Without Butler, few options on the Horizon

Under the condition of anonymity, one of the three sources I've talked to inside Butler University's athletics department confirmed that the Bulldogs are a "done deal" on their way to the Atlantic 10 Conference.

I will put a huge asterisk on that, because this is only one source and they would not put their name on it. I do not blame them; they'd probably be in trouble if they did.

But let's assume, for this exercise, that Butler leaves for the A10. Let's also assume that Milwaukee has decided that football or no football, it will push forward with membership in the Horizon League.

Where does that leave us? The Horizon League without Butler is a significantly lesser conference. Having two shots annually at Butler are two shots at quality victories for Horizon League schools, so you have that lost, as well as what you lose in attendance - Butler is one of the highest attended home games for every conference school.

So what does the Horizon League do? There are a few routes, and many schools that could possibly be poached for conference membership. First things first, I'm going to eliminate all the schools who will not be joining the Horizon League, though they've been mentioned before.

Saint Louis - the Billikens have been a team mentioned many times by Horizon League members as a possibly new member. But the second Butler leaves the League, so does any legitimate reason for SLU to leave the A10 for the Horizon. The A10 becomes more midwest-oriented with Butler, giving SLU the closest home game in their conference. If they weren't coming before, they're definitely not coming now.

DePaul - There's no getting around it; the Blue Demons have been a putrid program in the Big East. They haven't made an NCAA Tournament appearance since they bolted to the conference along with Marquette, Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida from Conference USA. It's easy to see that DePaul is only around for two things: history and media market. The Chicago foothold in the Big East is important moving forward. Would they bolt for the Horizon League? No. I could see DePaul dropping down, but it would be to the A10. If they would go lower, I can see them joining Loyola in a conference. I can't say that they would ever see UIC as a peer.

Bradley, or any MVC school - If good schools are getting poached by other conferences, why can't we take from any other conference? Bradley's program has fallen to Loyola and UIC levels, so why are we not considering them? Well, Bradley will be back. They spend money - good money - on their coaches, and the Braves are the only show in Peoria and enjoy high attendance because of it. UNI is a school I'd be pleased to be matched with in the future, but I don't see the Horizon adding them.

So beyond those schools, what does the Horizon League have as options? Here's a list of a bunch of schools that could find themselves with an invite from the Horizon League. The farther down the list, the more likely they are to receive an invite from the conference.

North Kentucky - This is one school I'll file in the "Come back in ten years" cabinet. NKU is a D-II school with a kickass brand (the Norsemen) and a brand new Bank of Kentucky Arena that would be the class of the Horizon League - seriously. But as a D-II program, they have the need to get themselves sorted out before they come in. Almost every school in the Horizon League paid its dues in the Mid-Con or some other lesser conference before joining up. NKU would have to play in the OVC or Summit for several years, then prove it can win like Oakland or Valpo, before the Horizon would call.

SIU-Edwardsville - Like NKU, this is a school that needs a lot of work done, but I can see it down the road. The Cougars are a provisional D-I that are playing in the OVC. SIU-E is just outside of St. Louis and would need to gain a strong television broadcast foothold in that city before they are a viable option. To me, I think they will need a drastic brand change before they can be a qualifying option. They are a school that has the branding double-whammy of being a directional school (Southern Illinois) as well as a hyphen school (SIU-Edwardsville). The problem they also have is that Edwardsville may as well be Nowheresville, so they'd need to come up with an even better name. Put me down for Arch University, University of the Arch, or Gateway University - the campus and university are far more tied to St. Louis than they are to Illinois - so maybe a name change should reflect that. It's a nice campus, a nice (albeit small) arena, but SIU-E has a long way to go before they're ready to join the Horizon League.

UMKC - It's a concern to me that the Kangaroos are in the Summit League and haven't won - they are the only team in Kansas City, and they have an acronym that could actually work. As I've pointed out with the problems of branding as UWM (no one knows what W or M is), UMKC is an acronym that is easily recognizable and adhered to across the country. The university has no branding problem, but it's not good that they haven't won in their conference and they play in a 2,000-seat gymnasium. And that gym, as small as it is, was renovated in 2007. So they aren't likely to push forward. Add in that Kansas City is easily an eight-hour drive, and UMKC isn't likely to join the Horizon League unless we added other schools in that direction.

