Their sports teams would have almost certainly been nicknamed the “Rebels”. It would have effectively been a monument to the Civil War and renewed northern/southern unity. The school was originally to be called “Lincoln and Lee University” to honor Abraham Lincoln and Robert E Lee. Like many schools of its ilk, UMKC (or “Kansas City” as they like to be known for athletic branding purposes) is an amalgamation of several historical universities. If you’re going to chase a market Chicago is the one to chase, and while they’ve had some struggles UIC is a known commodity in Chicago. For my money, other than Murray State, UIC is the obvious #2 on this list of possible expansion candidates. One has to imagine if the team started to have success, a few of those alums could be moved to get excited about it. Still, the stat about how one in ten Chicagoans with a degree are UIC alums keeps ringing in my ears. The Flames’ average attendance is well below the average Valley school and would have been dead last in the league by far in 2019-20, despite having much more folks in the area to draw from. College athletics take a back seat to pro sports in Chicago to begin with, and UIC is behind DePaul, Northwestern and Loyola in terms of college basketball pecking order (not to mention Notre Dame and basically every Big Ten team). The obvious drawback is UIC’s standing within Chicago. UIC plays in nice facilities as the arena is a first-class mid-major facility, and they have a renowned baseball field too. You’re throwing in a solid soccer and baseball program as well. The Flames’ basketball history isn’t great, but if you only consider the last 30+ years it looks quite similar Loyola’s history before they joined the league (although the Ramblers admittedly had more tradition pre 1985). UIC is the only realistic option if we want to get a presence back in the city. There are, presumably, a significant number of alums of every Valley school in Chicago and the city is obviously a great recruiting area. Obviously with Loyola leaving the league, it makes sense to want to fill that gap with another school in the biggest city in the Midwest. Let’s hop right in with the first candidate, shall we? I skipped the power rankings this week to focus on this article, as it seemed like a good week to skip with so many teams on finals week. I will present info on the schools, their programs, their facilities, their market and draw some final conclusions about their respective pros and cons of each at the end (where I will drop objectivity and give my opinions). But I will try and be as objective as possible about this and give you the pros and cons of each institution as I see them. If you have read a lot of my stuff or follow me on Twitter, you know how I feel about chasing markets at the mid-major level. So, I figured it was time for MVC fans to get the lowdown on these schools, their athletics programs, and their markets. That said, the rumors about those five schools seem to be the ones with the most smoke. I suspect there may be a lot of speculation from folks in a lot of these rumors, and I also suspect there may be more institutions under consideration than the ones we have heard. We’ve also heard from official sources that the five candidates being discussed are Murray State, UIC, UT-Arlington, Omaha and Kansas City. We’ve all heard the rumors that the Valley is strongly considering expanding from its traditional 10-team model, and they may expand to as many as fourteen teams. (My first was my season preview which is already all sorts of wrong, but if you want to see it you can click here). With football season on the downswing, I am here with my second long-form basketball article of the year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |