MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[GU1999]

I didn't intend middling to be as negative as it came off.  They certainly not dominate in anything I have watched in the three years.  Maybe I missed women's lacrosse or something. But having been watched the NACC for the past three years, as I have a kid at a NACC school, they just don't stand out. 

Aurora stands out both athletically and financially.  Ben U makes more sense athletically, but i think they are weaker financially than CUW.  IIT is a killer financially and would have the requisite academic status, but athletically, they are not great.

Anyway, CUW just seems like an odd fit for the CCIW.  And I suspect they will be bottom of the table in most CCIW sports.  If CUW is a fit, then maybe there would be hope for my Panthers to progress there some day. 

[GusD]

I didn't intend middling to be as negative as it came off.  They certainly not dominate in anything I have watched in the three years.  Maybe I missed women's lacrosse or something. But having been watched the NACC for the past three years, as I have a kid at a NACC school, they just don't stand out. 

Aurora stands out both athletically and financially.  Ben U makes more sense athletically, but i think they are weaker financially than CUW.  IIT is a killer financially and would have the requisite academic status, but athletically, they are not great.

Anyway, CUW just seems like an odd fit for the CCIW.  And I suspect they will be bottom of the table in most CCIW sports.  If CUW is a fit, then maybe there would be hope for my Panthers to progress there some day. 

I don't know about all the other sports, especially those that are considered "minor" sports, but in football and men's basketball I think the Falcons will find themselves finishing in the bottom third in both sports on a fairly regular basis.

[RFMichigan]

I didn't intend middling to be as negative as it came off.  They certainly not dominate in anything I have watched in the three years.  Maybe I missed women's lacrosse or something. But having been watched the NACC for the past three years, as I have a kid at a NACC school, they just don't stand out.

No, it didn't come off as negative at all and I agree that they are going to struggle in the major sports. I am curious why CUW and not someone else.

[RFMichigan]

When does CUW begin in the CCIW?

[Gregory Sager]

When does CUW begin in the CCIW?

I've heard conflicting reports; either next school year, or (what sounds more realistic), the year after that. So I would look for the Falcons to start popping up on everybody's schedules in various sports in 2026-27.

Incidentally, the vote passed yesterday. I know it wasn't unanimous, as I'm told that Millikin was dead-set against bringing in CUW. (Take a look at the map; you can't blame 'em.) The two other Illinois schools outside of Chicagoland were said to be wavering.

The announcement of CUW's induction into the CCIW apparently won't take place until after the CUW Board of Trustees approves it next week.

[Gregory Sager]

As someone who holds the CCIW in very high esteem, I wonder a bit how the CUW move fits.  I am sure that there has been ink spilled elsewhere that explains it, but my quick google searching didn't find it.  I guess location is good.  Campus has great lake views, but :
 
- middling sports programs in the NACC
- net assets are almost 90m less than the next closest CCIW school
- fairly small endowment

I can only speculate here, as the "Why CUW?" question was settled by people far above my pay grade who aren't sharing their thoughts on the matter with anybody. But I have what I think are reasonable speculations.

First, as to the "middling sports programs in the NACC" being an issue, I think that there's a widespread misperception out there that in order to join the CCIW a school has to be an established across-the-board sports power already. And that isn't the case. Remember, the people who debate and decide these decisions are not tied to the athletics departments; they're the presidents and the boards that run the schools, and their institutional priorities are much, much bigger than wins and losses on the field or on the court. Look no further than the fact that the CCIW re-admitted Carroll eight years ago; Carroll was doing well in the MWC ranks in terms of overall sports competitiveness, but it was by no means a national or even regional all-sports powerhouse. Carroll has more or less settled back into the same slot it had before it jumped ship from the CCIW to the MWC back in 1992; it's very competitive within the CCIW in two or three sports (women's basketball is the shining example of Pios strength within this circuit), but in most it's typically a bottom-third entry that regards a middle-of-the-pack finish to be a successful campaign.

