How Do Our Valley’s Rank?

MVC & OVC Fighting For Recognition

(St. Louis, MO) – How do the Missouri Valley and Ohio Valley Conferences compare with other basketball leagues? Are they as good as we think they are? Statistics can be deceiving but measurements help us compare rather than assume we know.

Ironically, both the Valley and OVC earned identical rankings in the RPI and Kenpom measurements. Realtimerpi.com measured the MVC as college basketball’s eleventh best conference. Kenpom.com also rated them just outside the top ten.

While the Valley attempts to battle national powers, they’re truly fighting for recognition among that next tier of teams. After the ‘money conferences’ (BCS schools, the Big East and American Athletic Conference), the Valley is battling the Mountain West, Atlantic Ten and West Coast conferences who round out the top ten of basketball leagues for national respect. Just behind the MVC there are a variety of associations.

Fighting for recognition comes in a variety of ways. While on-court success is vital, television packages, in-game attendance and postseason tournaments are a part of the equation.

OVC Rankings

The Ohio Valley Conference has a different struggle. Last year’s campaign ended with the Nashville-based league landing 29th in both measurements of 32 college basketball conferences. Two leagues, the Mid-Eastern and Southwestern were behind the OVC in both measurements.

Half of the OVC’s 12 teams ranked in the 300’s in the season-ending RPI. Strength of schedule is surely a part of the problem. No OVC team played a schedule rated in the top 200 for difficulty level. By contrast, no Valley team played a schedule rated worse than 153.

OVC teams must improve their ability to schedule.

Help Is On the Way

If rating recruits means anything, both conferences should be optimistic about the upcoming season. While the OVC was ranked as the fourth worst league in America, conference coaches have been able to land the 19th best recruiting class (verbalcommits.com).

MVC coaches landed, you guessed it, the eleventh best recruiting class. That may not seem like improvement, but the with leagues behind them in recent rankings simply swapping places, this rating could spell more success for the St. Louis-based conference. The MAC, 12th in both RPI and Kenpom ratings accumulated the 16th best collection of talent.

Coaching stability could help too. The OVC saw one head coach replaced (Rick Ray at Southeast Missouri) and the Valley had none. Evansville head coach Todd Lickliter took over in January and now begins is first full season with Purple Aces.

MVC teams are bringing in six top-100 junior college transfers while the OVC has recruited nine!

Increased talent and stability in coaching staffs could strengthen our valley conferences while they are fighting for recognition.

Do Good