Mid-Con to Summit, and Valpo to Horizon

The Mid-Continent Conference has changed its name and has added a few new teams and dropped an in-state university. The conference will now be called The Summit League. The name is to reflect not only reaching the top in athletics, but in academics as well. I think this is a good step in the right direction for schools to use, especially all the rule changes and how graduation rates now figure into how many scholarships a school may be able to give out. The teams that now will make up The Summit League will be IUPUI, Centenary, IPFW, UMKC, North Dakota State, Oakland, Oral Roberts, South Dakota State, Southern Utah, and Western Illinois. I think the biggest hurt will be that Valparaiso will now be leaving and joining the Horizon League, which includes Butler. Valpo and IUPUI seemed to always be a nice in-state rival and the games were always pretty good. But, on the the other hand IPFW now joins and now IUPUI gets another in-state rival. I like the change but hard to understand Valpo changing to the Horizon. We'll see how it pans out.