Todd Golden: TODD AARON MVC needs to hit sweet spot between markets and good basketball fit

Nov. 18—On Tuesday, Loyola and the Atlantic 10 Conference dropped a bomb on the Missouri Valley Conference as the Ramblers announced that the 2021-22 season would be their last in the MVC.

Loyola's tenure in the MVC was brief, but will be remembered with fondness. The Ramblers were questioned at the time of entry as a Creighton replacement in 2013 and it took several years for the program to ramp up to MVC competitiveness. Once it did? Loyola took off, with a memorable Final Four run in 2018 as the icing on the cake. Center Cameron Krutwig will forever be the player who defined Loyola's time in the Valley.

So vaya con dios to the Ramblers. Meanwhile, the MVC finds itself in that all too familiar position it's been in historically — replacing an important member.

Many believe the MVC will drop its traditional focus of having 10 (or 11) teams to expand the league to as many as 14 schools. MVC commissioner Jeff Jackson has been bullish on expansion from the time he came into the position in June. Belmont's quick addition to the MVC in September when the Ohio Valley Conference began collapsing in on itself was a testament to that and it wasn't a big secret that the league was at least looking at other schools too.

One non-big market, basketball-related addition seems obvious as Murray State will likely get it's long-coveted invitation. With Loyola gone, the MVC now needs Murray State's basketball tradition of success more so than it did before Loyola exited stage left. Add on the fact that Racers fans travel well, the school is easily within the geographic footprint and can enhance Arch Madness? They're a no-brainer despite the MVC's preference for large markets.

The initial reports from national media types after Loyola made its official announcement suggested that the MVC presidents want the league to add schools in big markets to the league, preferably untapped markets. From the local point of view, that checks out with what we've been hearing for several years.

In a vacuum, it's a sound plan. Though the MVC gets very little money in media rights, it is important to be in bigger markets due to non-athletic factors like exposure to potential students and being close to league alums. So the MVC might be headed for life in the big city. That's cool. However, the initial reporting on what those cities may be gave me pause.

The two most prominently-named schools are Texas-Arlington and Kansas City. Say what? Can you repeat that? Did someone just say Texas-Arlington and Kansas City? That can't be right.

Before we get to that pair, it seems to me that before the MVC starts trying to chart a path into new places, it needs to find a way to shore up its presence in the most important Midwest metro area for nearly all of its institutions — Chicago.

The only good Chicago option left is to turn to the school that nearly made the MVC cut in 2013 before being nosed out by its intra-city rival Loyola — Illinois-Chicago. The Flames check a lot of boxes, even though they haven't been great on the court in several years. If the league is after big markets, it absolutely must secure its Chicago presence first before any other priority is pursued.

Once Chicago is re-secured, then what? Let's dissect the two cities being rumored as additions.

Texas-Arlington has long been mentioned as a MVC candidate, including in 2017 as a Wichita State replacement. They're a non-football-playing member of the FBS Sun Belt Conference, which makes them vulnerable to the football priorities in that league.

UT-A is not a tomato can as mid-majors go, the Mavericks have had eight .500 or better seasons in their last 10, including a 27-win season in 2017 when the MVC allegedly kicked the tires on them. UT-A also has a new, MVC-worthy facility. Yet, despite the winning, UT-A has never found a path to national relevance or become a consistent NCAA Tournament presence — its lone appearance was in 2008.

I'm struggling to see the benefit the Metroplex brings much to the MVC from an enrollment standpoint. Is there an untapped reservoir of students in the Dallas area that would attend college at least two states away? Is there a reciprocal agreement between Texas and other Missouri Valley Conference states? Someone help me out here.

Moreover, UT-A is a non-entity in its own market. On the college front alone, UT-A is behind TCU, SMU and North Texas locally and every Texas-based Big 12 or SEC school statewide (and probably Oklahoma too) in terms of Metroplex interest, to say nothing of Dallas's pro teams.

Kansas City has the opposite problem. That is a market that the MVC has coveted for a long time and for good reason, even toying with the idea of moving Arch Madness there before the most recent contract to stay in St. Louis was signed. Obviously, it's geographically very well-placed in the MVC footprint.

The problem? Kansas City (or UM-Kansas City if you will) have been very poor on the court. Since 2007, the Roos (they don't want to be called the Kangaroos anymore) have had three winning seasons playing in low-level leagues.

Another problem? Kansas City can't seem to decide where it wants to play. When ISU played there in 2013-14, the Roos played in historic Memorial Auditorium in downtown K.C. — a very cool venue, I might add. Since then, they went back to on-campus Swinney Recreation Center, which only seats 1,500, but the word is that K.C. wants to go back downtown to Memorial Auditorium, especially if the MVC came calling. What gives?

There's also question marks about budgetary commitment, which has supposedly given the MVC some pause, no one wants a repeat of Valparaiso, which hasn't made any significant investment in its facilities since its gained MVC entry. And though Kansas City is a good college basketball town, like Dallas, its loyalties go to big fish like Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State. The hometown Roos don't rate.

There aren't any lead-pipe options big-city schools for the MVC to pursue, but there are candidates that check other boxes, probably better boxes, such as proximity, proven success and better facilities in other untapped metro areas.

Northern Kentucky is in the Cincinnati market and has had more success in its 10-year Division I period than Kansas City has ever had. Milwaukee checks off proximity, has a good facility, and has a team on the rise.

Little Rock — also stuck in the football-oriented Sun Belt like Arlington — isn't in anywhere near as big of a market as any mentioned so far, but unlike any of the others, it does have its metro area to itself, isn't far off the MVC footprint, and has a history of basketball success (ask Purdue). Wright State, like Little Rock, is in a smaller market, but has a history of success in a city (Dayton) that gives significant support to two Division I programs with a metro population of 818K, and it's also near MVC territory.

If the MVC wanted to roll the dice on upside over lineage? Emerging Bellarmine would bring basketball-mad Louisville back into the MVC's orbit. New Division I school St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. has big ambitions of its own.

Point is? Big markets are a wise goal, but it still has to be the right schools in the right markets. I hope the rumors of Arlington and Kansas City are just that — rumors — and that the MVC is casting its net wider towards schools that hit the sweet spot between market and basketball considerations.

Todd Golden is sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at (812) 231-4272 or todd.golden@tribstar.com. Follow Golden on Twitter at @TribStarTodd.