Horizon League Commissioner Jon LeCrone has kept the league’s future plans close to the vest since Butler departed for the Atlantic 10 last spring.

LeCrone spoke to the media before the men’s basketball tournament semifinals Saturday at Valparaiso and said many of the same things he said last summer.

In summary, LeCrone wants the league’s decisions to be “thoughtful” and “values driven.” The Horizon League won’t expand for expansion’s sake or grab the first school or schools it can. The league doesn’t have to worry about one of the more pressing matters, the loss of an automatic qualifier in baseball, for another two years, LeCrone said.

The commissioner seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach. The question is what the landscape will look like after the Big East and Atlantic 10 shakeup. Would changes in those conferences affect the Missouri Valley Conference, if Creighton departs for the Big East? Would a change in the MVC affect the Horizon?

The dominoes keep falling in college sports. One move leads to many others.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of change between now and the Final Four or now and the summertime,” LeCrone said. “That’s the way we’re going to respond to it. It’s not like we’re just thinking about this. We’ve been thinking about this a long time.”

“The landscape is definitely going to shape what opportunities might be there. I was saying to one of our coaches, ‘In an odd sort of way, you start to think about the similarities with this process to the recruitment of young people to come play.’ Everybody’s talking to everybody. You just want to be measured. You want to be thoughtful. If you begin to execute an agreement for an institution, the time might not be right for that. We’re just going to have to be patient.”

Although the Butler news last season put the Horizon League on the spot, LeCrone said conference realignment has always been a topic.

“I think everyone wants to look at that as a line in the sand, where everything started to change,” LeCrone said. “Actually, everything started to change before that. Even when we were a 10-team league, we had calls a lot about, ‘Would you consider going to 11 or 12 or 13 or 14?’ There hasn’t been a lack of interest in our league really ever, and I’ve been here 21 years now.”

“When you’re sitting in this chair at every level — there are 31 Division I commissioners — everybody is working on membership almost on a daily basis. You might be alert and inactive, but you’re always alert. It’s just the way the landscape is right now.

“If you think about it, it’s just like a lot of other business. I don’t want to oversimplify or overstate this notion of a business. We all have fiduciary responsibilities, but we want to balance that with values and what we do with young people. But my point is if you look at the uncertainty in other business sectors — banking, airlines, whatever — it’s a pretty fluid environment. What you see is lots of consolidation, lots of change. That’s what our business is going through. That doesn’t change the fact that we still have a fundamental role, and that is to add value to the college experience.”

LeCrone didn’t discount the idea that one of the nine current Horizon League teams could leave the conference.

“It would be naive of any of us to not consider that everybody’s talking to everybody,” he said. “AD’s are talking, and coaches are talking and presidents are talking. Everybody has relationships. We have some unbelievably dynamic institutions and very good athletic programs, and other leagues would probably be reaching out to them.

“I know if I were the commissioner of another league, I would be reaching out. I think the probability of our nine staying intact is very high. I see that number probably growing. Once again, it is all driven to a large extent by the landscape.”