Missouri Valley Basketball: Storylines for league after Loyola-Chicago’s exit

Three strong additions make the Missouri Valley even deeper

Whenever a round of realignment happens and a mid-major conference has its top draw poached it can send a conference scrambling wondering how they can replace that program (if that is in the cards) while maintaining the same level of competitiveness. The Missouri Valley wasted little time in finding suitable replacements for Loyola-Chicago with the hopes of remaining one of, if not the strongest mid-major conference in the country.

I think the MVC was strategical in the way they approached making up for the loss of Loyola-Chicago. First, they grabbed the top two teams from the Ohio Valley which served several purposes. It allowed them to bring in two programs that had that high level of success while making the conference even deeper with a ready-made rivalry between two teams that know each other well and let the MVC extend into two states where they had no presence prior.

I think that while the question of whether the MVC can be even stronger without the Ramblers is to be determined based on results on the floor, on paper the answer should be a yes. It should be one of the more exciting conferences on a nightly basis that now has the real possibility to send multiple teams to the postseason and more specifically the NCAA Tournament every year.