Article from Wichita paper about Valpo joining MVCComments from Doug Elgin make it sound like 12 team league soon.
“We looked at even numbers, and I really thought that it had to be an even number because when you talk about odd numbers you really create some issues with your scheduling structure,” Elgin said in the release. “You look at, in men’s basketball for instance, when you have 11 teams, 10 of those teams will be playing in five games and every scheduling window, whether it’s a mid-week Tuesday-Wednesday sequence or a Saturday-Sunday sequence every one of those windows throughout the season would have one team being idle.”Twelve teams is on the table and the MVC seems leaning that way, according to Elgin’s comments. (No. 11 seems obvious with Murray State interested and a match geographically. No. 12 seems more of a mystery, especially if Belmont (Nashville) is not interested.)“The Presidents Council is leaving the door open for that, and they are encouraging that, actually,” Elgin said. “And I think over the next year or so, I think we’ll continue to study expansion with the possibility that we might eventually within, I think, in the next 12 or 24 months go to a 12-team model.”
That makes me think Murray State will be team 11, and the reason they weren't added now was because a good candidate for the 12th spot wasn't found at this time.