Rumor has it, according to ESPN's Andy Katz (and Bucky alum), that Butler is very likely on its way out of the Horizon League and into the Atlantic 10 Conference, basically filling in as the replacement for Temple, which is joining the Big East for the 2013-14 season.
To put it simply, this is the death knell for the Horizon League as we know it. I put that qualifier on the end because I am sure the conference will continue, but the Horizon will be much different without Butler in it. And by different, I mean worse.
Butler has been the bellwether program of the conference, this much is obvious. I don't think I'd go so far as to say dominant - that just doesn't sit well with someone whose team has regularly made Butler look less-than-perfect - but the truth is that Butler has made the conference far better than fans around the conference are willing to admit.
Many people will look at Butler's departure as a natural move in the history of the conference. After all, the Horizon (then MCC) has been home to Dayton, Xavier, Marquette, Notre Dame, and a myriad of other programs who have moved on to greener pastures. How is this any different than when Xavier left sixteen years ago?
Well, for one, Butler wasn't waiting in the wings. Green Bay was a legitimate NCAA Tournament contender annually, as was UIC and Detroit. The conference only had eight members, which led to the year 1998 when the MCC garnered three NCAA bids - in a year not unlike this year's Mountain West, less meant more.
Now, the Horizon League is made up of teams that don't take care of business in the non-conference season as well as teams that do. This isn't to point fingers; Milwaukee also let opportunities slip through their fingers, such as Marquette last season and Wisconsin this year. But the fact is that the League doesn't have the kind of Gonzaga, Xavier "play-anyone-anywhere" mentality. The League doesn't have that school to boost everyone else's RPI. That is, if we lose Butler.
Butler's benefits to the conference, though most notably include the two national runner-up finishes, far from end there. They are the team that has knocked people around in the NCAA Tournament (outside of Bruce Pearl's boys here and CSU's walloping of Wake Forest) as well as the non-conference season (Preseason NIT Champs, Great Alaska Shootout champs).
If you take that out of the equation, the Horizon League becomes a shell of what it once was. Consider that since the 2002-03 season, only the Atlantic 10 has more NCAA Tournament victories than the Horizon League (credit to Milwaukee alum Paul Spicuzza). Consider also that if you take out Butler's 15 victories in the dance, the Horizon League falls into eighth place. That ties us with the WAC (although the four WAC victories will walk away when Nevada joins the Mountain West this fall).
Crunching the numbers, Butler has been more valuable to the Horizon than Gonzaga was to the WCC before Saint Mary's emergence. In fact, no team meant more to a conference than Butler meant to the Horizon League. It is no wonder the fans in the conference think that Butler gets special treatment from the Horizon League - if they do, they deserve it. Even the conference office is in Indianapolis. Hell, Detroit is the only other program in the conference that has a winning record in the Horizon League Tournament.
The result of that number crunching is staggering. The Horizon League goes from a 10-15 conference in the RPI to an 18-23 conference, putting it on par with this year's MAAC, Sun Belt, A-Sun, OVC, Patriot League, and SoCon. That's not on par with the Summit, who would certainly have finished above the Horizon had we not been helped by Butler (in Butler's worst season since 2004-05, no less).
You might say, "what does it matter? The Horizon League only gets one bid annually anyways."
Yes, until you realize that the conference champion would now be garnering a 14-15 seed in the NCAA Tournament most years instead of a dangerous 11-12, the seeds where Milwaukee has had its tourney triumphs.
Will it be easier to win the Horizon League Tournament? Absolutely. Milwaukee has been eliminated from the last three conference tournaments by Butler, and would have made it to the NCAA Tournament last season had Butler not been in their way. But what good does it do if you're going to be unceremoniously dumped from the Big Dance by a gross disparity in seeding with your opening round opponent?
Apart from teams that go far above and beyond, the conferences in 18-23 rarely make a splash in the Big Dance.
Without Butler, ESPN's next offer for a television contract is going to be pitiful. Enough to make the department wonder if it's really worth it to play in the Horizon League anymore.
Look, don't get me wrong. I love playing in the Horizon League. I consider Valpo a logical, friendly and talented rival. I think Detroit plays the "bad boy" vibe perfectly. I think Loyola's tradition is wonderful. I think Cleveland State will be good as long as Waters and Gee stalk the sidelines.
But we're not good enough. And we're not nearly good enough without Butler. You think the conference is going to consider raising pay for referees if the next TV contract is going to be as thin as it looks? You think we're going to get on national TV much? Milwaukee didn't get on national TV once this season. Is that likely to happen if Butler leaves? How would our attendance average be this season if Butler didn't come to the Cell and bring with it 6,800 at the gate?
