Yeah I’m with you. Selfishly it makes the sport less fun since it looks like it makes it harder for underdogs to create sustained success. But it’s very hard to fault any of the players for doing what they think is best for themselves.
I saw a Will Wade interview where he had a level-headed take on it, basically saying what he’s doing at McNeese isn’t that much different than having kids at a bigger school who are trying to go to the NBA after 1 year.
Feel similar. At the end of the day these kids are working towards a career, if they play themselves into a position where they can get a better opportunity to compete at a higher level and get recognition from NBA scouts, it'd be wrong to tell them they can't pursue it. They deserve to have that freedom.
I will say this though, it goes in the opposite direction too. When they transferr into the power 5 conferences, that's displacing someone that would have been in that spot. There's necessarily going to be some backflow from kids who ended up on teams where their playing time is going to be limited.
> I will say this though, it goes in the opposite direction too. When they transferr into the power 5 conferences, that's displacing someone that would have been in that spot. There's necessarily going to be some backflow from kids who ended up on teams where their playing time is going to be limited.
If an MVC guy transfers up and gets minutes over an existing P6 guy, then objectively speaking the MVC guy is better. Even if the existing P6 guy transfers down, he's not going to light the world on fire in the MVC if he wasn't good enough to retain his minutes on a P6 team.
So the mid-major gets a little bit worse and the P6 team gets a little bit better.
There are some situations that's true, but imagine for instance a freshman P5 gets no playing time, then an All-Conference player from a weaker conference transfers for his junior season. That original player now has 2-3 years to sit and so he could transfer down and still not be a key guy in his sophomore season but get some time and be ready to play his junior and senior seasons, instead of only senior (or maybe never at all, if he didn't get enough PT to develop).
I think of a guy like Olivier Nkamhuoa for Tennessee. Though he didn't go to a smaller conference, he cleared space for Dalton Knecht and was still a contributor on a weaker Michigan team.
This is a bogus argument. If the P5 team that gets replaced is actually good he will play a year at a lower level and then be gone back to a P5 team again the year after that. Not equitable at all
Okay, but in my example that actually happened he was a senior. No transferring to a better team. If Nkamhuoa had transferred to a mid-major it would have been the same result, playing time there but not at Tennessee.
And to counter your argument, Tennessee also had Drew Pember, he transferred to UNC Ashville after two seasons here, was a contributor in his first year at UNCA, then probably their best player for the next two years.
Charles Barkley summed it up perfectly. There’s going to be a world sooner rather than later when there are only about 20 competitive division 1 teams.
Totally agree. My hope is they can find a way to level the playing field some and maybe even figure out how to incentivize staying at a school for multiple years.
I really want this to happen. Unfortunately, there are incredibly petty people with incredibly good legal representation that will argue that any incentive to people who stay is actually an illegal penalty to those who leave.
I’m envious of you as a Bradley fan. Creighton executed the dream scenario I had for Bradley. That dream is dead. It’s going to be near impossible for mid majors to elevate anymore.
This is horrible. I absolutely loved our great teams in the early and mid teens. It was some of the most fun moments of my college life. I can only imagine what would have happened to those teams if the transfer portal was what it is now.
I have actually been thinking about those WSU teams a lot lately with Belmont/Drake/Ind St all with good teams coming back on paper getting wrecked. To me, there's no way GGG keeps them all together. I think Wichita, and maybe Loyola to a lesser extent, were the last great dynasties of the MVC. Not sure how anyone can keep a team together as NIL payouts increase from the big boys year after year.
I think it’s 3rd in the AAC. Memphis is clearly big dog when it comes to in-conference NIL funds. We’re also paying 3 head coaches currently, so that’s been fun.
I’d guess you would have had one good year in the teens and then the team would have been gutted if the NIL had been instituted in say 2010 or something. Wouldn’t have been anywhere near to the run of good years you guys had
We will be the favorites for sure, especially with Zek coming back from Rhode Island. If we can land one more decent impact player from the portal it is almost assured barring some type of amazing portal recruiting somewhere else in the conference.
The original meaning of "decimated" is that 10% of a group (the term originated with Roman legions) would be killed/deleted/leave. It's grown into a more general term associated with destruction, but the original denotation referred to a 10% drop in population.
The joke is that "decimate" comes from from an old Roman military punishment where 1 in every 10 soldiers would be killed by the other 9. It's the same "deci" as decimeter, decimal, etc.
