What's Up In The Missouri Valley: March 2026

Monday, March 2, 2026

What's Up In The Missouri Valley 3/2/2026

Arch Madness 2026 Preview: Belmont Leads Deepest Missouri Valley Bracket in Years--Busting Brackets
Forde Minutes: Big East Bubble Burst and Small-Conference Tournament Previews--Sports Illustrated

The Little Dance, Part I

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.
Minutes pick: Illinois State (10), which kept a talented nucleus of players from being poached in the transfer portal to set up this season.

Final Weekly Honors--Valley Hoops Insider

Final Weekly Players of the Week
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).

Casey Alexander Finalist for Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award--belmontbruins.com

Bruins Close Out Home Portion of Regular Season Monday Night Versus Southern Illinois--belmontbruins.com

'Leave ... a legacy': Bradley Braves basketball's four seniors finish as winners at home--Peoria Journal Star
Those four guys mean a ton to this program’: Bradley seniors shine on senior night to clinch second seed in MVC tournament--The Bradley Scout

Illinois State closes regular season on high note with better seed--The Pantagraph

Sycamores face Valpo in MVC Tournament opener at 7 p.m. Thursday--Terre Haute Tribune-Star
Indiana State closes out regular season with win over UIC--Indiana Statesman
Indiana State to play Valparaiso in opening round of 2026 MVC Tournament--gosycamores.com

Racer men fight shorthanded, but can’t beat Bradley--Murray Ledger and Times
Racers Receive Arch Madness Assignment--goracers.com

Racer women win Valley title on home court; Storing memories in Bank; Final home game yields giant day for Racer women--Murray Ledger and Times

College Men's Basketball: UNI waxes Drake, earns six seed in MVC tournament--Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier

Salukis finish regular season strong in 81-67 win vs Aces--The Daily Egyptian
Salukis Outlast Evansville, Win Fourth in a Row as Arch Madness Looms--siusalukis.com

UIC Seeded Fifth for MVC Men’s Basketball Tournament--uicflames.com

5 things to know about Valparaiso basketball's season heading into Arch Madness--The Times
Valpo Wraps up Regular Season--The Valpo Vault
Men's basketball makes history, more to come--The Torch

Missouri Valley Conference Announces Game Times / Seeds for State Farm MVC Tournament--The Missouri Valley
MVC Men's Basketball Coaches Q&A With Media--The Missouri Valley
MVC Announces Men's Basketball Players of the Week--The Missouri Valley

Sunday, March 1, 2026

What's Up In The Missouri Valley 3/1/2026

Week 17 Weekend Watchlist--Basket Under Review

Sunday, March 1

B Games

#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.

MVC Tournament Seeding #ArchMadness - The Final 64 Scenarios: pic.twitter.com/PDUAEqbwg8
— Matt Hackman (@mjhackman) February 26, 2026

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
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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

Arch Madness bracket is set. After top-seeded Belmont, the field is wide open.--Post-Dispatch

Conference tournaments only route to NCAAs for Nashville area college basketball teams--Main Street Nashville

Hoops HD Daily Rundown – Sunday, March 1st--Hoops HD

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES:
-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.

March Madness 2026: The 68 things to know to get you ready for conference tournaments and the Big Dance--CBS Sports

Top mid-major outfits
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.

Men's Basketball Falls in the Final 90 Seconds at Illinois State--belmontbruins.com

Women’s Basketball Celebrates Seniors with 88-79 Win Over Indiana State Saturday--belmontbruins.com