To sum it all up: if Butler leaves, the Horizon League is no longer a viable conference for Milwaukee.
So what do we do if the Horizon League loses its biggest program? To me, we have four options. The first two are ones that I prefer not to go into, the second two are the only real options in my eyes.
Remain in the Horizon League - the first option, and the easiest, is to remain in the Horizon League. The Panthers and the other eight institutions will add at least one team, and all indications are that team would be Oakland. The Golden Grizzlies are a damn good basketball program, but the reason they'd get in ahead of IUPUI is the fact that they play baseball. It's funny that baseball would have anything to do with the new member, but the fact is when Butler leaves, the Horizon League will be down to five members, less than the amount needed to earn an automatic bid to the College World Series. That is a serious issue, because baseball is an important sport to us, and the Panthers would need to find a new home. We could attempt to join the Big Ten as an associate member for baseball, but my guess is Wisconsin's selfish asses would block that. And the conference has given no indication it will go beyond the six hockey teams, even though North Dakota and Minnesota-Duluth are more successful than most of the B1G hockey programs.
So say that Milwaukee stays put. We will definitely enjoy some success. In most sports, our only competition is Butler. They are the school that's stopping us from winning the McCafferty Trophy annually. But this is about men's basketball. And without Butler, men's basketball is gonna suck.
Prepare yourselves. The Panthers may go to the NCAA Tournament as much as 50% of the time if Butler leaves. But they aren't going to dominate the conference, and they are going to get slammed with a low seed in the tournament because of a terrible strength of schedule. Detroit playing Kansas in the first round looks a lot like the future for Horizon League teams in the Big Dance without Butler.
You may be okay with it, but I prefer to be proactive and not willing to let this program drop to a low-major level.
Move down to the Summit League - this may seem like an idiotic move to some, but it's definitely not the drop you think it is. For one, the reason the Summit has done so well in the RPI this season is that it dropped Centenary and Southern Utah, teams that are so far out of the footprint and just plain suck. Travel is easier in the Summit than it was before. The team that gave me this idea is a current Summit League team. Oral Roberts University will be dropping from the Summit down to the Southland Conference, just as San Diego State will be dropping from the Mountain West to the Big West (although the latter was fueled by a football-only Big East membership).
So why is ORU dropping down? For one thing, it's geographically better for them. The Southland has teams in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. But the real benefit for ORU is the fact that they will win the Southland far more often than they won the Summit League.
Would Milwaukee not destroy the Summit? Win more often than they would in the Horizon? Seeding in the NCAA Tournament, regrettably, would not be much different. A seed of 13-14 in the Horizon isn't enough to convince me that it's much better than a 14-15 seed in the Summit.
The other part of this is attendance. In the Horizon League, Milwaukee has three bona fide draws - Valpo, Green Bay and Butler. Year in and year out, these are the three biggest draws in attendance for us. To the casual fan in Milwaukee, there isn't much difference between Detroit and Oakland, Wright State and IUPUI, IPFW and Cleveland State. We know there's a difference, but the casual observer is the same guy who lumps everything outside the BCS together as "mid-majors."
Pursue joining Butler in the A-10 - it seems far-fetched but it really isn't. The Milwaukee Panthers offer a lot to their prospective fellow members of the Atlantic 10, but the truth is that they should be just as happy to accept us as we are to pursue membership.
Consider this: the Atlantic 10 has 20 victories in the NCAA Tournament since 2003. However, despite that distance, Milwaukee would still find itself second in this statistic (if you forget Butler). Tied with St. Joe's with three NCAA Tournament victories, the Panthers are only eclipsed by the class of the A-10 in Xavier (and Butler). But Milwaukee's benefits for the A-10 don't end there.
If Milwaukee had played the 2011 season in the Atlantic 10, their attendance number of roughly 4,200 would put the Black and Gold ahead of UMass, Duquesne, Fordham, George Washington, La Salle, St. Bonnie's, and St. Joe's despite playing in a weaker conference that only has one marquee conference draw (GB and Valpo are nowhere near the pull of Butler). That would put Milwaukee smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic 10 in attendance.
Now think of it this way. If Milwaukee moved into the A-10 with Butler, what would our attendance look like then? Not only would you continue to play the Bulldogs, but the Panthers would likely search for a home-and-home relationship with Green Bay, putting the Phoenix in Milwaukee every other year. The added dynamic of it being a non-conference game and twice as rare makes the casual fan in the city more interested in Green Bay, and you're likely to see attendance rise for that game. Then add the fact that you are playing Xavier, Dayton, St. Joe's, UMass, Saint Louis, and Richmond - each a bona fide draw to the casual college basketball fan - and Milwaukee could be averaging upwards of 6,000 per game.