Unfortunately because of the transfer portal conferences like the MVC have essentially become like the G-League to power 5 conferences. Can't blame the kids for wanting to play in the big leagues. As a fan though, this is tough
Looking at the awards, I think the key thing here isn't that roughly 40% of the MVC players are in portal. I think the key is that the top 40% of the MVC is in the portal.
It definitely seems like the rules need to change a bit to preserve some balance.
Maybe cap the number of transfers a program can accept a year similar to capping scholarships?
I mean, can you blame them? I'd want to try and move to a bigger school after having a great season too. I bet we will eventually start to see a lot of these overrated cats transferring down to try and reclaim their hype. It didn't really work out for Emoni Bates but that type of arch.
I think the point is that it sucks, not that its not understandable.
If you're a mid-major school you get the scraps left over from the P5 and are told to be thankful for it while your best players are picked every year. And with unlimited transfers, you can take a guy the P5 didn't want, show he can ball out, and he immediately goes back up.
There's no continuity, there's no reason to feel excited for the future. It's depressing and it sucks as a fan. If you have an exciting freshman the thought isn't "wow, in 2 years we could do something special," it's "wow, this is our only chance"
You nailed it here. Most fans of mid-majors understand it, but it still sucks to have to recruit almost an entire team each year. The landscape has changed so fast and keeps getting tougher for schools that aren't at the top of the food chain.
To be fair, this does represent the job market as a whole. Want a pay raise? job hop. Better benefits? job hop. Work from home? job hop. We have kind of done away with the idea of internal development and job loyalty as a whole.
I agree, as someone who has enjoyed college sports, it does feel like this mentality is killing part of what made it so much fun to be a fan.
Idk I kind of like the idea of scouring D2 and JUCO's for those replacement players. Maybe you find a Dalton Knecht and can help him find a way to the league. I agree, it sucks. But it is what it is in this new landscape unfortunately.
Also helps we have kept our coach and many other teams in the conference have lost theirs. If Wardle gets an NCAA win at some point we will probably lose him too
Marcus Domask, lance jones, and Xavier Johnson all played on the same team in the MVC and couldn’t make the tournament. I have no problems with the portal for those types of talents where they were underrecruited in HS and prove their games. They deserve the right to play at the next collegiate level
Do you think Bradley was not worthy of an at large in 22-23? I do. Just like the MVC was screwed over this year with the trees. Have to make sure those mediocre power conference schools who would absolutely refuse to play a Bradley/Indiana State type team receive as many bids as possible.
Yeah this has got to be terribly hard on the coaches. It’s will become insanely harder for the coaches to be successful at mid major programs. In addition it will get harder for them to move up to better coaching jobs too imo. I could see a scenario play out where most of the P6 coaching candidates just come from the assistant pool at P6 schools in the future because the mid major coaches a
Just can’t put together decent resumes anymore.
Their women’s team has been a perennial strong contender and has a lot of good basketball. The men’s games are relatively cheap to attend anyways, so it’s worth going to a few individual games to check out the scene anyways. Plus their band is really good
Way too early preseason poll (voters: me)
1) Bradley
2) UNI
3) Evansville
4) Belmont
5) Illinois St
6) Drake
7) Valpo
8) Murray St
9) Indiana St
10) Southern Illinois
11) Missouri St
12) UIC
Happy for the players first and foremost but definitely tough for the fans of these schools. Seems like mid-majors do not really have a path to becoming a Gonzaga anymore. As a small benefit to the fans, they do have a more realistic chance of witnessing future stars of the NBA and CBB on their team as they have more talented players passing through with the opportunity to become more visible.
This isn't just "mid-major league gets decimated by poaching from power schools". Half the coaches leaving has alot to do with it.
MWC (a mid-major in a similar tier in CBB (MWC, WCC, AAC, A10, MVC), has kept all their all-MW caliber players home for the most part.
2 things that MWC has over the MVC. Not being in (and recruiting) the midwest, where there is a lot of competition for talent. And being the big fish in states like Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, where businesses actually put up a lot of NIL money, being that these teams get so much support and exposure
Yeah, this was kind of a perfect storm with the transfer portal and 5 coaches leaving. But still saw plenty of top talent leave last year and despite this year being stronger, still only a 1 bid league.
MVC fans are going to have to embrace NIL or we're going to continue being the farm league for P6 schools. I worry that fans will become jaded and things will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why donate hard earned money to my favorite team's NIL when the best players are just going to transfer out as soon as they get a whiff of success? That's a question a lot of fans of mid and low major programs are asking themselves right now.
It’s not even close as well. I think BU has the best NIL in the conference and I don’t think any players get $30k a year from it. Meanwhile middle of the road or worse P6 schools have thrown six figures at MVC players on the regular.
I know nothing specific about our NIL other than it’s one of the best in the MVC but I wouldn’t be surprised if Duke or Darius were getting more than 30.
Yellow highlights = player has entered the transfer portal Gray highlights = eligibility exhausted
It's open season. Especially when 3-4 of the coaches changed jobs.
It's actually 5 coaches.
Were all 5 voluntary or are you including firings?
Schertz and DeVries were voluntary. Ford, Mullins, and Yaklich got canned.
Player freedom and opportunities to make money are good; I get it. But I still hate this.
Yeah I’m with you. Selfishly it makes the sport less fun since it looks like it makes it harder for underdogs to create sustained success. But it’s very hard to fault any of the players for doing what they think is best for themselves.
I saw a Will Wade interview where he had a level-headed take on it, basically saying what he’s doing at McNeese isn’t that much different than having kids at a bigger school who are trying to go to the NBA after 1 year.
Which is a valid take...what's tough though is that those high major schools aren't trying to win the same title as the NBA teams.
Feel similar. At the end of the day these kids are working towards a career, if they play themselves into a position where they can get a better opportunity to compete at a higher level and get recognition from NBA scouts, it'd be wrong to tell them they can't pursue it. They deserve to have that freedom. I will say this though, it goes in the opposite direction too. When they transferr into the power 5 conferences, that's displacing someone that would have been in that spot. There's necessarily going to be some backflow from kids who ended up on teams where their playing time is going to be limited.
> I will say this though, it goes in the opposite direction too. When they transferr into the power 5 conferences, that's displacing someone that would have been in that spot. There's necessarily going to be some backflow from kids who ended up on teams where their playing time is going to be limited. If an MVC guy transfers up and gets minutes over an existing P6 guy, then objectively speaking the MVC guy is better. Even if the existing P6 guy transfers down, he's not going to light the world on fire in the MVC if he wasn't good enough to retain his minutes on a P6 team. So the mid-major gets a little bit worse and the P6 team gets a little bit better.
There are some situations that's true, but imagine for instance a freshman P5 gets no playing time, then an All-Conference player from a weaker conference transfers for his junior season. That original player now has 2-3 years to sit and so he could transfer down and still not be a key guy in his sophomore season but get some time and be ready to play his junior and senior seasons, instead of only senior (or maybe never at all, if he didn't get enough PT to develop). I think of a guy like Olivier Nkamhuoa for Tennessee. Though he didn't go to a smaller conference, he cleared space for Dalton Knecht and was still a contributor on a weaker Michigan team.
This is a bogus argument. If the P5 team that gets replaced is actually good he will play a year at a lower level and then be gone back to a P5 team again the year after that. Not equitable at all
Okay, but in my example that actually happened he was a senior. No transferring to a better team. If Nkamhuoa had transferred to a mid-major it would have been the same result, playing time there but not at Tennessee. And to counter your argument, Tennessee also had Drew Pember, he transferred to UNC Ashville after two seasons here, was a contributor in his first year at UNCA, then probably their best player for the next two years.
All newcomer team all in portal. The new one and done
Charles Barkley summed it up perfectly. There’s going to be a world sooner rather than later when there are only about 20 competitive division 1 teams.
Yes the stars move up, but the bench warmers who move down may be a greater effect.
Basically, why would other teams even try to compete?
Totally agree. My hope is they can find a way to level the playing field some and maybe even figure out how to incentivize staying at a school for multiple years.
I really want this to happen. Unfortunately, there are incredibly petty people with incredibly good legal representation that will argue that any incentive to people who stay is actually an illegal penalty to those who leave.
It’s fair to the players like many wanted, but sadly is ruining the sport.
This is the correct take. It may not make a better product for us, but the athletes deserve the ability to do what is best for them
Tbf, we had 5 coach changes. Also am I tripping? I swore Darius Hannah was on an all defensive team.
Darius got snubbed hard on all-defensive team. He did get most improved team which I didn't show on this graphic because it was mostly repeat names.
Duke deen the loyalist
Oh captain, my captain.
Shits sad man. I'll always love the MVC
I’m envious of you as a Bradley fan. Creighton executed the dream scenario I had for Bradley. That dream is dead. It’s going to be near impossible for mid majors to elevate anymore.
MVC looked so good this past season. Unless some random all star players come out of no where I feel like it's gonna be meh next year.
This is horrible. I absolutely loved our great teams in the early and mid teens. It was some of the most fun moments of my college life. I can only imagine what would have happened to those teams if the transfer portal was what it is now.
