What's Up In The Missouri Valley 3/7/2019

The Morning Dish – Thursday, March 7, 2019--Hoopville

Tonight’s Menu:
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The wider-than-wide open Missouri Valley Conference tourney opens in St. Louis with first round games. The 8/9 game has Valparaiso against Indiana State, with No. 7 Illinois State and 10 seed Evansville to follow. We’ll be covering Arch Madness for Hoopville for the first two days, getting a look at all 10 Valley teams.

Case of Indiana shows NCAA selection process needing return to common sense--Hoopville

The committee’s badly missed evaluation of Loyola Chicago last year-one that almost certainly would’ve resulted in the Ramblers not making the field if they hadn’t won the MVC Tournament-can be directly traced to the committee’s over-emphasis on Quadrant 1 wins, as well as its ignorance of simple measures like road record and a conference championship. (Ironically, the Ramblers’ non-conference strength of schedule last year in the RPI was just 254, though that number wasn’t far behind teams like Houston or Michigan State and was ahead of the likes of Michigan and Texas Tech. It was Loyola’s other marks-among them being a convincing regular season title in the No. 8-ranked conference in the country-that should’ve screamed easy NCAA pick.)

Teams like Loyola have now made five Final Four appearances from nine seeds or lower over the last 13 NCAA Tournaments, or three more than the esteemed BCS or “power” conferences have ever made in 40 years of seeding teams. And yet, judging by how the committee has snubbed them in selection or seeding in recent years, it is having a hard time figuring out how good teams like Loyola are.

If the committee is going to over-value Quadrant 1 wins as much as it has in recent years, then it also has to acknowledge the divide from current non-conference scheduling practices in the sport, which have resulted in a situation where teams like Loyola get few chances at such wins. As such, to do its job better, it would behoove the committee to do all it can to encourage scheduling of teams like Loyola, to help the committee get perspective on their strength.

MVC honors UNI's Haldeman, McDonnell--Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
What Wyatt Lohaus' dad taught him about shooting a basketball--Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier

MVC Tournament Preview: Drake tries to break through in St. Louis without winning experiences--The Southern Illinoisan