Can we agree on Xavier, Butler, and Creighton

[xman]

Man, I would just like to hear something. Almost every person has said XU will be in the new league so it would sure be nice to get a little confirmation of that at least. I'm not sure if I am starting to get irritated or just bored by the delay. It was pretty exciting and the interest is waning. Let's go already!

[Jet915]

Man, I would just like to hear something. Almost every person has said XU will be in the new league so it would sure be nice to get a little confirmation of that at least. I'm not sure if I am starting to get irritated or just bored by the delay. It was pretty exciting and the interest is waning. Let's go already!

Yeah, if I was an X fan, I wouldn't be worrying, unfortunately being a Creighton, Dayton or SLU fan is another story.

[Iceman]

SLU > VCU

For a commuter school that didn't play basketball until 1968 and played in the sun belt until 1991 I have to say what VCU has done in the past 20 years is extremely admirable, but SLU is a better fit in every category except for VCU's FF run in 2011.

You sure are beating that commuter school drum pretty hard. Pretty sad that you actually believe what you write. At least we know why your handle isn't HarvardCrimson. The entire metropolitan area of Richmond has 205,000 people. VCU has 23,000 undergrad students alone. You really, truly think 10% of the Richmond population commutes to school? Mathematically, it's impossible. Why? B/c the entire city of Richmond graduates fewer than 3,000 students each year. And, a simple check of VCU's website shows only a fraction of a fraction of their student body is from the Richmond area.

SLU's only better than VCU at being Catholic. Otherwise, VCU takes them in every category. Heck, take the FF run off the books. Erase it. VCU still has more NCAA units the last 6 years - even w/o counting a single point from the FF year - than SLU has in the last 14. Heck, VCU has as many NCAA units in the last 6 years (10) as SLU has in the last SIXTY YEARS COMBINED!!! But please, tell us more about how great SLU is, how they're a "better fit in every category", and how VCU is a commuter school.

The past 6 years VCU has been extremely successful and impressive, and your success will continue, congrats. So VCU wins years 2007-2012, while SLU wins years 1915-2007.

Were you a basket weaving major at SLU? There's no way anyone could intentionally be that dumb. And, did you really play the "SLU wins 1915-2007" card??? News flash Math Boy:

NCAA Tournament Units Earned: 1915 - 2007
* 11 - VCU
* 10 - Satin Louis

What makes those results particularly sad is SLU has been playing basketball since 1915. VCU didn't start until 1973. So, from '73 - '07, VCU earned more NCAA Tournament Units than SLU, despite SLU playing 3x as many seasons. But yeah, SLU definitely won 1915-2007.

FYI, I didn't attend VCU. Never even stepped foot on their campus. I'm just not an idiot, and prefer to use facts, logic and deductive reasoning to form conclusions.

[yorost]

It's convenient to forget that the relationship between the NCAA and NIT hasn't always been the same, and that far fewer teams used to get postseason berths. St. Louis has numerous NIT appearances during and around the 1950's. Those are arguably more prestigious than an NCAA bid now. St. Louis decidedly has a better history than VCU. VCU can only claim to have been better, and not by that much, since both teams have been playing. Over the last 20 years they really aren't that different except for the Final Four run.

[Iceman]

It's convenient to forget that the relationship between the NCAA and NIT hasn't always been the same, and that far fewer teams used to get postseason berths. St. Louis has numerous NIT appearances during and around the 1950's. Those are arguably more prestigious than an NCAA bid now. St. Louis decidedly has a better history than VCU. VCU can only claim to have been better, and not by that much, since both teams have been playing. Over the last 20 years they really aren't that different except for the Final Four run.

Were you even alive in the '50s? I wasn't. Next!

[thegalen]

It's convenient to forget that the relationship between the NCAA and NIT hasn't always been the same, and that far fewer teams used to get postseason berths. St. Louis has numerous NIT appearances during and around the 1950's. Those are arguably more prestigious than an NCAA bid now. St. Louis decidedly has a better history than VCU. VCU can only claim to have been better, and not by that much, since both teams have been playing. Over the last 20 years they really aren't that different except for the Final Four run.

Weird, all this "rain" on my boots sure does smell like piss!

[yorost]

It's convenient to forget that the relationship between the NCAA and NIT hasn't always been the same, and that far fewer teams used to get postseason berths. St. Louis has numerous NIT appearances during and around the 1950's. Those are arguably more prestigious than an NCAA bid now. St. Louis decidedly has a better history than VCU. VCU can only claim to have been better, and not by that much, since both teams have been playing. Over the last 20 years they really aren't that different except for the Final Four run.

Were you even alive in the '50s? I wasn't. Next!

Did I say I was? The point is just that St. Louis does have a better history, to say otherwise is, in my opinion, quite wrong. Not sure why people take that as justification St. Louis deserves inclusion over VCU. It's just discussion about the history of NCAA basketball.

Let me break it down...

Overall: St. Louis
Since VCU came along: VCU
Last 20 years: VCU but fairly tight
Last 5 years: VCU

I'm not trying to buy or sell either on their history, I'm just talking about it. It is unfortunate that people forget about NIT bids when comparing schools success. Older NIT bids meant a lot more than they do now. We count NCAA bids to measure teams, no matter the age of them. Many NIT bids should be included in those measures if you really want to be fair.

[gmoser1210]

I think we can all agree on Butler and Xavier. Beyond that, not so much.

For what it's worth, I'm both a Butler grad and a SLU grad and I would prefer to have VCU in the conference over SLU if we can't have both. SLU has been consistently inconsistent.

To compare apples to apples, let's only look at the years that both teams have competed in NCAA Division I. Yes, that cuts out a lot of SLU years, but it also includes years when VCU was brand new to the division and going through growing pains. So, since the 69-69 season:

Tournament Appearances:
VCU: 11
SLU: 5

Tournament Wins:
VCU: 11 (1 in 1981, 1 in 1983, 1 in 1984, 1 in 1985, 1 in 2007, 5 in 2011, 1 in 2012)
SLU: 3 (1 in 1995, 1 in 1998, 1 in 2012)

Average Seed (since seeding began):
VCU: 9.09
SLU: 8.80

Now look at the past 5-10 years, which is the relevant period when trying to predict immediate impact on a new conference:

Average RPI the past 10 years (2003-04 through 2012-13):
VCU: 55.7 (highest is current ranking of 30 last I checked; lowest is 82 in 2005)
SLU: 108.2 (highest is 31 last season; lowest is 244 in 2005)

Average RPI the past 5 years:
VCU: 46.6
SLU: 93.2

Add to that the instability that SLU faces since the death of Majerus and the fact that VCU has the best young coach in the country not named Brad Stevens. Shaka Smart has demonstrated he can recruit well and is also a great in-game coach. SLU had that, but it'll be hard to find again, particularly when the university president's support for the athletic program (among other things) is in question.

[CaseyGarrisonforPrez]

I have made this point about SLUH elsewhere but Missouri State which is 200 miles from St. Louis has a larger presence in the city than SLUH does. When we last played them in STL in 2010-2011 we had more fans in their student section than they did. And by a wide margin.

Within the last year or so they lost their softball coach to a D2 school in Georgia. That is not big time. If you want a school that has a lot of dusty men's soccer trophies from 1960, then SLUH is for you. Otherwise pick any other reasonable option.

[whiteandblue77]

Were you even alive in the '50s? I wasn't.

And neither was VCU basketball