For anyone who thought the Missouri Valley conference may have been a nice little one-year wonder, look again. Creighton, Wichita, and Southern Illinois are all pre-season Sweet 16 picks by various publications. Missouri St. IMO should warrant some Top 25 consideration as well, with 4 starters back, plus the additions of redshirts Spencer Laurie (Mizzou transfer) and Deven Mitchell (injury). Bardley and Northern Iowa, despite big losses should still both be solid. Xavier Crawford chose Bradley over Michigan, Pitt, and Virginia and could step into O'Bryant's role by the end of the year. Northern Iowa may also have its own O'Bryant in the making in 7-1 freshman Jordan Eglseder. While BU and UNI may have had some key losses, Drake and Evansville return nearly everyone from their teams, who made life hell for the top teams last year. Illinois St. and Indiana St. may be fighting for the bottom, but the Redbirds may be starting a youth infusion that could reap dividends in a couple years.

my call for the MVC

1. Wichita St.
2. Southern Illinois
3. Missouri St.
4. Creighton
5. Northern Iowa
6. Bradley
7. Drake
8. Evansville
9. Illinois St.
10. Indiana St.

Wichita, SIU, Missouri St., and Creighton all in the NCAA's
UNI will be bubble boys who get burst, with Bradley, and Drake/Evansville in the NIT (both if they can come out with a good OOC record.)

Katz calls the MVC a major

SIU over Minnesota
Bradley over Rutgers
Missouri St. over Wisconsin

nice day for the Valley against the other big boys. I hope to see Missouri St. get in the Top 25. They are the lost team in the Valley after Creighton, Wichita, and SIU but just as good.

Agreed, Boltergeist! I'm not going to suggest that the MVC is greater than the Big Ten but you know they have that Big Ten/ACC Challenge... MVC is 2-0 in the MVC/Big Ten "Challenge"!

No worries -- just a proud Saluki alum here!! Go Dawgs!!

Bradley gets it's shot in the "challenge" facing off against Illinois up around Chicago.

Another day and the Valley takes down a Top 10 team, this time LSU gets shocked by Wichita

Missouri St. did fall to Okie St., so a visit in the Top 25 may not happen this week

Creighton also had a good win, knocking off George Mason

evening results

Illinois St. takes one over St. John's

Bradley hangs tough with Illinois, but loses by 4 at the end.

All in all, still a solid weekend of work by the MVC!

Northern Iowa got the best of their former coach Greg McDermott, beating his new employers, Iowa St. UNI's maintained competitiveness under new coach Ben Jacobson with their only loss being to Washington by 9 points in Seattle.

Another good Saturday for the Valley as Indiana St.'s loss to Ball St. prevented a 6-0 sweep.

Wichita won in Syracuse

SIU beat SLU

Bradley's 20 pt win over DePaul 3 weeks ago looks bigger now that the Demons took out Kansas today.

Iowa State has lost to it's second consecutive Missouri Valley team. Today they lost, in Ames, 80-78 to Dr. Tom Davis' Bulldogs.

Drake endured a review of Iowa State's shot at the buzzer before celebrating an 80-78 victory over the Cyclones.

gotta love the Valley.

I was actually at the Bradley vs Illini game and we outplayed them but we fell apart in the late 2nd half and the refs sure didn't help either. A lot of fellow Bradley fans came but Illini's enrollment is 7 times Bradley so they had more fans.

I was actually also at the DePaul vs Kansas game yesterday so I guess we beat DePaul so we're better than Kansas (oh wait we already beat them last year in the tourney)

Actually Bradley can't win a road game so it will be a rough year. We have no size whatsover we live and die now by the 3.

Wichita St is doing a great job beating LSU and Syracuse so far this year.

Go Valley!.

After their 2nd road win over a ranked team, Wichita is now in the AP Top 10.

The Northern Iowa Panthers won for the first time ever in Iowa City versus the Iowa Hawkeyes of the Big Ten, 57-55. UNI came back from a 13 point 2nd half deficit.

And the unofficial Iowa state champion is the "rebuilding" UNI Panthers. Looks like them and Bradley may not be dropping off that much from last year. If that's the case, this conference could be going for a fifth bid this year.

The Valley with more wins to hang on their hat in non-conference

In what would've been a good Bracket Buster game - SIU went into Bowling Green and left with a W over Western Kentucky.

Wichita St. continued their road mastery with a win over Wyoming in Laramie

Missouri St. also had a road win over NC-Wilmington, an NCAA team last year.

Creighton registered one of the 2 wins over ranked teams with a win over #24 Xavier.