"Net assets" and "fairly small endowment" are probably issues that loom much larger in the minds of the CCIW's braintrust than athletic competitiveness. CUW certainly isn't a school that stacks up in terms of physical and financial resources to most of the CCIW members. But I suspect that adding CUW might be a sort of insurance policy being taken out by the CCIW, because -- well, let's make no bones about it -- small liberal-arts colleges in America are in dire straits right now, unless they're part of the exclusive club of big-money, academically selective institutions that include the NESCAC schools, the Centennial schools, Oberlin, Carleton, Grinnell, the Claremont consortium, etc. CCIW schools are not immune to institutional earthquakes in terms of the fiscal woes that have wreaked havoc in the D3 ranks in recent years, or to the demographic cliff on which every D3 school apart from the exclusive ones I've mentioned is teetering. You can see evidence of this all over the CCIW. Heck, even the two CCIW schools that have the largest endowments, Wheaton and Illinois Wesleyan, have had to undergo belt-tightening retrenchment within the past decade. It doesn't hurt for the league to add extra members for a rainy day.

I doubt that the CCIW's presidents and boards consider CUW to be their ideal choice of a tenth member. I'm sure that a Lake Forest or a Knox or a Monmouth would be up at the top of the list, maybe even MWC schools that push the geographic footprint of the league such as Illinois College or Ripon. (I'm not sure that Beloit, which is a prestigious school that seems at least somewhat financially healthy, would be at the top of the list as well; even though sports competence isn't the primary concern for the CCIW's presidents and boards, Beloit's regard for athletics seems to be marked by almost as much disdain in terms of institutional culture as is the case at Oberlin.) But I don't think that any MWC schools have an interest in joining the CCIW at this time.

There's at least one other NACC school that has expressed interested in CCIW membership in the past, and that's Benedictine ... but pigs will fly before Benedictine becomes a CCIW member. (I don't know how much interest there is in CCIW membership at Aurora, or if the CCIW leadership would be interested in admitting the Spartans; it's worth noting that Aurora is an associate CCIW member in three sports.)

Loras, which is an associate CCIW member in men's volleyball, might be an interesting choice for CCIW membership, but I haven't heard anything about Loras being willing to jump ship from the ARC, where it's been a member for a long, long time (since the ARC is just a re-brand of the old IIAC). DePauw and Rose-Hulman were at one time interested as well (they used to be CCIW associates in men's and women's swimming), but they're so far outside of the geographic footprint that they were never seriously considered, according to what I was told.

Again, my knowledge of CCIW membership matters is admittedly limited. But I've heard bits and pieces over the years about applicants and potential members.

Just surprised.  Were any other schools considered?

Not as far as I know.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I did a little research yesterday which shows CUW is in a strong position going forward.

From 2023 to 2024 they reported an increase in undergraduate enrollment from 1700 to 2400.  They had a budget surplus last year and the deficits in prior years haven't been huge.

They're also the flagship campus for the Concordia System, controlled by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (Moorhead isn't part of it, but most of the others you've heard of are).  It's not unlike a state system, where the campuses are independent, but there's an overarching organizational structure that they're all a part of, as well.

In the last seven years they've closed three campuses and Concordia Texas is currently suing to separate from the system.  The Ann Arbor campus (which is technically a satellite of CUW) keeps getting smaller and likely will go away at some point.

If the LCMS is like any other US denomination, it's likely hemorrhaging money and members - consolidating higher ed in one much larger, more stable campus is a good way to move forward in that situation.  A bigger, more robust CUW fits pretty well in the CCIW and I think there's a lot of mutual benefit there.

I'm making a ton of assumptions in this analysis (I don't actually know what the Concordia system is doing), but I don't think they are far-fetched assumptions.

[Gregory Sager]

I agree, Ryan. While I don't think CUW is the ideal new member, as I said, it appears that the CCIW -- or most of it, anyway -- is more than happy to vote CUW into the fold.

I've been up to Mequon once, to call an NPU @ CUW football game a decade or so ago. The CUW people in the press box were very pleasant and helpful. Nobody cares about my opinion, but I'm happy to welcome the Falcons into the CCIW nest.