Go Dakota - North Dakota of the Great West, and the three Summit schools - North Dakota State, South Dakota, and South Dakota State - could come in a package deal. I'm not sure if the Dakota schools are up to the idea - it certainly looks like North Dakota and North Dakota State have some bad blood - but the Horizon League could look at bringing in all four. I think they're more likely than the previous three, but unlike SIU-E and NKU, their problems are not fixable. The Dakotas may be too far for us to handle, and they don't really add anything to the landscape. Add in the fact that UND is a hockey school, USD and NDSU are football schools, and SDSU is historically weak, and the possibilities of them coming in to the Horizon are even smaller.

IPFW - Now here is a school that fits the geographical footprint of the Horizon League. However, that's about it right now. Academically, IPFW fits with Green Bay and Youngstown State and that's about it. The Mastodons have a cool name, but unless they start really pumping money into athletics, I don't see it. We don't need to be adding more Green Bay's and YSU's.

Western Illinois - Unlike their Summit brethren to the Northwest, Western Illinois fits the Horizon League's footprint. But I think this is a school that doesn't fit the identity of the conference. Like YSU, it's an MVFC football school that doesn't have a lot of money - once they do get it, they'll be more than likely to pump it back into football. Macomb is a nice town in the middle of nowhere in Illinois. It would be an easy road trip for those who like riding the train, but that's about as much as it would bring to the conference.

Eastern Illinois - Although I'm wary of associating ourselves with anything Tony Romo, it's not that reason that I don't like EIU for the Horizon League. It's a small school in the OVC that doesn't get a whole lot of success in that conference and would already be in the Horizon League if we wanted them. They're in the middle of nowhere (Eastern) Illinois division. That's even more middle of nowhere than Champaign.

IUPUI - Now we're talking about programs that the Horizon League could legitimately add. The pull of IUPUI is obvious - they have a decent basketball program, would keep the Horizon League in the Indianapolis market, they put out NBA players - but there's a few things that would keep them out. The first and most important is that the Jaguars lack a baseball program. With Butler's departure, the Horizon League needs a team that plays baseball to keep the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in tact. Another problem is IUPUI, academically, is quite the ho-hum addition. Like IPFW, it's like Green Bay and YSU in that sense. The killer however is the gym - the IUPUI Gymnasium (imaginative) seats only 1,215 fans. While the Horizon League may be willing to be flexible with its seating requirements, this is just ridiculous. The obvious step down from Butler to IUPUI would also be extremely pronounced since both schools are in the same city. It would be like the Big East ditching Marquette and adding Milwaukee. Which they totally should do wink wink nudge nudge.

Murray State and Morehead State - Fans in the know probably had these schools in the back of their mind the second I mentioned Northern Kentucky. The truth is, both of these schools raise the basketball profile of the conference post-Butler, because they're both teams that have NCAA Tournament success despite being in a lesser league than the Horizon League. They are basketball crazy, and although it sounds weird since they're in Kentucky, they're actually a decent geographical fit for the conference. Murray State is closer to Milwaukee than Youngstown State is, and Morehead State is actually a closer drive for Wright State than almost every conference opponent. In this day and age, Milwaukee flying to Murray State or Morehead State doesn't seem like such a stretch. If we wanted to stretch even further, we could take Belmont as well.

Oakland - This should have happened over a decade ago. When the Horizon League was looking to add a ninth conference school, Oakland was a name that came up often - until Detroit flexed its douche muscles, called their bros at Loyola and Butler, and nixed the Golden Grizzlies. Oakland was just on its way into D-I at the time, so I can see why Loyola and Butler were easy to help out Detroit. The truth is, the Titans treat Oakland much the same way Dayton treats Wright State or Marquette treats Milwaukee - like a lesser being. Unlike the Dayton and Milwaukee pairs, however, Oakland has actually been better than Detroit - much better. The 35-mile difference aside, Oakland is a good basketball program in a 4,000-seat arena that shouldn't be cast aside because of their proximity to a conference member school. After all, UIC and Loyola are in the same damn city. Oakland has finished 141 in the RPI this year, and going back they are: 53, 52, 122, 169, and 124. That's following several years where they flirted with 200, as most schools that are coming off of provisional D-I membership tend to do.

