(St. Louis, MO) – Major shifts are taking place for Missouri Valley Conference teams as they race to Arch Madness 2016. Wichita State has a stranglehold on first place and one of the two byes given out at the conference tournament, but slots two through eight are all up for grabs.
Southern Illinois and Evansville were battling for second place and trying to stay close to Wichita State, but both have stumbled over the past two weeks and are now closer to fifth place, than they are to first. SIU and Evansville have identical overall records (18-5) and league marks (7-3).
The Salukis have lost two straight and the Purple Aces have dropped two of their last three.
Ben Jacobson – Northern Iowa
Some were leaving Northern Iowa (12-11, 4-6) for dead, but while other teams were hitting bumps in the road, the Panthers won two straight and moved within one game of sixth place and within two games of fifth. The same team that defeated nationally ranked North Carolina and Iowa State is fighting to get out of the Thursday night ‘play in’ game (as the seventh place team) at Arch Madness.
Just when you start believing Illinois State and Indiana State are going to climb the ladder and grab the brass ring, they lose a questionable game. Indiana State (13-10 ,7-4) won four straight, then dropped two. They righted the ship winning two-in-a-row only to lose in double overtime to at Loyola.
Illinois State’s yo-yo season continues. Since December 21 the Redbirds (12-11, 6-4) have won four straight, dropped three in-a-row, won three then lost in overtime at Missouri State.
We are left with seven teams in an old fashioned dog fight. Wichita State will win the regular season title, and Drake and Bradley will finish in the bottom two slots. Everything else will be decided over the next month.
Indiana State Head Coach Greg Lansing says any Valley team can beat anyone else and every game is filled with pressure.
By Thursday night the Valley could have four teams at 7-4 and Missouri State (10-13, 6-5) one game back and Northern Iowa one further behind. Literally, anyone that gets hot could finish second to the Shockers and anyone that stumbles could drop into Thursday night play at Arch Madness.
The Valley league office does a great job of scheduling. Heading into Tuesday’s games, all ten teams had eight games left in their league schedule and everyone scheduled to play four at home four on the road.
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As we near the closing of the portal window, we've reached 1900. Some of them never to play college basketball again, earn a college degree and some to play at a much lower level than they did last season.
I guess we'll be seeing this in a @RacersHoops uniform this year. Glad AJ is staying in the @ValleyHoops.
