[quote author=bigd board=general thread=2934 post=27145 time=1365895144]
David Woods, Butler beat reporter, believes that Loyola and UIC are both off to the MVC.

https://twitter.com/DavidWoods007

At this point, until anything's official, who knows.

At this point, it appears that Loyola is probably in, and the door is still cracked open for UIC.[/quote]

If this were the case I would have to believe that another school would have to be coming along for the ride to get to 12. Maybe they stay at 11 and look to do some Western Expansion over the next couple years (UMKC, ORU, Denver) after The Valley has let them know what they are looking for in ORU and UMKC's case.

You hear some Valley fans just in awe and thinking there shouldn't be 4 Illinois schools in the MVC (UIC would make 5), I look at it differently. Chicago is really not Illinois or at least not Carbondale, Peoria, or Bloomington/Normal. The states population is at 12.8 million people roughly as of 2012, while the Chicago-land Metro area is 9.8 million people. I look at the PAC 12 and how they have 4 universities in California (UCLA, USC, Stanford, CAL) albeit California is the most populous state in the US at 38 million, while Illinois is 5th. But you have UCLA and USC centered around and in Los Angeles, and Stanford and California centered around San Francisco. Having 2 schools from Chicago suddenly doesn't seem all that far fetched.

Maybe The Valley is finally starting to look bigger and concentrate on some Metro area markets for the future. Look at the likes of Belmont (Nashville), Milwaukee, ORU (Tulsa), UMKC (Kansas City), Loyola and UIC(Chicago), and Denver. Those were pretty much the rumored candidates, with the exception of Valpo. Maybe the play is have the tradition of your current members in "college towns" blended with some bigger market institutions that can carry the conference into bigger and better future success (aka TV Contracts/Viewers). Maybe I'm reading to much into this conference realignment, but it doesn't seem like that unlikely a play if The Valley goes to 11 or 12 instead of just 10. Even if only 10, it seems as if Valley officials have been looking further down the road at schools that need to improve, but could be apart of The Valley's vision for the future.

Sorry for the rant, as maybe only Loyola or only UIC is added. However, this is fun to think about and hopefully in my opinion, a direction the conference is headed towards.