STrib: MIAC rivals plot ouster of St. Thomas

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Schnauzer said:
I took them at their word, and now the second part of my post above needs to be smacked over the head of every person that went with the "The MIAC is a bunch of snowflakes" angle. St. Thomas had become a bad fit for the MIAC many years ago but for some reason they just hung around until the league itself took action. Now, within months, they are destined for D1. The collection of small private liberal arts colleges were somehow supposed to buck up, suck it up, and play on the same ballgame with what had become a larger regional university.
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I think the vote skewed things too.

Folks maybe saw the vote and thought that the folks voting "no" assumed it was a black and white issue. But if you read the quotes from the all the other schools they voted one way, but they totally understood why the other schools were voting the way they were and none of them planned to follow St. Thomas....
 

Schnauzer said:
I took them at their word, and now the second part of my post above needs to be smacked over the head of every person that went with the "The MIAC is a bunch of snowflakes" angle. St. Thomas had become a bad fit for the MIAC many years ago but for some reason they just hung around until the league itself took action. Now, within months, they are destined for D1. The collection of small private liberal arts colleges were somehow supposed to buck up, suck it up, and play on the same ballgame with what had become a larger regional university.
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No doubt they are banking on becoming the Minnesota version of Drake.

I think when they changed leadership (new president, AD, church no longer a part of the board) the priorities changed quite a bit. The Church leaving the board of directors was probably the straw that stirred the drink
 

Some guy said:
What?
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Do I have you confused with someone else who has fought ST's move, tooth and nail, at every step? First in leaving the MIAC at all, and then in leaving DIII?

Apologies, if so.
 

Some guy said:
No doubt they are banking on becoming the Minnesota version of Drake.

I think when they changed leadership (new president, AD, church no longer a part of the board) the priorities changed quite a bit. The Church leaving the board of directors was probably the straw that stirred the drink
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Minnesota Drake, to start.

Minnesota Marquette, is the vision. May take some time.

(my opinion)
 

MnplsGopher said:
Do I have you confused with someone else who has fought ST's move, tooth and nail, at every step? First in leaving the MIAC at all, and then in leaving DIII?

Apologies, if so.
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Didn’t fight it at all.
Didn’t think it would happen. Stated I didn’t think it would happen.
Said I didn’t think they’d drop football.
So it was d1 with non scholarship football or stay d3
Thought they’d stay d3
I was wrong. I’ll probably be wrong again.
 


MnplsGopher said:
Minnesota Drake, to start.

Minnesota Marquette, is the vision. May take some time.

(my opinion)
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St Thomas has been moving in a more secular direction and math/science focus...and wants to keep football...which to me makes it more like Drake.
 

Summit League recently announced that U Missouri-Kansas City would be returning. And with Purdue-Fort Wayne leaving for the Horizon, that put them back at 9. Now ST will make 10.

As I said, they can't really tell anyone who wants to join that they aren't welcome, unless it's someone like Chicago St.

So, if Augustana can present a good case, they could be in as well.


What the Summit needs to make sure is that they keep baseball and men's soccer at a minimum of six teams. That goes towards making sure the conference has an auto-bid to national tournaments (like bball).

Western Illinois is propping both sports up, and with this latest move (continuing a long trend of shifting the focus of the conference West), they could start taking a look at joining Eastern Illinois in the OVC conference.
 

Some guy said:
Didn’t fight it at all.
Didn’t think it would happen. Stated I didn’t think it would happen.
Said I didn’t think they’d drop football.
So it was d1 with non scholarship football or stay d3
Thought they’d stay d3
I was wrong. I’ll probably be wrong again.
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Fair enough. Apologies for mischaracterizing your posts!
 

Some guy said:
St Thomas has been moving in a more secular direction and math/science focus...and wants to keep football...which to me makes it more like Drake.
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Butler has varsity football in the Pioneer.

They're the Indianapolis Marquette/St Thomas. And Xavier is it for Cincinnati.
 



Big question now is future of St. Thomas hockey.
 

MnplsGopher said:
Fair enough. Apologies for mischaracterizing your posts!
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I think it is good for the school if their goal is to go from a Minnesota known school to a nationally known school.
As an alum, I know the old guard didn’t want to move up. There have been a lot of administrative transitions the last 8 years or so though. So obviously that has changed.

As an alum, I don’t really care. I’ll still be a larger gopher football fan than UST.
In basketball, if they ever play, I’ll want the gophers to win. But I definitely have two basketball teams I’ll follow now instead of one.
In football, I’ll probably follow UST less now. I care more about UST vs Bethel, St. John’s, Concordia...than I will care about Davidson and San Diego
 

MnplsGopher said:
Butler has varsity football in the Pioneer.

They're the Indianapolis Marquette/St Thomas. And Xavier is it for Cincinnati.
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Marquette doesn’t have football.

As a university though I feel like St Thomas is moving more towards math and science. Which gives it more of a drake feel than a Marquette feel. Obviously the catholic angle makes it more like Marquette.
No doubt UST would love to be big east someday now if it is an option.
 

Schnauzer said:
Big question now is future of St. Thomas hockey.
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It will be entirely on their boosters to save it, as a varsity sport.

I don't think St Thomas can afford a move to DI, keep football (even at the Pioneer level), AND keep varsity hockey (even if at NCAA minimums for DI).
 



Schnauzer said:
Big question now is future of St. Thomas hockey.
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No idea. Seems like an expensive ordeal. They don’t have he draw to play at the X. It would be desolate. They currently play in a (nice) high school arena.
 

