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.
-Northern Iowa and Loyola Chicago went into overtime in a season
finale where the winner would clinch first place in the Missouri
Valley. Northern Iowa, who we were big on coming into the season but
who also struggled OOC, got the 102-96 win. This actually knocks Loyola
Chicago down to 4th place in the conference, and while that shouldn’t
matter too much to the committee…I can’t help but think that it
certainly doesn’t help.
Dayton and Loyola-Chicago may have had
the most costly defeats, however. Trying to mount a late at-large
rally, the Flyers coughed up a double-digit lead and fell at La Salle,
UD’s fourth Quad 4 loss of the season (after a disastrous opening week
in November). As for Loyola, the Ramblers dropped an overtime decision
at Northern Iowa and, in the process, handed a regular-season Missouri
Valley title to the Panthers. Loyola will most certainly be discussed
on the at-large board, but another loss (in the MVC tourney) would be
the Ramblers’ eighth defeat, with bubbly San Francisco as their best
asset. As we sit here this morning, Loyola may need some help, unless
they emerge victorious in St. Louis.
Northern Iowa started the season with two
wins in its first seven games. It won the Missouri Valley regular season
title on Saturday by beating Loyola Chicago at home. Anarchy? Nope.
Just college basketball.
Cooper asks: Who is the most likely bid stealer this season? Or what league has the best potential for a bid steal?
Last
year, we had two legitimate bid stealers—high-major teams with no
chance otherwise of dancing that win their conference tournament and get
into the field. I doubt we see a repeat of that this year, but it’s
certainly a storyline to watch heading into Championship Week.
There
are a number of mid-major tournaments worth watching for bid-stealing
situations. Particularly if Loyola Chicago beats Northern Iowa this
weekend, anyone beating the Ramblers in the MVC tournament would
potentially be creating a bid-stealer situation with Loyola getting an
at-large.
-LOYOLA CHICAGO AT NORTHERN IOWA (Missouri Valley). I think this is
one that Loyola Chicago needs. I wouldn’t call them a lock even if they
win it, and I wouldn’t say they’re completely out even if they lose it,
but it VERY MUCH help them if they win this game. Northern Iowa has
been playing well, and won’t be easy to beat at home. In fact a win for
UNI jumps them over Loyola Chicago in the standings, so…it’s a huge
game.
-MISSOURI VALLEY – As mentioned above, the game between Loyola Chicago and Northern Iowa will determine the first place finisher
Drake wrapped up an excellent 3-0 week with a road victory over
Valparaiso to make a rise up our rankings. The Bulldogs are now on a
four-game winning streak that included an upset win over Loyola Chicago
away from home. They are now 21-9 (12-5 MVC) for the year and are
trending in the right direction. Roman Penn was named Game MVP in each of Drake’s last two games, combining for 26 points and 14 assists in the victories. -LH
16. Missouri State Bears (21-9)
The Bears may have split their season series with Loyola Chicago, but
they were unable to get past Northern Iowa in two tries. Most recently,
Missouri State went to Cedar Falls with a chance to avenge a one-point
loss at home — and the result was a 20-point win for UNI. While the
Bears recovered well with a big win over Bradley, they cannot win the
MVC regular-season title at this point. Still, the duo of Isiaih Mosley and Gaige Prim is one that could easily make a home-state run through Arch Madness. -AD
5. Loyola Chicago Ramblers (22-6)
Loyola Chicago, you absolute king. The Ramblers followed through on
the Heat Check mantra “Do it for the NET” in its most recent game,
absolutely destroying Evansville by 51 points at home. There is
no cap on efficiency measures, and Loyola jumped seven spots on KenPom
and eight spots in the NET with their absurd performance. As friend of
the site Kevin Sweeney posted after the game, Loyola Chicago’s walk-on Will Alcock
scored as many points (9) in seven minutes as Evansville’s leading
scorer for the game. Talk about bouncing back in a big way after a loss
to Drake over the weekend. -LH
From there we run through the other 21 leagues and discuss ... Loyola Chicago’s struggles and how they
will not finish the season in first place if they fall to Northern Iowa
this weekend, and more.
Missouri St.
