• Welcome to BradleyFans.com! Visitors are welcome, but we encourage you to sign up and register as a member. It's free and takes only a few seconds. Just click on the link to Register at the top right of the page, and follow instructions. If you have any problems or questions, click on the link at the bottom right of the page to Contact Us.

Post-Dispatch article on the Valley

Very nice article. Thanks for sharing. Too bad about Loyola. (sarcasm) Wichita State is 7th in the AAC right now. Also too bad.
 
Classof77 said:
Very nice article. Thanks for sharing. Too bad about Loyola. (sarcasm) Wichita State is 7th in the AAC right now. Also too bad.
Click to expand...

The last couple teams to leave the MVC have fallen on hard times. We've pointed out that after winning last year's MVC Tournament and moving to the Atlantic-10, Loyola is now the worst team (winless and in 15th place) in the conference. Their wunderkind coach Drew Valentine is no longer receiving accolades or being touted for better jobs, and he is now getting fan and media criticism for a chaotic offense and ineffective defense with players leaving the team in mid-season. Attendance is starting to plummet. They were averaging over 3,000 per game prior to conference play, but their last couple home games drew only a little over 2,000 fans.

Wichita State (left the MVC in 2017) was an NCAA Tournament team in their final 6 MVC seasons, averaging 30 wins per season.
In the AAC, they have made the NCAA Tournament only once in the last 4 seasons, and they won't make it this season, either.
Greg Marshall resigned in shame 2 years ago, and since then they have been a sub .500 team in AAC play. They have gone 8-12 in conference games over the last 2 seasons.
After many years of sellouts at 10,000+ seat Koch Arena, fans are bailing on the Shockers, too. As recently as 2019-20, they averaged a capacity 10,315 per game. Last year, attendance dropped to 8,715 per game, and this season they are averaging 7,184 so far, down more than 3,000 per game.
One recent non-conference home game drew only 6,468 fans, and their home game this month against conference foe Cincinnati drew only 6,876.
So sad to see. :cool:

Creighton (left the MVC in 2013) had been the exception. They have had success in the Big East, but not so much this season. They were the consensus favorite to win the Big East this season, and there were many experts picking Creighton for the Final Four in preseason predictions, and even a couple who picked them to be the 2023 National Champion. They also were among the betting favorites to win the 2023 NCAA National Championship.

They are 11-8 overall, and 5-3 in the Big East, and still have a chance in what appears to be a down year for the Big East. But they have had a disappointing 2022-23 so far. They were a Top 10 team in the Preseason polls, and remained in the Top 10 for the first 4 weeks of the season. But now they have fallen completely out of the Top 25, and did not even receive a single vote in this week's Coaches Top 25 Poll.
 
All 3 fan bases are not missed by the rest of the Valley. I think I asked the question each time each team left. Do you want to be the big fish in the small pond or the guppy in the ocean? Obviously Loyola tried to take advantage of their late Valley succeses to move on up and wasn't ready. Creighton has had some success, Gregg McDermont is a really good coach, but have had 5 NCAA apperances and made it to the Sweet 16 just once. And the less said about Wichita State the better.
 
I believe Loyola was picked to finish 4th in the A10 this year. And they are in dead last (though still a lot of season left to play). Time will tell if Loyola made the right decision. I wonder if the A10 is regretting extending the invitation to what they thought would be a perennial NCAA contender and raise the profile of the conference in a huge market.
 
Here is another angle of the incident, a Doordash delivery guy walking onto the court while the game was going on to try to deliver a bag of McDonald's food-
https://twitter.com/AustinHansenTV/s...83760177217538

doordash.png
 
This had to be a gag, right? A door dash guy couldn't and wouldn't get into the game and just walk on the court with food, right?
 
Yeah, when you read through the tweets, you learn that the guy had a mic on. I'm sure it was some you tube prank video. Now it's not so funny.
 
Yeah, that image actually appears to show what looks like a small microphone attached to his collar. A dare-prank like you see on the TV Show "Impractical Jokers" makes more sense now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top