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.
Other results of note: Northern Iowa blew out Evansville 84-64 to remain a game ahead in the Missouri Valley, while Southern Illinois was surprised at home by surging Indiana State 77-68
Northern Iowa 70, Drake 43: The Panthers left no doubt that they deserve the outright regular season title in the Missouri Valley, blowing out the Bulldogs to lock it up.
Loyola-Chicago 67, Bradley 66: The Ramblers did what they had to do, though they came up short by a game when it was all said and done. Look out for them in St. Louis, though.
Missouri State 84, Southern Illinois 59: The Salukis were once right in the hunt for the top spot, but close the regular season out losing five out of six. The Bears, meanwhile, battled plenty of adversity but finish 9-9 in Missouri Valley play.
The Missouri Valley Conference is one of a few whose regular season ended on Saturday, and theirs ends in some mystery due to their tie-breaking procedures, which in the case of two ties will come down to NET rankings on Sunday morning. Bradley and Indiana State tied for third place, and based on their NET rankings entering the day and the results on Saturday, it looks like Indiana State will take third, while Missouri State and Valparaiso tied for sixth place, and the results appear to favor Missouri State. The conference will announce its seedings after the latest NET rankings are revealed, and the second tie is important since the team that loses the tiebreaker will have to play in the first round of the conference tournament against Evansville, who went winless in Missouri Valley play.
4) Porter Moser, Loyola Chicago | He reached the Final Four a couple of years ago, and while the Ramblers didn’t make the NCAA Tournament last season, they did win 20 games and tie for first in the Missouri Valley. Loyola is 20-10, (12-5 in the MVC) and Moser seems like the easy pick if/when DePaul opens.
OFF THE MARKET
1) Todd Lickliter, Evansville | Walter McCarty was fired for off-court issues and Lickliter got the job and a multi-year deal to replace McCarty. The former Butler and Iowa head coach gives stability to the program.
-NORTHERN IOWA AT DRAKE (Missouri Valley). Northern Iowa is squarely on the bubble and needs to avoid losing until at least the semifinals of the conference tournament in order to have a good shot at making the field.
UNDER THE RADAR CONFERENCES
-MISSOURI VALLEY – Northern Iowa clinches first place outright with a win at Drake
The skinny: Northern Iowa looked like an NCAA at-large caliber team before stubbing its toe a few times down the stretch. The Panthers might get left out if they don’t cut down the nets at Arch Madness. All four of their conference losses came on the road, however, and that included two one-possession games and an overtime contest. So UNI is still the heavy favorite, though chaos often reigns in this event. No. 2 seed Loyola Chicago could also be a tough out.
Northern Iowa is 25-5 and on the bubble for an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament.
USATSI
Is the Missouri Valley Conference a two-bid league?
Northern Iowa
begins the Missouri Valley Conference tournament on the right side of
NCAA Tournament bubble, according to Palm. So does that make the MVC a
two-bid league? It would take a Northern Iowa loss. But even then,
there's no guarantee the Panthers make it as an at-large team. The other
team to watch here is 2018 NCAA Tournament darling Loyola-Chicago. The Ramblers are the No. 2 seed in the MVC Tournament, which begins Thursday and ends Sunday.
Unbelievably, this program owns the longest NCAA
Tournament drought of any team in the Missouri Valley Conference. Even
more unbelievable is that Kevin Stallings was the last coach to take
them to the Big Dance.
Yet this team still manages to fill well over half of its
arena — one that is already among the largest at the mid-major level
and outsizes many ACC and SEC complexes — year after year. It’s
difficult for a school at the mid-major level to develop a fanbase
that’s committed in the way Redbird fans are, and the potential for it
to grow and strengthen with greater success is promising. Their revenue
stream is also the highest of the public schools in the MVC, and even
though they’ve regressed this year because of key departures, they have a
young coach who led this team to 28 wins only four years ago.
If
Illinois State is finally able to make the jump back into MVC dominance
and national prominence, they’ll already have the facilities and fan
support ready to sustain their success instead of allowing it to be just
a flash in the pan.
Mostly because of the tempo the Panthers play at under Ben Jacobson (ranked 300th or lower in adjusted tempo in 11 of his first 13 seasons), UNI has become mostly known as a defensive team. Recently, that has been especially true, as the Panthers have ranked at least 99 spots higher in defensive efficiency than offensive in each of the past three seasons. That has flipped on its head this year, though, with UNI’s offense ranking a pristine 18th in the entire country per KenPom’s rankings, largely thanks to A.J. Green’s star turn at the point guard spot.
But on Sunday, the Panthers used a dominant second half on the defensive end to take down surprise MVC contender SIU. With 18:26 remaining in the half, the visiting Salukis took a 39-29 lead, looking poised to knock off the league-leading Panthers for the second time this year. But more than 14 minutes later, with 3:58 on the game clock, UNI held a commanding 60-43 lead; for those without a calculator, that’s a 31-4 run spanning 14 and a half minutes. SIU is no offensive juggernaut, but that kind of shutdown performance is eye-opening. If UNI brings that defense to St. Louis in a week, they won’t need to worry about a possible at-large candidacy.
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