The point is, the Atlantic-10 is full of nationally-recognized programs that people in this city and in this fan base have been clamoring for us to play. The program, all of a sudden, is drawing people who are just interested in seeing Xavier, the annual NCAA team, and Saint Louis, the team of Rick Majerus.
From the A-10's point of view, this is a logical choice. While Temple's departure is dropping the A-10's public university membership to three, there are other factors that make Milwaukee more attractive to them as a potential addition.
The Milwaukee television market is one of the top 40 in the country. The A-10 has an established foot in the door of several larger markets, but Milwaukee adds to the bargaining power the conference has in negotiating television contracts. And this city has shown that when Milwaukee is playing big games against big time opponents, they will show up - wouldn't Xavier, Dayton, Saint Louis and the others qualify as big time opponents? If Milwaukee played in the A-10, you'd find many more butts in the seats, translating to a bigger hold on the city's fan base and TV market.
In recent years, the A-10 has branched away from its northeastern original footprint to include schools outside. Charlotte and Saint Louis are both far out of the normal footprint, as is Butler. The additions of SLU and BU help Xavier and Dayton, the heavy hitters of the conference, in traveling. By adding Milwaukee, not only is the A-10 adding a top-40 market, but they're adding an easy conference road trip for Butler, Saint Louis, Xavier and Dayton. Those four schools are better served by having a close trip, especially SLU. The Billikens have a base here from Rick Majerus, but it is important to the future of that program to have a recruiting base stronghold in Milwaukee when this recruiting bed has been so good to the Billikens.
The only thing that may make the A-10 wonder whether or not we're a good program is facilities. The Klotsche Center is no good practice facility, and the Cell is not feasible for us as a home arena. I would venture a guess, however, that the on-campus basketball arena and practice facility may have a far better time raising money if it were to be used by a program playing in a legitimate top-8 conference every year. People like coming out for big time programs, and Milwaukee's presence in the A-10 goes almost as far as we can right now to show that we are that big time program. Almost as far as...
Football. Football. Football. - You may have wondered why it took me so long to get to this, so wonder no longer. Milwaukee's athletics programs will only reach their full potential when you understand that football is what makes the wheels go round and commit to realizing that dream.
The reader's digest version of the pitch for football is simple. Milwaukee is the biggest city in the country without NFL or D-I football. Milwaukee is one of the largest universities in the country without football. The university is long known as a "commuter" and "safety" school, and though those distinctions no longer apply, the perception remains - football will kill both. Football is proven to boost school pride, boost athletic and academic donations, marketing, branding, and at many schools, the coffers. The university profile would fit in a I-AA conference (MVC),I-A mid-major (MAC), and I-A high-major (Big East or Big XII), although the Panthers would not be likely to play in a BCS conference for at least 15 years from the first kickoff. Milwaukee is a city that pines for football, a campus that pleads for football, a student body that demands football. Although options are limited, there is a potential home for a football stadium in the Wisconsin Paperboard Corporation land or directly north in Riverside Park (in fact, that space is rather large and could fit a basketball arena, football stadium and practice facility for each while still having ample room for green space.
The truth is that while the Horizon will always be a good home to us, if it is a Horizon without Butler it is not good enough for us to sustain without football. The Panthers could start a program and be playing in the MVC two years after inception, and with an invitation from the MAC they could be a I-A program by year three - consider that UTSA had an invite from the WAC before they played a down.
Football is everything to the people of Wisconsin, and there is a lot more love to go around than UW and the Packers can soak up. Considering just UW, there were 209 football players in D-I back in 2009. Of the 209, only 43 attended Wisconsin. So how many football players were playing D-I that could have suited up in Black and Gold?
Is football a money pit? Yes, at most places it is. Although that doesn't take into account all the donations for the university that are brought in for football, I'd venture a guess that you'd still find about half the schools being in the red for football after including those numbers. But that doesn't matter.
What the athletic department does for a university is act as its marketing branch. College sports are marketing, and right now our marketing arm of athletics is limited to the months from November through March. If we played football, August through October would also come into play, nearly doubling the amount of national exposure time for the department - the exposure itself would far exceed double what we get now.
The truth is, Milwaukee's longest-term goal should be entrance into a high-major conference, one of the "power 6." That is not possible as a basketball-only school - Marquette makes sure of that - but it is possible with a football program attached, no matter how small that possibility is.
Milwaukee has a pivotal time in its future. The "climate" may be uneasy at the moment, but that doesn't mean that we, as a university, can't make the decision to press forward. Next fall we'll have $1.9 million more in the coffers from students than we did this year.
We stand on the precipice of success. It would be devastating if we made the wrong move here.
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