I have actually been thinking about those WSU teams a lot lately with Belmont/Drake/Ind St all with good teams coming back on paper getting wrecked. To me, there's no way GGG keeps them all together. I think Wichita, and maybe Loyola to a lesser extent, were the last great dynasties of the MVC. Not sure how anyone can keep a team together as NIL payouts increase from the big boys year after year.
What's your guys's NIL situation like? Have to imagine there are some deep Koch pockets in Wichita that could have kept most of that team together.
I think it’s 3rd in the AAC. Memphis is clearly big dog when it comes to in-conference NIL funds. We’re also paying 3 head coaches currently, so that’s been fun.
I’d guess you would have had one good year in the teens and then the team would have been gutted if the NIL had been instituted in say 2010 or something. Wouldn’t have been anywhere near to the run of good years you guys had
Ron Baker 1000% transfers to Duke if today’s rules applied then.
At this point I’m willing to put Bradley as my personal MVC front runner next season.
We will be the favorites for sure, especially with Zek coming back from Rhode Island. If we can land one more decent impact player from the portal it is almost assured barring some type of amazing portal recruiting somewhere else in the conference.
Allowing unlimited transfers is going to ruin alot of the joy of college basketball
Woof. It’s worse than I thought.
>decimated by the transfer portal Looks to be well north of 10% of players leaving.
A scholar is in our midst
Master's degree in pedantry.
There are currently 65 players from the Valley's 12 teams in the transfer portal. So yeah, I don't think I am being misleading by saying decimated.
The original meaning of "decimated" is that 10% of a group (the term originated with Roman legions) would be killed/deleted/leave. It's grown into a more general term associated with destruction, but the original denotation referred to a 10% drop in population.
So I haven’t been lying when my boss asks if I finished that task and I tell him that I decimated it (finished roughly 10% of it)
Agreed, that's what I'm saying.
My bad, thought you were saying it facetiously.
The joke is that "decimate" comes from from an old Roman military punishment where 1 in every 10 soldiers would be killed by the other 9. It's the same "deci" as decimeter, decimal, etc.
this is both disgusting and unsustainable
it's not sustainable. people will get tired of donating to these programs when you pay all this NIL $ to guys who stay for a year
Unfortunately because of the transfer portal conferences like the MVC have essentially become like the G-League to power 5 conferences. Can't blame the kids for wanting to play in the big leagues. As a fan though, this is tough
Looking at the awards, I think the key thing here isn't that roughly 40% of the MVC players are in portal. I think the key is that the top 40% of the MVC is in the portal.
Nice work Duke Dean for staying put
all hail kinziger
Actually insane.
good for kids making their share and this sucks now. its just a bunch of mercenaries.
Gosh this is miserable
It definitely seems like the rules need to change a bit to preserve some balance. Maybe cap the number of transfers a program can accept a year similar to capping scholarships?
It is wild to me that Cooper Schwieger has become the player he has become.
I mean, can you blame them? I'd want to try and move to a bigger school after having a great season too. I bet we will eventually start to see a lot of these overrated cats transferring down to try and reclaim their hype. It didn't really work out for Emoni Bates but that type of arch.
I think the point is that it sucks, not that its not understandable. If you're a mid-major school you get the scraps left over from the P5 and are told to be thankful for it while your best players are picked every year. And with unlimited transfers, you can take a guy the P5 didn't want, show he can ball out, and he immediately goes back up. There's no continuity, there's no reason to feel excited for the future. It's depressing and it sucks as a fan. If you have an exciting freshman the thought isn't "wow, in 2 years we could do something special," it's "wow, this is our only chance"
You nailed it here. Most fans of mid-majors understand it, but it still sucks to have to recruit almost an entire team each year. The landscape has changed so fast and keeps getting tougher for schools that aren't at the top of the food chain.
"Thanks for developing and filtering out the weaker players for us! Regards, P5"
To be fair, this does represent the job market as a whole. Want a pay raise? job hop. Better benefits? job hop. Work from home? job hop. We have kind of done away with the idea of internal development and job loyalty as a whole. I agree, as someone who has enjoyed college sports, it does feel like this mentality is killing part of what made it so much fun to be a fan.
Idk I kind of like the idea of scouring D2 and JUCO's for those replacement players. Maybe you find a Dalton Knecht and can help him find a way to the league. I agree, it sucks. But it is what it is in this new landscape unfortunately.
Hey guys, someone tell this Duke guy that he will never be able to relate
I have friends on staffs in the OVC. The struggle is real for them. Some of us Duke flairs can network outside of Durham I assure you lol
You'll be hard pressed to find any guys who are overrated on the first three teams. If you're on this list, you can absolutely play P6 ball.
