According to Ross Dellinger of Yahoo Sports, NIU is looking to be added to the Mountain West conference as a football-only member. Because of that, the MAC has said that their other sports would not be allowed to stay in the conference. It was suspected that one of the possible landing spots most likely for the non-football sports at NIU to land was possibly the Missouri Valley.
No thanks
Why not?
They're a bad basketball program in a worse conference than the MVC. They’d be a boat anchor for us and would probably cause Drake and Bradley to look for a way out.
Football is God there. NIU hasn't had a good basketball team since Jim Bradley in 1972. UNI beat them by 44 points a few days ago.
And they play several non-MVC sports - men's wrestling and men's tennis. No men's track and field.
Might keep Evansville basketball from landing in the Basement of the MVC every year though.
Why not?
It would be the only program in the Valley that is legitimately worse than Valpo and Evansville. UNI almost beat them by like 50 the other day.
@salukiworld Drake and Bradley may be looking to leave anyway. WSU, left, Loyola, left, Creighton left. Tulsa earlier in the stages of MVC. Illinois State is threatening to leave.
So what if some of the present teams that are here leave? The MVC is not what is was 7 years ago.
I must say, absolutely NOT on NIU basketball. Historically a losing program, with very little tradition. Older folks say Billy "the kid" Harris was fun to watch back in 68 ?!!! His motto, "shoot while you're hot, and shoot to get hot!".
The NIU Convocation Center is a lonely place, with crowds hovering around 800-1000 peeps. Sad
Drake and Bradley aren't going to the Atlantic 10 or the Big East anytime soon. I believe those conferences have 52 members. Also, when the Drake coach leaves for University of Iowa in two years, they may be bottom dwellers again. We can all hope! 😊
I must say, absolutely NOT on NIU basketball. Historically a losing program, with very little tradition. Older folks say Billy "the kid" Harris was fun to watch back in 68 ?!!! His motto, "shoot while you're hot, and shoot to get hot!".
The Huskies made NCAA Tournament appearances in 1982, '91 and '96. That's about it for any sort of tradition in the past 50 years. I've lost count of how many coaches they've cycled through in that period. A few somewhat notable names (Jim Rosborough, Ricardo Patton, Rob Judson) tried and failed. Jim Molinari took them to their last NCAA in '91, but he left after two seasons for Bradley, and it's mostly been somewhere between meh and awful ever since.
NIU Basketball would do absolutely nothing to improve The Valley’s RPI.
I think NIU is gonna go Horizon for other sports
NIU would be an embarrassing addition to the Valley, as far as men's hoops go. Maybe NIU should join the Northeast Conference and battle Chicago State for the title of the worst team in that league.
The number of decent years NIU men's hoops has had in the past 50 can be counted on one hand. Not sure why the various AD's over the years have not addressed this. Football was transformed into a decent and competitive sport. Why can't they do the same with men's hoops?
