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.
Arch Madness is always one of the best early tournaments in the country and
this year it may be the best. The league has been extremely competitive this
year and you can reasonably make an argument for any of the top four teams
to win this league. Northern Iowa is the team I think is going to get it
done and win the league. The Panthers have the best player in the league in
AJ Green and he is fully healthy after missing nearly all of last season.
Northern Iowa is a completely different team when Green is on the floor.
The Panthers have three guards who shoot the ball well from deep, and they
are a great free throw shooting team. Head coach Ben Jacobson is going to
let his guys play and shoot a ton of threes especially if they are hitting
them early. Northern Iowa has the potential to blow out some opponents when
they are hitting shots.
Sleeper: Bradley Braves
The Braves always do this, they play just good enough to obtain a middle
seed in the MVC tournament and then they turn it on to make the NCAA
tournament by winning the conference tournament. This year could be the same
thing as Bradley has already beaten Loyola this year and has swept Drake.
Those are wins that show that Bradley is just building confidence along the
way to make their deep run. Head coach Brian Wardle is a good motivator and
is going to get his team motivated and ready to play at Arch Madness.
The Valley tournament is always crazy and their upsets galore and Bradley
seems like a team who is going to dish out a few of those upsets. Guard
Terry Roberts is going to have a big tournament and hopefully lead his team
to some victories. Bradley wins sloppily and if they do make the tournament
won’t be that high of a seed.
This NIT bracket includes projections to the end of the regular season. Bubble teams are in italics and
are in danger of losing their slot to automatic bids (1 seeds that lose
in their conference tournaments). I'm currently projected Seattle as
the WAC champion, hence why New Mexico St. appears in this bracket.
The Missouri Valley is tricky. Loyola Chicago is the favorite to win
the conference tournament but its at-large chances are hanging by a
thread as the Ramblers haven’t won three consecutive games since
mid-January.
Northern Iowa seems like the more obvious bid-stealer after finishing the regular season 9-1 with the guidance of star AJ Green.
However, with Loyola as the 4-seed and UNI in the top spot, it would be
highly unlikely the Ramblers could earn an at-large bid with a loss in
the Arch Madness semis.
Instead, the path to a multi-bid Valley would likely call for Loyola
falling in the title game (ideally by a slim margin) to a team in the
bottom half of the bracket. A team that has had some success against the
Ramblers of late is Drake, which swept Loyola Chicago for the first
time in program history this season.
Darian DeVries‘
squad made the NCAA Tournament last March as an 11-seed after an 18-0
start. This time around, the Bulldogs haven’t had quite as much pub but
are peaking at the right time. Seven of Drake’s eight rotational players
are seniors with the lone exception being Tucker DeVries — Darian’s son — who leads the team in scoring as a versatile 6-7 forward who can stretch the floor.
Loyola guard Lucas Williamson (1) points to fans after a 59-47 win over
Southern Illinois on Jan. 25, 2022, at Gentile Arena in Chicago. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
The Ramblers (22-7, 13-5) had a chance to win the Missouri Valley
Conference title in their season finale Saturday but dropped to the No. 4
seed in the MVC Tournament after an overtime loss at Northern Iowa, which won the regular-season title.
Before the loss, ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had Loyola as one of
the last four teams in, meaning they would need to get into the field of
64 by winning a play-in game.
Like the Illini, the Ramblers have several players with tournament
experience, having gone to the Sweet 16 last year, and a veteran leader
in Lucas Williamson, who scored a career-high 29 points in Saturday’s
loss. Williamson, a grad student who returned for a fifth year, will be
trying to take the Ramblers into the tournament for the third time since
their memorable Final Four run in 2018.
“Obviously I have a different role than even last year, but in terms of
feeling any different, no,” Williamson told the Tribune in a recent
interview. “I’ve been around so many familiar faces, and my leadership
role hasn’t changed. I was in the same position last year.”
If the Ramblers win their first-round game against Bradley on Friday,
they could get a rematch with No. 1 seed Northern Iowa in the
semifinals. They’ve had some ups and downs, going 4-3 down the stretch
with losses to Bradley, Drake and Northern Iowa after leading the
conference for much of the season.
Williamson wasn’t too worried.
“The Valley is the Valley,” he said. “It’s not like we play in a
conference full of teams that don’t know how to play basketball. Every
night a team can beat you, and this conference has proven that year
after year.
“We’ve had to respond to some adversity. … That’s what the grind of a
conference season is about. Not everything is going to be perfect. It’s
how you respond when things don’t go your way.”
This will be the last hurrah for the Ramblers in the Missouri Valley
Conference; they’ll be moving to the Atlantic 10 next season.
Missouri St.
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