And in the biggest upset, Indiana St., predited to be at the bottom of the conference this year took out national early season media darling Butler.

The only loss today in the valley was Illinois St. - but they were playing a conference game against Evansville.

thanks for posting that picture! i had to go out and buy the des moines register that day to get that photo of adam haluska looking like someone had just strangled his puppy. for those who don't know - haluska transferred from iowa state to iowa after his freshman year. people here were not happy about it, but the situation he left wasn't very good, so i guess he felt he'd be better off elsewhere. can't help but think that isu would have benefited from the stability his leadership would have provided. oh well. still nice to see uni doing so well - regardless of who they are playing.

btw, when drake beat isu it was their first win at hilton coliseum since 1978. isu was down 16, came back to tie it with under a minute to play, gave up a virtually uncontested layup to drake and got a three point shot off that would have won the game about .1 seconds too late. again, congrats to valley teams for going into buildings where there is no or little history of winning and walking out with a 'w.'

Nice win tonight for Fresno State, which built a double-digit lead early and coasted to a 69-54 win over Creighton. Fresno State is pretty good this season... the Bulldogs are now 9-1 on the year.

MVC wins tonight for Drake and Bradley, over Big 10 and Big 12 respectively.

Look who's #2

The MVC is obviously doing well out of conference. But it's way too early to take a realistic look at the RPI. I mean, the current RPI has Drexel in the Top 20 and ranked ahead of teams like Ohio State. Drexel has already lost to the likes of Rider University and Penn. There are a number of oddities this early on. This will all shake itself out in the long run -- hopefully -- but we're still about a few weeks away from getting an accurate RPI.

If I'm correct, Missouri State had the highest RPI (21st) for a team to ever be left out of the NCAA tourney last year.

yeah I think no one even in the top 30 RPI had ever been left out of the tourney before. Yay for my BU Braves winning at Iowa St. I mean the Valley is good this year but yeah probably not 2nd best conference although look at Butler beating everyone but yet Indiana St beat them.

The Valley is 5-1 so far against the top 25 so pretty impressive start.

Well, technically, they didn't win "at" Iowa State. It was at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, with very few fans (7000). Although there would have been more fans if the game had been played in Hilton in Ames, I doubt the outcome would have been any different. Bradley was simply the better team. Guess this is the first year of a three year contract between the schools. I think next year, they will play at Bradley, then the following year, they will play in Ames.

How funny you mention Drexel, they just won in Syracuse tonight, which should help their RPI

I had to laugh when I saw that. Yes, Drexel has now moved up to 6th in the RPI. They are quickly becoming one of the bigger RPI head-scratchers in history. I'm guessing the Dragons will grab that No. 2 seed when the NCAA pairings are announced, right?

Hmm... maybe those MVC teams shouldn't travel out west and face unranked teams anymore. Wichita State loses two straight to New Mexico and USC. And Creighton, a week after being blown out by Fresno State, loses badly again to a WAC team (Hawaii) 76-60. Hmm. Southern Illinois was able to squeak out a 5-point win over a 6-8 St. Mary's team though. Not the greatest week ever for the MVC. I will be very interested to see how far Wichita State falls in the polls this week. I have no idea if it will be a 2- or 3-spot drop or a 10-spot drop. The Shockers have had some great wins so hopefully they aren't penalized too much.

A lot of the momentum from earlier this season has been quashed in the last week. As for Wichita, I think the drop will be to somewhere in the 14-18th range.

EDIT: Wichita is 16th in coaches.

Congrats to Northern Iowa for winning at Wichita State Saturday for the third consecutive time! UNI is now 11-2, 2-0 in the Valley. Hope they can keep it up and shock everyone who thought they wouldn't be as good without Ben Jacobson and Greg McDermott (now watch, I just jinxed 'em).

So far, so good. A hard fought win tonight at home against an Evansville team that has played very well lately. Evansville barely lost at 16th ranked Butler on Dec. 22nd, and beat Drake by over 20 a few days later.

If the Panthers can escape with a win Saturday at home against Southern Illinois, they stand a good shot at creeping into the top 25. They'll be 4-0 in conference play and 13-2 overall. Keep in mind, they also own victories over both Iowa and Iowa State this season. Not that THAT says too much! lol

No doubt! I think I saw in the paper that UNI was the only team from Iowa with an RPI in the top 100 - somewhere in the low 40s, I think. Good for them!

The SIU-UNI winner will be the last team standing unbeaten in the Valley as Indiana St. knocked Creighton from the land of the unbeaten. With the 2-1 start as well as handing Butler their only loss of the year, the Sycamores may be a darkhorse in the Valley.

