Primarily a collection of news links about all 12 Missouri Valley League teams on a daily basis, culled from online newspapers, school athletic websites, the conference website, and school newspapers, plus some other content from time to time.
-SOUTHERN ILLINOIS AT SAN FRANCISCO. Southern Illinois has been a
bit of a disappointment this year, but they are in a stretch where
they’ve won five out of their last six. San Francisco has had a
fantastic year at 11-1, and their last two games have been battles with a
one point loss to Grand Canyon, and a one point win on the road at
Arizona State.
-MISSOURI STATE AT SAINT MARY’S. SMC has shown every sign of being a
solid tournament caliber team. After a sluggish start, Missouri State
has won their last four, but could really make a statement if they were
able to get this one.
Two teams sort of looking in the mirror with Liberty and Northern Iowa.
Both live and die by the three, both are highly leveraged on a
superstar guard, both primarily play a pack line defense, and both
utilize a lot of backdoor and behind the defense cutting offensively. Is
this basically just a shootout between AJ Green and Darius McGhee?
Let’s hope so. UNI did see Austin Phyfe return for 5 minutes against
Marshall, and he would be the best big in the game, but he’s reportedly
been battling “long covid”, so I’m not sure how much he can actually
give. Liberty has really struggled with athletic teams that have
overwhelmed their lack of height and athleticism at the 3/4. That isn’t
really the strength of UNI at all. They’re not going to pressure the
ball (349th in TO rate) and they’re not trying crash the O glass
relentlessly against the undersized Flames (both teams place a high
premium on transition defense). This is a jump shooting contest, plain
and simple.
ELSEWHERE:
Missouri State
has been pretty good ATS wise as a road dog under Ford, as they always
have athleticism and skill, they’re just so volatile on a game by game
basis. Traveling to Moraga for an angry St. Mary’s
after the SDSU loss isn’t easy, and Bennett’s frontcourt is one of the
few in the country that can simultaneously be as physical as Prim AND
make him defend in PNR, as Ford likes to generally keep him in deep drop
(annually one of the top 5 most compact defenses, but I’ve discussed
this before, I think that’s also a product of the way their official
scorer records what is and isn’t a jump shot- I’ve watched many MO State
games while also tracking Stat Broadcast, and a runner in the lane will
be record as a two point jump shot….I digress, a discussion for another
day), but this year I’ve noticed he’s hedging more, and has looked
fantastic doing so with the Synergy numbers backing up the eye test (he
actually hasn’t allowed a single point in his roll coverage). Mosley is
the epitome of Missouri State’s volatility. He was benched vs BYU, and
has since been absolutely en fuego with the exception of foul trouble vs
South Dakota State. We’ve seen this before from Mosley though, he
locked in for stretches then disappears again. SMC can’t match his
athleticism in the backcourt, but they’re extremely well disciplined and
don’t make mistakes, the type of defense that frustrates him. I’m
mostly in on the Bears and think they’re likely the second best team in
the Valley, but this is a major test for what can be an undisciplined
team.
We’ll see how recovered UTEP is from
their food poisoning bout on a quick turnaround, but Golding was able to
get by NCC without having to push Boum, which was huge. Bradley
crushed SHSU, but is likely without their best defensive player in
Henry, and I’m concerned about their lack of secondary ball handling
against the UTEP hyper aggressive halfcourt denial defense.
Ramble on, Loyola! Drew Valentine‘s
squad has won four straight D-1 games since Thanksgiving, including
victories over high-major outfits such as Arizona State, DePaul and
Vanderbilt. Unfortunately, due to a COVID freeze, the team will
eventually have three weeks off between the Vanderbilt win on Dec. 10
and the MVC opener against Southern Illinois on Jan. 2. Will they thaw
out in time? -Andy Dieckoff
(At) Valparaiso 69, Detroit Mercy 57: After closing the third quarter trailing48-47
heading into the final period, Detroit Mercy was unable to close the
gap and succumbed to a 69-57 lost at Valparaiso on Tuesday.
With
seven different Valpo players contributing to a barrage of 14
3-pointers on offense, Grace White led all scorers with 19 points,
including hitting 4-of-8 from downtown. Shay Fredrick added 10 points
and seven assists for the Beacons (2-9).
Sydney
Searcy powered the Titans (0-11) with 18 points and six steals, while
Janna Lewis added 12 points and five rebounds for Detroit Mercy.
After
the Titans came within arms reach of taking the lead heading into the
fourth quarter, Valpo responded with a 6-0 run to open the period to
spur a 14-4 surge overall increasing their lead to 62-51 behind hot
shooting from 3-point range. The Beacons outscored the Titans 21-10 down
the stretch, including 4-for-6 from long distance to seal the win.
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