Welcome To The Big Midwest!

O.K., so Rick Majerus is unhappy in the Atlantic 10 conference, or at least he is unhappy being in the Atlantic 10 conference while not having access to charter jet services. In either case, it has been suggested by Majerus himself, and by the likes of ESPN commentator Dick Vitale, that SLU wold be better off in the Missouri Valley conference.

To my mind, that notion is madness, unless SLU decides to give up entirely on any notion of being at least a semi-regular Top 50 team. They could do that, just give up and become the Fordham of the Midwest, though I doubt the alumni would take too kindly to the idea. The Missouri Valley is a nice little league, and that is all it will ever be, a little league. The idea that it is anything like a "mid-major" is simply stupid. There simply are too few teams in the MVC that could consistently be considered Top 50 caliber.

So, where does this leave the Billikens? Well, if they want to attempt to grow into something of a basketball power (however limited that is for a team not in one of the big 5 conferences), there are only two options: stay in the A-10, or be part of a new conference. In this post I will propose just such a new conference, which I will call the Big Midwest.

The Big Midwest will be built upon a couple principles:

1. Geographic Integrity:

Too many conferences in the NCAA today have too many member spread out over too large a territory. Granted, some of the bitching of Majerus is misplaced. After all, A-10 travel from St. Louis to Philadelphia is actually less than Big 12 travel from Ames to Austin, or ACC travel from College Park to Miami. Still, representing a region would be nice. For that reason, I'm proposing a conference where all teams are within 350 miles of Terre Haute, Indiana. This would encompass the better part of the Midwest, and thus the name of the conference would be apt.

2. Athletic Integrity:

Because of the variety of sports offered by schools, and the fact that not every school offers every sport, you get some weird conference affiliations. This plan would centralize the vast majority of the sports offered at the conference schools. Thus, Big Midwest schools would compete in the Big Midwest in every sport, thus enhancing the branding of the product, and giving a sense of stability to the programs.

With these two principlse in place, the league takes shape pretty quickly. I propose the following schools for the Big Midwest:

1. Bradley
2. Butler
3. Dayton
4. DePaul
5. Eastern Illinois
6. Evansville
7. Illinois State
8. Indiana State
9. Marquette
10. Murray State
11. Saint Louis
12. Southern Illinois
13. Valparaiso
14. Xavier

Thus, the most of the major urban market located with the 350 mile radius of Terre Haute are contained: Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. Only Louisville and Nashville would not be included, but there are no institutions in those cities that would fit into such a conference.

As for sports programs broadly construed, the Big Midwest would be completely viable:

Basketball: 14 teams
Football (1-AA): 8 teams
Baseball: 12 teams
Soccer: 12 teams
Cross Country: 14 teams
Golf: 12 teams
Track & Field: 10 teams
Swimming and Diving: 7 teams
Tennis: 12 teams

This, to me at least, makes sense. Only Murray State's rifle team is left out of the Big Midwest men's athletic schedule, and the geographic balance is maintained.

By state:

Illinois: 5 schools
Indiana: 4 schools
Ohio: 2 schools
Missouri: 1 school
Kentucky: 1 school
Wisconsin: 1 school

For basketball play, I envision two divisions, East and West, divided thusly:

East Division:

Xavier
Dayton
Indiana State
Butler
Valparaiso
Evansville
Murray State


West Division:

St. Louis
DePaul
Marquette
Bradley
Illinois State
Eastern Illinois
Southern Illinois

This would make for an 16 game conference schedule (home and home in division, and one game with four teams from the other division) akin to what conferences like the ACC have already. Given the geographic proximity of the schools the natural rivalries that would develop are obvious (and some existing rivalries would be continued.)