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.
It was a relatively quiet week in the college
basketball world as most programs either had a break or played just a
single game before the Christmas weekend, but that didn’t stop a pair of
unbeaten Missouri Valley teams from bursting into the Other Top 25 from
a strong week.
Drake became the first team in college basketball to win
10 games with a resounding road win against Indiana State to start MVC
play. The Bulldogs have won every game by double digits and earned the
highly coveted Sam’s Mid-Major Crush Of The Week designation.
Southern Illinois picked up one of the best wins of the
week when they went into Hinkle Fieldhouse and walked out with a win
against a banged-up but still solid Butler team. The Salukis are
shooting 41% from three-point range and went 9-19 from deep in the
aforementioned win over Butler.
Here is the full Other Top 25 for this week.
The Other Top 25 Week 6
Rank
School
Record
Change
Our reasoning
10
Loyola University Chicago
5-2
1
Loyola has only kept its rankings because of preseason
expectations. It hasn't beaten a top-200 team yet but will face Bradley
(KenPom 112) on Sunday.
19
Drake
10-0
NR
Any team that's 10-0 deserves ranking consideration. Now it'd be great if Drake could, maybe, beat a decent team.
23
Southern Illinois
7-0
NR
Trent Brown went 5-6 from three as the Salukis knocked off Butler at Hinkle last week. As a team, SIU is shooting 41% from deep.
Also receiving votes: Rhode Island, Toledo, Georgia State, UAB, Davidson, UNC Greensboro, New Mexico State, Wright State
-It was a rather slow Sunday. Drake and Southern Illinois remain
unbeaten on the season, and Providence won an double overtime thriller
against DePaul.
-DRAKE AT INDIANA STATE (Missouri Valley). Drake looks to pick up another road win and remain unbeaten on the season.
-EVANSVILLE AT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (Missouri Valley). The Salukis are
also unbeaten and are looking to finish off the season sweep against
Evansville.
-Southern Illinois suffered their first loss of the season as they
fell at home to Evansville. It is Evansville’s first conference win
since March 2019. They had more recently beaten a #1 team on the road
(Kentucky at Rupp Arena last year) than they had won a conference game.
-DRAKE AT INDIANA STATE (Missouri Valley). Drake is looking to stay
undefeated and pick up their first conference win of the year.
-EVANSVILLE AT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (Missouri Valley). Southern
Illinois is also unbeaten and they shouldn’t have too much trouble
staying that way as they have a really winnable game at home.
-ILLINOIS STATE AT LOYOLA CHICAGO (Missouri Valley). Loyola Chicago
has almost no margin for error to speak of moving forward, but they are
another team that’s good enough to win this conference and go to the
NCAA Tournament.
• Winthrop is one of five mid-major teams that
remain undefeated and have played at least five games. The others are
Chattanooga (9-0), which we wrote about last week;
Drake (10-0); Southern Illinois (7-0); and The Citadel (7-0). Don’t
read too much into the gaudy record from The Citadel, however, as four
of the Bulldogs’ games have come against non-Division I opponents, and
the other three were against teams ranked 320th or lower at KenPom.com.
• There has been a distressing lack of true
buzzer-beaters lately, but here’s how Oakland beat rival Detroit Mercy
in overtime on Saturday. Micah Parrish sank the game-winning put-back,
and the Grizzlies dodged a bullet when Antoine Davis had a clean look at
a 3 as time expired. It was also Oakland’s first win in 10 tries this
season, so it felt extra special:
Now that nonconference games are pretty much over, we’ll focus on the top intraleague contests featuring mid-major teams.
Southern Illinois at Drake, 3 p.m. Sunday, ESPN+.
Assuming the Salukis get by Evansville on Monday and the Bulldogs can
handle a second meeting at Indiana State, this would be a showdown of
surprising unbeaten teams in the Missouri Valley Conference. Is either
one for real?
Loyola Chicago at Bradley, 6 p.m. Sunday, ESPNU. With
apologies to Drake and Southern Illinois, these are the two teams most
likely to battle it out for the Valley crown. Bradley has lost at Xavier
and at Missouri by a combined two points and is not to be taken lightly
with its grind-it-out tempo (No. 311 nationally). This two game tilt in
Peoria should be very interesting.
The Mid-Major Top 10
9.Loyola Chicago (5-2, 1-0 Missouri Valley): The
Ramblers opened Valley play with a 90-60 pasting of Illinois State on
Sunday. They made 12 of 26 3s and shot 60 percent from the floor. For
the season they’re shooting 54 percent overall. That offensive skill is
what will make them tough to beat the rest of the regular season. LW: 9
Missouri State's prized recruit in the Class of 2020 has an opportunity to break out for the Bears in 2021.