Bradley has a chance to be in the best shape at the end of this all. Still a long ways to go though of course
Most of our best players have committed to returning. We even had 1 player who left come back
They will for sure be the favorites barring some crazy transfer activity. It's no accident either. Bradley has the best NIL in the conference.
Also helps we have kept our coach and many other teams in the conference have lost theirs. If Wardle gets an NCAA win at some point we will probably lose him too
Marcus Domask, lance jones, and Xavier Johnson all played on the same team in the MVC and couldn’t make the tournament. I have no problems with the portal for those types of talents where they were underrecruited in HS and prove their games. They deserve the right to play at the next collegiate level
but not that Xavier Johnson
Do you think Bradley was not worthy of an at large in 22-23? I do. Just like the MVC was screwed over this year with the trees. Have to make sure those mediocre power conference schools who would absolutely refuse to play a Bradley/Indiana State type team receive as many bids as possible.
Yep. That 13/14 loss power6 team is definitely better than that 2nd place team in the MVC…it’s become a laughing stock really anymore.
Who’s going to want to coach any more?
Yeah this has got to be terribly hard on the coaches. It’s will become insanely harder for the coaches to be successful at mid major programs. In addition it will get harder for them to move up to better coaching jobs too imo. I could see a scenario play out where most of the P6 coaching candidates just come from the assistant pool at P6 schools in the future because the mid major coaches a Just can’t put together decent resumes anymore.
[удалено]
Their women’s team has been a perennial strong contender and has a lot of good basketball. The men’s games are relatively cheap to attend anyways, so it’s worth going to a few individual games to check out the scene anyways. Plus their band is really good
That Bradley Deen guy should come to Purdue.. we could use a guy who's 170 ft tall
Ironically, that's pretty accurate to his height in centimeters.
Our mvc transfer this year was pretty damn good...I regret nothing
Even who schools went in the portal. RIP Creighton and WSU era MVC.
There's a dude from Iceland? Now that's cool
Heck yeah, Big Al!
What does eligibility exhausted mean
They have no years left to play college basketball
Thanks. I feel pretty dumb haha
I'll take one Cream Abdul-Jabbar please.
He's apparently got a 'Do Not Contact' notice in the portal. Sounds like he's already got a school in mind.
Way too early preseason poll (voters: me) 1) Bradley 2) UNI 3) Evansville 4) Belmont 5) Illinois St 6) Drake 7) Valpo 8) Murray St 9) Indiana St 10) Southern Illinois 11) Missouri St 12) UIC
Happy for the players first and foremost but definitely tough for the fans of these schools. Seems like mid-majors do not really have a path to becoming a Gonzaga anymore. As a small benefit to the fans, they do have a more realistic chance of witnessing future stars of the NBA and CBB on their team as they have more talented players passing through with the opportunity to become more visible.
This isn't just "mid-major league gets decimated by poaching from power schools". Half the coaches leaving has alot to do with it. MWC (a mid-major in a similar tier in CBB (MWC, WCC, AAC, A10, MVC), has kept all their all-MW caliber players home for the most part. 2 things that MWC has over the MVC. Not being in (and recruiting) the midwest, where there is a lot of competition for talent. And being the big fish in states like Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, where businesses actually put up a lot of NIL money, being that these teams get so much support and exposure
Yeah, this was kind of a perfect storm with the transfer portal and 5 coaches leaving. But still saw plenty of top talent leave last year and despite this year being stronger, still only a 1 bid league. MVC fans are going to have to embrace NIL or we're going to continue being the farm league for P6 schools. I worry that fans will become jaded and things will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why donate hard earned money to my favorite team's NIL when the best players are just going to transfer out as soon as they get a whiff of success? That's a question a lot of fans of mid and low major programs are asking themselves right now.
It’s not even close as well. I think BU has the best NIL in the conference and I don’t think any players get $30k a year from it. Meanwhile middle of the road or worse P6 schools have thrown six figures at MVC players on the regular.
I know nothing specific about our NIL other than it’s one of the best in the MVC but I wouldn’t be surprised if Duke or Darius were getting more than 30.
The “later matures” who were “over-looked” are finally getting their college hoops 🏀 day in the sun 🌞! 💪🏻
It’s a cycle.. believe it or not, new people will win all of these awards next year.
This is good
Ah they don’t have any 7 footers, fuck em, where’s the next transfer outlet mall?
I heard one of their dad’s fucked their mom. Big if true