2009-2010 Missouri Valley Conference Basketball

Wichita State vs Northern Iowa Basketball Recap

Wichita State 60, Northern Iowa 51

If an agonizing one-point loss to Creighton darkened the outlook for the Wichita State men's basketball team, Tuesday night's nine-point win over Northern Iowa brought a brighter day to the Shockers, who just revived their season and transformed the college basketball landscape.

WSU - as viewers could plainly tell - defended the rim as though its NCAA Tournament existence depended on the outcome of this game. The Shockers allowed only 20 made field goals, just two 3-point shots, 14 free throws, and five offensive rebounds. By giving almost nothing away (WSU committed just six turnovers, a remarkable statistic in a game so fiercely contested), the home team came through in its cozy Kansas confines, delighting a packed house at the Charles Koch Arena.

It's clear how WSU won this game: Dogged defense combined with a refusal to get beaten on the glass. The more salient discussion topic in the wake of this tilt is: What did this victory mean for the program?

There are no guarantees in any collegiate sport to begin with, but one thing is for certain: If coach Gregg Marshall's club didn't rebound from a searing Saturday loss in Omaha, the WSU crew would have been staring at the likely prospect of having to win the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in order to feel good about its chances for a place in the NCAA Tournament.

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Now, with a quality win over Coach Ben Jacobson's Panthers, Wichita owns the best possible scalp anyone can have in the Valley. The conference race involves two teams - Northern Iowa fell to 7-1 in the Valley with this loss, while WSU improved to 6-2 - but the even more essential aspect of Tuesday's triumph for Wichita is that it boosted its overall resume.

It's worth noting that in the days before Selection Sunday, ESPN analyst Jay Bilas - regarded by many as the best in his profession - uses a worn but effective pair of questions to flesh out the process of constructing the field of 65. "Whom did you play? Whom did you beat?" That's the Bilas mantra, and it gets to the heart of the matter.

It's not enough to finish second in the Valley. That's not what the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee looks at in the "war room" it uses in Indianapolis. When the mixture of athletic directors, conference commissioners and school administrators sequesters itself in a room and inundates itself in hard data and sheaths of paperwork, it seeks to identify the best wins and the most copious quantities of high-value achievements. What was important about this victory for Wichita State was not that it cemented the program's hold on second place in the league. The fact that it kept the Shockers in the race for the regular-season title is more important, yes, but it's still not the whole story. The biggest part of this win is simply that Northern Iowa has been the best team in the Valley, and Wichita State beat them.

Whom did you play, whom did you beat?

If a Big Ten team goes 9-7 in the conference, as opposed to 8-8, but doesn't beat Michigan State or Purdue, that record will lose value.

If an ACC team goes 8-8 in the league but doesn't beat Duke or Clemson or Georgia tech, that record will lose value.

If a Big East team goes 9-7 but doesn't beat Villanova, Pittsburgh, Syracuse or Georgetown, and fattens up on the likes of South Florida, Rutgers, DePaul, Providence and St. John's, the reality of a winning record in a power conference just won't mean that much.

Wichita State got to 5-2 in the Valley as a partial result of wins over Indiana State, Drake and Bradley, three teams in the lowest tier of the conference. The 5-2 record was nice, but it wasn't built on the strength of high-value conquests. Now, WSU is 6-2 in the MVC, but that record has been transformed in terms of its quality. The Shockers are hardly a shoo-in for the Big Dance, but let's say this for now: If coach Marshall's men don't absorb another really bad loss, and win just enough of the 50-50 games left on their schedule, they'll stand a very good chance of hearing their name called on Selection Sunday.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer