500+ for women’s games, then we’d be in a different boat. But we aren’t doing that, and that’s disappointing.
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Post by Yote 53 on Mar 29, 2018 9:52:07 GMT -6
The football attendance numbers have been there, have been improving, and will continue to grows as long as we win, and I am confident that we are going to win. We're getting near capacity right now in the Dome, an expansion is a must, IMO.
The basketball attendance suffers because the schedule is sporadic with mid-week, one-off games against alphabet soup opponents, and some want to add another in UMKC. You put State schools on the schedule, I don't care how good they actually are, they are marketable to John Q. Public. SDSU basketball attendance has been suffering for this reason as well, so this isn't just a USD issue.
Travel schedule I believe is moot, you either travel for a conference game or a non-conference game, pick your poison. I'd rather play Idaho in-conference and then schedule Oral Roberts OOC, instead we probably would never schedule Oral Roberts OOC, and instead play somebody closer like Iowa, ISU, Creighton, Drake, UNI, and those games would be more readily schedulable because we would be in a conference with an elevated profile. Face it, the Summit is at the bottom when it comes to conference rank in the Midwest. Only by moving out west are we going to raise our profile, it's the only chance outside of a MVC type merger/invite. The Summit is a revolving door on life support. Every time the Summit makes one step forward there are two steps back and there are no quality options looking to join the conference except UND. UND got stuck on an island in the BSC, if all 4 Dakota schools played out west in the BSC the travel budget would be totally different and much more manageable, they never would have moved back to us. I am still of the opinion that USD should have went with UND to the BSC. The Summit would have collapsed and SDSU and NDSU would have joined us. Sure, it would stink to lose the MVFC because it is an awesome football conference, but the entire athletic dept. would be better off if we were all out of the Summit.
I disagree that the Dakota schools are not appealing to the Montanas and Idahos. They value football, we have strong football. In basketball we offer solid competition and decent RPIs. We are like minded state schools. It would be a very attractive pairing.
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Post by yote14 on Mar 29, 2018 11:44:41 GMT -6
I agree the Montana's and Idaho's would be ideal. travel is still a little worrisome. But they have nothing to gain right now by doing it. Montana was a founding member of the big sky. Not sure about the other 3. Why would they ever want to change? Or leave that stability? The gain or potential gain would not be worth the risk for them.
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