Drake was at 98 today on Pomeroy's RPI, but they may drop back into triple digits since they lost to SIU today. Right now the Valley's lowest RPI team is Illinois St. at 108, but still ahead of those Iowa schools.

Congrats to Northern Iowa, starting the conference season at 4-0 with a home win over Southern Illinois 66-61 yesterday. They've been fun to watch on tv when I've had the opportunities to see them. Too bad Cedar Falls isn't in the neighborhood, or I'd drive up to see a game or two in person.

What a surprising year it has been for the Panthers, good for them!

Would be fun to see them play at the Knapp Center. Any plans to catch that game Matt?

Yeah, UNI won the first battle but it'll be ON when the Panthers visit C'dale later in the season!

Wichita's in some serious trouble now after losing to Missouri St. tonight and it gets no easier this week as they go to Indiana St., who with a home sweep of the Shockers and Bradley this week, might have the NCAA's in their sights

Valley Standings as of 1-7 - RPI in parentheses

Northern Iowa (25) 4-0 13-2
Missouri St. (19) 3-1 12-3
Southern Ill. (8) 3-1 12-3
Indiana St. (43) 3-1 10-4
Creighton (40) 3-1 9-5
Bradley (36) 2-3 11-6
Evansville (107) 2-3 9-7
Wichita St. (44) 1-3 10-5
Drake (106) 0-4 9-6
Illinois St. (131) 0-4 8-7

haven't looked into it yet, but think that might be a fun evening/afternoon - as long as it doesn't conflict with my girls here in ames. i will look into it and find out the details...

edited to note: UNI plays at Drake on 1/27 at 7 pm. it will be on local tv in central and eastern iowa, too. that would be a fun one to go to. the isu women play at 2 that afternoon, so i could actually make the evening tip!

Sounds fun. Give us a report.

MVC is looking pretty sweet so far.

When Wichita State was ranked in the Top 10 and unbeaten, never in my wildest dreams did I think they'd lose 5 of their next 6 games... all to unranked teams. If they don't get things together quickly, they're going to really be in trouble.

Does someone know which MVC teams are at home for the BracketBuster and which MVC teams will be on the road?

I remember Bracket Busters being kind to the Valley last year - 5 of the 6 NCAA contenders had home games.

According to sportsillustrated.cnn the MVC has a combined record of 6-2 versus top 25 teams.

Also, half of the MVC teams are .500 or better for non home games. Not too shabby.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketbal...dings/2006/mvc/

The last of the unbeatens is no longer, as winless Illinois St. took out unbeaten UNI in Normal. UNI falls into a 1st place tie with Creighton and Missouri St.

I kinda felt this may have been coming. They hit a streak of games last year that were "locks" to win, but managed to find a way to lose somehow before doing well enough in the end to slide into the NCAAs. Good for Illinois State, but this will hurt UNI - not a 'quality' win.

There is no "lock" in the Valley. Going into the season, I thought Indiana St. was the closest thing to a lock, but they've proved otherwise. Don't be too shocked to see the likes of Drake, Evansville, and ISU beating a UNI, Missouri St., or SIU. It happened near the end of last year, so why not again this year.

That's why "lock" was in quotations. On paper it should be a "lock." In reality, tho, it isn't.

Valley is very deep so far in conference play. Bradley beats SIU at home Illinois St beats Northern Iowa at home. Seems like the trend this year in bball is that no one can win road conference games. Indiana St who was predicted dead last I believe is looking very strong so far this year beating Butler and then 4-1 in the Valley.

Valley should get 4 teams I would say and my prediction is that Missouri St will take home the regular season title.

anyone know when they will announce the "bracketbuster" matchups?

GO BRAVES!

Bracketbuster matchups have always been announced right around February 1. This year, they're doing a one-hour "selection special" on ESPNU to announce the matchups... Monday, January 29 at 6 p.m. Eastern.

thanks for the info FSU.

And of course as soon as I claim that everyone wins their home games in the Valley Creighton goes and gets a huge win at Northern Iowa last night.

UNI never knew what hit them last night when Creighton jumped out to that 20-4 lead. It looks like the Bluejays have gotten their act together after falling out of the national rankings early.

SIU knocked Missouri St. from the "Valley" of 1-loss conference teams with a 2nd half offensive onslaught.

Creighton will be alone atop the standings if Indiana St. loses to Bradley tonight.

Wichita may be back in the land of the living, knocking Creighton back to the pack with a 62-59 home win. Creighton joins the logjam with SIU and Missouri St. at 5-2, with UNI and Indiana St. a half game back.