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.
MVC tourney predicted champ: Drake (#2 seed) Dates: March 7-10 Location: St. Louis, MO 2023 tourney champ: Drake (#2 seed) Fun fact: Drake has made title game each of past 3 years Seeding: 7 of past 9 champs were not #1 seed Indiana
State has 1 of the best offenses in the nation and seemed to be
cruising to the finish line with a 22-3 record in early-February…then
lost back-to-back games to a pair of teams from Illinois and allowed
Drake to get right back in the picture. The Bulldogs lost the title game
in both 2021 and 2022 before finally winning it in 2023, and with
reigning conference POY Tucker DeVries playing even better than last
year they have a great chance of defending their championship. His
father is not too shabby either, as Coach Darian DeVries has now won 20+
games during each of his 6 years in charge: Love the Drake!
Both the Sun Belt (today) and Missouri Valley (Thursday)
tournaments will begin in the midweek window. However, App State and JMU
will first take the court in Pensacola on Saturday, while Drake and
Indiana State will play their Arch Madness quarterfinals on Friday.
Belmont basketball finishes tied for 4th in Missouri Valley Conference
In
Belmont's second season in the Missouri Valley Conference, the Bruins
put together a strong finish to earn the No. 5 seed in the tournament.
Belmont (19-12, 12-8) faces No. 12 Valparaiso (7-24, 3-17) Thursday
(2:30 p.m.) in the first round of the conference tournament at
Enterprise Center in St. Louis. Belmont swept Valparaiso in the regular
season.
The
Bruins won seven of their last eight regular-season games. That came
after a stretch in which they lost six of seven. They hope to make a
better showing than last season when they were knocked out of the
conference tournament in the first game by Indiana State (94-91).
Belmont
features the three-pronged scoring attack of Ja'Kobi Gillespie (17.5
ppg.), Malik Dia (16.9 ppg.) and Cade Tyson (16.7 ppg.). Dia, a 6-foot-9
transfer from Vanderbilt, also averages 5.8 rebounds and has a
team-high 24 blocks.
We’ve been sounding the Indiana State alarm as a potential Bracket Breaker for weeks. But would you believe the Sycamores
aren’t the best potential upset-team in the MVC? That honor falls to
Bradley. The Braves’ 22 Underdog Rating beats out Indiana State’s 15.8
mark.
The Sycamores are a phenomenal offensive team, leading the
country in effective field goal percentage and taking threes at the
fifth-highest rate in the nation (49.7 percent of shots). But they play
faster than you want from an underdog and are terrible at both offensive
rebounding (23.6 percent, 327th in the nation) and forcing turnovers
(15.7 percent of opponents’ possessions, 272nd).
Bradley offers a more diversified portfolio. The Braves
take plenty of threes — 42 percent of shots — and make 37.3 percent of
them. But they also rank 66th in the nation in steals (10.8 percent of
opponents’ possessions), hold their own on the glass and play at a slow
pace, ranking 257th in tempo. The Braves might not be as strong of a
team as Indiana State — they lost both head-to-head games — but they
might be better equipped to take on a high seed because of their style
of play.
No comments:
Post a Comment