Isiaih
Mosley, a sophomore from Rock Bridge (Columbia), is always a threat to
score and is someone the Bears could rely on heavily this season.
During
his freshman year, Mosley started 10 games and averaged 8.3 points and
3.6 boards. Head coach Dana Ford has teased Mosley's ceiling as being
one of the best scorers in school history.
Mosley
is a great athlete who flashed his potential at various spots during
his freshman season. With a bigger role coming in 2021, he's someone the
rest of the Missouri Valley Conference might want to look out for.
Sydney Wilson, Missouri State Lady Bears
Standouts
like Brice Calip and Jasmine Franklin always seem to grab the headlines
for the Lady Bears, but they might have a third star in Sydney Wilson.
Wilson
broke out near the end of the 2019-20 season by starting 14 of the
team's last 16 games. She didn't put up the biggest numbers, but the
5-foot-11 guard was consistently one of the hardest-working players on
the floor and came up with the hustle plays when the Lady Bears needed
them the most.
To start the 2020-21 season,
Wilson has taken on a bigger role while already having four double-digit
scoring nights. She scored 21 in a win over Lincoln while scoring 11 in
a wire-to-wire victory at Mizzou.
Wilson's
work ethic over the last few seasons should start to be a little more
recognized as she takes on a bigger role with the team.
The
Lady Bears were robbed of a postseason run in 2020 because of the
pandemic, but they still have a special group that is destined for
greatness in 2021.
Head coach Amaka
Agugua-Hamilton leads a team that features the likes of Brice Calip and
Jasmine Franklin — who are two of the top players in the Missouri Valley
Conference.
The rest of the supporting cast is great too. It's a deep, experienced team that performs at its best on the biggest of stages.
We should get an NCAA Tournament in one form or another. Another run with this special group isn't out of the question.
Unfortunately,
some of the great stories and championship runs we thought we were
going to get in 2020 never happened because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before
COVID-19 shut down the Lady Bears' season, first-year head coach Amaka
Agugua-Hamilton had the team looking like one that was capable of making
a deep NCAA Tournament run.
Missouri State
finished the 2019-20 season with a 26-4 record and a Missouri Valley
Conference regular-season title. It also finished No. 19 in the USA
Today Women's Coaches Poll.
The
season saw the Lady Bears win back-to-back games at the buzzer with one
in overtime at Loyola and Sydney Manning's unforgettable 3 to beat
Drake by two. The Lady Bears followed with a beatdown of Bradley before
going on the road and sweeping the Iowa programs. Missouri State won the
MVC regular-season title outright with its 85-70 win over Valparaiso at
JQH Arena.
Agugua-Hamilton
was named the nation's top rookie head coach while also earning the
league's coach of the year honor. Then-junior Brice Calip broke out as
one of the league's best players while being named its defensive player
of the year.
Standouts including Alexa Willard and Jasmine Franklin, in addition to Calip, were named All-MVC first-team selections.
From there we run through the other 21 UTR leagues and talk about how
Vermont struggled after finally getting on the floor, how good WKU
continues to look, Akron’s big win over Ohio U in MAC play, some really
good teams out of the MVC and SoCon such as Drake, Southern Illinois,
Missouri State, Mercer, and Chattanooga, and how some other teams
continue to struggle to find games.
Missouri State big man Gaige Prim and Southern Illinois wing Marcus Domask share this week’s ‘Player of the Week‘
award. Prim sparked the Bears to three wins while averaging 18.7
points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game. The 6’8 Prim made 78% of
his shots and is one of the big men dominating league play.
Domask scored 26 points during SIU’s upset win at Butler. The Salukis
ended Butler’s 59-game, non-conference home winning streak. He averaged
17 points per game during SIU’s 3-0 week.
Drake is 9-0 and transfer ShanQuan ‘Tank’ Hemphill is one of the main reasons. This week’s ‘Newcomer of the Week‘ averaged over 17 points while shooting over 72% from the field. The ‘Newcomer‘ award is Hemphill’s second straight honor.
-Missouri, on the other hand, played in a game against Bradley that
made peoples’ eyes bleed. The effort was there, but it was a poor
shooting performance by both teams and just rather sloppy play. the
exciting ending made up for it as Missouri converted an and-1 in the
final seconds to get the 54-53 win and remain unbeaten on the season.
