Some crazy Valley thoughts

I've been reading through messages boards and hearing on the radio that Saint Louis want's to join the Missouri Valley Conference and it makes sense for a variety of reasons (geography, rivalrys, etc.).

It got me thinking about my proposed super conference from a few years ago when Southern Illinois was considered "elite" for a while.

Think of this as the new Conference USA, better than it is now and similar to what it used to be before the Big East tore through it.

Imagine this for a minute:

Start with your regular slate of MVC teams and boot out Evansville, Indiana State and Missouri State.

Evansville will never relive the Jerry Sloan glory days and don't have a football team. Indiana State will never relive the Larry Bird days and hardly has a football team.

Missouri State is just bad all around.

Replace those three teams with Xavier, Dayton, Saint Louis, Butler and Illinois-Chicago.

This would be a 12-team league equipped with two divisions.

Let's say we'll have a north and south division similar to the Big 12's setup.

You put UIC, Dayton, Xavier, Creighton, Drake and Northern Iowa in the north while you have SIU, Wichita State, Bradley, Bulter, SLU and Illinois State in the south.

That sounds like a conference that could rountinely put three or four teams in the NCAA Tournament every season.

Currently they north has a slight edge in terms of power teams but I think that trend could shift if SLU and Bradley return to the big time program status.

Add in a Valley Network station and poof! You've got a diet-BCS league.