Primarily a collection of news links about all 11 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.
Nos. 6-10 consisted of the same teams from last week with some shifting.
Santa Clara came in at six. VCU jumped from 10 to seven, while Belmont,
who tied for sixth last week, dropped to No. 10. San Diego St. and Stephen
F. Austin kept the same placement at eight and nine, respectively.
Here is the full ranking:
Ranking
Team (First-Place Votes)
Points
Last Week
10
Belmont
63
T-6
Others Receiving Votes:
Sam Houston St. 6; Colorado St. 5;
Murray St. 4; George Mason 4; Kent St. 3; UMBC 2; St. Thomas 2; Charleston 1; Wichita
St. 1
Ball knowers know—this is the good stuff. The two weeks before Selection
Sunday are as much fun as the real thing, with more than 300 teams still
alive and hoping to go as far as they can. As always, The Minutes is here
for a sprint through the conference tournaments—half of them this week, and
the other half next week.
Missouri Valley (9)
When: March 5–8.
KenPom conference rating: Ninth out of 31.
Inspiration: Indiana State 1979, which was 33–0 behind
Larry Bird before losing to Michigan State in the national championship
game.
Best player: Bradley guard Jaquan Johnson is second in the
Valley in scoring (17.4 ppg) while also producing 3.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists
and league-best 2.6 steals.
Best March coach: Second-year Southern Illinois coach Scott
Nagy has won five single-bid tournaments, three at South Dakota State and
two at Wright State. He’s 24–12 in league tournament play.
Top seed: Belmont (26–5, 16–4), with two of those league
losses in overtime.
Dark horse: Third-seed Illinois State (20–11, 12–8), which
was inconsistent but closed with a flourish, beating Northern Iowa on the
road and handing Belmont just its second loss in the last 15 games.
Evansville’s A.J. Casey had a Saturday to
remember. The 6’9 senior scored a career-high 37 points and banked in a
game-winning three-pointer. Casey’s 37-point performance was the highest
for an MVC player this season and he is the Valley’s ‘Player of the Week’.
Newcomers are Shining
Illinois State’s Boden Skunberg propelled
the Redbirds into the third seed at Arch Madness. The North Dakota State
transfer averaged 14.5 points and six rebounds during the Redbirds’
sweep of Northern Iowa and Belmont. Skunberg’s finishing kick earns him
the Valley’s ‘Newcomer of the Week’ award.
Wild Rookie Breakout
Valparaiso’s J.T. Pettigrew keeps doing
amazing things. The 6’9 rookie hit the game-winning shot to defeat Drake
and averaged 16 points and 6.5 rebounds during the Beacons’ two games.
Pettigrew’s ‘Freshman of the Week’ award is his fourth, tying
Murray State’s Roman Domon for the most weekly honors. During league
contests, he is second (13.0) to Domon (15.3) in scoring and leads the
rookies in rebounding average (7.1).
#55 Belmont (-1) at #98 Illinois State, 5 PM ET, CBSSN.
This season finale for Belmont is more or less meaningless, save for
building out an at-large case that I wish would gather more steam than it
seems to be gathering. You want me to prefer 18-10 TCU (50th
KenPom) or 19-9 Missouri (51st) over 26-4 Belmont (55th)? Well, I’m not
going to, so quit asking.
Anyway, this carries some meaning for Illinois State depending on the
results of other games. If all favorites win in the other MVC games this
weekend, Illinois State either finishes fourth (win) or sixth (loss) in the
league. If Valpo loses to Evansville AND Indiana State beats UIC (around a
12% chance), I think Illinois State can finish as high as third with a win.
In any case, they are very likely to finish somewhere from fourth to sixth
with an extreme outside shot at third. You can read all of these scenarios
here.
Based on the way these two match up, I’d initially think of this as a points
explosion and a game that simply comes down to whichever’s defensive
weakness is less weak. The first game kind of got there - Belmont won 80-69
mostly because they hit so many shots that Illinois State’s huge rebounding
edge got washed out - but it was also an anomaly where two great offenses
had to take significantly more midrange twos than they’re used to. (Also,
this was Snowmageddon in Nashville, so the crowd was thinned out.) I don’t
trust much of anything about how Illinois State defends ball screens, and
almost any scenario involving a screener favors Belmont on offense to me.
The Bruins dumped an absurd 1.53 PPP on ISUred in Nashville in P&R sets,
partially because the Redbirds just…never adjusted. Even pick-and-pops were
left wide open:
0:00
/0:09
P&R isn’t a huge feature of Belmont’s offense but I’m not really sure
how ISUred plans on guarding any sort of screening action when 1) Belmont is
among the nation’s very best in dribble handoffs and 2) Illinois State runs
the same basic, laissez-faire drop coverage against those too. The good news
here is that matching up a weak two-way rebounding unit with arguably the
best two-way rebounding team in the MVC certainly favors the Redbirds. This
Belmont team is far better defensively than the Belmont teams of old, but
they’ve had major struggles in overcommitting on drives to the paint,
allowing an absolutely monstrous amount of kickout threes this year. It
allows them to wall off the rim exceptionally well, but they’re going to be
vulnerable to a huge shooting day from Boden Skunberg and/or Landon Wolf.
Bonus points if this is the day Johnny Kinzinger hits threes. Whichever
offense blinks first loses. - Will Warren
C Games
#115 Murray State at #127 Bradley (-4), 2 PM ET, ESPN+.