So what is the Horizon League to do? Oakland is definitely, 100% the team that should be brought in. Valpo and Wright State can be the odd travel couple from now on. Put them together, or Valpo-CSU and WSU-YSU.

A 10-team Horizon League, in my eyes, is a conference worth being a part of if that tenth team is Oakland. That conference would be even better if it were an 8-team league without Green Bay or YSU (I'll elaborate on that soon), but that's a 10-team league that will keep the Horizon League in the 14-18 range. You also effectively kill the Summit, who goes back to being super-low low-major with the losses of OU and Oral Roberts. IUPUI will duke it out with SDSU in the early going, but I'd expect NDSU with their brand new arena to own that conference in the future.

As for the Horizon League, I also propose this idea - what about a 12-team conference with Oakland as well as Murray State and Morehead State? All of a sudden you're talking about bringing in three legitimate basketball programs to a conference that is losing one better than all three - but each has recent, great NCAA Tournament success.

Despite their success, I still consider YSU a liability. Until Jerry Slocum's program can prove this season was no fluke, I'm still going to be wary of continuing to let an academically-weak football school continue to exist in our conference. After all, the only reason YSU is a member of the Horizon League to begin with is because Oakland was blocked by Detroit's douchiness and Valpo's athletic director at the time was the father of the new Mid-Continent Conference commisioner. It is partly due to YSU's extended period of ineptitude that Butler is leaving the conference. Many Butler fans consider losing to YSU akin to losing to Northern State, the D-II team that clipped them at Hinkle to start the exhibition season.

Removing Youngstown State, a school that has never fit the conference, should be on the list of things to do. YSU will never leave on its own, even though they could win the Summit regularly if they traded places with Oakland. I like Youngstown State. I like the Penguin mascot, I think the Y logo is one of the most underrated logos in the country. I think that YSU can own its city unlike any school in the Horizon League, including Butler. But they're beyond limited. They're limited by a football program that absolutely should get all the support it does. A football school has to be a football school. But the Penguins don't fit.

Milwaukee as a program does not belong in the same conference as Green Bay. To people in Wisconsin, and much of the Horizon League, there is no difference between the two. And that is a major problem, considering Milwaukee as a university is far, far closer to Madison than it is to Green Bay. UWGB is a school akin to Lacrosse, Oshkosh, Whitewater and Platteville. Milwaukee is close to Madison in the UW System and no one else. It's second, to be sure, but not as distant as Madison would like you to believe. And playing in the same conference as Green Bay does not help that perception. If one can assume that athletics are the marketing arm of the university, what does Milwaukee's continued conference affiliation with Green Bay say in the form of marketing? The same goes with YSU, although the Penguins might as well be Poughkeepsie State to the people in Milwaukee and Wisconsin.

However, I will say that removing Green Bay is not on my to-do list for the Horizon League. Milwaukee doesn't belong in the same conference as Green Bay, but I'll live with it as long as there is no better option for Milwaukee. If the A10 won't take MKE, than the Horizon is home.

The thing I will say to John LeCrone is this: be proactive, and be merciless. Don't think of what it would do to the Summit if you gutted the conference of two of its best four programs within five years. Don't think of what YSU will do - they'll be fine in the Summit or NEC. And don't sit back and wait. I've been saying for years that the Horizon League continues to shoot itself in the foot by continuing to harbor Youngstown State, and Butler's departure from the conference just goes to show that we reap what we sew.

The Horizon League cannot sit back and let the chips fall where they may. Learn from the Atlantic 10, the ACC and the Big Ten - be proactive. Learn from the Summit, who is a significantly better conference since the departures of Centenary and future departure of Southern Utah. Learn from the Big East, who lost some of their best programs and are scrambling to pick up the pieces. Learn from the WAC, who lost its best programs and is a shadow of what it was only two years ago.

The time to act is now. Don't sit back and let things happen. You won't like the result.



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