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Missouri Valley Tournament Basketball Weekly Recap
Scores Wednesday, December 28 Missouri State 77, Creighton 65 Wichita State 90, Bradley 51 Drake 79, Indiana State 64 Thursday, December 29 Evansville 78, Southern Illinois 60 Illinois State 65, Northern Iowa 61 Saturday, December 31 Creighton 68, Wichita State 61 Indiana State 77, Bradley 66 Missouri State 72, Drake 61 Sunday, January 1 Southern Illinois 86, Illinois State 71 Evansville 76, Northern Iowa 65 The Missouri Valley Conference was hoping to get three or four bids to the NCAA Tournament this season. What happened over the course of the past week did not aid the MVC in its quest for March Madness prominence and prestige. The trick to getting a 3- or 4-bid haul in a mid-major conference is for those three or four teams to dominate and not lose games to other clubs in the conference, especially at home. The past week witnessed some of those home-court losses which the Valley cannot afford.
The pattern was set into motion on Wednesday, when Missouri State won at Creighton to halt the Bluejays' momentum. The game was close for most of the proceedings, but the visiting Bears went on a surge in the second half to pull away for the surprisingly easy win in Omaha. The carnage continued Wednesday night when Indiana State - last season's conference tournament champion and a team that scored a massive road upset of Vanderbilt on Dec. 17 - got ambushed by the Drake Bulldogs. The loss was shocking enough, but the fact that it was a 15-point beatdown will not give ISU a positive image in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament's selection committee. Then came Saturday. Creighton bounced back from its home-court loss with a great road win at Wichita State, but that very result makes Wichita's profile a lot less attractive on the NCAA big board. We're already seeing what mid-major leagues hate when it comes to the allotment of NCAA bids: Teams in the Valley are beating each other up, making everyone's profile worse while failing to elevate three clubs to the Big Dance. The trading of punches might make for rousing and very entertaining basketball for which the Missouri Valley Conference is justifiably well-known, but it's not going to help when the second Sunday of March rolls around. One team that's definitely not going to be in the hunt for an at-large bid in the Valley is Northern Iowa. The Panthers lost to Ohio out of conference earlier in December and spent the past week losing to Illinois State and Evansville. UNI was one of the darlings of the 2010 NCAA Tournament when it upset No. 1 Kansas, but the shine has worn off in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
By: Matt Zemek |