Horizon League to add 10th member

[Penguin Nation]

From the Vindy:

"The Horizon League is planning to add a 10th member, Wright State athletics director Bob Grant said Friday, according to WSU’s school newspaper, The Guardian.

The member will be within busing distance of Dayton and will be announced by the end of May, Grant said. The most obvious choice is Atlantic Sun-member Northern Kentucky, which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati and has shown interest in joining the Horizon League for several years. Belmont, which is located in Nashville, Tenn., is a member of the Horizon in soccer only.

The league has lost Butler and Loyola in the last three years and added Oakland before the 2013-14 school year."

http://www.vindy.com/news/2015/apr/25/horizon-league-to-add-th-member/?newswatch#sthash.RJhFuyrX.dpuf

[Penguin Nation]

FWIW, YSU MBB beat NKU 78-74 on NY Eve.  We were their only HL opponent.

[YSUGO]

Don't see what that would do to make the Horizon Better.  Since we lost Butler the league has become mediocre. 

[Penguin Nation]

Likely would bring the league RPI down in MBB.  The Atlantic Sun has an RPI of 30 compared to 16 for the HL.

In WBB, the Atlantic Sun actually has a higher RPI than the HL....a downgrade for NKU.

[ysufan0505]

This makes the conference worse.

[Spiderlegs]

Atlantic Sun has higher women's RPI because of Florida Gulf Coast. After that, the conference is pretty dismal and isn't as competitive as Horizon.

No secret that NKU wants to be in Horizon and Horizon has been interested in NKU, and NKU is within bus-trip range of Dayton. The other candidate that sometimes surfaces as a travel partner for WSU is IUPUI, but there don't seem to be the same warm fuzzies between IUPUI and Horizon as there has been with NKU.

[Wick250]

One day YSU will once again have a good men's basketball team.  Of course, for you young ones that will come about the time that your grandchildren are graduating from high school.  Until then, do we really want a stronger Horizon League?  Why do we care about multiple conference bids to the NCAA tournament?  I hope that Northern Kentucky is the tenth member.  It would reduce travel costs for both of our basketball teams and make scheduling very easy.  Every school would have a convenient travel partner.  For us it would mean a solo game in Cleveland plus one trip to Wisconsin, one trip to Chicagoland (UIC and Valpo,) one trip to Detroit, and one trip to southwestern Ohio (NKU is located right across the river from Cincinnati.)

It is imperative that the MVFC maintain an elite standing.  But in our current basketball condition, weaker is better, especially if it saves us money as well as adding a team we might be able to beat.

[Penguin Nation]

I've read that the HL eventually wants to have 12 member schools, to protect itself from further defections like Butler and Loyola.  I think it's a near certainty that NKU is in, but will there be more?  Some contenders are IUPUI, Belmont, Evansville, Lipscomb, and UMKC.  RMU is also talked about, and I think it'd be good for YSU, but I think they'd be foolish to change conferences.

NKU has a lower MBB budget than YSU. The argument by many for FB is to stay in the MVFC so that we rise to our superior opponents level of play.  It sounds like for MBB, the hope is not improvement, but rather weak OOC opponents and now, weak HL opponents, to pad the W/L record.

[BigDWSU]

NKU has a lower MBB budget than YSU.

NKU has a higher MBB budget than YSU. 

http://www.bbstate.com/info/schools-budget

[Penguin Nation]

NKU has a lower MBB budget than YSU.

NKU has a higher MBB budget than YSU. 

http://www.bbstate.com/info/schools-budget

You are correct.  In 2014 NKU spent 70K more than YSU.  My numbers were from 2013.

http://horizonleaguefans.freeforums.net/thread/429/who-next-hl-addition

That is a nice site, BTW.  Interesting that for all of the talk about budget, UWGB spends less $/win (actually about $10K less per win) than YSU.

[IAA Fan]

$$$ dollars per win? By that logic, the stars of NFL teams make less on .500 season than super bowl champions? Not true there or here. Someone has to lose ...we just wish is was not us so often. To compete it takes money ...overall dollars. Again I do not see why we would even use UWGB as a milestone. People on this site would expect Butler performance, not that of a team that traditionally can maybe have an above even season. Their budget is as large as ours and they have no football, so if you even think I can be convinced they spend the same money on basketball as we do ...not quite. Yes, they ski and that is very, very expensive ...but not quite football expensive.

[Penguin Nation]

$/win is just a measure of ROI. Valpo has a worse $/win than YSU but pours so much more $$ in their MBB that they overcome a worse $$/win   It's more complicated that that however, because with Valpo's stronger SOS, each win should cost more.... So it really is only a useful stat with similar SOSs.

[axiom]

IPFW?

[go guins]

All this $/ win stuff is bizarre to me.  So if Pelini does no better this year with Wolford’s players than Wolford did our $/win would be worse because Pelini is paid more? (not counting the Nebraska money, in which case, even if we go undefeated, we’d still have the highest $/win in 1AA)  This “measure” doesn’t allow for program development etc.  Second, it is kind of what we do in education when we talk about teacher evaluation/merit pay.  You never get a good teacher to go into an “at risk” class because her “rating” and therefore merit pay goes down, even thought it might serve the overall education system better.
I don’t think the coach’s salary should come into measuring success at all.  It will find it's fair level.

[Penguin Nation]

The $$/win is limited in it's usefulness, particularly since it doesn't factor in SOS.

But I do think it has some usefulness. Imagine, for example, if YSU was a member of the OVC or NEC in all sports.  Our win # would increase (the last place HL team, YSU, defeated the NEC champion...in their home), and our travel expenses (especially in FB) would decline.

There would be a significant improvement in winning per dollar spent.

In these days of limited budgets for athletics...its something to consider, IMO.