Missouri Valley Conference schools have gone to great lengths over the years to get their basketball product on television.

Valley men's and women's teams have played before pajama-clad fans at 11 p.m. at night. Men's teams at times filled an 11 a.m. window on Sunday, which of course scored no points with priests and ministers. They've butted up against the biggest football game of the season on Super Bowl Sunday.

Earlier this year, ESPN approached league officials about possibly filling one of the time slots on its Nov. 17 broadcast of 24 hours of basketball. That's the day when the cable network broadcasts hoops wall-to-wall, signifying an unofficial start to the college basketball season.

Of course, schools from the power conferences filled the prime-time slots. The network did have a 2 p.m. window open and wanted to know if any Valley schools might be willing to shift a game to a Tuesday afternoon.

Valley Commissioner Doug Elgin said he tried to "soft sell'' the opening to some league schools. He found no takers. For that, we offer the administrators and coaches from those schools a hearty round of hurrahs.

Television provides leagues such as the Valley with much-needed exposure. But at some point, the law of diminishing returns has to come into play. How much value is there to playing a basketball game in the middle of the afternoon at a time when most of America is still locked into football? How much schedule juggling should schools expect their fans to do in order to attend a game when most people are working? Or, when some of the participants should be in class?

"I think you have to look at things on a case-to-case basis,'' said Illinois State coach Tim Jankovich. He paused, then quickly added, "I think I'd have to draw the line at 2 o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon.

"I just think you have to feel good about yourself when you look in the mirror and be able to say that you're not completely prostituting yourself. At any level, we all want exposure, but I think you have to a little conscious about it.''

A Creighton fan recently sought out my opinion on the very subject. The fan was of the mindset that if the Bluejays played such a game, the novelty of it would make a televised midweek afternoon game an event. And, hey, Omaha loves an event.

I disagreed, saying that at some point schools owe their fans, and their athletes, considerations that outweigh any desire to get a game on television. Jankovich, for one, agrees.

"I think you have to accommodate your fans,'' he said. "And, no question, the kids (players). There was a time when I first start coaching that a TV game was a huge recruiting advantage.

"Now, there's so much TV that everybody's on TV. I don't think any of us are as thirsty as we used to be.''

-Steven Pivovar