Those last three sentences are very sad.
They are sad. That said, perhaps you are like me and look at YSU from a lens of the past a bit. Congrats to them for not wanting to be the anchor, and getting a respectable MBB program. It appears GB is doing the same. Detroit has always been able to recruit talent, they have a sh*t coach which I would bet they are replacing. Really this conference doesn’t have an anchor besides IUPUI IMO.
Detroit Mercy is 0-24 and has had one season in the last eight where they were over .500.
I'm looking at YSU with disdain because it took them twenty f***ing years in the Horizon League before they discovered
they had a basketball program.
It took them their first four years in the conference of finishing as one of the worst teams in the country before they fired John Robic. It wasn't until Jerry Slocum's
seventh season before they finished above .500 - by one game. The next year they finished two games above .500, and then four more years of far subpar basketball before Slocum finally retired. The guy was 142-232 - almost 100 games below .500 - and they let him walk to retirement.
YSU's complete disregard for even having a basketball program was directly counter to what they told MCC officials their plans were when they were extended the invite. Now, we can bag on LeCrone for settling and letting them in the door - and I do - but he's retired and YSU is still here.
The Horizon League's last season with three bids to the NCAA Tournament was 1998, when we only had eight teams. That season featured exactly one anchor - us - and a couple ho-hum teams. By keeping membership limited, there was only so much damage that could be done to UDM, UIC and Butler's resumes.
We got better. Cleveland State got better. There was not a team in the conference that did not become an asset to the conference, but for YSU they had one year in their first 20 when they weren't
dragging down everyone else.
I don't know the algorithm, but after we beat YSU by 40 at home my freshman year and the following morning dropped from 44th to 72nd in the RPI, it was clear as day that they weren't just bad, they were actually hurting the conference's chances to gain at-large bids and seed lines for auto bids.
In that 2006 season, YSU was -7.59 in the simple rating system - they weren't the worst in the conference, but that's the effect they had on our RPI after
we beat them at home by 40.
Take 2005. We had one worse game on the schedule, Prairie View A&M. We all know how that game turned out. Besides YSU, by far the worst drag on the RPI in-conference was Cleveland State. Their SRS was -4.64, one-third that of YSU's
-14.40. What happens if YSU cost us 2-3 seed lines? We'd only have one true anchor game on the schedule (PAMU). What does Bruce Pearl's 2005 team do as a 9 or 10 seed? What if they don't have to run into Illinois in the Sweet 16?
They were bad in the early Horizon League, but one of their worst years was actually 2015-16. Valparaiso that year was perhaps one of the best teams in the country. Did they cost Valpo a second Sweet 16? A Final Four? They sure as hell cost Valpo an at-large bid; of course, UIC was even worse for Valpo that year, but that's the thing, isn't it? UIC at least had been good before and gone dancing multiple times. Cleveland State spent our golden years as a complete pushover and then became one of the strongest programs in the conference. Wright State was pedestrian and then they've spent more time in the top 3 than anyone over the last 15 years.
YSU still hasn't gone dancing. They didn't have a true positive SRS until
last season. To put how sh*t their program was for a long time into perspective for Panther fans, our 9-22 season in 2006-07 would have been the sixth-best season YSU would have had between joining the conference in 2001-02 and 2021-22.
Strength of schedule is everything. It's one reason why high-majors don't mind stacking their conferences with too many teams. They cash massive checks AND insulate themselves from bad losses.
The NCAA Tournament will exist in its current form for another 8 or 9 years until the current contract is done (I think it's 2032), after that we're likely going to see that destruction fueled by high-major greed we've all been fearing.
I am happy that YSU finally cares about their program. I am not happy that they probably cost this conference at-large bids and seed lines in a lot of years.