Some guy said:
Marquette doesn’t have football.

As a university though I feel like St Thomas is moving more towards math and science. Which gives it more of a drake feel than a Marquette feel. Obviously the catholic angle makes it more like Marquette.
No doubt UST would love to be big east someday now if it is an option.
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I know they don't (Marquette).

Butler does. Butler is in the Big East.


Yes, the point of my post originally was that St Thomas is Catholic, and the Cities is a huge new market opportunity for the Catholic Big East. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
 

Do any schools go ... "all associate".

Like join multiple conferences as an "associate" member in numerous sports?
 

Some guy said:
I think it is good for the school if their goal is to go from a Minnesota known school to a nationally known school.
As an alum, I know the old guard didn’t want to move up. There have been a lot of administrative transitions the last 8 years or so though. So obviously that has changed.

As an alum, I don’t really care. I’ll still be a larger gopher football fan than UST.
In basketball, if they ever play, I’ll want the gophers to win. But I definitely have two basketball teams I’ll follow now instead of one.
In football, I’ll probably follow UST less now. I care more about UST vs Bethel, St. John’s, Concordia...than I will care about Davidson and San Diego
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Certainly, and it makes sense. The winner of the Pioneer does (since recently) get an auto-bid to the FCS playoff, but usually loses to a scholarship team in the first round.


The grand vision, I think, is for Minnesota v St Thomas to become like Wisconsin v Marquette.

Obviously you can't just manufacture that overnight. And it's harder to start now, from nothing, than what Wisc and Marquette have now after all their history.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Do any schools go ... "all associate".

Like join multiple conferences as an "associate" member in numerous sports?
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I'm not aware of any school that doesn't have a "core" conference for most sports. That usually sports like basketball, volleyball, soccer, track, tennis, golf, swimming, etc.

The U of Denver has a fairly patchwork arrangement, because they have a lot of sports that aren't sponsored by the Summit.
 


Some guy said:
No idea. Seems like an expensive ordeal. They don’t have he draw to play at the X. It would be desolate. They currently play in a (nice) high school arena.
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Fairgrounds a potential landing spot?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

AtTheLibrary said:
Fairgrounds a potential landing spot?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Looks great on a map. Classic venue.

Needs millions of $$$ for new ice making equipment. Which is partly why the state tournament left.
 

MnplsGopher said:
Looks great on a map. Classic venue.

Needs millions of $$$ for new ice making equipment. Which is partly why the state tournament left.
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Also need to work it out with the State Fair folks, granted they might be open to it, but it's another party you have to make a deal with. I'm not 100% sure even if someone threw free ice equipment into it if they'd want to get back in the game.
 

St. Thomas community Q&A page says they are actively pursuing D1 options for Hockey and Football. Hmmmm
 

Other big looming question is what about Tommy Johnny football game.


If ST goes for the Pioneer route, then there is no reason they can't play a yearly non-conf game against a DIII opponent. The Pioneer teams have zero chance for an at large bid. So it's win the conference or bust, which the non-con doesn't do anything for or against that.


But if they somehow decided to go for the MVFC route, the game would be dead.


Unless SJ/SB somehow decided to also move up to DI. But that is a much more flawed proposal. Even combined, I think they have well less than half of ST's endowment and well less than half of ST's enrollment. Both are true liberal arts colleges, rather than (trending towards) a comprehensive university. Both are outside the Cities market. Fine for driving up for a weekend game, but much harder for a weekday (especially in winter). Don't think they can get it done, without some massive gifts.
 

MnplsGopher said:
Other big looming question is what about Tommy Johnny football game.


If ST goes for the Pioneer route, then there is no reason they can't play a yearly non-conf game against a DIII opponent. The Pioneer teams have zero chance for an at large bid. So it's win the conference or bust, which the non-con doesn't do anything for or against that.


But if they somehow decided to go for the MVFC route, the game would be dead.


Unless SJ/SB somehow decided to also move up to DI. But that is a much more flawed proposal. Even combined, I think they have well less than half of ST's endowment and well less than half of ST's enrollment. Both are true liberal arts colleges, rather than (trending towards) a comprehensive university. Both are outside the Cities market. Fine for driving up for a weekend game, but much harder for a weekday (especially in winter). Don't think they can get it done, without some massive gifts.
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The game is going to go away and St. Thomas is going to begin their climb up to MVFC eventually.
 

I saw some speculation on another option:

If the Summit has 6 teams playing D1 football, they could make that a "conference" sport. Like the B1G with hockey once they had 6 teams.

The question is whether that would be optional or mandatory. Which I cannot answer without diving into the Summit League by-laws.

But that at least presents another possible route.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I saw some speculation on another option:

If the Summit has 6 teams playing D1 football, they could make that a "conference" sport. Like the B1G with hockey once they had 6 teams.

The question is whether that would be optional or mandatory. Which I cannot answer without diving into the Summit League by-laws.

But that at least presents another possible route.
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Interesting. I could see NDSU and SDSU being against that. It's probably tough to get non-conference FCS teams to play them.
 

For hockey I wonder if they could play at Aldrich Arena. Seats 3200. Might be adequate for their needs. Not sure about scheduling since it is the home ice of both White Bear Lake and Hill Murray...
 

How likely is it that the NCAA will give them a waiver? It makes me wonder if they have an unofficial offer of a waiver.
 


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