I think it’s possible for the loser here to fall out of the top 5 in the
Valley, and thus lose out on a bye spot in Arch Madness, but I’m not
entirely certain of the tiebreaker scenarios. First meeting between these
two saw Jaquan Johnson struggle to his worst offensive game of the season,
shooting 2-12 against Murray State drop coverage. Johnson has been on an
offensive tear to close out the regular season however, and Bradley
desperately needs his ball screen and dribble creation in the rematch in
Peoria. The Racers were in the middle of racing out to an 8-0 Valley start
when they first met the Braves back on January 4, but since that blazing
start they’ve gone 4-7 with truly awful perimeter defense. Since that 8-0
start, the Racers have played like the 192nd best team in the country, with
the 293rd defense. Yes, a -11% 3PT% delta in that stretch is brutal, but the
rim defense has been just as bad, sitting at 310th in 2PT% defense in that
span. If Johnson plays like he has of late on the ball and the Racers defend
on the ball like they have of late, the Braves should finish out with a home
win and an Arch Madness bye. - Jordan Majewski
-Belmont @ Illinois State (Missouri Valley) – Belmont has
already wrapped up 1st place and should be positioned to end up on about
the 12 line if they can win out through the conference tournament.
This will be a bit of a test on the road tonight.
40. Belmont (26-4): Arch Madness will be a zoo, but Belmont is the top-shelf team in the Missouri Valley. Big man Drew Scharnowski
hammers dunks left and right, and there's size and shooting everywhere.
Belmont's offense ranks No. 1 in effective field goal percentage, and
this is one of the best shot-blocking teams that coach Casey Alexander
has ever had.
Scariest team on each of the top-12 seed lines
68.
12 seed: Belmont. This mid-major roster doesn't look like a typical
mid-major roster. Too big. Too much shooting. Too many real players.
Alexander has won 20-plus games
in 10 straight seasons dating back to his time at Lipscomb and has the best
team in the Missouri Valley this season. He has proven himself to be one of
the top evaluators of high school talent in the country and has one of the
nation’s top offenses this season. Alexander has beaten back interest from
other jobs in the past but is expected to be a hot commodity this time
around.
He could be in the mix at Kansas State
and in play at potential vacancies at Oklahoma and Georgia Tech as
well.
George Mason 12;
Murray St. 12; UC Irvine 11; Portland St. 10; Utah Valley 9;
Bradley 8; Harvard 8; Merrimack 7; Kent St. 5; Navy 4; Winthrop 3; Sam Houston St.
3; Saint Joseph’s 3; UMBC 2; East Tennessee St. 1; Colorado St. 1
Southern Illinois’ sweep of the Iowa schools was sparked by
Quel’Ron House’s
overall play and key baskets. The Valley’s fifth leading scorer (15.4 ppg)
is a two-time ‘Newcomer of the Week’ and this week claims his first
‘Player of the Week’ nod. House is the twelfth different MVC player
to earn the league’s top weekly honor.
Newcomer List Is Crowded
Ejjah Crawfordis making a late push to become the MVC’s ‘Newcomer of the Year’.
This week the UIC sophomore is receiving his second straight and third of
the last five weeks, ‘Newcomer of the Week’ award. UIC split a pair
of games and Crawford averaged 16 points, seven assists and 3.5 rebounds. He
recorded a double-double against Evansville and scored 20 points against
Valparaiso. His third weekly acknowledgement ties him with Valpo’s Owen
Dease.
Freshmen Successful Stretch Run
Ever since Roger Powell Jr. became the head coach at Valparaiso, freshmen
make big headlines. The program boasts of the last two ‘Freshman of the Year’ awards, and this week’s weekly winner, J.T. Pettigrew earned his third
‘Freshman of the Week’ award. Valpo swept their two games and
Pettigrew averaged 16.5 points and 5.5 rebounds. While Murray State’s Roman
Domon has been selected four times, Pettigrew and Belmont’s Eoin Dillon have
been named three.
Pettigrew is the Valley’s third leading rebounder (7.1).
The Bruins make their debut in the top 10 of the rankings as they continue a
blistering run through Missouri Valley play. Coach Casey Alexander’s team
has won 12 of its past 13 games, with the only loss coming on the road
against a 19-win Bradley squad.
Belmont
is the only Division I team ranked in the top five nationally in both
2-point percentage (61.3%) and 3-point percentage (40.3%).
There’s a long list of quality mid-majors once again this season who
are likely missing out on the Big Dance if they falter in their
league tournaments. Belmont has been really incredible for a
majority of the season and thanks to their metrics still have an
outside shot, though it’s pretty precarious.
The Bruins haven’t played a single Quad 1 game, but do have a
marvelous 5-1 mark against Quad 2 foes. A big win at UC Irvine was
the first and they’ve added to that number during MVC play, with
road wins over other contenders in Northern Iowa, UIC, Southern
Illinois, and Murray State.
A lot of winning has occurred in Nashville, but those three Quad 3
losses likely sink the Bruins’ realistic chances. They lost tough
home games against Richmond and Southern Illinois and were upset at
Indiana State right before New Year’s. All of these contests were
over a month and a half ago but it plagues the resume nonetheless.
It’s the final stretch of regular season play and there isn’t too
much left to prove for the regular season champions of the MVC.
Belmont can boost their metrics a bit more with a Quad 2 game at
Illinois State on Saturday but it’s almost certainly a lost cause if
they can’t win Arch Madness and get that automatic bid.
Murray State doesn't have the #1 seed and the conference title locked down
yet, but there is no way that they don't win two of their remaining four
games. So I'm considering this race over and finalized.
