Valpo already fits in their existing footprint and would they not be rejoining Loyola as a conference mate?
Gives them a tighter cluster of states and keeps travel times down.
Kind of crazy to think that Evansville will be one of the further away teams as Chicago, Terre Haute, Peoria and Bloomington are 3 hours or less.
Don't realize how long Indiana is but the travel time from Evansville to Valpo is only about 30 minutes less than it is from Des Moines!
Only made it down to Evansville once in 5 decades and that was because of hoops. Before I69 you did not have much choice to get there. Roads seemed to end at Bloomington and that corner (the Pocket City) seemed to have more ties to Cincy and St Louis than Indy. See a lot more Cards fans from down there than us Reds fans would like. Highway 41 was a major trek up from Memphis/Nashville and the south during the war (.... rolling down HWY 41) and the highway many bluesmen took to Chicago before Interstates, passenger train decline, cessation of intercity busses and hitchiking laws.
The point is well taken that many conferences are getting larger while this one is becoming more compact. Certainly the footprint is smaller than the Horizon seems to be more like the Old Big Ten prior to PennSt and the more recent additions.