Summit League Shakeup

If you want to talk about Monmouth University Football, Quincy University Basketball, Notre Dame Men's Soccer, or whatever, this is the place.
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ST_Lawson
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Looks like the "other shoe has dropped". Fort Wayne will be joining IUPUI in the Horizon League.

It's already been announced that UMKC is coming back to the Summit, but that still puts us down to only 5 teams with baseball. No breathing room on that one.




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Tere North
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Too bad I couldn't be reading that Western finally left the Summit for the Horizon league.

I'll take Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Green Bay, IUPUI, Milwaukee, Northern Kentucky, Oakland, UIC, Wright State, and Youngstown over the Summit League any day of the week - and with BkB tourney in Indy to boot.

Good news, though, adding IUPFW makes it 11 teams, just begging for Western to even it out at 12.
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sealhall74
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Tere North wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 6:55 pm Too bad I couldn't be reading that Western finally left the Summit for the Horizon league.

I'll take Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Green Bay, IUPUI, Milwaukee, Northern Kentucky, Oakland, UIC, Wright State, and Youngstown over the Summit League any day of the week - and with BkB tourney in Indy to boot.

Good news, though, adding IUPFW makes it 11 teams, just begging for Western to even it out at 12.
Pipe dream. Horizon League schools are ALL in fairly big to really big markets.
Embrace the pace of the race.
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NIU#1FBinIL
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ST_Lawson wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 5:53 pm Looks like the "other shoe has dropped". Fort Wayne will be joining IUPUI in the Horizon League.

It's already been announced that UMKC is coming back to the Summit, but that still puts us down to only 5 teams with baseball. No breathing room on that one.




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Tere North
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sealhall74 wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 7:19 pm
Tere North wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 6:55 pm Too bad I couldn't be reading that Western finally left the Summit for the Horizon league.

I'll take Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Green Bay, IUPUI, Milwaukee, Northern Kentucky, Oakland, UIC, Wright State, and Youngstown over the Summit League any day of the week - and with BkB tourney in Indy to boot.

Good news, though, adding IUPFW makes it 11 teams, just begging for Western to even it out at 12.
Pipe dream. Horizon League schools are ALL in fairly big to really big markets.
But we do have the QC to help with marketing and maybe a way to play or BB games up there? Northern Kentucky is in Highland Heights, KY, population <7k, though it is considered a suburb of Cincinnati, OH @ 300k. QC is 475k. Why not make QC support is since we are sending our money up to that campus.

We need to leave the Summitt. We are now the only team east of the Mississippi. Travel in going to kill our budget. If you want to stay D1, we need another conference.
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ST_Lawson
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Apparently I was incorrect. You have to have 6 in a sport to retain auto-bids. A conference can drop down to 5, but only on a temporary (1-2 year) basis so they can find a way to get back up to 6. So, it looks like the Summit is scrambling to find someone who can offer baseball, whether that's adding a team as a baseball-only affiliate (Northern Colorado is probably the most likely addition in that scenario...they're Big Sky in most sports, but WAC affiliate in baseball), or convincing someone in the conference to add baseball...something has to happen, otherwise we're losing all of our NCAA auto-bids.

EDIT - clarification...to have NCAA auto-bids, you have to have at least 6 sports with at least 6 participating members. Once Fort Wayne leaves and assuming UMKC keeps their current slate of sports, the Summit League will have 6+ members in all their sports except baseball (5 members). Sounds like it might affect the baseball autobid, but not the other sports autobids. I'm looking into it further and will keep people updated.

EDIT 2 - more info...must be 6 TEAM sports...golf, S&D, track...don't count. Summit would have M&W Basketball, M&W Soccer, Softball and Volleyball. 6 sports with 6+ teams if we don't get someone for baseball. Still unclear of status of autobids.
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sealhall74
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On the positive side, I like our chances for Billy to get the guys to Sioux Falls next March. :lol:
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sealhall74 wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:28 pm On the positive side, I like our chances for Billy to get the guys to Sioux Falls next March. :lol:
Fort Wayne not eligible effective immediately?
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sealhall74
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ST_Lawson wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 4:00 pm
sealhall74 wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:28 pm On the positive side, I like our chances for Billy to get the guys to Sioux Falls next March. :lol:

Fort Wayne not eligible effective immediately?
I believe so.
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OldHare
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I am sure ORU played their last year in the league before heading to the Southland. IUPUI women lost to WIU in the championship in the last year. The IUPUI men lost to Omaha in the semifinal. The Leathernecks have seen all the changes and turnover since the beginning of the league. At his point among the Oakland and IUPUI squads, the IUPUI WBB have shown some success in the Horizon. It is hard for someone west of the Mississippi to understand the environment in Macomb. It is also hard to understand why they have not pursued an Illinois conference since the travel sounds difficult. It is also easy to understand why the conference moved the league office from Chicago. As I look over the Mastodons efforts through the sports in the Summit, it will be a long climb overall to gain any competitive edge in the Horizon. It will save travel money. Since SDSU entered the conference Southern Utah, Centenary, IUPUI, Oakland, ORU, UMKC, and now IPFW have left the conference. Of course 2 of those have or will return.. This is hardly the first crisis. Those who recall all the Horizon teams that left earlier might recall more of the same.
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